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Criss Cross: Friendship Can Be Murder: book1

/ Caron Allan / 1 Comment

My cozy mysteries set in the 1930s, along my two books from the 1960s mystery series, tend to outsell my original series, the Friendship Can Be Murder series to a considerable degree, and so I often go months without mentioning or even really thinking about my first few books.

They aren’t ‘literary’ – none of my books are. And as they are written in the form of diary entries, in the first person, I realise that they are not a popular choice point-of-view-wise.

But nevertheless, I have a great affection for them. I mean, often I look at these books, and think, ‘What was I thinking, I must have been mad!’ and other times, I’m just really grateful that I took the plunge and published them, and I learned so much that was invaluable when I came to publish my later books.

Book 1 – Criss Cross – was published in February 2013 – eons ago! And so I thought I would share a snippet from that book. It might pique your interest, or it might not, but I’m just showing it some love for the first time in a long while.

To set the stage, Cressida, a very wealthy lady who is married to Thomas, has been pondering the practicalities of killing her mother-in-law. Needless to say, they don’t get on, and Cressida has decided the world would be a much nicer place without her mother-in-law in it. So she’s mulling this over in her diary.

I mean, the vast majority of normal people, people like you and I, we just instinctively know the correct way to behave. We apologise when someone else bumps into us, we begin every complaint with ‘terribly sorry to be a nuisance, but…’ We’re nice. Pleasant. We have a kind of in-built mechanism, straight as a line in damp sand, an invisible barrier which prevents us stepping beyond the realm of reasonable and acceptable behaviour.

Some people do not.

Some people never read the signs, they ignore all warnings and plough doggedly on, intent only on saying what they want to say and doing what they want to do. They don’t care about your feelings. They turn up unannounced and uninvited, they change your plans without considering your wishes. They don’t notice the look on your face, the halting of your phrase, they are oblivious to the cooling of the atmosphere around them. They never notice that infinitesimal pause before you continue to hand around the petit-fours, a fixed smile plastered on your face, inane pleasantries tripping off your tongue. Some people remain completely and utterly ignorant of all the signs.

Everyone else, metaphorically speaking, has grabbed their handbags and jackets, collected their madeleine-tins from your kitchen, tossed the keys to the Range Rover to their husbands, dashed out of the door leaving kisses still hanging in the air, and are already on the slip road to the motorway whilst That Person is still looking vaguely around as a few motes of dust drift gently down to the Axminster. They are wearing that idiotic expression that says, ‘Who? Me? What could I have possibly said?’ or even worse, ‘Well I only said what everyone else was thinking’.

And they are always, always, always completely unaware when they have outstayed their welcome.

There’s only one way to deal with people like that.

One way and only one way.

You have to kill them.

They never take the hint, you see. They fail to detect the slight frost in your demeanour as they witter on, insulting your loved ones, criticising your friends, your home, your life. Such people cannot be taught, changed or reasoned with. In the end, it’s just easier for all concerned if you get rid of them before they truly become a Nuisance and make everyone with whom they come into contact completely and utterly miserable.

And if that seems a little harsh, just think for a moment about what these people do to your self-esteem, to your inner calm, to your peace of mind. When the phone rings, these are the people whose voice one dreads to hear. One begins to dread all family occasions and holidays because of That Person. Frankly, it’s just not worth the emotional and psychological trauma of putting up with them. Life is quite challenging enough. And that is the stage I’ve now reached with Clarice.

So.

That said, it’s one thing to say to oneself, Monday, water plants, collect dry-cleaning, go to library, bake fairy cakes for the One-to-One day-centre fundraiser, and quite another thing to just sort of slip onto the bottom of your to-do list, ‘Oh and kill mother-in-law and get everything tidied up because dinner will be on the table at seven o’clock sharp due to drinks at eight-thirty at the Pearson-Jones’.

Things—unfortunately—just aren’t quite that simple.

The Grandes Dames of the murder mystery genre, practising their art in the early and middle parts of the twentieth century—what one might term the ‘Golden Age’ of detective fiction—espoused the pleasures of poisoning. Fly-papers were meticulously soaked to extract their lethal properties, berries and toadstools were carefully gathered and sliced and diced and surreptitiously introduced into steaming casseroles and tempting omelettes. On every domestic shelf such things as sleeping draughts and rat poison and eye drops sat unnoticed and unremarked, and a home was not a home without at least a few jars of cyanide or arsenic sulking forgotten in garden sheds and garages.

But, sadly, these items are notoriously tricky to come by nowadays in our ‘Nanny state’.

Of course, one watches these TV programmes that explain all about the forensic process, so that one is pre-armed with useful information. Knives wielded by the left-handed protagonist cut quite differently to those employed by a right-handed person. Equally so the short protagonist and the weak slash feeble protagonist.

In addition the actual wound inflicted by a classic blunt weapon can yield so much information about not just the weapon itself but also the attacker—the approximate height, stance, and even weight and probable gender, for example, and the ferocity of attack is sometimes a gauge as to motive and psychology. Firing a gun leaves residue on one’s clothes, gloves, and skin, and, contrary to popular belief, it can be quite a job laying one’s hands on a firearm.

According to the Daily Tabloid, a gun may readily be obtained at certain pubs in our larger cities for as little as £30, usually from a gentleman going by the name of Baz or Tel, but the problem is, these tend to be the kind of establishments one would hesitate to enter in broad daylight, let alone late in the evening.

Remember, it’s very difficult to get a decent glass of Merlot in this kind of hostelry, and one can’t just go in and hang about without making a purchase of some kind. If you do just go into the bar and stand or sit in a corner, the other patrons are likely to stare and nudge one another. They may even whisper to one another, ‘Wot jer fink er game is then?’ or possibly, ‘Oi Tel, woss up wiv er, she too good fer us or summink?’

This is especially the case when one gentleman approaches and states that he and his friend, Gaz or Stevo or even ‘Arrison would like to buy you a beverage of some description, usually a Mojito or similar, and you are forced to politely but firmly decline. They are apt to be offended.

And if you do order a nice glass of Merlot, there’s always a momentary look of confusion on the face of the Landlord as he tries to recollect whether he has a corkscrew within easy reach, or how long ago he opened the half-empty bottle on the back counter—was it recently enough to avoid the expense of opening a brand new bottle?

Then he’ll ask if you’d like ice and lemon. Might as well add a cherry-on-a-stick and a little umbrella! And there’s no point in trying to charge it to your Diamond Visa or Titanium Amex—they much prefer to deal with cash. It’s altogether a rather unpleasant experience.

In any case, Baz or Tel are always surprisingly suspicious when one asks them if it would be possible to purchase a small Eastern-European revolver, something with a fairly hefty slug but small enough to slip into a small Louis Vuitton clutch-purse, or at a pinch into a Mulberry shoulder bag, or even, and here I may be straying into the realms of fantasy or James Bond (same thing, I suppose), even into the top of one’s stocking.

The gentleman invariably looks a bit puzzled and says something along the lines of, ‘‘ere that sounds a bit dodgy Darlin’. I don’t do nuffin like that.’ Well, of course it’s a bit dodgy, one points out, one is illegally attempting to buy a gun in a corner of the car park of a fleabag pub at eleven o’clock at night, and paying cash into the bargain. How could one possibly see it in any other light than dodgy? It doesn’t matter if you offer them £100, £200 or even £500 at this point, they just walk away shaking their heads and saying, ‘screw that, I don’t wanna get cort up in nuffin dodgy.’

I ask you.

The criminal classes aren’t what they once were. But what other choices does one have?

A pillow over the face in the dead of night is liable to leave a filament of goose-down in the lungs of your chosen recipient. This will immediately be detected by any half-decent forensic examiner and blabbed all over the Car-Crash Telly channel in a late-night special called Toffs Who Kill or something of the kind.

A bit of a bump with the car in a quiet part of town on a wet Wednesday afternoon may lead to eyewitnesses or CCTV footage recording your number plate for posterity. For goodness sake, tiny fragments of paint from the wing of your vehicle may embed themselves in the depths of the wound you inflict, and these same may be delicately reclaimed by a steady-handed science-nerd in a lab coat wielding a pair of sterile tweezers.

Murder is a difficult road to travel. But one must bear in mind the old maxim that nothing worthwhile is ever attained without a struggle. Therefore it is imperative to be utterly committed, to be dedicated in one’s approach, to persevere in the face of adversity and to make copious notes so that one may learn from one’s mistakes. And of course, it goes almost without saying, each stage must be planned in intricate, even tedious, detail.

Today I went to my local stationer’s—It’s so vital, I feel, that one supports local businesses wherever possible—and bought two notebooks, a small index card box, a set of ruled index cards, and a rather nice fountain pen. My husband seems to be under the impression that I require these items to catalogue my shoe collection. Sweet! And not a bad idea… but first things first.

