Liner Notes for The Enigma Of The Generous Ex
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Lacey’s ex-boyfriend Jack was always going to be someone she met on the job. After all she doesn’t do anything except investigate mysteries. I toyed with the idea of making him a rival, possibly from a larger firm of private detectives, or even a policeman. None of that quite worked, so I put him in the clean-up business.
Of course they got together while solving crimes (as I said, Lacey doesn’t do anything else). Which means that both Jenny and Jack were formerly Lacey’s partners in crime (solving) as well as friends. I’m just layering the betrayal onto the betrayal...
There’s no point in getting hung up on that kind of thing. Lacey’s a private detective. She sees more complicated, more tragic, more sordid and unpleasant things every day as part of her profession. Allow me to put it this way; she forgives better than she forgets. She needles Jack during the case, because she’s petty and she can (and he’ll take it, the residue of guilt he feels makes him stand still for it). But of course she comes through, she solves it, and she offers him the chance to be involved at the end.
The bit about awkwardly trying to figure out whether to handshake, kiss or hug may have aged poorly what with COVID-19 suggesting all three would be bad. But I left it in because it was the best bit in the story. That’s right, I wrote 5000 words of crime and detection just to set up a bit of business about how to say goodbye to someone you used to love.
Lacey decides it’s an inside job because it’s always an inside job, and also because no one breaks into a safe on spec (“Oh old school! I found a safe.” Parker, The Homecoming Job, S1E2 Leverage). Safecracking is a specialised job. Unless a criminal knows there is a safe they won’t bring the skills and equipment (laying them open to a charge of going equipped if caught) to open it, and they won’t do that unless they know what’s inside is worth their while. The safe being open meant they had information on the contents. And if they have intelligence of that sort, then they probably have a contact who works there. Hence, an inside job.
The clock is based on a wedding present that my parents have. I was fascinated by the spinning balls of the pendulum as a child. It ran down pretty quickly and faster and faster so they would only wind it on their wedding anniversary, and eventually it wouldn’t keep time at all so they stopped winding it. There’s no metaphor here, it’s just a clock that doesn’t work. After doing the research on this story I now realise that it probably needs a new spring.
The white port and golden raspberry plants are real ruby wedding anniversary gifts.
Lacey solves this one pretty easily. She puts together a list of known criminals who might have a reason to want to look at Jack’s files (or just generally have a grudge), and looks for those who might have been away for a while, delaying their actions. Then she compares it to a list of those who work in Jack’s office and looks for connections. She claims she knows in advance, but really, she merely suspects. She tells Jack she knows to wind him up and has to run with it in front of Mrs Wallace.
Mrs Wallace’s reaction to Teddy the dribbly child is based on how various women of my acquaintance have greeted disgusting youngsters.
I say she solves it easily and she does, but then she deliberately makes it harder for herself. Taking the client on a night raid on a lockup with boltcutters. Absolutely a terrible plan.
This isn’t a play fair mystery I am afraid; you can’t solve it yourself. The restrictions of a wordlimit preclude that, especially if I’m really writing about relationships and how to say goodbye to someone. I know, it says detective story and I’ve given you a romance. Or the aftermath of a romance. Almost as though I’m shifting genres without any regard for their boundaries. It’s practically criminal.
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