Everyone on This Train is a Suspect (Ernest Cunningham, #2)

by Benjamin Stevenson

I know how to do it, of course, the scene you want me to write. An omniscient eye would survey the cabin’s destruction, lingering on signs of a struggle: the strewn sheets, the upturned mattress, the bloodied handprint on the bathroom door. Add in fleeting glimpses of clues—three words hastily scrawled in blue ink on a manuscript, at odds with the crimson, dripping tip of the murder weapon—just enough to tantalize but nondescript enough not to spoil.

It’s not like I don’t trust your editorial judgment. It just seems overly pointless to me to replay a scene from later in the book merely for the purpose of suspense. It’s like saying, “Hey, we know this book takes a while to get going, but it’ll get there.” Then the poor reader is just playing catch-up until we get to the murder.

P.P.P.S. Grammar question—I’ve thought it funny that Murder on the Orient Express is titled as such, given that the murders take place in the train and not on it. Death on the Nile has it a bit more correct, I think, given the lack of drownings. Then again, of course you say you’re on a train or a plane. I’m laboring the point, but I guess my question is whether we use on or in for our title? Given, of course, most of the murders take place in the train, except of course what happens on the roof, which would be on. Except for the old fella’s partner and those who died alongside him, but that’s a flashback. Am I making sense?

At the time, it came quite naturally. The writing, not the deaths, of which the causes were the opposite of natural, of course. Of the survivors, I thought myself the most qualified to tell the story, as I had something that could generously be called a “career” in writing already. I used to write books about how to write books: the rules for writing mystery books, to be precise. And they were more pamphlets than books, if you insist on honesty. Self-published, a buck apiece online. It’s not every writer’s dream, but it was a living. Then when everything happened last year up in the snow and the media came knocking, I thought I might as well apply some of what I knew and have a crack at writing it all down. I had help, of course, in the guiding principles of Golden Age murder mysteries set out by writers like Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle and, in particular, a bloke named Ronald Knox, who wrote out the “Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction.” Knox isn’t the only one with a set of rules: various writers over the years have had a crack at breaking down a murder mystery into a schematic. Even Henry McTavish had a set.

The rules are simple: nothing supernatural; no surprise identical twins; the killer must be introduced early on (in fact, I’ve already done that and we’re not even through the first chapter yet, though I expect you may have skipped the prelims) and be a major enough character to impact the plot. That last one’s important. Gone are the days when the butler dunnit: in order to play fair, the killer must have a name, often used. To prove the point, I’ll tell you that I use the killer’s name, in all its forms, exactly 106 times from here. And, most important, the essence of every rule boils down to this: absolutely no concealing obvious truths from the reader.

I knew Simone took her job seriously, perhaps too seriously, but I’ve always figured that if the publishers are half as scared of her as I am, I should be grateful she’s on my side. And, sure, I’d been dodging her calls and texts for an update on the novel for a couple of months. But following me to Darwin seemed excessive. In any case, asking a writer how their book’s coming along is like spotting lipstick on their collar. There’s really no point asking: no one ever answers truthfully.

“You took their money. We took their money.” Simone fossicked around in her handbag, pulled out an electronic cigarette, and puffed. “I don’t refund commission, you know.”

“You have my number.” This must have been a lie, because even I didn’t have her number. She called me on private, not the other way around.

Writing out my preposterous hopes for the journey here gives me the same shameful chill as seeing old social media photos—Did I really post that?—not least because of the horrifically cliché Scottish brogue I’d superimposed onto McTavish before I’d even met him. I think it’s obvious that McTavish and I would not wind up on a first-name basis. Though my inspiration would still come from a drink with him, in a way, so maybe I’m clairvoyant after all.

That did twig some recognition. Wolfgang—singular, like Madonna, Prince or even Elmo—was the prestige writer of the group, the one who’d been short-listed for the Commonwealth Book Prize. Pedigree aside, I’d been surprised he was appearing at the festival as his books didn’t generally sit in the crime genre. I supposed his rhyming verse novel retelling of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood was his qualification.

She sounded, or perhaps I was imagining it, slightly disappointed. I’m still learning about the book world and my place in it, but even I knew then that McTavish was the sourest-tasting word in publishing—popular. It’s the paradox of authorhood: apparently if you’re good enough to be popular, you’re too popular to be any good.

