Moonflower Murders: A Novel

Lisa confronts Susan, saying that as her investigations have been unsuccessful, she should leave. Susan asks if Lisa’s parents know she was sleeping with Stefan before she fired him. Lisa agrees to allow Susan to stay for two more days.

Susan realizes she wants to return to Crete and Andreas but hopes to solve the case first. Still suspicious of Eloise, she calls the agency Knightsbridge Nannies. Susan learns that Eloise was a receptionist at McCann Erickson, the advertising agency where Frank Parris also worked.

Susan confronts Martin and Joanne Williams, revealing that she knows Frank was forcing them to sell Heath House. She also calls Martin out on his lie, explaining that Frank could not have seen the marquee on the morning of the wedding. Martin insists Frank must have made a mistake and asks her to leave.

Next, Susan visits the Brambles, the small, run-down cottage where Derek Endicott lives with his mother. Gwyneth Endicott has emphysema, and her friendly manner is nothing like that of Phyllis Chandler. Susan asks Derek about the day when he overheard Cecily calling her parents. He tells her that no one else was around apart from Eloise Radmani. Derek also admits that he was distressed on the night of Frank’s murder as he recognized that George Saunders was his old principal. Derek was bullied at school, and Saunders humiliated him in front of his classmates. Susan feels guilty that she allowed Alan’s cruel distortion of Derek and his mother to be published.

Susan confronts Katie, revealing she knows that her sister has consulted a divorce solicitor. Katie admits that Gordon has left her for his young secretary. The children have been badly affected by the news, and they must sell the house. When Susan returns to the hotel, she calls Andreas, but he does not answer.

In the hotel reception, Susan recognizes Alan Conway’s ex-wife Melissa. When Susan mentions meeting Lionel Corby in London, Melissa refers to the personal trainer as Leo. Melissa admits that she saw Frank Parris at Branlow Hall and disliked him for his role in introducing Alan to young, gay men. Their conversation is interrupted when someone calls reception, claiming that Susan’s MGB is blocking them in. Susan goes outside, and Andreas appears, pushing her out of the way as a stone owl sculpture crashes to the ground.

Andreas explains that Susan’s emails went to their computer’s spam. As soon as he discovered them, he flew to England. Andreas declares that if Susan wants to return to publishing, he will move back to London for her. However, Susan assures him there is nothing left for her in England, and she would be content to work as a freelance editor in Crete. Andreas observes that Branlow Hall is more luxurious than the Polydorus, but Susan asserts the Cretan views are more beautiful. As she looks out the window, she sees Martin Williams getting into his car.

The next day, Susan visits Stefan Codrescu in prison. Stefan reveals that Cecily wrote to him the day before her disappearance. She stated that she knew who killed Frank Parris from the “very first page” of Atticus Pünd Takes the Case (538). Stefan claims that Locke persuaded him to confess to Frank’s murder despite his innocence. Locke contended that the evidence against him was damning and said Stefan would receive a lighter sentence for admitting to the crime. Stefan states that he would kill himself but that he has one reason not to.

Stefan recalls events on the night of Frank Parris’s death. He felt tired after drinking a couple of glasses of wine at the party. As soon as Lionel Corby helped him to his room, he fell into a deep sleep, only waking at 8:30 the next morning. Stefan describes how Lisa coerced him into a sexual relationship and then threatened to claim he was a thief when he stopped complying. Susan mentions that Lionel saw him having sex in the woods with Lisa two weeks before Frank’s death. Momentarily taken aback, Stefan states this was his last liaison with Lisa. Susan knows he is lying. On the drive back, Susan tells Andreas she has worked out who killed Frank Parris.

Susan returns to Heath House. She tells Martin Williams that she knows he did not kill Frank Parris, despite his attempts to make Joanne believe otherwise. Susan suggests that Martin was tired of being dominated and controlled by his wife. He saw Frank’s murder as an opportunity to make Joanne perceive him as potentially dangerous. Martin also intended Susan to believe that he was trying to kill her when he pushed the stone owl from the hotel’s roof. Martin confirms that he did not intend to hurt Susan, and Andreas punches him as they leave.

Susan admits that she criticized the denouement of Atticus Pünd Takes the Case when all the suspects gathered. Nevertheless, she summons Lawrence and Pauline Treherne, Aiden MacNeil, Eloise Radmani, Lisa Treherne, Detective Superintendent Locke, and Andreas to Branlow Hall’s lounge. Susan runs through various possible scenarios she considered in investigating Frank’s murder. She suggests that Melissa may have blamed Frank for the end of her marriage or that Frank recognized Lionel Corby as Leo, a former sex worker, when he arrived at the hotel. She also points out that Eloise worked at the same company as Frank in London and suggests that the nanny’s husband may have contracted AIDS from having sex with Frank. However, she ultimately dismisses these theories.

Susan reveals that Cecily had a sexual relationship with Stefan. Although Stefan tried to conceal this fact during the prison visit, she realized that Lionel Corby mistook Cecily for Lisa in the woods. When Stefan revealed he had only one thing to live for, she also realized that Roxana was his daughter. Cecily’s claim that she knew the identity of Frank’s killer from the first page of Conway’s novel referred to the book’s dedication to Frank and Leo. Cecily was profoundly influenced by astrology, illustrated by her study of horoscopes and her decision to call her dog after a constellation. When she first met Aiden on his birthday, she realized that her own star sign, Sagittarius, was compatible with Aiden’s Leo. Her instinct that they were made for each other seemed to be confirmed by the tattoo of the Leo symbol on Aiden’s shoulder.

