Fan Mail Read online

  Contents

  Fan Mail

  About the Author

  Also by Peter Robinson

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  FAN MAIL

  THE LETTER ARRIVED one sunny Thursday morning in August, along with a Visa bill and a royalty statement. Dennis Quilley carried the mail out to the deck of his Beaches home, stopping by the kitchen on the way to pour himself a gin and tonic. He had already been writing for three hours straight and he felt he deserved a drink.

  First he looked at the amount of the royalty check, then he put aside the Visa bill and picked up the letter carefully, as if he were a forensic expert investigating it for prints. Postmarked Toronto and dated four days earlier, it was addressed in a small, precise hand and looked as if it had been written with a fine-­nibbed calligraphic pen. But the postal code was different; that had been hurriedly scrawled in with a ballpoint. Whoever it was, Quilley thought, had probably got his name from the telephone directory and had then looked up the code in the post office just before mailing.

  Pleased with his deductions, Quilley opened the letter. Written in the same neat and mannered hand as the address, it said:

  Dear Mr. Quilley,

  Please forgive me for writing to you at home like

  this. I know you must be very busy, and it is

  inexcusable of me to intrude on your valuable time.

  Believe me, I would not do so if I could think of any

  other way.

  I have been a great fan of your work for many

  years now. As a collector of mysteries, too, I also

  have first editions of all your books. From what I

  have read, I know you are a clever man and, I hope,

  just the man to help me with my problem.

  For the past twenty years, my wife has been making

  my life a misery. I put up with her for the sake

  of the children, but now they have all gone to live

  their own lives. I have asked her for a divorce, but

  she just laughed in my face. I have decided, finally,

  that the only way out is to kill her and that is why

  I am seeking your advice.

  You may think this is insane of me, especially saying

  it in a letter, but it is just a measure of my desperation.

  I would quite understand it if you went

  straight to the police, and I am sure they would find

  me and punish me. Believe me, I’ve thought about

  it. Even that would be preferable to the misery I

  must suffer day after day.

  If you can find it in your heart to help a devoted

  fan in his hour of need, please meet me on the

  roof lounge of the Park Plaza Hotel on Wednesday,

  August 19, at two p.m. I have taken the afternoon

  off work and will wait longer if for any reason you

  are delayed. Don’t worry, I will recognize you

  easily from your photo on the dust jacket of your

  books.

  Yours, in hope,

  A Fan

  The letter slipped from Quilley’s hand. He couldn’t believe what he’d just read. He was a mystery writer—he specialized in devising ingenious murders—but for someone to assume that he did the same in real life was absurd. Could it be a practical joke?

  He picked up the letter and read through it again. The man’s whining tone and clichéd style seemed sincere enough, and the more Quilley thought about it, the more certain he became that none of his friends was sick enough to play such a joke.

  Assuming that it was real, then, what should he do? His impulse was to crumple up the letter and throw it away. But should he go to the police? No. That would be a waste of time. The real police were a terribly dull and literal-­minded lot. They would probably think he was seeking publicity.

  He found that he had screwed up the sheet of paper in his fist, and he was just about to toss it aside when he changed his mind. Wasn’t there another option? Go. Go and meet the man. Find out more about him. Find out if he was genuine. Surely there would be no obligation in that? All he had to do was turn up at the Park Plaza at the appointed time and see what happened.

  Quilley’s life was fine—no troublesome woman to torment him, plenty of money (mostly from American sales), a beautiful lakeside cottage near Huntsville, a modicum of fame, the esteem of his peers—but it had been rather boring of late. Here was an opportunity for adventure of a kind. Besides, he might get a story idea out of the meeting. Why not go and see?

  He finished his drink and smoothed the letter on his knee. He had to smile at that last bit. No doubt the man would recognize him from his book-­jacket photo, but it was an old one and had been retouched in the first place. His cheeks had filled out a bit since then and his thinning hair had acquired a sprinkling of grey. Still, he thought, he was a handsome man for fifty: handsome, clever and successful.

  Smiling, he picked up both letter and envelope and went back to the kitchen in search of matches. There must be no evidence.

  •

  OVER THE NEXT few days Quilley hardly gave a thought to the mysterious letter. As usual in summer, he divided his time between writing in Toronto, where he found the city worked as a stimulus, and weekends at the cottage. There he walked in the woods, chatted to locals in the lodge, swam in the clear lake and idled around getting a tan. Evenings, he would open a bottle of Chardonnay, reread P. G. Wodehouse and listen to Bach. It was an ideal life: quiet, solitary, independent.

  When Wednesday came, though, he drove downtown, parked in the multi-­story at Cumberland and Avenue Road, then walked to the Park Plaza. It was another hot day. The tourists were out in force across Bloor Street by the Royal Ontario Museum, many of them Americans from Buffalo, Rochester or Detroit: the men in loudchecked shirts photographing everything in sight, their wives in tight shorts looking tired and thirsty.