Now, I’ve worked out I have approximately six weeks in which to plan and carry out my little project, and still have time for a decent mourning period before we have to be in Scotland for the ‘glorious twelfth’, my Thomas’s cousin Jessica (lovely woman!) always has a house party. Actually this year it’s the ‘glorious thirteenth’ as the twelfth falls on the Sabbath, and one never shoots in Scotland on the Sabbath. Der! Thomas loves his shooting, so although I’m not a lover of messy pastimes, I always like to encourage him to relax and have a bit of fun. Stockbrokers work so hard, don’t they, and such high stress levels, one obviously doesn’t want them to crack up under the pressure!

***

Rewriting a novel – a nuts and bolts approach

/ Caron Allan / 4 Comments

(This post first appeared in 2017 when I was invited to do a guest spot on Pink Glitter Publishing for my dear friend and author Emma Baird.) And sorry, it’s another really long post this week…

I love rewriting. There, I’ve said it. I think I could be the only person in the history of the world who actually enjoys rewriting. In fact, I like it a lot more than writing the first draft. I hate that bit. Okay, maybe not hate. I love the thrill of writing the first 50 pages or so, when it’s all fresh and exciting, and it begins to unfold on the page. Love that. But…sooner or later I always hit the first-draft wall. I know it’s because I don’t plot. I’m a pantser. So sue me, I hate to plot. If I plan out my book, on some level I feel I’ve already told the story already and it loses it’s allure.

But that makes the initial experience of writing a draft rather an emotional, rivers-deep-mountains-high kind of affair. But… rewriting, oh that is a whole new thing. I LOVE rewriting. You are free from the ‘burden’ of creating and, taking a distancing step back from your work, you can begin to rethink, polish and tidy. I love to tidy. Sometimes I can only do this by laying all the pages out on the floor and wracking my brains over which order this mess is supposed to go in.

Hemingway famously said, ‘Write drunk, edit sober.’ I haven’t tried it, but it might work for you. I have to say, editing sometimes makes me feel like I need a little help…

Don’t revise as you go. I know there are always a few people for whom that system works, but trust me, it’s not for most people. You get so bogged down in the detail that you never progress. I know people who have spent literally years rewriting the same first three chapters and have never finished the book. It makes me so sad. Write the whole book, from beginning to end, always looking forwards, pressing on till you reach ‘The End’. If you can’t remember the names and places mentioned earlier in the story, just do what I do and put a massive X, or XX, or Mr Thingy, or What Was Her Name, The One With The Long Blonde Hair, in its place. Or refer to a list of names and places you create as you go along.

It’s so much easier to revise a whole book. Like creating a sculpture, you’ve got that solid block to chip away at. You’ve got the overall shape and idea to work on. Your book is your outline. (You can thank Mary Wibberley for that bit of advice in her book from decades ago, To Writers With Love.)

After finishing your first draft, don’t immediately start revisions. Unless you are on the clock and the deadline is almost on you (we’ve all done it), put the book away for as long as you can. This is the perfect time to write another book. Yes, really. Leave your first draft for at least a few weeks, ideally a few months, or even a year. You will need to approach it next time around with a good degree of detachment to get out of writer mode and into rewriter mode. Then, when you’ve finished the next book, while that is ‘maturing’, you can go back to the previous one. Or, if you’ve a) got all the time in the world, or b) you’ve decided to write a series and publish fairly close together, now could be the perfect time to write book three!

Gary Cooper pondering that tricky scene just before the end of chapter six.

So you’re ready to start. Read it. Don’t write, don’t type, don’t tweak, fiddle, twiddle or jiggle. Just read the whole story through from beginning to end. You are trying to get an overview, to reacquaint yourself with your story. Afterwards, make notes on how you felt about the book. Does the story hang together? Does the plot progress logically (unless an illogical plot is essential to your story)? Do you have that sensation of tripping up as you read—a bit like when you miss a stair and think you’re falling—that’s when there’s a problem, usually a plot problem. Try to pinpoint what it was that made you feel like that. Put a sticky note on the page, or if a computer file, highlight the section, or bookmark it, or make a note in the Track Changes feature if using Word.

If you’re frustrated by not being able to make changes as you spot them, or worried you might forget, again, as already suggested, make notes in the Track Changes feature of Word, or pencil notes in the margin, or use sticky notes if working with a paper copy, just don’t change the body of the book yet. Hopefully after rereading the whole book, you will be able to see the strengths and weaknesses of your draft. You will see what needs to go. If not, give it to a trusted friend or writing pal to read. Ask them to be honest and not just pat you on the back. Rewriting can feel very much like ‘fixing problems’ or putting right things that are wrong, and with this mind-set, this can be quite demoralising. Don’t get into this trap. Remember, you’re polishing, refining. Putting flesh on a flexible framework. It’s all good.

Save your original draft, and make a copy with a new version name, just in case in the end, you’re not happy with what you’ve done and need to revert and give it another go. Again, we’ve all done that, I think. Give yourself a fall back position.

Start tinkering. Start with the easy stuff like consistency of character description and behaviour, check the names, spellings, and personal details of all characters, check place-names are correct and consistent throughout. Then move on to point of view. With POV, consistency is everything. If you’re writing anything other than an omniscient third person viewpoint, then there will be things your main characters cannot know until it is revealed to them. Make sure you’ve nailed that.

Next, check for all those words you overuse. For me, that’s words like So, And and Also. A friend of mine uses Thus in almost every paragraph… it’s really annoying. If you use unusual words to describe something, don’t repeat them more than once (if that) as unusual words stick in the reader’s mind and break the wonderful spell you’ve created of suspending disbelief: the worst possible offence you can commit as a writer of fiction. Don’t rip your reader from the story and plunge them back into the real world. Make less use of unusual words such as coterie or Schadenfreude, these are words that stand out from the page, and stick in your reader’s mind. If you use clichés—please don’t—but if you absolutely must, do it just once, don’t repeat them. You also don’t need to show off all the big words you know. Nine times out of ten, the simple, direct phrase will work better than anything flowery, waffly or too complicated. Keep it simple.

And if like me you write books set in the 1930s or 1960s – check for anachronistic things – things that weren’t invented then, hadn’t been discovered, developed or couldn’t be done, differences of etiquette, speech patterns, all the stuff that has furious readers turning to Goodreads or Amazon and saying, ‘1*, couldn’t possibly get past the comment about using a zip! In 1920? Hardly!’ Because believe me, those little things make a big difference to a reader and can ruin the whole reading experience. If in doubt, ask someone, or ask Mr Google.

Brain boggle is a normal part of revising your book. Don’t worry about it. Have a nice soothing cuppa and relax for a bit.

Check hyphenation, apostrophe use, adverbs and speech tags. I don’t agree with the ‘don’t use adverbs, they’re evil’ approach, but use them sparingly. (See what I did there?) Keep metaphors and especially similes to a minimum, unless you’re writing poetry; they are also irritating. Don’t use fussy speech tags: he responded, she retorted, he espoused, she countered, etc. Once in a while is fine, but you don’t need to tag every speech, just enough so the reader knows who said what. The word ‘said’, 90% of the time, is the best speech tag there is, it’s invisible, the reader will pass on, aware of who is speaking but not bothered about how – that should be clear from the context and what they say. Again, keep it simple.

Tidy your grammar, get rid of typos and unnecessary repetition. Check your tense scenes or action scenes for long, meandering sentences that slow the reader down and take forever to read so that the reader can’t remember what you were talking about, and they have to go back to the beginning to reread, trying to figure out the meaning (like that, for example – four lines for one sentence??? Too much, unless you’re writing War and Peace). Check slow, reflective, emotional or romantic scenes for accidentally humorous clangers, (my often quoted, ‘and then he opened the door in his pyjamas’), or break-neck short sentences that rush the reader too quickly through the text.

Read it again. And again. Tweak as you go, now, but remember some changes will have a knock-on effect and need to be addressed multiple times throughout the book. Now pass the draft to your close friends/beta-readers/book group, for your first round of major feedback. You can’t, sadly, trust yourself entirely to write, polish, edit, proofread, proofread, edit and polish then proofread. you’ll need help. If affordable, get professional help, go with a recommended person or business, not someone you pluck from nowhere unless they have incredible feedback. Otherwise keep to a small trusted group of serious writers and readers who have excellent language skills and a kind, tactful way of letting you know when something’s not quite right. If you use more than one beta-reader, you might find they contradict one another – then all you can do is go with the majority and trust your gut.

Then—I hate to say it—you need to do it all again. I read somewhere that if you don’t hate your book by the time it is published, you haven’t done enough work on it, and believe me I’ve come so close to hating a couple of my books. Your book is not ready for your editor or proofreader until you are absolutely convinced that it’s perfect. Trust me, it won’t be. But it’ll be pretty close. Make sure you are not the only one to do the ‘extra final final proofread’ – you’ll definitely miss something.

