A Novel Murder: A Dodie Fanshaw Mystery

By Marina Oliver

Murder in real time disrupts a writing course for aspiring crime writers. Felicity’s writing friend has to drop out of this week’s course at an idyllic Welsh hotel, where two contrasting writers are going to provide help and inspiration to 10 would-be crime novelists. Shy and uncertain of her talent, Felicity persuades Dodie to take up her friend's hotel booking, though she will not attend the course.

Billy is a popular writer of both contemporary and historical novels, while Mary writes literary fiction much admired by the cognoscenti. Susan, one of the students has already had a novel published. George is a former police detective, who seems to know Eddie rather well. Soon there are divisions between Mary's fans who aspire to her literary style and Billy's who aim for more popular novels.
Dodie and William's non-writing wife Phyllis watch from the sidelines as tensions arise.
Valerie's room is invaded one night, the truth about Susan's novel emerges, and then there is a real murder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Belgrave House
• Release date: Jan 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781947812338

Marina Oliver

Most writers can't help themselves! It's a compulsion. Getting published, though, is something really special, and having been so fortunate myself I now try to help aspiring writers by handing on tips it took me years to work out. I've published over 60 titles, including four in the How To Books' Successful Writing Series, and Writing Historical Fiction for Studymates.I have judged short story competitions, been a final judge for the Harry Bowling Prize and was an adviser to the 3rd edition of Twentieth Century Romance and Historical Writers 1994. If you want to find out more about your favourite authors, consult this book. I once wrote an article on writing romantic fiction for the BBC's web page, for Valentine's day.I have given talks and workshops for the Arts Council and at most of the major Writing Conferences, and helped establish the Romantic Novelists' Association's annual conference. I was Chairman of the RNA 1991-3, ran their New Writers' Scheme and edited their newsletter. I am now a Vice-President.As well as writing I have edited books for Transita, featuring women 'of a certain age', and for Choc Lit where gorgeous heros are the norm.I was asked to write A Century of Achievement, a 290 page history of my old school, Queen Mary's High School, Walsall, and commissioned to write a book on Castles and Corvedale to accompany a new circular walk in the area.Most of my Regencies written under the pseudonym Sally James are now published in ebook format as well as many others of my out of print novels which my husband is putting into ebook format. Our daughter Debbie is helping with designing the covers. For details of all my books and my many pseudonyms see my website.

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OLIVER

Author Note

I have attended, and often been a tutor at, many writing courses for aspiring novelists, but fortunately none where murder has intruded. None have been like this one, so anyone planning to go on such a course can assume this is pure fiction.

CHAPTER 1

Dodie Fanshaw glanced from the window. Had this endless rain stopped yet? It seemed to have been deluging for weeks, and they hadn't been April showers.

A woman was just descending from a taxi a few yards past her house. She was holding an umbrella, but she looked up at the sky and kept it furled while she paid the driver. As she turned away a lad on a skateboard crashed into her, sending them both flying. The lad recovered first, grabbed his skateboard, and then bent down to pick up the purse the woman had dropped before racing away.

Dodie glared after him. All she could describe would be a brown jacket with a hood, and a guess at his age around twelve. She hurried to the front door, and ran down the few steps to help the woman to her feet. She was younger than Dodie, about thirty, Dodie estimated, but a little taller and with curly blonde hair, greeny blue eyes and a pretty, small-featured face.

'Are you hurt?' Dodie asked as she helped the woman to her feet.

She shook her head and bent to retrieve her umbrella. 'No, thanks, just shocked. But my coat has suffered,' she added, glancing ruefully at her wet and dirty garment, a pale cream raincoat now smeared with mud.

'It will clean. Best leave it to dry.'

'At least it saved my dress,' she said, pulling open the coat to reveal a dark blue skirt and paler top, 'though my tights are ruined.'

'Come in and have a cup of tea. You live next door, don't you? I think I've seen you before.'

Dodie ushered her in, helped her remove the wet coat, showed her into the cloakroom to tidy herself, and called to Jean, her housekeeper, to make tea. Then they went into the drawing room and Dodie sat her visitor near the gas fire.

'I know it's May, but in such miserable weather we need a cheerful fire, as well as central heating. Not that gas is like a real old-fashioned log fire, unfortunately, but we're not permitted that in London.'

The room was warm, but Dodie liked comfort and was wearing an old tweed skirt and a sweater her mother had knitted for her which, like all her mother's knitting, seemed to have developed a will of its own rather than following a pattern. Compared with the other woman's chic, obviously expensive clothes, she felt unusually drab. And, she reminded herself, she didn't care a penny what other people thought of her.

The woman was shivering, more from shock than cold, but she gave Dodie a grateful smile.

'You've lived here for some time?'

Dodie nodded. 'Several years. I'm Dodie Fanshaw. But I think you are new?'

'I've been here for two months only, and I haven't met many neighbours. They all seem to be out at work. I'm Felicity Constantine.'

'What was in your purse? Anything with your name and address on? Do you need to notify credit card companies and so on?'