The word blurb dropped out of my lips like a grenade. A blurb is an endorsement that a publisher can use for marketing, or even put on a cover. The more famous the person on your cover is, the better for marketing (and, let’s be honest, the ego). I’m grateful to an excellent mystery writer named Jane Harper for going on the cover of my first book, and I was hoping McTavish might come through for the second. Even though, granted, I hadn’t written it yet.

Inside carriage O, we funneled single file down a corridor that was tighter than I’d expected. Two-way traffic wasn’t an option, and I’d learn that, should anyone be coming the other way, it was best to duck into the little kitchenette (which stocked not only tea, coffee and a kettle, but also an axe in a fire emergency glass case, and a handle that said To Stop Train Pull Handle Down) and wait for them to cross. The corridor had fake wooden paneling atop an emerald-green carpet. The cabin doors, five in our carriage, were to one side and there were wide, hip-to-ceiling-height windows to the other. I’d learn that the rooms alternated sides between carriages, which I’m mentioning here because it’s kind of important. The cabins in the “O Zone,” in which most of the authors were staying, were on the west side of the train.

I’d broken it down like that in the hope that it might not seem so intimidating in smaller pieces. The last time Simone had checked in on my progress, I’d actually been confident enough to email it off to her, and she’d emailed back Great idea, back to basics, which seemed at the time more like an endorsement and less like the put-down that it probably was. But now, my list only reminded me of the volume of words ahead. Eighty thousand of the pesky things. I’d need to catch a hundred trains. I took a deep breath, turned to a new page and wrote: Setting: Train. Then beneath it, I wrote: Been done before. Obviously. If you’re wondering, we’re a smidge over six thousand words thus far, which leaves me three and a half to ensure you’ve met everyone you need to: victims, killers and suspects. But instead I’m wasting time, writing about how I’m staring at a blank page, worried about wasting time. Nothing for it but to get started. No distractions.

Another thing you need to know about Andy is that he wasn’t too happy with how he was portrayed in the first book. He’s adamant that I made him look like a bumbling airhead and he had more of a role in piecing together the mystery than I gave him credit for. He accused me of emasculating him, a word he repeated so often I was fairly sure both that it was new to him and that Katherine had taught him what it meant. He’d especially taken aim at a passage in which I’d referred to him as a terrifically boring man. I’d pointed out that technically I’d called him terrific, but even he wasn’t falling for that one. So I’ll try to do a bit better this time.

“Fer-ro—” He started to sound out the word, but then there was some chatter in the background, some measure of get to the point, and he cleared his throat.

Client. Mystery. Those words were more baffling than ferroequinologist. What he was trying to tell me slowly dawned.

Grass, I mouthed at Juliette, who snorted. “—bureaucracy. The point is, I’ve got other options now, seeing as I solved all those murders up at the snow.” “Andy, I solved those murders.”

I didn’t know. I’d never looked into it. Juliette, who’d been eavesdropping, held out her phone. She’d found the web page for Andy Solves It!, the words splayed in a gigantic bubble font like it was a toy store. Beneath them was a photo of Andy wearing a fedora, an unlit cigar between his lips. I scrolled, scanning over the description, which read, World renowned for solving the Cunningham family murders, let Andy help you with your problems today! We solve the unsolvable!

His final complaint felt small compared to the others, and I wasn’t so much “cashing checks” as counting coins, but I had to admit he was right. I had processed my grief and trauma publicly, and even though the real reason I wrote it all down was to remember it, and them, in a way that ink and paper only can, I had indeed made a small amount of money from it. If Andy wanted to cash in on some infamy, deluded or not, I’d be a hypocrite to disagree.

“That was a digestive okay, not an I-know-who-did-it okay.”

I heard the scratch as he wrote something down again. I imagined a big yellow legal pad with the words Crime Solving: To Do scrawled across the top and, underneath, the words Suspects and Evidence. I hoped the old lady hadn’t paid a deposit.

“Good title,” Juliette said, pulling on a sweater and picking up Simone’s blue scarf. “Keep the Murders to a Minimum.”

Juliette had the good sense not to ask just how honest I was being with my definition of few. She nodded and I stood up, but she blocked me from the door. She put both hands on my shoulders, leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “I know you’re stressed. First of all, I think you need to stop worrying about McTavish. Don’t worry about some stupid blurb. Think about that after you’ve written the book. Speaking of—trust me, it’ll come.”