Susan states that Aiden first met Frank Parris when he was working as an estate agent in London and boosting his income with sex work. He met his gay clients at an empty flat in Mayfair for which he had the keys. In her recorded interview with Alan, Cecily mentioned that Frank seemed to be sneering at them and emphasized how he was looking forward to The Marriage of Figaro. Susan explains that Mozart’s opera is about a sadistic nobleman, Count Almaviva. The Count uses his “droit de seigneur” (an ancient feudal right to have sex with one’s subjects) to sleep with his wife’s maid, Susanna, on the night before she marries Figaro. Recognizing Aiden as the former sex worker Leo, Frank tried to recreate this scenario, blackmailing Aiden into having sex with him the night before he married Cecily. During the strange handshake Cecily observed, Frank handed Aiden his room key. That night, at the party, Aiden spiked Stefan’s drink with the same sleeping pills Cecily had taken. Once Cecily and Stefan were soundly asleep, Aiden went to Frank’s room, posing as Stefan with his toolbox. He ensured that Derek glimpsed him by pricking Bear with the figeen pin, making him yelp. After beating Frank to death with a hammer, Aiden placed a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door as he did not want the discovery of the body to prevent the wedding from going ahead. He entered Stefan’s room, planted Frank’s money under the mattress, and, using Cecily’s missing fountain pen, transferred Frank’s blood to Stefan’s clothes.

Alan Conway also recognized Aiden as Leo. When Cecily saw the dedication in Atticus Pünd Takes the Case, she realized the truth, calling her parents from the hotel as she did not want Aiden to hear. However, Eloise overheard and told him. Aiden could not get a copy of Conway’s book due to booksellers’ supply issues. However, he guessed that Cecily knew the truth, intercepted her on her dog walk, and killed her. He took some of Cecily’s clothes to the charity shop to explain the DNA left by her body in the trunk of his Range Rover.

Aiden suddenly springs into action as Susan concludes her explanation. He stabs Locke in the neck with the figeen’s pin, smashes through the French windows, and disappears into the grounds.

Locke suffers a punctured carotid artery from Aiden’s attack and narrowly escapes death. Meanwhile, Susan and Andreas take a room in a different hotel until they can return to Crete. They receive payment from Lawrence Treherne, who reveals that Aiden died by suicide after escaping by throwing himself in front of a train. However, before doing so, he mailed a letter to Lawrence. Stefan will soon be released from jail, and the Trehernes have offered their support to him and recognition that he is Roxana’s father.

Susan reads the letter Aiden sent to Lawrence. It reveals he never liked his parents-in-law and found them condescending. Aiden describes growing up in a deprived area of Glasgow. When he was 17, he moved to London, hoping to profit from his good looks and charm. While he envied the wealth surrounding him in London, the jobs he got paid little until he turned to sex work. Aiden clarifies that he was not gay, and he says his clients disgusted him; still, sex work was far more profitable than working as an estate agent. When he met Cecily, he was not attracted to her but saw an opportunity to exploit her for a better life, craving her family’s money and social status. He framed Stefan for Frank’s murder as he knew Cecily was sleeping with him. Aiden describes how he dug Cecily’s grave on the night before he killed her and explains that he strangled her with a stocking. He reveals that he buried her on track 12—a carved arrow on a tree trunk points to her grave.

Susan and Andreas return to Crete, and Katie visits them. Susan works part-time for Penguin Random House. The extra money allows them to hire more staff at the Polydorus.

Susan realizes that Alan did not openly expose Aiden MacNeil as Frank’s murderer, as it would have laid bare his own personal life. He had not yet come out as gay, and the revelation that he paid young sex workers would have conflicted with the “wholesome” image of the Atticus Pünd books.

Susan continues to scour Atticus Pünd Takes the Case, convinced she must have missed other clues in the text. Finally, she realizes that there are numerous allusions to the name “Leo” in the form of lions. The pub is named the Red Lion; the church is dedicated to St. Daniel (of the lion’s den); and Clarence Keep recalls the movie Clarence, the Cross-Eyed Lion. Further, Melissa’s dog, Kimba, is a chow, known as a “puffy lion dog” (589); The Wizard of Oz poster is signed by Bert Lahr, the actor who played the Cowardly Lion; and the MGM logo on Melissa’s cigarette box is a roaring lion. Nancy Mitchell reads The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to the Collins children; Algernon’s Peugeot bears the insignia of a prancing lion; and the LMR 57 steam engine was also known as “Lion.” Susan also realizes that the name Leo is embedded in that of Melissa’s killer, Leonard Collins. Meanwhile, the second murderer, Madeline Cain, is an anagram of Aiden MacNeil.

Andreas says that Susan has allowed Alan Conway’s literary games to consume her long enough. He takes her to the Cave of Zeus, where she offers Alan’s books to the gods by burning them.