As an editor, I’d say there’s nothing worse than getting a script that should be as close to release-ready as an author can make it, but turns out to be little more than a first draft. It’s like seeing a neglected child. And when you make your first sale or get a really wonderful review, it will feel like it was worth every minute.

***

 

New Shoots: a quite long short story

/ Caron Allan / 6 Comments

June 1889

In the little garden behind his father’s cottage, the spiraea shoots had rooted. Walter could see the little green buds, emerging here and there up the length of the canes that stood in a row before him like soldiers on parade. In some cases, the buds were a little larger than the rest, and were just beginning to unfurl. Walter turned to survey the bench with its dozens of pots of soil and the new life contained within them. Strawberry plantlets growing stronger day by day; pansy, geranium and snapdragon seedlings showing their first ‘true’ leaves, dahlia shoots just beginning to push their tips above the surface of the soil, and beside the bench, in the border, the tall sweet peas had already reached the first wire.

He smiled and felt as though a weight had lifted from his shoulders. These small beginnings would change his life. He would be his own man someday, with his own thriving business, no longer at the beck and call of His Lordship. He could ask Hetty Miller to be his wife. They could be married by Christmas.

It was as if his every dream was on the point of coming true.

September 1896

Walter Jenkins stood in the dock of the court. He gave the clerk his name, date of birth and his abode. His voice quavered a little and he cleared his throat to continue. He had never been in a court before. He’d never been accused of anything before.

The clerk of the court told him to remain standing as everyone else took their seats. He felt clumsy, naked, as all eyes turned on him. His cheeks burned with shame as the clerk read out the charge.

“The plaintiff, His Lordship the Lord Branchley, accuses you of building an independent and thriving concern as a market gardener upon the theft of plants from His Lordship’s grounds, where you worked as an under-gardener until five years ago when you began working on your own account. How do you plead?”

Walter licked his lips. He fidgeted with his jacket hem as he stammered his response. Then he had to repeat himself in order that everyone could hear him.

“Not—not guilty, Your Worship—um—your—um, sir.”

“Hmm.” The judge peered over his glasses at Walter and fixed him with a hard look. “So noted.” He made a mark on the paper in front of him with his fountain pen.

And so it began. Walter was permitted to take his seat and he sank down in relief, clutching at the wooden rail in front of him, his head swimming. He was a bag full of nerves.

At erudite length, the prosecution set forth their case: that the accused had stolen plants and seeds from the grounds of eminent philanthropist Lord Branchley, and had thus been able to set himself up as a market-gardener, with considerable success. Furthermore, it was stated that the accused had traded on knowledge he had gained during his employment by His Lordship and turned it to his advantage. There was more but these were the key points upon which their case hinged. His Lordship himself was in court and sat with his team of the finest attorneys at the front of the court. It was His Lordship’s desire to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.

For three hours, the prosecution set forth their case. Walter couldn’t take in what was happening. The legal jargon washed over him, leaching away his confidence, his pride, everything he knew. All he could think was, would he hang/ or be transported? Or…? Punishments too harsh to be considered with a calm mind. All he wanted was to be home again with his family.

When at last the judge declared a two-hour break for lunch, Walter was already wondering if it was too late to change his plea. Perhaps that might bring him some leniency from the court.

As soon as he reached the cool solitude of his cell, relief filled him. Out in the world beyond the court, the attorneys were enjoying a lavish four-course lunch, served on fine china. For Walter, lunch was a pot of small beer and some bread and cheese. But Walter didn’t feel much like eating. He took a little of the cheese, and perhaps half of the beer. He thought about his case.

If he changed his plea to guilty, he wouldn’t just go to prison, he would lose everything—his business, his little home and most importantly, his family. Hetty had married him, against her parents’ advice, on the understanding that he was able to support a family. Walter felt completely without hope. Lord Branchley’s case was too strong against him, his attorneys were too learned and powerful.

But what would happen if that was no longer the case? Even if he didn’t go to prison, he would have to pay damages. What if he lost everything and had to return to his old room at Mrs Clark’s? Hetty would not go with him, he was certain of that, and why should she bring the two babes to live in such a crowd? No, she would go home to her mother, and if that happened, he would never see her again. With His Lordship bound to win the action, Walter knew his life was finished even if he, by some marvel, escaped a prison sentence. Walter cleared his throat a couple of times and dashed away a tear.

At that moment, his defence attorney arrived. Although lacking the flair and aura of success of his opponents, he was all Walter had been able to afford. In fact, Walter suspected he couldn’t really afford this man either, but the attorney had agreed to represent him, and Walter would simply pay what he could when he could manage it. The man had said it was an interesting case. Right now, he was beaming as if there wasn’t a worry in the world. Walter repressed an urge to punch him on the nose.

“Well, Jenkins, I feel it’s going very well. Very well indeed, young sir. We’ll soon have you out of here, don’t you worry about that.” He paused, clearly expecting Walter to thank him. His remarks met with silence and the attorney continued with a slight frown. “Now, now, young fellow, chin up. No cause to be down in the dumps, you know.”

“They seem to have all the right with them,” Walter said. “I thought there would be a jury?”

“No indeed, it isn’t that kind of trial. It will be His Honour who will make the judgment based on the evidence.”

“Just that one judge? We may as well give up now. I have no chance of success.”

“It may seem so now, but we will not give in! No, no, we must cling to our beliefs and hope for the best. Now, once we resume after luncheon, I will have the opportunity to put your side of the story, and then we shall see, eh? What do you think to that?”

Walter said, “I think I shall go to prison. Or be transported to the Antipodes. I shall never see my wife or my children again.”

The attorney frowned at him again. He slapped him on the shoulder.

“Come, come, man, there’s no need for such talk. We have an excellent case. We’ll have you back with your family in no time. Right! Now, I’m just off for a spot of lunch and I will see you in court later on.”

The cell seemed emptier after the attorney left, but all the same Walter was glad he was gone.

*

After lunch the prosecution began by calling the first of their two witnesses, Lord Branchley’s head gardener. He gave a sworn statement that he had seen the defendant remove plant material from the compost heap for unknown purposes on no fewer than three occasions. That seemed to satisfy the prosecutor, who resumed his seat with a grave look and pursed lips.

Walter’s defence attorney stood. “Have you ever seen the defendant removing plants or any other items from anywhere other than the compost heap?”

The head-gardener, an aged gentleman with weak eyes, stood turning his hat round and round in his hand and avoiding Walter’s eye, and finally he admitted he had not.

“And can you elucidate for the officers of this court, the function of this compost heap?”

“Er, beg pardon?” the head-gardener leaned forward, looking puzzled.

“Yes, of course,” said the defence attorney with a broad smile round the court. Leaning on the rail of the witness box, he turned back to the witness with a matey grin. “Er, just tell us, old chap, what’s it for?”

“The compost heap? Well, it’s a kind of rubbish tip for all the unwanted bits and bobs from the grounds and it rots down to make a rich soil you can put back on the garden. Very good stuff it makes. Very good for roses, fruit and vegetables of course, and…” he was counting them off on grimy fingers.

“That is sufficient information, thank you, Mr Duffy,” said the judge.

“Sir, sorry sir,” said Duffy and he seemed surprised by the laughter that filled the court. The judge rapped his gavel and the amusement was silenced.

“And was it His Lordship who asked you to create this compost heap?”

“Well no, not as such. His Lordship leaves the day-to-day running of the grounds to me, and I always has at least one compost heap on the go. You see, it makes very good…”

“Er, yes, quite so,” said the defence attorney hastily. “So the creation of a compost heap is part of your normal gardening practice, which experience has taught you is beneficial to your work?”

“Er, yes, it has, it is, I mean. Er—yes.”

Again a ripple of laughter was heard but quickly died away under the judge’s frowning looks. The defence attorney gathered his papers. He directed a nod to the judge.

“No more questions, your honour.”

The prosecution attorney immediately leapt to his feet and asked to put a further question. The judge inclined his head, and the prosecutor stepped forward.

“I believe it’s true to say the accused has learned all his skills from the employment His Lordship has so generously granted?”

The head-gardener struggled to fathom the sentence, his old forehead even more crinkled than usual with the effort. The prosecution attorney attempted to clarify his meaning in simpler terms.

“The job of under-gardener gives many opportunities to learn new skills and to gain experience, I imagine?”

The head-gardener wavered. “Well it does and it doesn’t.”

The prosecution attorney tried to hide his annoyance. His chance to prove the case based on this testimony would dwindle if he couldn’t get the old fool to say the right things.

“I see. But I imagine that when Mr Jenkins left His Lordship’s employ, he knew a lot more than he did when he first started?”

