Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

“You do. No one here’s any better than you are. You’re a good writer. You deserve to be here just as much as—”

“No. Jules. It’s not just here. I’m saying it feels like I don’t deserve any of this. Anywhere.”

She blinked in confusion and leaned forward. I had no choice but to keep talking, but I couldn’t look at her, so instead I stared out into the ink dark.

“Everyone who died . . . They didn’t do anything wrong. And I didn’t do anything special. So why am I here and they aren’t? I don’t deserve it over them. To sit on this train, to cash the royalty checks . . . I don’t deserve even—even this ridiculously expensive wine. It shouldn’t be me. Why is it me?”

“Oh, Ern.” Juliette didn’t say anything more, just sat in understanding, for which I was grateful, as I’d run out of words.

Writing it out now, I know why I felt so personally attacked by the other writers. We all have imposter syndrome sometimes, it’s not unique to novelists. No one is immune from trying to prove something to themselves. But here at the festival were five people who were trying to prove their worth creatively. And though it may seem like I was motivated by the same vanity, I was trying to prove something else: that when fate had decided that some in my family should die while I should live it hadn’t gotten it wrong.

My therapist gave me a name for it: survivor’s guilt. You don’t really see it that much in Golden Age mystery novels. The protagonists finish one book and then live in stasis before it all just starts again on page one of the next. There’s no cumulative impact of the sheer volume of death and violence they see; every crime doesn’t embed in their psyche, eat away at them at night. For all my wishes to be like those famous fictional detectives, I am haunted in a way they aren’t, asleep between when their authors pick up a pen. Miss Marple doesn’t have nightmares, is what I’m trying to say.

Having finally told Juliette, I felt a little better. The gentle rocking of the train helped lull me further, and our silence was comfortable. Most people had filtered out of the carriage, though Wyatt and Wolfgang were still there. Wyatt had what looked like a checkbook on the table and was tapping a pen on it. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but judging by Wyatt’s other hand curling the tablecloth and the pen not moving to create many zeroes, Wolfgang was not to be bought.

At last Juliette yawned. “I think I might pack it in. I want to get up early and catch the sunrise—Aaron says it’s once-in-a-lifetime stuff.” She nodded down the carriage. “Shall we?”

“I wish.” I grimaced. “I was hoping to bump into Simone in the bar. It’ll be quick.”

“Shit!” Juliette started patting herself down, despite the fact that what she was looking for would hardly fit in her pockets. “Her scarf! I left it behind at breakfast, completely forgot to give it back to her. Oh, damn. I’ll check if they have a lost and found in the morning, or maybe someone picked it up. Would you mind not mentioning it when you see her? Say I’m still using it. Not that I’ve lost it.”

I did mention Juliette’s forgetfulness would be a plot point. Here it is: a blue scarf changing hands. This grim pass-the-parcel ends in a corpse.

“So you are scared of her,” I gloated. She shot me a look that said, If you’re not going to help . . . , so I backpedaled. “At least it’s not going to go far. I won’t mention it. And I’ll try to be quick.”

“Not too late.” She kissed me. “And for what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here. Right here. With me.”

The froth from an espresso martini sailed off Simone’s top lip and onto my cheek as she spoke. “It’s not that big a deal, Ernie. Let it go.”

“It is to me.”

“What do you want me to do? If you had a problem with it, you shouldn’t have accepted Wyatt’s apology.”

“I didn’t know what it was for!”

“Then why’d you accept it?”

I huffed. “I was being polite.”

“And the polite thing to do now is to drop this whole thing before you embarrass yourself.”

I exhaled heavily through my nose, counted three breaths in and out. Simone was like cobblestones: I very rarely put my foot down firmly around her. But it had been a hard day and espresso martinis aren’t known for their defusing properties. If we served them at political summits, there’d be a world war every three months.

I straightened my posture and cleared my throat. “All right. I’m your client. I hired you. And I am asking you to act on my behalf on an issue that I believe will have a negative effect on my career. Okay?”

Simone took a second to weigh up the seriousness in my expression, then snorted. “If I’d known you had a backbone, Ernest, our friendship might have blossomed earlier.” She put a flat hand on my chest and gave it a condescending pat. “I’m not going to talk to Wyatt about it, no way, but I am proud of you.”

“But you did talk to him—a guest heard you arguing. So what you’re saying is not that you wouldn’t do it, but that it’s too hard and you’re giving up?”