She shook me gently. “And if it doesn’t, that’s okay too. You can spend these four days staring out the window if you like. Or you can spend them writing. But we’re spending them together. So keep the moping to a minimum, huh?”

As the carriage continued to fill, I was glad of our seats. The air was thick with voices: the lulling murmur of general conversation mixed with the slightly higher-pitched tone of overenthusiastic introductions: So nice to meet you! Over it all, a coffee machine behind the bar whined with a rickety tiredness that sounded like it had not properly anticipated servicing a carriage full of writers for half a week. On the liquor shelf, I spied a three-quarters-empty bottle of vodka that was similarly underprepared.

I tried to weigh up the attendees, to better gauge how the rest of my long weekend was likely to play out, or, more specifically, which wannabe—embittered by years of rejection from publishers, clutching a coffee-stained handwritten manuscript and ready to spring it on you at any time—was best avoided. The carriage had a celebratory air to it, the pre-disembarkment holiday excitement that accompanies the phrase It’s five o’clock somewhere and a glass of champagne that you don’t really want but got anyway because it feels like an adequate signpost that you’re up for a good time. It was still before breakfast, but that didn’t matter to most. Holidays are, after all, mostly extravagant charades with which to justify an addiction. A group of three silver-haired women who’d staked out a booth clinked glasses amid cheering and laughter that seemed to prove my theory.

An eager-eyed, spindly-limbed man, somewhere in his forties, whose shoulders had an IT worker’s computer hunch that threatened to swallow his head like a tortoiseshell, was surveying the room, pointing out each writer to a woman. The woman had her curly hair in a messy bun, two tendrils hanging beside her cheeks like a picture frame, and I assumed she was his similarly aged wife by her obliging yet uncaring nod, as if he were explaining to her the backstories of Star Wars figurines. He was an easy addition to the fan category.

I’ve found that people sometimes talk about how your book’s doing if they don’t want to give you a direct compliment. It sounds like a compliment, but it’s just an observation. There’s a difference between You look nice today and So I hear you’re a model, for example. I didn’t like the way he’d said it—almost leering, mocking.

“I mean, it’s not polite. But it’s not really something we can police, you agree? And I figure we’re all adults. Right? And your book’s—well, it’s not for everybody. On the plus side, I’ve always been telling him to interact more online. So I guess this is a start.”

“—I publish that,” Wyatt said, turning to the ruckus and raising his eyebrows. “You don’t have any antihistamines on you, do you?” He fossicked a small white packet from his pocket. “Jasper gave me these, but they’re rubbish.”

Juliette slid into her seat and sucked at her flat white with the relief and thirst of a traveler who’d just crossed the desert. “God,” she said. “I just had to lie to S. F. Majors. Said I’d almost finished her book.” She looked behind her to make sure nobody was close enough to hear. “And that I was enjoying it.”

“I know, right? No bloody ghosts. Psychological thrillers these days don’t have to follow any rules. I shouldn’t have said anything at all, but I was trying to fill the dead air. Now I’m going to have to give her a bloody blurb.” She necked half her coffee in a gulp and closed her eyes for a second. “This place is chaos—McTavish wants an IV of whiskey and that poor girl up the front looks like it’s her first time using a coffee machine. And she is not happy that he is treating her like his personal butler. Sorry I took so long. How was it down here?”

“It was so strange, actually.” I grinned. “He apologized.”

“Yeah, that’s what’s so funny about it. It’s absurd.” I felt like a comedian trying desperately to save a crowd, the only choice being to double down on the joke and make something funny by sheer force of will. This was funny, right? “He must have thought I was someone else. I have no idea what he was apologizing for.”

“Right headspace for what?” A loud clap of hands interrupted us. The staff member who had been defusing McTavish now commanded the attention of the cabin. A stockman’s Akubra hat was snug on his head, hair hanging underneath like vines. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to reveal sinewy muscled forearms, the type that could hold down either a sheep for shearing or a disgruntled alcoholic Scotsman. He waited for the room to settle—the table of rebellious seniors took the longest—and then spread his arms widely.

I expected people to be disappointed by the replacement of breakfast with statistics, so was surprised to hear a murmur through the crowd, one of both interest and opinion, as if several people were scratching their chins and agreeing Yes, I was thinking that was an appropriate weight for the journey, which taught me a lesson about hobbyists I should have already known: everyone’s an expert.