“It’s possible,” conceded the old man. “Young Wally had such an enquiring nature. He was always bringing in books and such and telling me all his high-falutin’ ideas about this and that. Never one to be content with doing things the way them’d always been done. Always wanting to try summat new. He fair drove me wild at times.”

Seeing that continuing with the witness was likely to actually harm his case, the prosecutor decided to take his seat with a crisp bow. “No further questions, your honour.”

The prosecution then called the second witness, Matthew Styles, under-gardener.

Matthew Styles took the stand, saying his oath loudly and looking around smiling. He appeared to be relishing the experience, and even waved to a young lady seated near the front. After posing a few general questions as to the age and occupation of the witness, the prosecution attorney then asked, “Have you ever seen anyone removing items from the compost heap or anywhere else?”

“Including me?” Styles asked, eagerly.

The prosecutor, a little surprised, nodded. “Er, yes, Mr Styles, including yourself.”

“We all ‘ave.”

“All?”

“Oh yes, indeed. And even His Lordship’s butler, he’s very fond of sweet peas, you know, so even he, when they’re there, he comes down and cops ‘em off Mr Duffy. Then there’s cook, she likes a bit of lavender or rosemary…”

“Thank you, Mr Styles, no further questions.” The prosecutor withdrew, frowning. The defence attorney leapt to his feet.

“Excuse me, Mr Styles. Am I correct in thinking that other servants than those who work in the gardens also avail themselves…?”

“Oh yes. The butler, Mr Stephens the butler, he likes his sweet peas, so at the end of the season, when they is dug out from the side border and chucked on the heap, he comes down for the pods to get the seeds. Then he can grow sweet peas in his own garden. Won a prize, he did, last year at the village show. I think the first prize was a guinea, and if I remember aright, the second prize was a leg of mutton. Very good he is with sweet peas, Mr Stephens. And then there’s Mavis. She works in the kitchen. She takes the flowers from the summer pruning for her mother’s grave. They’re not actually dead. The flowers I mean,” Styles explained to the tittering audience, provoking a further outburst as he added, “Her mother’s dead right enough, God rest her, but the flowers is just a bit past their best, though still quite nice looking, rather like Mavis herself.”

The judge banged his gavel six times and stunned everyone to silence. “I think we’ve heard enough to consider the question answered.”

The defence attorney inclined himself in a courtly bow. “As you wish, your honour.” He turned back to the witness. “And so, it seems acceptable and indeed commonplace for employees to remove items from the compost heap, as it is clear that anything placed thereupon is unwanted, that is the case, is it not?”

“It is.” Styles agreed. The defence attorney resumed his seat. The prosecution attorney stood and said,

“It appears as though there is wholesale theft going on within His Lordship’s premises. It almost sounds as though every servant is cheating His Lordship. Disgraceful.” He bowed to the bench. “No further questions for this witness, your honour.”

Styles was dismissed. The prosecution rested, his expression one of dissatisfaction. The defence attorney called the accused to the stand. Walter Jenkins took his oath on the Bible, his voice low.

“Mr Jenkins, how long had you been employed by His Lordship as an undergardener before you left to pursue your own business?”

“A little over six months, sir. I think it was about eight months altogether.”

“Really?” the defence attorney infused his voice with surprise. “From the testimony we have heard today, I had thought it had been a much longer period than that.”

“Oh no sir. I worked for my father from the age of fourteen until he passed away when I was twenty-five.”

“And then you went to work for Lord Branchley?”

“Yes sir.”

“What line of work was your father in?”

“He was a market-gardener, sir.”

“Indeed. How interesting. But one imagines that you had far greater opportunity to learn your trade in your employment at Lord Branchley’s?”

“I learned a great deal about digging, sir. And about cutting grass. Those were my main duties as an under-gardener.”

“I see. And I have no doubt these skills were useful to you when you set up your own market garden?”

The judge silenced the few sniggers around the courtroom with a single look.

Walter Jenkins hesitated then said, “Well sir, I don’t cut grass in my market garden, seeing as I don’t have a lot of room for grass. But it’s true I do occasionally dig.”

“Thank you, Mr Jenkins. And after your father passed away, what was the reason you did not continue in your father’s market garden but instead came to take a position with Lord Branchley?”

Walter bowed his head. Those in the court could see him biting his lip.

The judge spoke. “Mr Jenkins, I must urge you to answer the question.”

Walter’s head came up. “Yes sir, Your—um. It was just—I hadn’t wanted to say, but it was because of the business being sold to pay off my brother’s debts. There was no money left and so I was forced to find myself a position with the old business gone.”

“Thank you, Mr Jenkins, I do appreciate that this is not easy for you. And is your brother still in debt?”

“No sir.” Walter said. He looked down at the floor. Only the few people at the front of the court heard him as he said, barely above a whisper, “My brother was hanged last year on account of killing a man in a brawl.”

The judge tsked and shook his head. He scratched another note on his paper. Walter felt a wave of despair wash over him but on glancing up, met what appeared to be sympathy in the judge’s eyes.

The defence attorney continued. “I am very sorry to hear of your troubles. We will turn away from all that. Perhaps I could ask you to explain just how you came to provide yourself with the means to set up your business?”

This was easier ground for Walter after the previous question. He relaxed a little and his voice was clear.

“Well sir, I took a few things from the compost heap, as you know. There was a few canes from His Lordship’s spiraea in the shrubbery. It’s a good big patch of it at the back, and you has to prune it back hard every year. I was in charge of the shrubbery as Mr Duffy didn’t care for shrubs. Now, my father used to grow spiraea and the trick is to cut it right down after flowering, it makes it come back all the stronger in the next year, and it makes a nice rosy-coloured background to the other plants. The cuttings, like long canes they are, they root really easy. So I took a dozen of them and I rooted them. When His Lordship was in the grounds, sir, taking a look around with Mr Duffy, I approached him and said to him, would he like to have more of the spiraea in the shrubbery as it was dead easy to root and it would make a nice display of pinky-red flowers when it came out, and I knew as Her Ladyship was much taken with the colour.”

“And what did Lord Branchley say?”

“He said, begging your pardon for the cursing, sir, he said, ‘Who is this damned oik, Duffy?’ And Mr Duffy, he looked daggers at me and said to His Lordship as I was one of the under-gardeners. ‘Not any more’, said His Lordship, ‘give him a week’s notice and get rid of the upstart. I’ll not be addressed so rudely in my own gardens’. ”

“He sacked you?”

“He sacked me, sir, yes, there and then.”

“Then what happened?”

“Then His Lordship, he turned to Mr Duffy, and asked him what I was on about. So Mr Duffy showed him the spiraea and said as I was suggesting having more of them.”

“And did His Lordship comment at all on this?”

“He said, ‘I hate the bloody things,’ begging your pardon Your Worship, but that is the very words what His Lordship used. Then he says, ‘Rip them all out. Can’t stand them. Get rid of them all.’ That’s what he said, sir.”

“So now, you found yourself out of work and you had the spiraea canes. What happened next?”

“Well sir, I had me week’s notice to work. And there was a lot of nice bits on the compost heap. Strawberry creepers, seeds, cuttings, dahlia tubers from where we’d been dividing the clumps due to them growing out onto the south lawn. I came away with no reference but with a tidy pile of little plants and cuttings and seeds which I put into a sack what I brought from home. And just then, I was walking out with Hetty Miller, as was a maid from the Dower House. But I couldn’t marry as I didn’t have no job. But Hetty says to me, you can sell them when they’re rooted up. She said I could earn enough to rent a nice little cottage, that way I could start my own market garden up gradual-like. So that’s what I done. And then me and Hetty got married, and now there’s the two babes.” At this point Walter turned to the judge, “Sir, begging your pardon, but if I gets transported or goes to prison I will never see Hetty nor my children again as her mother took against me on account of me being sacked. My Hetty means everything to me, sir. If I’d have known how His Lordship felt, I’d have willingly paid for the stuff I took, but I thought it would be all right because all of us was doing it and in any case His Lordship said to get rid of them.”

There was a half-hearted protest from the prosecution, but the judge waved it away with a weary hand.

“Mr Jenkins, what would you say the original items you took were worth? If one had to purchase them from a market garden such as yours, for example.”

“You don’t buy things like that, sir, Your Worshipfulness, they are just…”

“Just rubbish to be thrown away on a compost heap? I see. Very well, thank you, you may stand down.”

The judge made some more notes. He announced a recess of one hour and the court was cleared.

*

An hour later, in his cell, Walter was trembling from head to foot. He could hear the warder approaching, the keys jangling on his belt. The door opened, and the warder gestured to Walter. “C’mon then, lad, let’s be having you.”

Walter stumbled along the chilly corridor and soon was back in the dock, clutching the rail for support.