  Quilley took the elevator up to the nineteenth floor and wandered through the bar, an old-­world place with deep armchairs and framed reproductions of old Colonial scenes on the walls. It was busier than usual, and even though the windows were open, the smoke bothered him. He walked out onto the roof lounge and scanned the faces. Within moments he noticed someone looking his way. The man paused for just a split second, perhaps to translate the dust-­jacket photo into reality, then beckoned Quilley over with raised eyebrows and a twitch of the head.

  The man rose to shake hands, then sat down again, glancing around to make sure nobody had paid the two of them undue attention. He was short and thin, with sandy hair and a pale grey complexion, as if he had just come out of hospital. He wore wire-­rimmed glasses and had a habit of rolling his tongue around in his mouth when he wasn’t talking.

  “First of all, Mr. Quilley,” the man said, raising his glass, “may I say how honored I am to meet you.” He spoke with a pronounced English accent.

  Quilley inclined his head. “I’m flattered, Mr. . . . er . . . ?”

  “Peplow, Frank Peplow.”

  “Yes . . . Mr. Peplow. But I must admit I’m puzzled by your letter.”

  A waiter in a burgundy jacket came over to take Quilley’s order. He asked for an Amstel.

  Peplow paused until the waiter was out of earshot. “Puzzled?”

  “What I mean is,” Quilley went on, struggling for the right words, “whether you were serious or not, whether you really do want to—­”

  Peplow leaned forward. Behind the lenses, his pale blue eyes looked sane enough. “I assure you, Mr. Quilley, that I was, that I am e
ntirely serious. That woman is ruining my life and I can’t allow it to go on any longer.”

  Speaking about her brought little spots of red to his cheeks. Quilley held his hand up. “All right, I believe you. I suppose you realize I should have gone to the police?”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I could have. They might be here, watching us.”

  Peplow shook his head. “Mr. Quilley, if you won’t help, I’d even welcome prison. Don’t think I haven’t realized that I might get caught, that no murder is perfect. All I want is a chance. It’s worth the risk.”

  The waiter returned with Quilley’s drink and they both sat in silence until he had gone. Quilley was intrigued by this drab man sitting opposite him, a man who obviously didn’t even have the imagination to dream up his own murder plot. “What do you want from me?” he asked.

  “I have no right to ask anything of you, I understand that,” Peplow said. “I have absolutely nothing to offer in return. I’m not rich. I have no savings. I suppose all I want really is advice, encouragement.”

  “If I were to help,” Quilley said, “if I were to help, then I’d do nothing more than offer advice. Is that clear?”

  Peplow nodded. “Does that mean you will?”

  “If I can.”

  And so Dennis Quilley found himself helping to plot the murder of a woman he’d never met with a man he didn’t even particularly like. Later, when he analyzed his reasons for playing along, he realized that that was exactly what he had been doing—playing. It had been a game, a cerebral puzzle, just like thinking up a plot for a book, and he never, at first, gave a thought to real murder, real blood, real death.

  Peplow took a handkerchief from his top pocket and wiped the thin film of sweat from his brow. “You don’t know how happy this makes me, Mr. Quilley. At last I have a chance. My life hasn’t amounted to much and I don’t suppose it ever will. But at least I might find some peace and quiet in my final years. I’m not a well man.” He placed one hand solemnly over his chest. “Ticker. Not fair, is it? I’ve never smoked, I hardly drink, and I’m only fifty-­three. But the doctor has promised me a few years yet if I live right. All I want is to be left alone with my books and my garden.”

  “Tell me about your wife,” Quilley prompted.

  Peplow’s expression darkened. “She’s a cruel and selfish woman,” he said. “And she’s messy, she never does anything around the place. Too busy watching those damn soap operas on television day and night. She cares about nothing but her own comfort, and she never overlooks an opportunity to nag me or taunt me. If I try to escape to my collection, she mocks me and calls me dull and boring. I’m not even safe from her in my garden. I realize I have no imagination, Mr. Quilley, and perhaps even less courage, but even a man like me deserves some peace in his life, don’t you think?”

  Quilley had to admit that the woman really did sound awful —worse than any he had known, and he had met some shrews in his time. He had never had much use for women, except for occasional sex in his younger days. Even that had become sordid, and now he stayed away from them as much as possible. He found, as he listened, that he could summon up remarkable sympathy for Peplow’s position.

  “What do you have in mind?” he asked.

  “I don’t really know. That’s why I wrote to you. I was hoping you might be able to help with some ideas. Your books . . . you seem to know so much.”

  “In my books,” Quilley said, “the murderer always gets caught.”

  “Well, yes,” said Peplow, “of course. But that’s because the genre demands it, isn’t it? I mean, your Inspector Baldry is much smarter than any real policeman. I’m sure if you’d made him a criminal, he would always get away.”

  There was no arguing with that, Quilley thought. “How do you want to do it?” he asked. “A domestic accident? Electric shock, say? Gadget in the bathtub? She must have a hair curler or a dryer?”

  Peplow shook his head, eyes tightly closed. “Oh no,” he whispered, “I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything like that. No more than I could bear the sight of her blood.”

  “How’s her health?”

  “Unfortunately,” said Peplow, “she seems obscenely robust.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Forty-­nine.”

  “Any bad habits?”

