Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

One of the challenges the police face when they’re investigating a crime is that witnesses aren’t always helpful. I don’t mean witnesses who lie (although there are some who do); rather, I mean witnesses who truly believe they heard or saw something but turn out to be wrong. Sometimes, people swear they heard something, saw someone, etc., but they’re mistaken. It’s frustrating for investigators, but it can be very helpful for crime writers, as there are all sorts of possibilities for ‘red herrings,’ plot twists, and more.

In Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Boscombe Valley Mystery, James McCarthy is arrested for the murder of his father Charles. The two were overheard having a loud argument shortly before the murder, and there are no other really viable suspects. Still, James’ fiancée Alice Turner is convinced that he is innocent. She asks the police to re-investigate, and Inspector Lestrade asks Sherlock Holmes to look into the matter. In the course of the investigation, Holmes interviews James, who says that his father had some strange last words. As it turns out, James misunderstood what his father said, and it’s not until Holmes works out what was really said that the case is solved.

Agatha Christie used this plot point of witnesses misunderstanding what they hear and see in several of her stories. In Murder in the Mews, for instance, Barbara Allen is found dead in her room the morning after Guy Fawkes Day. Her roommate Jane Plenderleith calls the police, and Chief Inspector Japp works with Hercule Poirot to solve the case. In the process, they speak to people who live nearby and might have seen or heard something. One witness mentions something, but it turns out that that witness was misled. Once Hercule Poirot works out the truth, we see why the witness was so sure of what had happened. You’re right, Christie fans, there are so many more examples, aren’t they? It’s hard to choose one that won’t turn out to be a spoiler…

In Edmund Crispin’s The Moving Toyshop, Richard Cadogan returns to Oxford very late one night. He’s feeling a little restless, so he takes a walk and soon finds himself outside a toyshop. On impulse, he tries the door and finds it unlocked. He goes inside  and then upstairs where he finds the body of a woman. He tries to leave, but is knocked unconscious. When he comes to, he finds himself in a grocer, and the body he is certain he saw is gone. He’s sure that what he saw at first was a toyshop, but now he’s not convinced he can trust his own eyes. So, he visits his friend, Oxford don Gervase Fen. Together, the two of them investigate to find out who the dead woman was, who killed her, and what happened to the toyshop.

Being overly sure of what you’ve seen or heard can have tragic consequences. In Candice Fox’s Crimson Lake, we are introduced to former Sydney police detective Ted Conkaffey. He was accused, arrested, and imprisoned for the abduction and rape of Claire Bingley. After eight months of investigation, the police couldn’t find enough evidence to make a conviction stick, so Conkaffey was released from prison. But he wasn’t acquitted, so at any time, he could be imprisoned again, and he’s now widely hated, as you can imagine. With help from his lawyer, he’s moved to the small town of Crimson Lake, where he’ll be working for Amanda Pharrell, who is a private investigator. They’re soon caught up in the case of famous author Jake Scully. He went missing and hasn’t been found, and his wife wants to find out the truth about his presumed death, so she can benefit from his will. As the two search for answers in this case, we also learn about their pasts. We learn that Conkaffey is innocent, but that there were witnesses who were too sure of what they saw to consider that they might have been wrong.

Sometimes, it’s actually criminals who are wrong about what they see or hear. For instance, in Colin Dexter’s Death is Now My Neighbour, Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis investigate the death of physiotherapist Rachel James, who was shot through her kitchen window. They don’t make much progress at first, because there doesn’t seem to be any motive or viable suspect. Then, journalist Geoffrey Owens, who lived near the first victim, is shot. One possibility is that someone has a grudge against people who live in that particular area. But Morse and Lewis find that it’s actually a case of mistaken identity. The killer was sure that the first victim was Owens – until it came out that it wasn’t. Now, the detectives have to start over and find out who would have wanted to kill Geoffrey Owens. And it turns out that there’s more than one suspect.

Sometimes, witnesses and even criminals are absolutely sure of what they see or hear. The trouble is, no-one is perfect, and people can be, as the saying goes, fooled by their eyes and ears. That’s part of what can make police investigations so challenging.

*NOTE: the title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s Shades of Gray.