Everyone rose to their feet as the judge entered. He strode to his bench, his lips pressed tightly together, his expression grim. Walter felt ill; he began to pray silently and fervently in a way he had not prayed since Sunday school. Up in the balcony, Hetty’s face was a white anxious oval, her gloved hand pressed to her mouth, her little hat hiding her lovely curls. The judge took his seat, then everyone else sat. The judge arranged his papers into a neat stack before him and he took up his gavel. He addressed the court, his firm voice resonating around the room.

“I have made my decision. The defendant will rise.”

Walter rose, trembling, to hear the words that would decide his future. He hoped he wouldn’t be sick or faint away when the sentence was pronounced.

“Having weighed the evidence in this case and after consideration of all the facts, I find in favour of the plaintiff.” The Judge banged his gavel and a murmur arose all around him.

“Jolly good show!” Lord Branchley immediately leapt to his feet, his face wreathed in smiles as he received the congratulations of his attorneys and they shook hands.

In the dock, Walter was barely able to take in what had been said. He heard a wail from behind him and turned to see Hetty on her feet, eyes wide with shock. The judge was compelled to pound his gavel on the bench a number of times before order was restored. Silence fell once more. The judge continued:

“I order that the defendant shall pay damages in the amount of one penny for the—er—spiraea canes—and the same amount for the strawberry plantlets. Also, I award a farthing for the costs of the plaintiff.”

For a moment Walter couldn’t understand what was happening. The prosecution attorney, his assistants and his client Lord Branchley all halted in their premature celebrations, mouths gaping open. Then, outraged, they began to demand that His Honour should review the evidence. The defence attorney charged across the courtroom and pumped Walter’s arm up and down.

“A triumph, my boy, a triumph!”

The judge, ignoring the commotion, addressed Walter directly. “Let the record show that the court commends you, Mr Jenkins, for your ingenuity, hard work and your skilful grasp of your chosen trade. The court commiserates with you over the difficulties that have beset you in the past and hopes that your market garden will continue to thrive. And if you will kindly leave your particulars with my clerk, I believe my good lady will be interested to know what you have in the line of dahlias, as she is contemplating some improvements to our own grounds at home. Court is adjourned.”

The judge stood and left the court, his gown billowing.

Lord Branchley, red-faced with fury, was pushing aside his attorneys to leave the court, uttering oaths as he went.

As the warder stepped forward to release Walter and remove his handcuffs, Walter turned to look across the courtroom. Hetty was making her way towards him, dashing away tears and smiling.

“We won!” he said. He still couldn’t believe it. She laughed as he swept her into his arms.

“Silly! Of course we did!”

“You will come home again now, won’t you? You and the kids?”

“Yes, Walter Jenkins, we will come home. I’ll never doubt you again, I swear.”

 

The End

***

All rights reserved. Copyright 2018 © Caron Allan

So… how did we get here? A few ideas about being a writer.

/ Caron Allan / 5 Comments

Now also available in a German language edition

This week, I thought I’d burble on a bit about some of the milestones of my writing life.

Writing courses, conferences and videos/newsletters: There are so many out there, and I’ve tried quite a few.

spoiler alert:

*sigh* they’re not as much fun as you’d think, sometimes. And sometimes they’re not too helpful, either.

As part of my degree in literature and history, I did a writing module – just a bit of extra fun for me, to pat myself on the back for all the hard work, and to finish off my credits and collect the ‘with honours’ portion of the diploma. One of the first things the tutor told us, and this was around only around 2010, was that we would need to resign ourselves to being hobby-writers only. She said, as if it was good news, that we had a greater chance of being part of the next team to travel into space than to be picked up by a publishing company. I know, from talking to some of the other students, that I was not the only one to go home from that session feeling like I wanted to throw myself off a cliff. I was in my fifties, so going into space was the unlikeliest thing I could imagine… I had hoped that getting a book published would be a little easier.

But actually, not long after that, I began to hear about this thing called self-publishing, and the more I looked into it, the more I liked what I saw. So, at the end of 2012, with  sideways smirk at my diploma, I uploaded my first novel onto Mr Zon, and the rest, as they say is… well not history, but cozy mysteries that sort of sell. (Thank you, you lovely reading people.)

My mother said, ‘That’s not real publishing, it’s not a real book.’ Nothing could shift her from that, and of course, that was what all the newspapers and the books and nay-sayers were saying at the time. They still do. But all I can say is, I’ve read plenty of rubbish trad-pubbed books, and many wonderful self-pubbed.

Years earlier, when we lived in Brisbane, Australia, I attended some workshops for crime writers who were starting out. Sadly, I don’t remember anything the tutor taught us, other than this advice: If we wanted write crime fiction and bring authenticity into our work, she suggested we practice following people. Yes, actually FOLLOWING total strangers we did not know. Pick them up at the mall, trail them, see where they go, what they do, who they meet, she said. It would bring realism to our writing, she said, and help us to understand the criminal mind and all about the complexities of being a private investigator etc. All I could think was, I will definitely get run over, punched in the face or kidnapped, maybe all three. This sounded like a terrible idea, and again, I was pleased to discover I was not the only one who thought so. I didn’t go back. Nor did I take her advice. But I would dearly love to know if any of the class thought, ‘you know what, that sounds like a really good idea’. I hope the library of the prison they are likely to be incarcerated in have a better range of ideas in their ‘How to Write’ books section.

So what did help me to get started on the long and winding road to your bookshelves? 

A very old book by Dorothea Brande: Becoming A Writer. It showed me myself and taught me that writers are created not born, to a certain extent. It showed me how to get started and how to teach myself to write.

Stephen King’s On Writing. For similar reasons to Dorothea’s book from the 1930s, plus the voice of experience and not to mention, success.

And I talked to lots of writers, beginners and well-established. I still do.

And I read, and read, and read. Not just to learn, but for the sheer love of it. I read all sorts, not just within the genre I write.

And on top of that I wrote. And when I had finished writing a book, I set it aside and wrote another. Because in the end, the only way to learn how to do something, is to actually make yourself do it. At first you’re terrible. You can’t play the piano when you are five and have never touched a key before. Writing is the same. It’s a process that requires dedication and above all else, perseverance.

My first book, using the back of a Weetabix packet for the covers, written when I was around 10.

***

Is the 11th too late for goalsetting?

/ Caron Allan / 5 Comments

For various reasons I’m a bit late to the What I Will Accomplish This Year 2024 party.

I have goals – quite lofty ones really, but who knows what I will have the time and energy to achieve? But if I decided, you know what, I’ll take a year out, the danger is I won’t achieve anything, and what’s the point of that?

So here we go – this is 2024 as I see it, part of the way through the second week of January. this is what i would want to do, in an ideal world, if the sky was the limit and i didn’t have cancer treatment to deal with.

  1. Finish and publish Dottie Manderson mysteries book 8: Midnight, the Stars And You. This has to be this year’s main priority in terms of writing, because people keep saying things like, you know, when is it out? There’s only so many times you can nod and smile and say, it’s coming, honest. There’s a teaser for it on here somewhere. If you fancy taunting yourself with something that is still four or five months away, here it is. I promise it’ll arrive eventually.
  2. Because I felt pretty down about the whole ‘by the way, you’ve got breast cancer’ thing, apart from working on the 2nd book of the Miss Gascoigne 1960s mystery series (which came out on Dec 8th) I started playing around with a book I wrote over ten years ago, purely for fun, and it’s actually almost ‘there’ – almost ready for publication, and so although it’s not part of any of my three series, I will very likely publish that in February, just for fun. It’ll just be a one-off, stand alone novel like Easy Living. This book is called The Cousins, and again, there’s a teaser and a bit of info here.
  3. Now I know last year, in a fit of optimism I started banging on about a new story in the Friendship Can Be Murder series, which has been out for over ten years and I kind of thought was finished at three books. And I have written quite a lot for that new book, but it’s nowhere near ready, and so, let’s be honest, it’s not likely to make an appearance in 2024, or if it does it’ll sneak out at the very last minute. I tentatively called that book Dirty Work, and I do hope to finish it and publish it over the next year or two, but there’s no date as yet.
  4. And then, my second main priority will be to get to work and finish and publish book 3 of the Miss Gascoigne mysteries. This will be Through Dancing Poppies, and I hope/plan/rashly promise it will be out in November of December of this year. You can bang on my door and demand it if I don’t deliver.
  5. My next German translation of a Dottie book is due out at the end of this month. If you love to read a novel in German, this could be perfekt for you! Keep your eyes peeled for Rosenblüten und weiße Spitze: ein Dottie Manderson Fall: Buch 7. Zitat aus Rosenblüten und weiße Spitze: Ein Dottie Manderson Fall: Buch 7

And by the way, if I seem flippant about the cancer, I’m not. But I am open to talking about it – as they say, fear of the name increases fear of the thing itself, and I refuse to live in fear. I trust the medical team at the hospital where I’m having treatment, in fact they’ve been blooming amazing, and I believe them when they say that ‘eventually’ I will be okay. And so many lovely people are praying for me… And if only we could get proper funding for the NHS I’d be a happy bunny. I believe passionately in a national health service – good health is not something that should be the preserve of the wealthy.

