PenWomanShip

I am a crime writer. I am a crime writer sick and tired of it...worn down by the blood and deceit, the conniving and trickery of the criminals in all my books. As each manuscript reaches the publisher, I think: That's it, that's the last. But Gus won't let me alone.

Augustus Crabbe - probably not his real name, a self-styled detective, a third generation Hercule Poirot - keeps feeding me, hounding me with material. Crimes so heinous and irresistible in their ingenuity and design, their wit and brilliance, I can't turn away from them but must tap, tap, tap at the keyboard in a writing frenzy so as not to miss any of the vital details or nuances important to the reader's hold on the narrative thread.

He sends information by email. By fax if I avoid the computer for days on end. He sends newspaper clippings and police photographs through the post. Although I try to ignore the bulky post-bags I cannot last more than a day without ripping into the package, pouring myself a fortifying scotch and laying out the contents on the living room floor, beginning to piece together the gruesome jigsaw puzzle he has sent to keep me in his thrall.

More than once I have gathered up the fragments in a rage at the enormity of the evil perpetrated on this earth, and moved to throw them into the open fire, but the novelist within can't bear to waste the material, vital and original in its authentic horror, and I begin once again to tell the story of the victim, the villain and the discovering detective. For this is what the pay-off must be for Augustus, he is the hero, the avenging angel, the cleverer than thou opponent of the criminal. And the readers share this thrill. There is vicarious pleasure to be found in both the crime and the sleuthing.

It has been profitable, of course. The roomy thatched cottage within an easy commute to London; the shiny motor in the drive; the annual trip to Barbados...but it is a lonely life, without my wife who packed up our daughters fifteen years ago and left in desperation, having been of necessity shut away from my life and work, and the evil lurking in the piles of notebooks, photographs and envelopes in my study. I lock it all away, in many filing cabinets, and hide the keys.

So we go on together, Gus and I, in our collaboration, cataloguing and describing a litany of crimes, man's inhumanity to man. And to woman, and to child, to beast and to international corporation. He will drop by in person these days, and sit in the twilight smoking with me, tossing around motive, alibis and the reliability of witnesses. Me sitting in my worn flowered linen chair, chosen by my wife all those years ago, now worn grey and speckled with tea stains from my afternoon cuppa. Him lounging on the leather sofa beneath the window. Once he even stayed the night. There are plenty of spare rooms in this palace of enforced bachelorhood. But only the once - normally he is off to the airport in a hurry or called away by the beep of his mobile phone.

Why does Augustus Crabbe supply me with all this information? Why am I the mouse in his trap? He says he read an article of mine in The Examiner and liked my style - the unsentimentality and intelligence underlying the prose. So he chose me to be the vehicle of his expression - wanting the world to know of his work and the evil that most of us are oblivious to in our daily round of eating, shopping, working and loving.

I have tried to stop him coming, sending the stuff...but he is resolute in his mission to make the underworld known. I try to contact him with stern messages requesting no more material be sent, but he is untraceable, uncontactable. He supplies no phone number. If I reply to his email, it comes back "undeliverable". Postmarks on packages are indecipherable, faxes come from untraceable numbers. 'What if I need you?' I ask.

'Never mind, old chap,' he replies mildly. 'I'll always find you.'

Mrs Henderson comes in daily to "see" to me. She cooks a casserole, prepares a cold lunch, washes and tidies. Loopy, the basset hound whose basket lies empty beside the kitchen door, went to the neighbours when I went on a month's holiday. He liked them much more than me and never came home. In a kind of ironic recompense their aloof black and white cat adopted me in return, and she sits on the wide windowsill in the sun where my wife's porcelain animals once stood in a row - sunning herself and watching out the diamond paned casement window, or if the weather is bad she curls in front of my fire. Mrs Henderson now buys sardines instead of dog biscuits in the weekly shop, and all is well.

Occasionally a photograph arrives from Australia. My wife remarried a real estate agent and lives on the Gold Coast. Photographs show slim, tanned young women who are unrecognisable to me, nothing like the downy haired, dimple chinned babies I remember who were my daughters. I suppose they gain some pleasure from name-dropping, their father the crime writer whose novels are adapted by the BBC and shown, in English and in sub-titles, all over the world. But they aren't interested in seeing me. I'm the source of monetary support tucked away in the curiosity cupboard with the thatched cottages and field mice of their storybooks. And it is better that way.

So Gus and I go on - putting together evidence and narrative and explaining the criminal mind. And the public is fascinated, paying good money for the sanitized version of the evil that the publishers will allow. Because I can't give the full revolting horror Gus provides to me, that is locked in my filing cabinets. The censor has come a long way but there are still limits to what the public stomach can handle.

On days like today, overwhelmed by the sheer pointlessness of the evil, I turn away from the computer, lock the front door and head across the fields breathing in the revitalising, cleansing, fresh country air. I always pause and wait for Loopy to come, before remembering his defection. The cat does not like to walk, so I set off alone.

Rambling down the shady laneway, green with overgrown hedges and wild violets, I turn away from the sign pointing to the village and climb the hill, where a rocky outcrop on the summit is warmed by the sun. It is a good place to sit and contemplate the sunset. But today, who should be there ahead of me, relaxed and at ease in his tweed jacket and cap, smoking a familiar pipe, but Augustus Crabbe.

'The evening called you out, too, old man?' he asks. 'I've got a picnic here if you want a bite.' Beside Crabbe is a hamper with thermos, sandwiches, fruit. Sighing, I take a red apple and a knife and begin to peel the fruit.

'Dreadful business, this last case, don't you think?' he asks. 'Anything involving a child upsets me, but a whole family...truly diabolical, wouldn't you say? I've brought photos and the coroner's report for you,' - indicating a brown envelope protruding from the hamper.

My respite not merely interrupted but hijacked in this detestable manner I am ruthless with the apple and plunge the blade into the juicy core, flicking out the seeds. The knife is sharper than I thought and I nick my thumb in the process. I suck the wound to staunch the blood.

'Lucky to have come across you like this, old chap. I was coming to see you after my picnic, of course. But now we can ramble down together, get a pint or two at the pub and end up at your place, can't we? I've so much to tell you about the case. This one really eluded me til the last. I really thought it was the brother who...'

Maybe it was the sight of blood on my thumb or the sudden rush of the empowerment of a knife in my hand but as Augustus turned to survey the sun setting on the distant, purple hills I lifted the serrated blade and plunged it with all my might through the tweed between his shoulder blades. I gave it an extra thrust as his groan of surprise reached my ears. I did not care to see his wretched face but pushed him face down on the rocky outcrop. He was motionless. I could see his blood seeping onto the ground, darkening the pebbly grit and the moss. I had the presence of mind to wipe the knife handle, still in situ, with a napkin from the basket. I had touched nothing else, except the apple that I had eaten. The peel and the seeds lay around the feet of Augustus together with his sandwich crumbs. There was no hound to follow me home, no farmer watching in these deserted fields.

I went home and let myself into the house, empty except for the cat thumping her tail on the windowsill. I took Mrs Henderson's casserole from the freezer and microwaved it. There were no messages on the answering machine, no faxes. While my food heated I cleaned my shoes thoroughly, top and bottom, and placed them in my suitcase. The case already held shorts and a straw hat, things I never wear except on holiday. I added a lightweight suit, shirts, underwear, and my shaving kit. I poured a scotch and soda, wrote a note to Mrs Henderson, logged onto my computer and booked a first class ticket to Australia departing at 9am next morning. Then, one by one, I deleted all email ever received from Augustus Crabbe.