A Twitter Novelette by Philip Kerr
In September 2009, Philip Kerr traveled to Barcelona, Spain, to receive the third annual Premio Internacional de Novela Negra RBA (RBA International Prize for Crime Writing) for his book If the Dead Rise Not.
In 2010, the master of historical fiction returned to the awards ceremony in a completely unexpected way: contributing a brand-new work of crime fiction written specially for the event in the very 21st century form of 51 tweets, each a maximum of 140 characters. The original story, published over the course of 12 days leading up to the September 9 ceremony, was "tweeted out" in both English and Spanish on RBA's Twitter feed and had all the hallmarks of a Kerr mystery in miniature form. To add to the excitement, Kerr promised to reveal the ending of the story via the final tweets at the ceremony's glittering after party.
If you missed following along in September, you can read it here, tweet by tweet as originally released.
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#1: Buy some expensive Segunda Mirada sunglasses at Airport. My Spanish poor.
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#2: Did assistant say I have second sight or is that the brand name?
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#3: Back at the Rey Juan Carlos. Feel like I'm inside a Pink Floyd Album.
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#4: The floating magic mushrooms are hilarious. And always delicious.
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#5: Walking the landing to my suite on floor 11. View down to trip-like lobby gives me vertigo, almost. Hmm...
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#6: Careful with that axe Eugene.
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#7: Order drink in lobby. Read iPad. Is she a hooker?
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#8: Wait a sec. Up there. Looks like a man trying to push a woman over the edge of balcony. Run to elevator.
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#9: Go up onto 7 to investigate. But no sign of anyone being murdered.
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#10: Only the lovely Paula Cifuentes coming out of her room. I told Paula what I saw. She gives me funny look.
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#11: I walk to spot where I saw the non-murder takes place. No body in lobby. A hallucination?
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#12: Probably thinks I'm nuts. Which I am, of course. I must be nuts to come back here after last year.
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#13: I spend the afternoon by the pool. Too long in the sun probably. Not used to it.
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#14: Another hallucination. This time a man drowning a girl. I call Anik Lapointe and ask her to give me a doctor's number...
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#15: Just a touch of the sun I tell her. The doc gives me some pills. Feel much better.
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#16: It's these Segunda Mirada sunglasses. I'm convinced of it. Every time I'm wearing them I see something weird. A prophetic vision perhaps.
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#17: I leave the sunglasses in my room and enjoy a 'vision free' afternoon.
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#18: See Cristina Cuevas. She's wearing Segunda shades without a problem.
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#19: The evening of the party. Hooray! This year I can relax unlike last year when I was really on edge...
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#20: Speechmaking does that to people. Chatting to Jordi Marti who says they almost didn't have the prize this year...
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#21: ...after what happened last time. I don't understood him.
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#22: Really. I didn't think my speech last year was quite that bad. Christ. At least I made an effort.
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#23: I seek reasurrance from Laia Esque. Was I so bad? No, she says.
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#24: But it didn't help that you disappeared for a whole hour that night...
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#25: The Novela Negra prize is awarded. Lorenzo Silva y Francisco Gonzalez Ledesma say some nice things about the winner. Bastard.
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#26: This year's winner faces the press. Lots of flash lights. I turn away to find...
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#27: Carmen Alborch's fabulous necklace in my face. Wow! Dazzled, I put my sunglasses on and drift into the gardens...
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#28: ...where I have another vision. A man strangling a beautiful girl in red dress.
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#29: He leaves her lifeless body in the bushes. But when I remove the glasses, it's as if it never happened.
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#30: Scared, I throw the glasses away. I am convinced that something dreadful is going to happen.
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#31: That a serial killer is stalking at least 3 of the women here tonight.
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#32: Is that Oriol Bohigas? The famous architect? This is quite a party. Was it as starry as this last year?
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#33: Really, I remember very little about it.
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#34: Laura Santaflorentina appears at my shoulder looking fabulous as usual. I tell her of my suspicions. Suddenly she looks very alarmed.
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#35: Wait there, she tells me. She returns with the police. At last someone seems inclined to take my concerns seriously. Phew!
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#36: A detective listens patiently as I tell him I think that I have had a premonition.
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#37: Just like in that movie, Don't Look Now. A good friend of mine wrote that screenplay based on a Daphne Du Maurier short story...
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#38: Did I tell you I was married to her once?
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#39: This man in your vision, says the detective. Can you describe him please? Yes, I say.
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#40: "Black suit, white shirt, black tie. Tall. Dark hair. Ninety kilos..."
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#41: "...Swarthy. I don't mean to be insulting but he looked very Spanish to me."
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#42: And the women you think are going to be killed. Have you seen them here? Tonight? No, I say. Which is strange.
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#43: He shows me some pictures on his iPhone. Are these the women? Yes. They are. You're sure. Yes, I am.
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#44: Apparently all three women work for RBA.
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#45: No, wait a minute. I misheard what he said. He used the past tense. They worked for RBA.
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#46: Last year it seems, all 3 were murdered at this hotel. One murder took place while I was receiving my award.
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#47: I am arrested. No joke.
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#48: Odd that I shouldn't have remembered killing those girls. Then again, I did sort of remember. Didn't I?
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#49: It wasn't a premonition at all but a memory I've suppressed for a whole year.
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#50: Gosh. No wonder I didn't want to come back here.
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#51: THE END