So that’s how my 2024 is looking right now. What are you doing with yours? Got any plans for world domination or maybe a nice holiday?

***

Poison in the Pen by Patricia Wentworth

/ Caron Allan

I always love to reread old favourites. Poison in the Pen by Patricia Wentworth is just that: everything I love in one volume.

  • elderly amateur detective – check
  • hint of romance – check – though not as much as usual for Wentworth
  • cosy mystery – yup
  • clues – oh yes
  • red herrings – check
  • a host of daft characters – check
  • poison pen letters – what’d not to love? Though I was sad the letters weren’t quoted – too offensive, maybe?
  • increasingly exasperated professional detective – I love a stroppy copper who just wants to get home
  • the killer speaks

Now obviously I can’t tell you whodunit, or there will be no point in you reading it. So with the help of mime I mean, carefully edited text, I can comment. So take a look at this:

As you can tell from the title, this is a poison pen letter mystery. It’s set in an English village in the mid-1950s, so quite late as Wentworth books go, she’d been a published author since 1910, and sadly passed away at the beginning of 1961.

(Note to self, If I’d started earlier, I might have got 50 years of writing under my belt too… So envious.)

The village setting means we can guess at many of the situations and some of the characters here.

There’s a retired military man in a big house, he may have been a brilliant army Colonel but he is rubbish at relationships. he really wanted a dolly-bird half his age to look good on his arm and to make sure the house was tidy. Sadly, his chosen love is mainly interested in having a good time, and is fed up with her elderly husband, who is clearly BORING. (If he’s so smart, why did he choose her? Conveniently we can nod to one another sagely and say, as they do in the book, ‘There’s no fool like an old fool.’)

But – the fish-out-of-water over-dressed, colourful wife effortlessly puts everyone against her, not doing herself any favours by refusing to make herself pleasant or conventional. Wentworth describes her wearing of bright colours, making her literally the scarlet woman, giving her loads of make-up,  and making her determined to not give a damn. Here she is being interviewed by the police about her secrets.

But has she acted on these secrets, or the urge to get rid of her annoying husband and grabbing the money, to slope off into the bright lights with her boyfriend, who incidentally was about to be married to someone else… We need more information…

Almost the entirety of the rest of the cast are single ladies – widows and spinsters all – and all a bit bored with life in a village with insufficient scandal/bingo/internet facilities to keep them busy.

They knit. They sew. They garden. They care for children. They cook. They clean. And they are – let’s be honest – a bit too fond of a good gossip.

Cue the poison pen letters.

For me, the disappointing part of this story was that everyone was far too polite to let us know precisely what was written int hem. There are suggestions of infidelity, and immorality, and secret yearnings and guilty secrets, but no juicy details. Oh well, you can’t have it all, I guess. It’s enough for us to know that one poor girl has killed herself because of the letters, and two more deaths follow in quick succession, leading us to question the ‘suicide’ verdict of the first death.

Miss Silver, Wentworth’s elderly lady detective, comes to stay in the village under the guise of being a dotty but not very well off old woman in need of a change of scene. She knits her way through scenes and observes the inhabitants acutely. She dispenses kindness to those who need it, and has no truck with those who get a bit above themselves, especially overbearing men.

Miss Silver is a tricky character. She’s clearly not ‘elderly’ in our modern sense, I’d say she could be in her 60s in this book. She’s not frail, and her mind is a steel trap. She’s deeply religious, compassionate, and fierce about getting justice for those who can’t get it for themselves. She was in early life a governess, and she can kill an attitude with a single look. She has a couple of irritating quirks, but I think this is just the difference between early 20th century attitudes and now. I find her far warmer and more loving than Miss Marple, for example, and she is surrounded by people, many of them very much younger, who admire and love her. And with her understanding of human nature, she sees everything.

As I said before, I love a poison pen letter. Forgive me for plugging my own, here. In A Meeting With Murder, my character Dee Gascoigne is staying in a village where poison pen letters are doing the rounds. Dee doesn’t really see what the issue is with these letters. Her friend Cissie explains:

Dee still shook her head. ‘I just don’t see why people get upset. I mean, why can’t they just put the letters in the dustbin or on the fire and forget about them?’

Cissie smiled. ‘Think about it like this,’ she said. ‘Imagine you lived in a tiny little place like this, where you knew everyone. Then imagine one day you opened a letter, you didn’t know who it was from, for they never sign these poison pen letters. And when you looked at it, it said something like, ‘I know you killed your mother to get all her money’. Think how you’d feel, to get something like that. And you’d know that somewhere in the village was a person who really thought it was true, but you didn’t know who it was and you didn’t know how many others they’d tell. And suppose you were frightened everyone would believe them, and that they were all looking at you too. Suppose your friends began to hear rumours and believed them. Suppose they stopped speaking to you and began to avoid you…’

Dee stared at Cissie and her delicate colour faded from her face so quickly Cissie was afraid she had gone too far to make her point. She felt cruel. She reached out a hand to pat Dee’s arm. ‘There, there, dear, don’t let it upset you. I was just trying to explain…’

In a soft, distressed voice, Dee said, ‘But that’s horrible, I’ve never thought of it like that before.’

‘Exactly, dearie. But that’s the kind of wickedness these letters contain. Now imagine getting three like that in a fortnight. And everyone you know, everyone you meet, you’d look at them and think, was it you what sent me that? You’d feel like you was being watched, my dear, and you wouldn’t know where to turn or who to go to, nor would you be able to sleep for fear of what the next day would bring, and you’d wonder if people knew and if they thought it was true. Even I’ve had one. Accused me of stealing money out of the birthday cards that were put in the post. And I’ve never stolen a thing in my life.’ Cissie pulled her shoulders back and lifted her head, the very model of moral rectitude.

For me, it’s the psychological aspect of the poison pen mystery that is most intriguing. I LOVE the ‘why’? In Wentworth’s book, we reach the final unmasking of the killer who is, of course, the writer of the letters. In a near-perfect summation of the ‘otherness’ of a murderer, Wentworth manages it beautifully: (Anon is because I didn’t want to say who it was – no spoilers here!)

So go on, read an old-school favourite this Christmas, and lose yourself in your most-loved tropes, busybodies, and village settings!

Happy Christmas!

***

Babysitting Grandpa: a short story

/ Caron Allan

This week I thought I’d publish a short story from a few years ago. I hope you like it.

The game was over. Marc watched as Lou put the old lead soldiers back in the box, each one slotting neatly into a cushioned slot, neat as a row of—well, soldiers on parade, duh! Even in the box they seemed to stand to attention.

After three hours, it was finally over. The game had been played in earnest. But for Marc, his unwelcome victory brought no ceasefire, no end to hostilities. It was merely the provocation Lou had needed to shout “Best of Three!” and now Marc was doomed to relive the torment at least once more. Possibly twice, if the unthinkable happened and he was stupid enough to lose the next game. A one-all draw was unthinkable.

Lou’s joy was evident in the gleeful chuckling as he took each soldier from the field of battle and carefully put it away into its own little green felt lined slot. His false teeth flopped about inside his slack jaws. Marc’s stomach lurched at the sight. Old people were so creepy.

His heart seemed to have fallen to his boots. Just when there was a chance of him living some kind of normal life, of going out and seeing something of this town on a Saturday night like other teenagers, hoping against hope to actually live, his soul was snatched away to babysit his weird grandpa because his mum had to work and there was no one else to watch the old bloke. Lou’s slippered feet slapped the lino as he did his victory dance. Just his luck if the old git fell and broke a hip and Marc had to spend all night in the hospital.

“You’re such a loser.” Marc said.

Lou just laughed. “Let’s get some dinner, Son. Then it’s Round Two!”

Marc put on his coat and went to the chip shop. His friends were just coming out as he went in.

“You coming down town later?” one of them called.

“No, I’ve got to stay in. Mum’s on a late shift so I’ve got to look after my grandpa.”

They nudged each other and laughed. “What a loser!” One of them said and they all laughed again. Marc sighed and turned for home.

Grandpa was waiting for him, plates out, ketchup, salt and vinegar on the table. “Thanks, Son,” he said. “Not every kid your age would stay in on a Saturday night and keep his old grandpa company. I know it’s not cool, man.’

Marc rolled his eyes. If only grandpa didn’t keep trying to use modern slang, life would be easier.

“It’s all right,” Marc told him. He didn’t mind all that much, he realised. It was cold out. And his friends were all freaks and idiots anyway. He ate his chips. “How old are you, Grandpa?”

“96. Why?”

