Die Twice
Authors: Simon Kernick
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Contents
Part One: Introducing the Dead
Part Four: The Business of Dying
FOREWORD
by Lee Child
What's up with English crime fiction?
It's a question that gets asked with some regularity, and right nowâearly 2006âit's a newly relevant question, because our genre's Third Age is drawing inexorably to a close. A century ago the First Age was all about Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. In hindsight we see that the Second Ageâin full flower seventy years agoâwas codominated by Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. Then, perhaps thirty years later, the Third Age took over, with Ruth Rendell and P. D. James hitting their magisterial strides. For a hundred years, very little was published in the genre that didn't owe practically everything to one of those five authors. Sleuths that were amateur, or brainy, or aristocratic, or “more than” mere policemen, or eccentric, or unlikely, or who had arcane hobbies and enthusiasms ⦠we've been there and done that. And what a ride it was. But now, with the grand damesâliterallyâRendell and James on their last lap, what comes next?
Or, what's up with English crime fiction?
The same things that are up with England itself, really. Three factors are becoming increasingly massive over thereâthe nation is more than ever metrocentric, more than ever multicultural, and less than ever dominated by class.
England has in fact always been completely dominated by London. It's a small country with a huge capital city. It's a fact of life inside the country and out. People in the United States hear that I'm from England, and their next question is usually, “Which part of London did you live in?” But now the phenomenon is even greater than ever.
And London (and therefore England, remember) is now a huge ethnic mosaic, in my experience easily rivaling New York City for diversity. It's another fact of life, so well accepted now that it's no longer even worthy of notice or comment.
London is now an overwhelmingly middle-class city, which in traditional English terms means no class at all. Birth and accent mean very little there anymore. When I opened my first bank accountâtoo many years ago to happily contemplateâyou could pretty much guarantee that a bank manager would be white, from sturdy English stock, and educated at one of a narrow band of schools. Now you could pretty much guarantee that she wouldn't be any of those things.
The Fourth Age of English crime fiction writers grew up with these changes. They've internalized them. To their elders, class was always an issue. Stock, semicomic stereotypes were plucked from the lower orders and paraded for our smug amusement. Lord Peter Wimsey could quell a street riot with his accent alone. And wasn't he wonderful to accept a middle-class Scotland Yard Inspector as his brother-in-law! Faint but clear echoes of the same attitudes are clearly audible in the bucolic fantasy that is Kingsmarkham.
Fourth Age writers are past all that. That class is a dead issue is beyond taken for granted by them.
Their elders put people of color and non-English ethnicity into crime fiction from the start, but mostly as curiosities, often as villains, and never quite to be trusted. Fourth Age writers are past all that. Their casts of characters are as instinctively multicultural as the London phone book.
And their elders usually glamorized London itself: Scotland Yard was presented as an effortless center of excellence in comparison to dull provincial capabilities. “They've called in Scotland Yard” was as great an accolade as a rural crime could ever earn. Addresses in London were chosen for their glitter: Piccadilly and Belgraviaâor maybe Bloomsbury, if some real sense of edge was required.
Fourth Age writers are past all that. London is where life happens, nothing more, nothing less, on the outskirts, near the M25 Beltway, out at Heathrow, in parts we've never heard of, but should have.
Fourth Age writers have moved on. And we should move on with them. Perhaps with Simon Kernick in particular, because he might just be the best of them. I've read all his books, purely as a fan. They've got great plots, great dialogue, great action, and some spectacular violence. But what strikes me most is how they're rooted in a kind of effortless modern authenticity. They're real. They're what England is today. In fact, all the above musing was generated by one simple question I asked myself: “How does he
do
that?”
So, what's up with English crime fiction? Simon Kernick is, that's what.
The Business of Dying
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For Sally
Thanks to all those who helped in both the writing and the publication of this book.
You know who you are.
Part One
INTRODUCING THE DEAD
1
There's a true story that goes like this. A few years back a thirty-two-year-old man abducts a ten-year-old girl from the street near her house. He takes her back to his dingy bedsit, ties her to a bed, and subjects her to a brutal hour-long sex ordeal. It might have been a lot worse had the walls not been paper thin. One of the neighbours hears the screams, phones the police, and they come and knock the door down. The girl is rescued, although apparently she still bears the scars, and the perpetrator is arrested. Seven months later he goes on trial and his lawyer gets him off on a technicality. Apparently she takes the legal view that it's better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent one's imprisoned. He returns to the area where he committed the crime and lives the life of a free man. The lawyer gets her money, courtesy of the taxpayer, as well as the congratulations of her partners on a worthy performance. They probably even take her out for a celebration drink. Meanwhile, every parent in a two-mile radius of this guy is living in fear. The police try to defuse the situation by saying they'll keep a good watch on him, but admit there's nothing else they can do. As always, they appeal for calm.
Three months later, the girl's dad gets caught pouring petrol through the guy's letterbox. The police, for once, have been true to their word and are actually watching the place. He's arrested, charged with arson and attempted murder, and remanded in custody. The local newspaper sets up a campaign to free him and starts a petition that gets something like twenty thousand signatures. Predictably the powers-that-be ignore it, interest fades, and then, before his case comes to trial, the dad hangs himself in his cell. Is this the tale of a progressive, forward-looking society, or one that's about to go down the pan? You tell me.
But the moral of the story, that's easier. If you're going to kill someone, plan it.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
9.01 p.m. We were sitting in the rear car park of the Traveller's Rest Hotel. It was a typical English November night: dark, cold and wet. Not the best time to be out working, but who can choose their hours these days? The Traveller's Rest didn't look very restful at all. It was one of those modern redbrick structures with loud lighting, revolving doors, and that curse of modern times, a weekly karaoke night. The one thing going for it was the fact that the front car park had been shut for resurfacing. This meant our quarry would have to come round the back, away from the main entrance, and hopefully away from any stray civilians. Would they smell a rat? I doubted it. Not until it was too late anyway.
I hate the waiting. It's the worst part. It gives you too much time to think. So I lit a cigarette and took a long but guilty drag. Danny wrinkled his nose but he didn't say anything. He doesn't like smoking but he's not the kind to make a big deal about it. He's a tolerant sort. We'd been talking earlier about this case of the âalleged' paedophile and Danny had been the one supporting the lawyer's ten guilty-men argument, which was typical of him. And bullshit too. Why the suffering of many is seen as being preferable to the suffering of one is beyond me. It's like running a TV station where twenty million viewers want to see gameshows and two million want to see operas, and only showing operas. If the people who believed it ever ran a business, it'd go bust in a day.
But I like Danny. And I trust him. We've worked together a long time and we know each other's capabilities. And that, in our line of business, is the key.
He opened the driver's side window to let some air in and I shivered against the cold. It really was a shitty night.
âPersonally, I'd have gone after the lawyer,' I said.
âWhat?'
âIf I was that girl's dad, I would have gone for the lawyer rather than the rapist.'
âWhy? What good would that have done?'
âBecause there's an argument that the rapist couldn't help what he did, that his urges were just too much to handle. I'd still cut his balls off, but that's not the point. The point is, the lawyer had the choice not to defend him. She was an intelligent, rational woman. She knew what he'd done and still she did all in her power to put him back on the streets. Hers was therefore the greatest crime.'
âI don't understand that argument at all.'
âThe greatest evil in the world comes not from those who perpetrate it, but from those who excuse it.'
Danny shook his head like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. âJesus, Dennis, you're beginning to sound like some sort of Angel of Death. You want to calm down a little. It's not as if you're whiter than white yourself.'