Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 835 & 836, March/April 2011

“Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you since we arrived, but there hasn’t been a convenient opening. In one of Bernard’s plays there would have been one, but he just forgot to provide one for real life.”

“Deirdre—”

“So I’ll just have to tell you at an unsuitable moment. Bernard and I go back a long time, as all of you know, and we have been meeting up again over the last six months. In grubby little hotel bedrooms hired by the hour. We were taking things up where we left them off twelve or thirteen years ago. This” (patting her stomach) “is Bernard’s. He’d quite like a daughter in place of that little know-all in short pants he has already. He thinks we are going to get married as soon as the divorce goes through. Think on, Bernard. Marriage has outlived its usefulness. So far as I’m concerned sex is a short-term affair, with plenty of swapping. So it’s bye-bye Tim, bye-bye Bernard. And welcome anyone young, fit, and into it for the laughs.”

And she left the room and the house with a merry wave of her hand. The two men hurried after her and Samantha followed them , and we passed all four a few minutes later along Caves Pathway, arguing and jesticulating. Mum didn’t honour them with so much as a glance. She and I were usually together on these walks because we are the slowest. This year we were in front, and well in front too.

“Are they coming?” Mum asked after a bit. I looked round.

“Yes, but quite slowly. They’re still arguing.”

“They would be, wouldn’t they? When is it any different on these reunion days? I could murder Bernard.”

“Well, we’ve come to the right place,” I said, but seriously, not waggish at all. “Sheer drop at several points. Hardly a soul around.”

“True,” said my mother, also treating the question seriously. “But murder is too good for him. I should leave him alive, to moulder in his horrible skin, with his horrible self and his awful little talent.”

“I think murder would be better.”

At this point in his writing, Morgan laid down his pen. Had he overdone it in directing suspicion on himself? It was a common ploy in crime fiction he had read. Probably it mirrored reality — policemen are really thick and do get it wrong, in all probability. If a reader took it too seriously he had only to read on to change his opinion.

He took up his pen again.

“You’re probably right,” said my mother. “But do you think I’m the murdering type?”

“You’re the Agatha Christie type: least likely suspect.”

“I’m not sure the police would take that line. I don’t get the impression they read Christie.”

“It’s about half an hour to Trevelyan’s Cave. Sheer drop from there. Half the suicides’ bodies are never recovered.”

“Little monster. Have you been planning this? How did you know that?”

“The South Devon Chronicle .”

“Shame on them... I was telling the truth when I said I could murder him... Taking up with that whore, twelve years after he ditched her for me.”

“I thought she ditched him for Uncle Tim, and you got him instead.”

“No... Well, have it your own way if you like... To go back to her, have regular... meetings in gungy hotel rooms—”

“Sex. It’s called sex, Mum.”

“I know, cheeky. Or I remember... Well, that’s the end, murder or no murder — and I think I can restrain myself from slortering him.”

I was afraid that was true. But when we got to Trevelyan Cave I was relieved that she went into the dirty little hole and sat down among the rocks. I stood outside where I had a spectacular view of the deadly rocks on Westcot Cove, and also of the path, winding its vert-something-or-other way up to the cave. I was looking for a little party of four, but I soon saw I was mistaken: the party had broken up, with Deirdre, Tim, and Samantha probably going back to the village and then back to their Manor home which one day may be mine. There was one solitary trousered figure trailing his way up to us. All he needed was a nap-sack on his back and he’d be one of your typical boring-as-hell walkers.

“Here comes Dad,” I said. Mum elbowed her way to the front of the cave and I took over the shadows. “He’s going to beg you to take him back,” I said, in case he did.

“He’s got a nerve,” muttered my mother.

But he didn’t do anything of the sort.

“I’m not stopping,” he panted, in the misstatement of the century. “I just wanted to say goodbye. You always knew Deirdre was the one, didn’t you? You always knew I was imagining her when we were... you know. It makes me sound a jerk, I know.”

“Not just sound,” said Mum.

“All right, all right. But I’m going to win her back. I’m going to go to her. Tim knows he’s lost her, and I’m not sure he’ll care all that much. He’s told me he always loved you, Morgan — Oh, like a father, you know. I told him to keep his hands off you because we don’t want his bloody Brideshead—”

I shot out of the cave, and the sentence was only completed with an “AAAAHHH.” When I was capable of taking my eyes away from the prospect at the bottom of the cliffs Lois was looking around — up, down, and towards the edge — with a gaze of total bewilderment on her face. I felt almost sorry for her.

“Congratulations, Mum. You did it.”

“But I didn’t. I mean I can’t remember that I... Did I? Morgan, DID I? Oh my God, I must have. What are we going to do?”

“Go home. Tell people Bernard’s been called away.”

My mother put her hand to her face.

“Australia! He was thinking of going to Australia. He’s writing some material for Dame Edna.”

“ Was writing,” I said. “Of course the body might be found.”

“But nothing to connect him to us. It would be much more likely that he committed suicide, or just missed his footing. There’s been no one on the path to say that he ever got as high as Trevelyan Cave.”

“And no one to say we were here. Come on, Mum: Let’s get back home. I think Dad’s going to like Australia so much he’s going to be there for a very long time.”

Morgan stopped writing. He wondered whether it was totally clear what he wanted the reader to think. Well — not totally clear: This was a literary exercise, but one which could result in his being parentless and ripe for adoption. For a literary exercise, it was surely a lot more exciting than most.

When Morgan was called into Miss Trim’s office he knew exactly what he was going to say. The end of his father had been to a degree impovised, as he called it, but the broad outlines had been with him (as a fantasy hardening to a project) for some time. He could cope with the likes of Miss Trim.

“I must say, Morgan, that your essay bewildered me, even shocked me.”

“Oh? Why was that, Miss Trim?”

“I expected it to be a factual, that means truthful, account of what you did on the last day of your holiday.”

“You didn’t say that, Miss Trim. And I expect you know that my father is an imaginative writer.”

“Well, your father wasn’t—”

“He makes it up. I find it runs in the family. I get to a certain point and then my imagination takes over.”

“Ah!” It was a sigh of relief. “So you made a little play out of your day, so to speak?”

“A little story, Miss Trim. A play would be all dialogue and stage directions. I hope you enjoyed the story.”

“Oh, I did,” said Miss Trim untruthfully. “But of course it made me uneasy, since all the others were truthful accounts of their day.”

“They’re not a very imaginative lot, 6A.”