The policeman, I forget his name already – Masters? Marsden? – reclines in his seat and regards me with a gaze that is probably intended to be intimidating but can only be described as ‘cute.’ It’s true what they say about the police looking younger as you age.
“Tell me about your conversation with Gina Montrose on Monday,” he says. “You were overheard talking about Marco Conti.”
I study my steaming cardboard cup. Dare I take a sip? It could buy me some thinking time or cost me a burnt mouth. I leave it.
“It wasn’t what it seemed,” I say.
How to explain the immersive writing exercise that Gina and I have practised for years, that helps us deeply inhabit our characters?
On the day in question, it was Gina’s turn to come in character. We’d arranged to meet in The Mad Hatter’s Café to work through her protagonist’s lack of motive for a murder in chapter three.
I arrived early, making polite conversation with my hairdresser, Melinda, while I stirred too much sugar into my coffee. She was counting out change onto the counter with pink, square-tip nails, struggling to grip each coin and giggling whenever she dropped one. The barista made no attempt to hide his annoyance, but this was lost on Melinda, who was more intent on telling me about Alex being sacked from the hairdresser’s than on noticing the growing queue behind her. Gossip is Melinda’s main source of sustenance, and the reason that I’d not been for a haircut in months.
When Gina walked in, I excused myself and grabbed our usual table.
“Why are you plotting to kill Marco?” I said, jumping straight in.
I’d come up with the name ‘Marco’ for her, so-called after my (awful) boss. Coincidentally, the real Marco has since been murdered too, but I wasn’t to know that.
Gina adjusted her fake glasses. Nice touch, I thought.
“I have a list,” she said. “I was planning to end our affair, but he’s just left his wife!”
“Shit,” I said, taking a sip of coffee and wincing at the sweetness.
“So,” she continued, “1. I’m stuck with him now. He has two whiney children and he’s not as rich as I thought. 2. My family will disown me when I’m labelled a ‘homewrecker,’ and I’m relying on that inheritance. 3. If I dump him, he’ll leak my secret. That secret. And 4. The guy’s a horrible misogynist. This is the only way out, and he deserves it. Also, I need to do it before he mentions my name.”
The similarity to the real Marco was uncanny, but that’s beside the point. You can understand how suspicious this must have sounded to Melinda, seated at the adjacent table. You couldn’t write it. Well, you could. In fact, once this comical misunderstanding is resolved, it’ll make a great premise for a novel. Gina will probably think the same and do it first, as usual.
Unless…
“It’s true, officer,” I sigh. “She confessed.”