Felicity shook her head. 'Fortunately I had just cash. I'd been to the salon, and only take cash there.'

'House keys?'

'Yes, but would a kid like that try to use them? He didn't seem very old from what little I saw of him.'

'You never can tell.'

'But he might not realise where I live. Especially if he hung around and saw me come in here. He's hardly likely to go trying every door in the street.'

She was clearly attempting to convince herself. Dodie wondered whether she knew London, had lived here before. In a wealthy area like this they were perhaps at greater risk than elsewhere.

'He's bound to have older brothers or pals,' she warned. 'But if you've lost your keys how can you get in? We don't leave a spare under the doormat.'

Felicity looked apprehensive. 'My daily woman is still there. But I think perhaps I would feel safer if I had the locks changed. I live on my own now.'

'I know a good locksmith. Would you like to ring him?'

* * *

It became a habit for Dodie and Felicity to have coffee together and occasionally go to the theatre. They had similar tastes, comedy rather than avant garde.

'We lived in North London, but I moved here to be closer to the theatres, after my husband died last year,' Felicity explained. 'In fact, I tried to write a stage play, but it's so difficult, and there are so few openings. Now,' she added with an embarrassed laugh, 'I'm trying my hand at a novel.'

'A novel? What sort?'

'A crime novel. Not a police procedural, that's too difficult since I don't know any friendly policemen to tell me how they do things, and they always seem to be full of technical details. A private eye is a lot easier.'

'You wouldn't ask advice from the policeman who came after that young thug knocked you down?'

Felicity shook her head and gave a rueful grin. 'He was so young, and so contemptuous, said they hadn't time to go chasing after unknown lads who had accidentally bumped into me.'

'And stolen your purse. Wasn't that of interest to him?'

'That, I gathered, was firstly my own fault for dropping it, and secondly such a theft was irrelevant in this big wicked city where far more important crimes merited his expert attention,' she said wryly. 'Besides, he implied, if I lived in such an expensive neighbourhood, I could afford the loss of a few pounds. He'd only be interested in me if I had been murdered.'

Dodie thought briefly of her daughter Elena's husband, a senior policeman, but swiftly decided he would not appreciate being asked to help a novice writer.

'So it's what they call a private eye? Your novel? Man or woman? Miss Marple type, or someone more up to date?'

'Modern. A woman who gets drawn into it against her will. A bit like me, I suppose.' She laughed, rather embarrassed. 'Someone who doesn't have a job or family to occupy her, so has plenty of freedom to go chasing villains.'

'Is she going to be in future books?'

'If by some miracle I could get the book published I might do another using her.'

'How is it going?'

'I'm quite happy with the first chapter, but don't know where to go now. I've introduced the main characters, and set up the situation, but I'm not sure how to go on after that. I began to go to a writers' group once a week when I moved here, I hoped there would be other crime writers there, who might give me ideas, but they are not very helpful. I'm beginning to think it's time wasted.'

Dodie thought back to the one time she had attended such a group, when involved in the murder of her daughter's neighbour, and shuddered. None of them, she'd realised, were there to help, but to show off their own scribblings. She wondered if all writers' groups were the same.

'What do they do?' she asked. 'Short stories and poetry, I guess.'

'Yes, and a few do articles They are not a great deal of help, I'm afraid, since they don't know what I need, and what they do occasionally force themselves to say isn't usually relevant. It's trivial comments, like when does she have time to do her shopping.'

Dodie laughed. 'How many are in the group, and what's the format?'

'There are ten of us, half who write poetry, and only one of the others is published, and she seems to write articles for small magazines. We read out something new we've written each week, which is supposed to keep us working hard, but there are wonderful excuses about why they didn't write anything, from too much to do at work, to a sudden lack of the muse. There's only one other woman, Greta, who is writing a novel. It's also a crime novel, so we at least have something in common. But hers is a historical, and some of the group keep pulling holes in it for accuracy. Really, I get more from the book group at the library, discussing published books.'

'Do the other writers make any helpful criticism?'

'Helpful? Oh no! I suppose, since none of the others are writing novels they haven't much interest, or,' she added with a sigh, 'much knowledge about what's needed and how to put it right. They usually say very nice, dear and move on to the next contribution. But I did have one comment last week.' She laughed. 'I'd put in a French phrase, and one woman, who writes little nature articles for a children's magazine, though they've never published any from all I've heard, asked if readers would be able to understand it!'

Dodie laughed. 'What was it?'

'C'est la vie. I said I thought most people who could read a whole novel would understand that from the context, even if they didn't speak French, and was accused of being elitist.'

'Oh dear! How long have you been going to this group?'

'Only since I moved here. The local librarian recommended it. But Greta and I are going to a writers' conference for a week soon, with two published crime writers leading it. That should be more help.'

* * *

'Who are the tutors? I don't read a great deal of crime, but I might have heard of them.'

'Mary O'Doyle and Billy Childs.'

Dodie shook her head. 'No, neither name rings any bells. What sort of books do they write?'