I almost flung the phone across the table, as if it were a hot coal superheated by the incriminating internet browser I had just opened. On-screen was the Goodreads page for my book, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, where a new review had been posted. The review had a little red star. Just one.

Today’s date. A single red star. One word underneath: Ghastly. Author of the review: Henry McTavish. Wyatt’s apology ran through my memory: I mean, it’s not polite. But it’s not really something we can police, you agree?

“Ghastly is a seven-letter word.” “I meant the star rating.” “So he’s capable enough to log in, type in the name of my book, pull up the page, enter the review field, and type his review, and then he fumbles on hitting the five-star button?” I stared back at McTavish’s table. What the hell were they talking about? How could my agent buddy up to them after this?

“That’s what I’m worried about,” I said, then admitted, “I was hoping I’d fit in a little better.” It sounded childish, but I’d been worried about it since the invite. All the other invitees had published multiple books or had multiple accolades; they were writers. I’d simply been at a place where a bunch of people had killed another bunch of people and been the one to write it all down. I’d already felt like an imposter; now I knew for sure that at least one of my contemporaries considered me one. I figured it wouldn’t be long before the others joined the chorus.

He didn’t wait for an answer or a shake, wriggling his way into the seat across from Juliette with a grunt. His blocky frame did not sit comfortably in the little table booth. His bulbous ears had more hair than his head, protruding antennae of such length that I decided he could hardly be unaware of them and likely they served some function similar to a cat’s whiskers, considering his peripheral vision was reduced by his tiny teddy-bear eyes. When he got himself settled, he looked around, or perhaps his ear hair thrummed, and he snapped his fingers at Cynthia. Embarrassment flooded through me: now she’d definitely think we were a table of snappers. While he ordered, I noticed he’d placed the little notebook he’d been carrying around open on the table. It was a cluttered mess of notes, but I caught that he’d written in all caps: KEEP THE MURDERS TO A MINIMUM and next to it the word TITLE? Underneath that was a list of names, including both mine and Juliette’s, and dot-point descriptions. Next to my name he’d written: cherub-esque face: wide-eyed, often confused, unacademic. Next to Juliette he’d written: out of his league. This is probably why I’ve focused so much of my own description on his ear hair. Authors are a petty bunch. He also had a list of notes about the train, which you’ve already read in my own descriptions. There are only so many ways to describe the carriage: emerald-green carpet; in case of emergency, pull here; axe; barramundi = 75 kgs. He’d even nicked J...

“I used to love CSI,” I said. Alan rolled his eyes. “I prefer to think that I write novels about society, depravity and humanity, and the crime itself is just the engine for a more . . .”—he paused in obvious affectation—“enlightened conversation around some real-world issues. I find all that CSI stuff quite”—his lips curled into a cruel smile as he deliberately chose his next word—“ghastly.”

“You know, what you want is a one,” Alan rolled on, oblivious to my bristling. “Or a five, obviously. Because you can use both for publicity. A two, blah, that’s just bad news. But a one: that’s a history-making calamity. People will be inclined to check it out just to see how bad it is.”

This is another of those publishing compliments: I wouldn’t subject myself, but someone I know reads you.

“McTavish-ed?” I moaned. “Oh God, it’s so bad it’s a verb. Has anyone not seen it?”

“Well, he didn’t give us all one, he gave us all a review. Everyone on the program. Gave me a four.” He held up a correcting finger. “But it reads like a five.”

“Just one word, same as you: Splendid.” “Maybe Ernest has had enough of the review talk,” Lisa interjected. Her eyes gave me an apology.

I saw on McTavish’s profile that he had indeed only made five reviews ever, and they were all from this morning. Lisa Fulton’s only published book, The Balance of Justice, a legal drama from twenty-one years ago about a car thief who’d been sexually assaulted by the judge presiding over her case, had five stars, accompanied by the word Tremendous. Alan Royce’s Cold Skin: Dr. Jane Black #11 had four stars and the word Splendid. So far so accurate. S. F. Majors’s upcoming book, Dark Stranger, the psychological thriller that Juliette was currently reading, had a three-star rating and, again, a lone word: Overblown.

“Heavenly,” Juliette recited from beside me. “Reads like a five,” I said. Heavenly was a strangely complimentary word to use on a two-star review. Unless the context was: I’d rather die.