The same name as the detective except with the figure one instead of the letter i. James turned the computer on and tapped it in.
I don’t need to go into all the details of Alan’s computer. I wasn’t interested in his emails, his Google history or the fact that he played electronic Scrabble. All I wanted was the manuscript. He used Word for Mac and we quickly found the last two novels – Red Roses For Atticus and Atticus Pünd Abroad. There were several drafts of each, including the ones I had sent him with the final amendments. But there wasn’t a single word of Magpie Murders in any of his files. It was as if the computer had been deliberately wiped clean.
‘Is this his only computer?’ I asked.
‘No. He’s got another one in London and he also had a laptop. But this is the one he used for the book. I’m sure of it.’
‘Could he have put it on a memory stick?’
‘I’m not sure I ever saw him with memory sticks, to be honest with you. But I suppose it’s possible.’
We searched the room. We went through every cupboard and every drawer. James was keen to help. We found hard copies of all the Atticus Pünd novels apart from the most recent. There were notepads containing lengthy extracts scratched out in pen and ink but anything relating to Magpie Murders was curiously absent, as if it had been deliberately removed. One thing I did find that interested me was an unbound copy of The Slide, the novel that Charles had mentioned and which he had rejected. I asked James if I could borrow it and set it aside to take back with me. There were piles of newspapers and old magazines. Alan had kept everything ever written about him: interviews, profiles, reviews (the good ones) – the works. It was all very neat. One cupboard was given over to stationery with envelopes stacked up in their respective sizes, reams of white paper, more writing pads, plastic folders, a full spectrum of Post-it notes. There was no sign of a memory stick though, and if it had been there it was probably too small to find.
In the end, I had to give up. I’d been there an hour. I could have continued all day.
‘You could try Mr Khan,’ James suggested. ‘Alan’s solicitor,’ he reminded me. ‘He’s got offices in Framlingham, on the Saxmundham Road. I don’t know why he would have it, but Alan gave a lot of stuff to him.’ He paused, a fraction too long. ‘His will, for example.’
He had already joked about that when I arrived. ‘Are you going to continue living here?’ I asked him. It was a loaded question. He must know that Alan had been intending to disinherit him.
‘God no! I couldn’t sit here by myself in the middle of nowhere. I’d go mad. Alan once told me that he’d left the house to me, but if that turns out to be the case, I’ll go back to London. That’s where I was living when we met.’ He curled his lip. ‘We’d had a bad patch recently. We’d more or less split up. So maybe he changed things … I don’t know.’
‘I’m sure Mr Khan will tell you,’ I said.
‘He hasn’t said anything yet.’
‘I’ll go and see him.’
‘I’d talk to his sister if I were you,’ James suggested. ‘She used to do a lot of work for him. She did all his administration and his fan mail. I think she may even have typed some of the earlier books and he used to show them to her in manuscript. There’s always a chance he gave her the latest one.’
‘You said she’s in Orford.’
‘I’ll give you the address and number.’
While he took out a sheet of paper and a pen, I wandered over to the one cupboard which I hadn’t opened and which was set in the middle of the wall, behind the spiral staircase. I thought it might contain a safe – after all, Sir Magnus Pye had had one in his study. It opened peculiarly, one half sliding up, the other down. There were two buttons set in the wall. I realised it was a dumb waiter.
‘Alan had that built,’ James explained, without looking up. ‘He always ate outside if the weather was warm enough – breakfast and lunch. He’d put the plates and food in and send them up.’
‘Could I see the tower?’ I asked.
‘Sure. I hope you’ve got a head for heights.’
The staircase was modern, made of metal, and I found myself counting the steps as I tramped up. It seemed to go on too long. Surely the tower hadn’t been this high? Finally, a door, locked from inside, led out to a wide, circular terrace with a very low, crenulated wall – Charles had been right about that. From here, I could see across a green sea of treetops and fields, all the way back to Framlingham. In the far distance, Framlingham College, nineteenth-century Gothic, perched on a hill. I noticed something else. Although it was screened by woodland and invisible from the road, there was a second property right next to Abbey Grange. I would have reached it if I had continued up the drive, but there was also what looked like a footpath between the trees. It was large and fairly modern with a very well-kept garden, a conservatory, a swimming pool.
‘Who lives there?’ I asked.
‘That’s the neighbour. His name is John White. He’s a hedge fund manager.’
Alan had arranged a table and four chairs, a gas barbecue and two sun loungers on the terrace. Quite nervously, I made my way to the edge and looked down. From this angle, the ground looked a long way away and I could easily imagine him plunging down. I had a sick feeling in my stomach and stepped back only to feel James’s hands pressing into my back. For a horrible moment I thought he was about to push me. The surrounding wall was really inadequate. It barely came up to my waist.
He stepped away, embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was just worried you might get dizzy. A lot of people do, coming up here for the first time.’
I stood there with the breeze tugging at my hair. ‘I’ve seen enough,’ I said. ‘Let’s go down.’
It would have been so easy to throw Alan Conway over the edge. He wasn’t a large man. Anyone could have crept up here and done it. I don’t know why I thought that because it was clear that no crime had been committed. He had left a handwritten suicide note. Even so, once I’d got back to my car, I rang the Old Vic in London and they confirmed that he had booked two tickets for Henry V on Thursday. I told them he wouldn’t be needing them. What was interesting was that he had only made the booking on the Saturday, one day before he had killed himself. His diary had shown that he had also arranged meetings, lunches, a haircut and a tennis match. And despite everything, I had to ask myself.
Was this really the behaviour of a man who had decided to take his own life?