Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

“As I told you last night, I knew you weren’t writing for yourself. You looked a bit worried that I’d figured it out at first, but at the time, of course, I thought you were Erica Mathison. You seemed relieved when I told you this, which I thought was a natural response after holding such a big secret for so long, but it was really because you thought your secret was still protected. After all, the scheme only has value if no one knows about it, as you told me. You were only too happy to confess to being Erica when I prompted you, not knowing Wolfgang was the real thing, to keep me off the scent. But, even if I was wrong about that, the clues are the same. The way you act is all developed from never being in the spotlight. And Harriet’s always trying to boost you up, make you recognize those achievements. That frustrated you—I assume the confidentiality clause in your contract is drum-tight, and so that was why you often tried to quiet her. You told me Harriet wants you to write under your own name, and maybe once that was your dream too. Your first novel came out in two thousand and nine, and the New York Times review compared you unfavorably to McTavish, whose books you were also writing. Despite the fact that Harriet had praised the fifth McTavish book, one you wrote, in two thousand and six, so highly that the blurb is still used on his covers. There’s that tattoo simile again—your voice is not something you can hide. You sound like you, and you can’t shake it, even though the world believes that you is someone else. But that review, that was what broke you. That was when you stopped pursuing your own voice and decided you were happy at the back of the room. You also did something no writer should ever do: you responded to the review.”

Simone physically winced. Jasper had told me this himself: Bad reviews are part of being a writer . . . I got one once, wrote to the reviewer.

“You told Harriet the truth in your response, didn’t you? That you thought her review was unfair because you were Henry McTavish. I’m assuming that confession led to your first meeting.”

Harriet nodded as Jasper explained. “I wanted to apologize. She thought it might be a great scoop, and I needed to beg her to keep it quiet. We got coffee. And, suddenly, such little things didn’t matter anymore.”

“She’s your biggest supporter,” I said. “Has been since she discovered you were the real McTavish, trying to give you the credit that even she, back in that review, hadn’t given you. So while you’re trying to shrug off the attention, Harriet could never resist the occasional flattery. Or a dig at the truth. She asked McTavish on the panel where he got his ideas. She told me you’d sold just as many books as McTavish. An easy enough statement to pass off as a general brag, but she was very specific: your sales were McTavish’s sales. And when I asked her if she was a fan of McTavish, Harriet said she was a big fan of his books. Not of the author. Of the books. Your books.”

Jasper turned to glare at Harriet. I remembered his anger when she’d told me these things, the friction between them. She wanted him to take center stage, but he was happy, or so he said, in the wings. Harriet squeezed his shoulder. Hard to tell whether it was in fear or apology.

“But the clues didn’t just come from Harriet. McTavish writes all his books on a typewriter, one single copy of the manuscript, supposedly to protect against spoilers, but really he doesn’t want the metadata of the true author to exist, evidence of the computer it’s written on. Supposedly he finished Life, Death and Whiskey on the train and hand-delivered it to Wyatt, but he doesn’t have a typewriter in his room. And, of course, there’re Jasper’s callused hands—from working on an old machine. There’s also the panel, back at the very start of this.”

I recalled McTavish slurring, slightly drunk, confusing The Night Comes with The Dawn Rises, brushing off not knowing which book came first: There are so many release dates and formats and countries to keep track of it’s easy to get muddled.