‘I’m sure he’d have told you that when he handed it over – and what would have been the point?’ I thought about my diary, all the meetings I had in the week ahead. But this was more important. ‘Why don’t I drive up to Framlingham?’ I said.
‘Are you sure that’s a good idea? The police will still be at the house. If he committed suicide, there’ll have to be an enquiry.’
‘Yes, I know. But I’d like to get access to his computer.’
‘They’ll have removed it, won’t they?’
‘At least I can take a look around. The original could still be on his desk.’
He thought for a moment. ‘Well, I suppose so.’
I was surprised that he wasn’t more enthusiastic. Although neither of us had said as much, we both knew how much we needed Magpie Murders. We’d had a bad year. In May we’d published the biography of a comedian who’d made a joke in spectacularly poor taste, live on TV. Almost overnight, he’d stopped being funny and his book had more or less vanished from the shops. I’d just been touring with the author of a first novel called The One-Armed Juggler, a comedy set in a circus. The tour might have gone well but the reviews had been merciless and we were having difficulty getting copies into the shops. We’d had trouble with the building, a lawsuit, trouble with the staff. We weren’t going under but we badly needed a hit.
‘I’ll go tomorrow,’ I said.
‘I suppose there’s no harm in trying. Would you like me to come with you?’
‘No. I’ll be fine on my own.’ Alan had never invited me to Abbey Grange. I would be interested to see what it was like. ‘Give my love to Laura,’ I said. ‘And if there’s any news, let me know.’
I got up and left the room and here’s the strange thing. It was only as I walked back to my office that I realised what I had seen, even though it had been in front of my eyes all the time. It was very odd. It made no sense at all.
Alan’s suicide note and the envelope it had come in had been on Charles’s desk. The letter was handwritten. The envelope was typed.
Abbey Grange, Framlingham
The next morning, bright and early, I was speeding across the top of Alexandra Park with the virtually empty carcass of the famous palace above me, heading for the A12. It was a perfect excuse to take out the MGB Roadster that I’d bought myself six years ago, on my fortieth birthday. It was a ridiculous car but I’d known I had to have it the moment I saw it for sale outside a garage in Highgate: a 1969 model, manual with overdrive, and an in-your-face, pillar-box red with black trim. Katie didn’t know what to say when I first showed up in it but her children went crazy for it and whenever I saw them I took them out, tearing around country lanes with the roof down and the two of them yelling in the back seat.
I was going against the traffic that was coming into London and made good time until I got to Earl Soham where a particularly annoying roadwork kept me waiting ten minutes. It was a warm day. The weather had been good throughout the summer and it looked as if September was going to be the same. I thought of putting the roof down but it would be too noisy on the motorway. Perhaps when I got nearer.
I’ve visited most of the seaside villages of Suffolk – Southwold, Walberswick, Dunwich and Orford – but I’d never been to Framlingham before. Maybe the very fact that Alan lived there had put me off. My first impressions as I drove in were of a pleasant, slightly down-at-heel town centring on a main square that wasn’t square at all. Some of the buildings had a certain charm but others, an Indian restaurant for example, looked oddly out of place, and if you were planning to go shopping, there wasn’t going to be anything very exciting to buy. A large brick structure had imposed itself in the middle and this turned out to contain a modern supermarket. I’d booked a room at the Crown Hotel, a coaching inn that had looked out onto the square for four hundred years and now found itself rubbing shoulders with a bank and a travel agency. It was actually very charming with the original flagstones, lots of fireplaces, and wooden beams. I was glad to see books on the shelves and board games piled up on a community chest. They gave the place a homely feel. I found the receptionist tucked away behind a tiny window and checked in. I had thought about staying with my sister but Woodbridge was a thirty-minute drive away and I would be happy enough here.
I went up to the room and dumped my case on the bed: a four-poster, no less. I wished Andreas was here to share it with me. He had a particular liking for olde England, especially if the olde was spelled with an e. He found things like croquet, cream teas and cricket both incomprehensible and irresistible and he would have been in his element here. I sent him a text, then washed and ran a comb through my hair. It was lunchtime but I didn’t feel like eating. I got back in the car and drove out to Abbey Grange.
Alan Conway’s home was a couple of miles outside Framlingham and it would have been almost impossible to find without sat nav. I’ve lived my whole life in a city where roads actually go somewhere because, frankly, they can’t afford not to. The same couldn’t be said for the country lane that twiddled its way through far too much country before an even narrower lane brought me to the private track that finally led me to the house itself. When did I realise that I was looking at the inspiration for Pye Hall? Well, the stone griffins beside the entrance gate would have been the first clue. The lodge house was exactly as described. The drive curved round to the front door, cutting through extensive lawns. I didn’t see any rose gardens but the lake was there and so was the woodland that might have been Dingle Dell. I could easily imagine Brent standing beside the corpse of Tom Blakiston while his brother desperately gave him mouth-to-mouth. Most of the work had been done for me.