Marc shrugged. “Just wondered. Why do you like playing soldiers so much?”

“Ah well, you see, my dad, he was there.”

“There?”

“Yes, there. When I was old enough to be aware of him, he seemed like a frail sickly bloke, but it was the war made him like that. When he died, I found all his medals and his photos with his comrades and that. I was surprised to see how young he looked, quite good-looking really, not that I take after him. And he looked—I don’t know, strong, I suppose. Healthy. He was laughing at the camera, just a normal young bloke. And in the wedding photo of him and me mum, well, they both looked so—alive, so happy. It made me wonder. So I spent all my life finding out about the first world war, what happened and why. I started to see him as the hero he really was. He stopped being some useless old bloke.”

Marc thought for a moment. He balled up his chip wrapper. “You were in the war too, weren’t you?”

“Yes, Son. I was in the war. The second world war. The one they said could never happen.”

“Tell me about it,” Marc said. ‘Then maybe we could have another game.’

***

 

Publishing December 8th 2023: A Wreath of Lilies: Miss Gascoigne 1960s #cozymysteries

/ Caron Allan

As I may have mentioned 473 times this year, my new Miss Gascoigne book, A Wreath of Lilies is due out on the 8th December this year. It’s book 2 of my new series set in Britain in the ‘swinging’ (not like that, you naughty people) 60s.

The protagonist, Dee Gascoigne has actually been offered a paid excuse to go to a small village and be her normal nosy self. She can hardly believe her luck! That is, until a boring meeting turns into something for more dangerous…

If you’re intrigued, you might like to take a look here to read a bit from Chapter One (a big bit, it’s more or less the whole chapter…)

Or you could just carry on and read this scene from a later chapter:

It was a relief to leave the hot angry air of the pub’s meeting room and get out into the cooler air of the evening. Most of the villagers who had attended the meeting were well ahead of them due to Miss Marriott’s slow pace.

Only half past eight in the evening, but night was fast approaching. At the horizon the sky was still pale blue, but higher up in the atmosphere the blue velvet sky was growing deeper, darker, and already Dee could see a few scattered stars twinkling as silvery pinpricks. She would have loved to stand and gaze at the sky, to enjoy the hush as the night-time settled around her. A night for lovers, she thought, and dismissed the image of her ‘cousin’ Bill. There was no time for that sort of thing right now.

She couldn’t be sure he would ever be truly hers. Men liked to play the field, didn’t they? And he seemed to be committed to doing exactly that. Busty Barbara had given way to Leggy Pam, Giggly Susan, then Wistful Wendy, according to Bill’s mother, her Aunt Dottie. The last thing Dee needed was a man who changed girlfriends as often as his socks. Yet he’d sworn to Dee that he loved her… That he would wait for her. Perhaps waiting didn’t mean saving himself? She sighed. Why were things always so complicated?

Snapping Dee from these unhelpful thoughts, someone came running up and spoke to Miss Marriott.

‘You’ll never guess what!’ This newcomer exclaimed, excitement bubbling over as she giggled.

‘Well, out with it, Sylvia, what are you on about?’ Before Sylvia had a chance to explain, Miss Marriott was turning to Dee and grumbling, ‘I do hate it when people hem and haw, and hint and don’t say exactly what they mean. Hurry up, Sylvia, we’ve got to get to the churchyard!’

‘That’s where they’re doing a séance!’ Sylvia burst out.

Miss Marriott huffed. ‘We already know that, dear, that’s why everyone is rushing in that direction. Surely you realised that? Now do come along.’

‘It’s them beatniks, them seekers. They’re doing it again!’

‘We know that too, dear,’ Miss Marriott told her again, sounding exasperated by this new person. Dee glanced at Sylvia, a young woman in her early twenties, dressed in a housecoat over slacks and a blouse. Her hair was scraped back severely in a ponytail that hung over her left shoulder.

As they went along, Sylvia continued excitedly, ‘They’re holding hands in a circle and calling on the spirits to speak to them. Oh it’s so exciting!’ She broke off to look at Dee. ‘Sorry, but who are you?’

Dee introduced herself. ‘I’m Dee Gascoigne. I’m staying at Miss Marriott’s for a few days. I’m here to find out more about what’s going on in the village.’

‘Police? Or a reporter?’

‘Neither, actually. Miss Marriott’s legal adviser sent me. Shall we…?’ Dee pointed after Miss Marriott who was already some distance in front of them now.

Sylvia nodded. ‘Ooh yes, let’s!’ as if it was a treat.

They hurried after the old woman who was moving faster than Dee had so far seen her move, albeit aided by her walking stick. The other people from the meeting were also headed that way, though many of them were already inside the walled expanse of the churchyard.

By the time they reached the area where the séance was supposedly happening, Dee had already seen two people stumble over half-hidden gravestones in the dark and sprain their ankles, and one person had fallen headlong and now had a suspected concussion. Little knots of people offered assistance to the injured parties, but in general, the mood amongst the villagers had turned from mere curiosity to that of an angry mob. Dee’s heart pounded as she gave into the urge to hurry along. She had serious misgivings. And when she saw the mass of people crowding into the area and heard loud shouting a short way ahead, she halted, taking Miss Marriott’s arm.

‘I think we should just get you home,’ she said.

Sylvia on the other hand, was still trying to urge them forward more quickly, impatient with them for holding her back when she clearly wanted to run.

‘Oh what rot!’ Miss Marriott snapped. She rummaged in her coat pocket and held out a key. ‘Here, take this. You can go back, if you’re such a ninny.’

With an inward groan, Dee gave in. Thirty or forty yards ahead, she could see a bonfire burning in a brazier, whilst around it figures in silhouette were standing in a circle, chanting softly, their hands joined.

Even in the darkening twilight, Dee could see that their robes were saffron, or white, or purple, and of a floating light fabric that reached to the ground. There were, she thought, perhaps eight or ten of them, men and women, all dressed alike in these robes, some in white ones, two men in purple, and nearer to where she was now, an older woman and two men in saffron-coloured robes, then there was one person, already crouching down onto the ground in an emerald robe.

They wore flowers and strings of beads about their necks, and in their hair, and they sang a song without words, one that Dee instinctively felt she knew somehow. They touched no one, called out to no one, but were gathered by their brazier, arms raised now to rattle tambourines, or to beat a rhythm on a tabor or to chime cymbals together.

A saffron-clad man with hair reaching almost to his waist began to speak, and his cohorts stepped back and bent to sit on the ground, cross-legged and silent.

‘Again the unclaimed one calls out to you, heart to heart, spirit to spirit, and begs to be brought home, to be mourned and released, no longer to be cast adrift between this world and the next. They cry out to you for your pity. Do not turn away from their plea. We who seek implore you…’

But he got no further.

A couple of the men at the head of the rabble of villagers rushed forward to break through the circle of seated chanters, grabbing a couple of them by their arms or legs and dragging them away from the group.

Someone kicked the fire brazier over, and predictably instead of going out, the flames caught at the tall grasses and set them alight. People began to yell, the flames spread, someone threw a punch and within seconds there was a brawl. The flowing white robe of a young woman caught alight. Galvanised into action, Dee rushed forward to throw the girl onto the ground, tearing off her own jacket to quickly smother the flames. Mercifully, the girl was unharmed, Dee thought. She shuddered to think what might have happened had her jacket not been to hand.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked the girl, who appeared somewhat dazed. She nodded.

‘I-I think so… Thank you…’.

Dee helped her to her feet. Most of the robe had been burnt away now, as was Dee’s jacket, a sooty rag on the ground. The young woman hurried away, no doubt to rejoin her friends. Dee looked about her for Miss Marriott, worried yet again that the old woman was too frail to be out amongst this chaos. 

There was no sign of Miss Marriott and Dee began to panic. The shouting of the people, the billowing flames, and the orange-black smoke already hanging seemingly all about her made it near impossible to see what was going on. She became aware that she was breathing shallowly due to the smoke, her eyes stinging, her hands shaking. She had to fight down a sense of panic and force herself take her time to look about her properly. She stood for a minute or two in the midst of all this noise, looking about her.

There, she thought, there she was. She made her way over to Miss Marriott’s side. The old woman clutched at Dee with relief. Her bony fingers pinched at Dee’s arm, icy through the fabric of Dee’s dress.

‘Oh my dear, I thought I’d lost you. I tripped, and then somehow, I lost my bearings in all this smoke. And I can’t find my walking stick.’ She was looking all around her at the ground, hoping to spot it. But there wasn’t a hope of finding it. They needed to leave.

Dee put an arm around the old woman and tried to guide her away. ‘Don’t worry about that now, you can lean on me.’

The bishop and the woman from the local history group were standing together by the gate and watching the scene with horror. The bishop attempted to call for peace but he was shouted down. Dee once again tried to persuade Miss Marriott to return home. Sylvia was nowhere to be seen; it seemed likely that by this time she was much farther ahead.

