Get swept away by Hollywood madness and mystery in Robert J. Harris’ latest release, Crescendo, where Bobby Burgoyne is tasked by Alfred Hitchcock to catch the killer set on stopping production of their latest film. In this extract, we follow Bobby on set as an enemy from his past makes an unwelcome reappearance.

Crescendo
By Robert J. Harris
Published by Birlinn Ltd

Things went swimmingly for the next few days. I worked like fury on the script and had the scenes ferried to Hitchcock as I finished them. He would send each one back with copious notes, but they were generally encouraging. We had the odd conference in his office, or, more rarely, he would drop by my trailer so that I could go on typing while he gave me plot advice. 

There was plenty to do. The twenty-page treatment was thoroughly overwritten by Hitchcock with suggestions about ideas that should be dropped and alternate plotlines that were only half explained. The chaos spilled over into the script, where the pages changed colour every time an amended scene or additional dialogue had been inserted. 

As well as having Melody accompany Lomax on his investigation, she was no longer just a spoilt girl who liked riding and playing tennis. She was now an aspiring concert violinist, the daughter of a rich and successful conductor and composer. How this was to be woven into the plot had not been explained, but I set my coffee-fuelled brain to work on this and other problems. Further down the line Hitchcock wanted a scene in a Las Vegas casino and a river-raft chase down the rapids of the Grand Canyon.  

At the end of that first week, I received a visit from a man nobody wants to see. I was so busy at the keys that when I heard a rap at the door I just called out, ‘Yeah!’ without looking round. Then I heard that raspy voice say, ‘You look busy, copy boy.’ 

And I knew exactly who had come calling. 

Roy Spitzer was a walking infestation, who dressed in padded suits to hide his scrawny physique. He was a bookie, a loan shark and a partner in a couple of nightclubs. He had his finger in a bunch of other pies that didn’t taste so good with his digit as part of the recipe. I had run into him a few times as I cruised the bars and clubs after a hard day on the mean streets with Slade Weston. Then an incident involving one of his girlfriends had left him steamed. 

I stood up to face him and decided that the best course was to play it casual. ‘Hello, Roy. It’s been a while.’ 

‘That’s right, Bobby,’ he growled. ‘I haven’t seen you in – well, since you decided to kill me.’ 

‘Kill you?’ I was genuinely bewildered. ‘I know we’re not exactly pals, but murder is a whole different ballgame.’ 

‘I was reading one of your stories and I read in it how a bookie gets waxed after beating up his girl.’ A sneering curl of the lip exposed Spitzer’s rodent teeth in a way that made you want to run and hide all the cheese. ‘So I’m thinking, That’s supposed to be me – that bum with the French name is planning to rub me out.’ 

Spitzer had always been highly strung, but now one of the strings had finally snapped. 

I drew a deep breath. ‘Roy, I wrote that long before I’d even met you.’ 

His rat-like snarl tightened. ‘So what, are you psychic? Maybe you got a crystal ball or something?’ 

‘Look, Roy, I never put real people into my books,’ I explained as reasonably as possible. ‘Those characters are all made up, just like the stories. All you’re seeing is a coincidence.’ 

Suddenly, as if by magic, his right hand was no longer empty. He was pointing a gun at me. His beady eyes fixed me with a hard glare and under his needle nose his toothbrush moustache was bristling. 

I swallowed once and did my best to make it subtle. ‘Come on, Roy, you can’t really believe I’m plotting to kill you.’ 

‘Oh, I always suspected it,’ Spitzer insisted grimly. ‘But then I read your book, so now I know. Bet you’re sorry you ever picked up a pencil.’ 

He cocked the pistol and I felt my heart stop. 

It was at this moment that the Master of Suspense entered the room. Hitchcock gazed blankly back and forth between us, as though he had just walked in on a bickering couple. 

‘I’m terribly sorry. Am I interrupting something?’ 

Roy’s eyes fixed on the famous director and the hard gleam softened to an almost childlike delight. ‘Don’t I know you from TV? Yeah, that profile. You’re that guy – Alfred Hitchcock.’ 

‘For my sins,’ Hitchcock acknowledged humbly. 

Spitzer beamed unsettlingly. ‘Say, you’re a pretty smart cookie, aren’t you?’ 

‘Some would say otherwise, but I would agree that I’m nobody’s fool.’ 

‘Sure you’re not. Take a seat. We’ll have a little talk.’ 

I could hardly believe it when Hitchcock sat down on the couch and placed his hands on his knees with the mildest of expressions on his face.  

‘Hitch!’ I exclaimed. ‘He’s got a gun. He came here to shoot me.’  

Crescendo by Robert J. Harris is published by Birlinn Ltd and is available now, priced £9.99