  “Mr. Quilley, my wife has nothing but bad habits. The only thing she won’t tolerate is drink, for some reason, and I don’t think she has other men—though that’s probably because nobody will have her.”

  “Does she smoke?”

  “Like a chimney.”

  Quilley shuddered. “How long?”

  “Ever since she was a teenager, I think. Before I met her.”

  “Does she exercise?”

  “Never.”

  “What about her weight, her diet?”

  “Well, you might not call her fat, but you’d be generous in saying she was full-­figured. She eats too much junk food. I’ve always said that. And eggs. She loves bacon and eggs for breakfast. And she’s always stuffing herself with cream cakes and tarts.”

  “Hmmm,” said Quilley, taking a sip of Amstel. “She sounds like a prime candidate for a heart attack.”

  “But it’s me who—­” Peplow stopped as comprehension dawned. “Yes, I see. You mean one could be induced?”

  “Quite. Do you think you could manage that?”

  “Well, I could if I didn’t have to be there to watch. But I don’t know how.”

  “Poison.”

  “I don’t know anything about poison.”

  “Never mind. Give me a few days to look into it. I’ll give you advice, remember, but that’s as far as it goes.”

  “Understood.”

  Quilley smiled. “Good. Another beer?”

  “No, I’d better not. She’ll be able to smell this one on my breath and I’ll be in for it already. I’d better go.”

  Quilley looked at his watch. Two-­thirty. He could have done with another Amstel, but he didn’t want to stay there by himself. Besides, at three it would be time to meet his agent at the Four Seasons, and there he would have the opportunity to drink as much as he wanted. To pass the time, he could browse in Book City. “Fine,” he said, “I’ll go down with you.”

  Outside on the hot, busy street, they shook hands and agreed to meet in a week’s time on the back patio of the Madison Avenue Pub. It wouldn’t do to be seen together twice in the same place.

  Quilley stood on the corner of Bloor and Avenue Road among the camera clicking tourists and watched Peplow walk off towards the St. George subway station. Now that their meeting was over and the spell was broken, he wondered again what the hell he was doing helping this pathetic little man. It certainly wasn’t altruism. Perhaps the challenge appealed to him; after all, ­people climb mountains just because they’re there.

  And then there was Peplow’s mystery collection. There was just a chance that it might contain an item of great interest to Quilley and that Peplow might be grateful enough to part with it. Wondering how to approach the subject at their next meeting, Quilley wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and walked towards the bookshop.

  •

  ATROPINE, HYOSCYAMINE, BELLADONNA . . . Quilley flipped through Dreisbach’s Handbook of Poisoning one evening at the cottage. Poison seemed to have gone out of fashion these days, and he had only used it in one of his novels, about six years ago. That had been the old standby, cyanide, with its familiar smell of bitter almonds, which he had so often read about but never experienced. The small black handbook had sat on his shelf gathering dust ever since.

  Writing a book, of course, one could generally skip over the problems of acquiring the stuff—give the killer a job as a pharmacist or in a hospital dispensary, for example. In real life, getting one’s hands on poison might prove more difficult.

&n
bsp; So far, he had read through the sections on agricultural poisons, household hazards and medicinal poisons. The problem was that whatever Peplow used had to be easily available. Prescription drugs were out. Even if Peplow could persuade a doctor to give him barbiturates, for example, the prescription would be on record and any death in the household would be regarded as suspicious. Barbiturates wouldn’t do, anyway, and nor would such common products as paint thinner, insecticides and weed killers —they didn’t reproduce the symptoms of a heart attack.

  Near the back of the book was a list of poisonous plants that shocked Quilley by its sheer length. He hadn’t known just how much deadliness there was lurking in fields, gardens and woods. Rhubarb leaves contained oxalic acid, for example, and caused nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. The bark, wood, leaves or seeds of the yew had a similar effect. Boxwood leaves and twigs caused convulsions; celandine could bring about a coma; hydrangeas contained cyanide; and laburnums brought on irregular pulse, delirium, twitching and unconsciousness. And so the list went on —lupins, mistletoe, sweet peas, rhododendron—a poisoner’s delight. Even the beautiful poinsettia, which brightened up so many Toronto homes each Christmas, could cause gastroenteritis. Most of these plants were easy to get hold of, and in many cases theactive ingredients could be extracted simply by soaking or boiling in water.

  It wasn’t long before Quilley found what he was looking for. Beside “Oleander” the note read, “See digitalis, 374.” And there it was, set out in detail. Digitalis occurred in all parts of the common foxglove, which grew on waste ground and woodland slopes, and flowered from June to September. Acute poisoning would bring about death from ventricular fibrillation. No doctor would consider an autopsy if Peplow’s wife appeared to die of a heart attack, given her habits, especially if Peplow fed her a few smaller doses first to establish the symptoms.

  Quilley set aside the book. It was already dark outside, and the downpour that the humid, cloudy day had been promising had just begun. Rain slapped against the asphalt roof tiles, gurgled down the drainpipe and pattered on the leaves of the overhanging trees. In the background, it hissed as it fell on the lake. Distant flashes of lightning and deep rumblings of thunder warned of the coming storm.