'Both have been published for years. O'Doyle writes deep psychological, moody books. I confess it took me a while to get through the last one.'

'That doesn't surprise me. I like my fiction fast and furious, not so difficult to understand that I have to stop and think.'

'Me too. She publishes one novel only every two years, unlike most authors who do one a year. But she gets rave reviews in the heavy literary magazines. Reviews I have almost as much difficulty reading as I do the novels. They - the reviewers - are all too clever for me!'

Dodie laughed. 'And they all see far more in the books than the rest of us do. Too clever? Or showing off?'

Felicity grinned. 'I daren't admit that in this reading group I go to, or people think I'm either jealous or dim. I keep my head down, especially when the books we read are selected by the librarians, and tend to be the so-called literary novels.'

'Are they chosen because the library has enough copies for all the group?'

'I expect so.'

'They probably all think the same as you, secretly. So do you think you'll gain much insight from O'Doyle?'

'I live in hope. Faint, but you never know. And she also works for a publisher, I believe, reading the typescripts submitted and commenting on them.'

'Isn't that dangerous, if she slams her competitors?'

'I suppose she might, but the publishers must trust her to pass on anything good.'

'What about the other tutor?'

'He's really why Greta and I wanted to go. He's Billy Childs, and he writes books I can gallop through. They are fun. He publishes two books every year.'

'Sounds my sort. I must try one.'

'I'll lend you one. He writes a police procedural, set in a small town in the West Midlands, not far from Birmingham, with mainly the same group of cops in each one.'

'That should be useful, if he knows his stuff.'

'I think he does. He's married to a top policewoman, so no doubt she helps him.'

'I wonder which came first, the crime books or the marriage?'

Felicity laughed. 'You are a cynic.'

'Always. Are all his books the same type?'

'No. He also writes historical crime, set in the seventeenth century, after the Restoration of Charles the second. They are great fun. The detective is one of the King's mistresses, an actress he sends out to investigate mysteries. They are not always murders.'

'An actress? Nell Gwynn? She's the only one I've heard of.'

'No, not Nell. This one is imaginary, but she can disguise herself as a man, and the stories are romps, just about believable. I'm hoping for more help from him than Miss O'Doyle.'

'How do they work? In this course, I mean.'

'It doesn't really explain in the literature I've been sent, as it's the first time they have had two tutors. I suppose they work together somehow. And we are all given assignments they will read and criticise. At least they will know what they are talking about, and we will get some knowledgeable feedback.'

'I hope one of these tutors helps you.'

* * *

Felicity was a widow. An exceedingly wealthy widow, as Dodie had soon discovered when she got to know her. She had a big house in an expensive part of London, and all her clothes, even the casual ones, seemed to come from top couture houses.

'My husband was a computer expert,' she told Dodie. 'He wrote software programs which were very popular.'

'Software?'

'To use on computers. They are still selling, and as I am still a partner in the business, I get some of the profits. As well as dividends from what Gregory invested in other companies. He said he put money into food and drink firms, as that was what people would keep on buying.'

Dodie laughed. 'True, but what are these software programs? Games?'

Felicity nodded. 'At first. They were the sort of computer games where children - and men, it seems - like to aim rockets at flying objects.'

'Like the coconut shies and so on at fairgrounds? I always suspected they were fixed so that no one could win.'

'People can win at these, but then, there are no prizes, just the satisfaction of winning.'

'Of beating the system?'

'Yes. Then he wrote some business things, for accounts and so on, but the most profitable has been a gambling site.'

Dodie frowned. She'd always thought gambling a mug's game. Look at all these big lottery winners who wasted their money, or whose lives went haywire when they couldn't manage their new wealth. The win didn't seem to make them happier. It often destroyed their lives.

'Gambling? On horse racing?'

'That was the first thing. On the big races here like the Derby and the National. Now its racing all over the world, and betting on other sports too. Like the results of football or cricket matches, even how many goals or runs, and how many particular players score. Any combination, any figure, is possible.'

Dodie shook her head. She could not understand the compulsion some people had to risk their money in such a fashion. The occasional fling on a national lottery, perhaps, when people bet a pound or two, was understandable, and the millions they might win helped daydreams, but too many people, she suspected, gambled more money than they could afford and their families lost out.

Felicity must have caught her expression. 'You think the way I get my money is immoral?'

Dodie hastened to reply. 'No. Gambling is legal, and you didn't set it up anyway. If it gives people hope, or pleasure, let them do as they wish.'

'That's how I justify it. But I do give a lot away. Most of the profits from the gambling site, in fact.'

She was looking distressed, and Dodie tried to reassure her. 'I'm not making judgements.'

Felicity nodded. 'I know. Though the gambling site makes a lot of money, more than any single other program, most of the profits come from the other games, or Gregory's investments elsewhere.'

'Tell me about your novel,' Dodie suggested, to change the subject.

Felicity sighed. 'I'm stuck,' she confessed. 'I think I have started well. The murder is about to be