Page 62 of Marble Hall Murders

So how, then, had he afforded them?

Part Two

I thought I’d had enough of the Crace family for one day, but I was wrong. As I arrived back at my new home in Crouch End, I heard a car door slam shut and saw Eliot Crace on the other side of the road, getting out of a beaten-up BMW coupé. He was grubby, unshaven, his hair greasy, a moth-eaten scarf hanging around his neck. He was wearing a black shirt and skinny jeans. I waited for him to cross the road and come over to me.

‘You’re in a residents’ parking zone,’ I warned him.

‘I can afford a ticket and you’re worth it, Susan.’

There was something almost licentious in the way he said that, leering at me. He wasn’t drunk, but the smell of alcohol and cigarette smoke from the night before still clung to him, as if he had crawled out of bed in the same clothes he’d been wearing when he got into it.

‘You look terrible,’ I said.

‘I was at Boon’s …’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It’s a club I go to in the Portobello Road. Don’t tellGillian! It’s my little bolt-hole. I met some friends and then I worked all night. I thought you’d be pleased.’ He lifted a hand and I saw that he was holding an A4 manila envelope. ‘I’ve got something for you. Can I come in?’

‘Have you just got here? Or have you been waiting for me?’ I didn’t mean to be offensive, but there was something about Eliot that was a little disgusting. I knew he’d been damaged, that his childhood at Marble Hall had been disastrous. But this was Crouch End on a sunny afternoon and there was something pathetic about this rich kid who had an attractive wife, an expensive house in Notting Hill Gate, a publishing deal with Causton Books and much less to complain about than a hundred thousand other young people struggling to make ends meet in the grindstone that London could all too easily become.

‘I just got here,’ he said. He was surprised by my abruptness.

‘How did you know where I live?’ I asked.

‘Michael Flynn told me. I thought you’d be pleased to see me.’

In fact, I was a little surprised that Michael would be handing out my address without asking me, but I relented. Eliot was still my author, my responsibility. ‘I’m always pleased to see you,’ I said. ‘Come in. I’ll make you some coffee.’

I was half tempted to take him through to the bathroom and throw him in the shower, just as Elaine had once done, but instead I led him into the kitchen, flicked on the kettle and searched for the strongest coffee I could find. Hugo, the cat, had heard us arrive and leapt onto the counter, arching his back, purring and generally going through his feline repertoire.

‘I didn’t think you were the sort to keep cats,’ Eliot said.

‘I’m not,’ I assured him. ‘My sister got him for me.’

‘Have you been here long?’

‘I used to live round the corner, so I know the area. But this place is new.’

‘Do you mind if I smoke?’

‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t – but you can go out in the garden, if you like.’

Whenever I’d visited my sister, Katie, she’d also made me go out into the garden to keep the smell of cigarette smoke out of the house. It reminded me that she’d always thought of me as the wild one, racing around town in my red MG, married to my work, to launch parties, to drinking sessions that stretched into the small hours. What right did I have to make any judgement about Eliot? Here I was, well into my second half-century. What sort of person was I becoming?

I made the coffee and carried it over. He was sitting at the table with the envelope in front of him.

‘Is this the next section of the novel?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I printed it out for you.’

‘That’s very thoughtful of you, Eliot. Do you have a new title yet?’

‘I hate titles. Have you noticed? All murder mysteries are the same. It’sDeath …this orMurder …that. It’s like there are only half a dozen words in the English language you can use.’ He counted them off on his fingers. ‘Blood, Kill, Murder, Death, Knife, Body … I’d like to call my bookThe Man with White Hair– but you wouldn’t like that at all, would you?’

‘Actually, I do quite like it,’ I said. ‘Although it might give too much away.’

‘Why?’