A scream rang out—and finally people began to realise the scale of the problem, and at last began to back away to the safety of the lane. The fire had taken a firm hold and was snatching with greedy licks at the dry grasses, weeds and fallen branches. With lightning speed, it was conquering the churchyard.

Behind them, at the village end of the churchyard, police officers began to appear, running forward, waving truncheons haphazardly, and Dee grabbed Miss Marriott firmly by the arm.

‘We’re leaving now!’

*

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed that extract.

I do hope you’ll nip over to our old friend Mr Amazon right now and pre-order your eBook, but if like me you prefer something solid you can hold, the paperback, large print paperback, and hardback editions will all be out around the same time as the eBook on Amazon, or you can find a paperback copy on Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, Scribd and many other online book shops on or just after 8th December.

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Routine – the nemesis of creativity?

/ Caron Allan

I recently read somewhere that routine hinders the creative process. To really be creative, I read, we need to let go of organisation, routine and any kind of rigid preconceptions or framework, and allow ourselves freedom to explore in any direction and form that appeals to us.

I couldn’t disagree more strongly. If you think that routine is a hindrance and obstacle to being truly creative, I’d like to invite you to reconsider.

I suggest that it is routine that brings freedom and that freedom is often to be found within boundaries, not outside of them. Because parameters do one great thing for us, yes, even us creative types. They give us a sense of security. And if you feel secure, you can relax and have the freedom to be creative.

All art is created within boundaries. Or a framework of conventions, if you prefer to call it that. Mozart created wonderful music. Yes, undeniably, he was incredibly creative and had a flair for genius. But… Musical composition is, in many ways, one of the most rigidly ‘controlled’ art forms in that very deeply-held conventions dictate the agreed (not necessarily explicitly agreed) common elements that must be adhered to, in order to create any form of music. Sonatas have a specific set of rules, if you like. All sonatas have common elements that make them what they are. Similarly, concertos, arias, opuses and symphonies all have elements which dictate how they are created and underpin the very stylistic identity of a given piece of music.

Now I’m tempted to take a long detour at this point and show that this is exactly the same as the genre conventions in writing, that genres have their own conventions and that you can subvert or uphold these as you desire, but I won’t, as I’ve already waffled quite a bit, and I want to keep this blog-post fairly to-the-point.

Obviously we can all have an off-day. But you know when you are recharging and when you are simply wasting time or letting things slide.

Sometimes, I’ll admit, I do just go with the flow, letting words pour onto the page. There’s nothing actually wrong with that, but it doesn’t make for good reading, it rarely fits neatly into a novel, and I am a novelist, so that is what I need to write. Unfocussed, meandering writing, sometimes called ‘automatic writing’, is great fun, very cathartic and can help you to improve your writing overall. But for everyday ‘work’ writing, you need focus, not indulgence.

Within a framework, we have the freedom to be creative. Routine can be just such a framework. I’m actually not a very organised person with regard to my writing. But I have discovered that an established routine is my friend when it comes to cracking on with my WIP and meeting deadlines.

Why?

If you are organised, you can relax and focus on the job in hand. You make the most of your time, you crack on, (hopefully/usually) and have something concrete to show for it, so productivity is improved and you feel good about what you’ve achieved. Which makes it more likely you’ll do it again tomorrow. In addition, good output leads to increased experience, increased confidence and also positivity, and as many writers know, these are commodities that can be hard to come by.

Planned routine is anticipated, your subconscious inner writer is actually hard at work long before you sit down at your desk. You know what is expected, and what your intentions are. You’re prepared, in the zone. This means you ‘hit the ground running’ and are ready to go immediately with no need for warming up or getting yourself in the mood.

As I’ve said already, routine, planned writing leads to increased output and measurable results. You see the word count piling up and you see that you are moving towards your deadline or goal. This gives you the impetus you need to write through the tough sections of your book, those tricky little scenes and the mid-book blues, even through the ‘I don’t want to do this anymore’ sulks.

For me, one of the main advantages to this type of organised approach to work is that I remain ‘current’ with my WIP. I literally don’t lose the plot. By that I mean I don’t lose track of characters and plot strands and the atmosphere of the book the way I do when I’m here and there and all over the place writing whatever takes my fancy. The resulting draft is more seamless, the scenes transition more smoothly, and small details are less likely to be overlooked. I’m totally immersed in my story.

They say it takes six weeks to develop a new routine: three weeks to break old habits, and another three to establish new ones. Give yourself six weeks, starting today. Who knows, by the time we reach the New Year, you may be firmly in the Routine is my Friend camp.

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A deleted scene from A Meeting With Murder: Miss Gascoigne Mysteries Book 1

/ Caron Allan / 2 Comments

This week, I’m away so I thought I’d do a quick and easy (for me haha!) post: It’s a deleted scene from A Meeting With Murder: Miss Gascoigne Mysteries Book 1 which is one year old!!!!!!!

In this scene my heroine and amateur detective Dee Gascoigne is trying to teach a few words of French to a rather well-to-do lady, Meredith Prescott so that she can greet her guests in their own language. Meredith, however has horrible attitudes to people from other nations and doesn’t really see why she should bother…

‘If you like, I could teach you a few basic phrases. It’s actually quite easy to learn just a few words to welcome your visitors. Then you could feel that you’d at least tried to meet them halfway. You know, get things off to a good start.’

‘Oh I don’t know…’Meredith said, wrinkling her nose. ‘I mean, really… It seems an awful faff to go through for a bunch of foreigners.’

Dee said nothing. Whether her feelings were there in her expression or Meredith really was interested, she didn’t know. But after a moment, Meredith said,

‘Oh go on, then, if it really is that easy, I suppose a few words in French can’t hurt.’

‘What? Now?’ Dee queried.

‘Yes, why not. It’s pleasant enough sitting here, and we’ve got to talk about something, haven’t we? Go on, try me.’

‘All right.’ Dee thought for a second, then decided to start with the absolute basics.

‘Let’s start with an easy one. Bonjour. It literally means ‘good day’ but can be used at any time during the day to greet someone. Just think of it as a way of saying hello. So let’s try it. Bonjour.’ She beamed encouragingly at Meredith.

Meredith was immediately sulkier than a whole class of fourteen-year-olds. Yet it had been her idea, after all. Dee could feel her smile freezing on her lips as Meredith said, with no effort to copy the accent or tone at all, ‘Bon jaw.’

‘Not bad for a first attempt,’ Dee lied. ‘Not bad at all. Let’s try it again. Watch my lips as I say it and try to copy the sound. The J is a softer j than we usually use in English. Think of the sound of the second g in garage, or the g in the word menage, also a French word. More of a Bonjour. Bonjour.’ She emphasised the J in the word.

‘Bon jaw,’ Meredith repeated, exactly the same as before.

‘Nearly.’ Dee made an effort to sound bright and encouraging. It was too ridiculous that Meredith already looked cross and bored.

‘I thought that was perfectly fine,’ Meredith snapped. ‘What else?’

Dee decided that most French people would probably decipher ‘bon jaw’ so she said, ‘At the end of the day, as a greeting or as a way to say goodbye to your guests, one would say ‘bon soir’. Bon soir.’

‘Bon saw,’ Meredith immediately responded.

Through gritted teeth, Dee said, ‘Not bad. Let’s have another go. Think of how you say the word Soirée, another French word. Bon soir. Soir. Bon. Soir. Bon soir.’

‘Bon saw,’ said Meredith without any effort, and yawned.

It was all Dee could do not to roll her eyes. ‘Excellent,’ she lied, thinking, who am I kidding, she’ll never use anything I teach her anyway. She’d rather die than learn something useful. She decided to make one last sally before giving up entirely.
‘Now, you’ll probably want to introduce yourself. So you might say, ‘Je suis Mademoiselle Prescott’, that is to say, I am Miss Prescott. Or you could say, ‘Je m’appelle M’selle Meredith Prescott’, which means…’

‘Oh stop, stop, stop!’ Meredith was holding up a hand, then she pressed it to her temple, frowning as though her head was aching with the effort. ‘This is all going far too quickly. You must remember that I’m a complete beginner.’

‘Yes, of course, Meredith, but if you’ll just…’

‘No! I will not be badgered in this way. It’s all too much. You’ve got to go slowly. I thought you knew how to teach?’

Dee apologised.

‘Anyway,’ Meredith added, ‘As I’ve said before, these foreigners really ought to learn to speak proper English before they come to our country. It’s bad enough just having them here, and all the extra work that makes.’

Dee sighed. Clearly the lessons were at an end.

Don’t forget – book 2 in this series, A Wreath of Lilies is available now to pre-order (eBook only, sorry) and is released on November 10th in eBook, Paperback, Large Print Paperback and Hardback editions.

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