One Good Turn

The second novel in Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie series, following Case Histories, unfolds over four days during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Several strangers' lives become entangled after a violent road-rage incident on a crowded Edinburgh street.

On Tuesday, a man traveling under the alias "Paul Bradley," a covert professional operative, brakes to avoid a pedestrian, and his stationary Peugeot is rear-ended by a blue Honda Civic driven by Terence Smith, Graham Hatter's personal enforcer, an aggressive Englishman who attacks Bradley with a baseball bat. Martin Canning, a mild-mannered fifty-year-old crime novelist who writes under the pseudonym "Alex Blake," intervenes by throwing his laptop bag at Smith, then accompanies the injured Bradley to the hospital. Gloria Hatter, the fifty-nine-year-old wife of corrupt property developer Graham Hatter, witnesses the incident from a nearby queue. Jackson Brodie, a forty-seven-year-old ex-soldier, ex-police officer, and ex-private detective living in restless retirement in France, sees the attack from outside the venue where his girlfriend Julia, an actress, is performing in a Fringe play. He gives Martin his phone number but leaves without making a statement, though he mentally notes the Honda's registration.

Martin writes old-fashioned detective novels featuring a 1940s female private detective named Nina Riley. Temperamentally passive, he is haunted by a secret guilt: On a tour of St. Petersburg, he met a young Russian woman named Irina. After a night of drinking, she demanded payment for sex. When Martin refused to hand over his Rolex, Irina lunged for it, tripped, struck her head, and died. In a panic, Martin pushed her body out his seventh-floor window into a builders' dumpster. He has carried the guilt ever since, convinced that cosmic justice is catching up with him.

At the hospital, Martin begins opening a black box from Bradley's holdall but is interrupted by a nurse. When Bradley is discharged, Martin accompanies him to a cheap hotel called the Four Clans. There, he opens the box and discovers, beneath a golfing trophy and a false bottom, a Welrod, a single-shot silenced pistol historically used by special forces. His violent father, a career soldier, once owned one. Martin resolves to leave, but an overwhelming exhaustion overtakes him. He wakes the next morning to find Bradley gone, along with his wallet, cash, and the Memory Stick containing his novel-in-progress, Death on the Black Isle.

Meanwhile, Jackson walks out to Cramond Island, a tidal island near Edinburgh. On the rocks, he discovers the body of a young woman with crucifix earrings and a pink business card tucked in her bra reading "FAVORS, WE DO WHAT YOU WANT US TO DO!" He tries to pull the body from the rising tide but nearly drowns. Detective Inspector Louise Monroe, a sharp thirty-eight-year-old single mother raising her teenage son Archie alone, investigates but remains skeptical. When police divers find nothing, the case stalls.

That evening, Gloria learns that Graham has had a heart attack in a hotel room while with a Russian woman named Tatiana, who works as a professional dominatrix under the alias "Jojo." Tatiana gives Gloria a pink Favors card. Gloria intercepts a phone call revealing Graham plans to leave her for his saleswoman and mistress, Maggie Louden. Gloria has been preparing: For six months she has withdrawn five hundred pounds a day from their joint account, amassing over seventy thousand pounds hidden in her wardrobe.

On Wednesday, Terence Smith, Graham Hatter's personal enforcer, goes to Martin's house intending to kill him. Richard Mott, a fading comedian staying as Martin's houseguest, answers the door. Smith mistakes Mott for Martin and beats him to death with the baseball bat. Sophia, a Czech maid from the Favors cleaning agency, discovers the body and pockets one of Martin's Russian nesting dolls. The police initially misidentify the victim as Martin because Mott is wearing Martin's stolen Rolex. When Martin returns and finds his house cordoned off, he is questioned extensively, but his alibi sounds implausible and he withholds information about the Welrod.

That night, Smith ambushes Jackson in a dark alley and sets his rottweiler on him. The dog drops dead of a heart attack before reaching Jackson, who is arrested, charged with assault, and fined. Jackson and Louise begin comparing notes: Louise has obtained a Favors card from a dead sex worker with Eastern European dental work.

Jackson tracks a Favors van to the agency's offices off the Royal Mile. When he returns with Louise hours later, the office has been stripped bare. That evening, at a Russian circus on the Meadows, Jackson encounters a young woman who resembles the dead girl. She holds him at knifepoint backstage, tells him to stop interfering, and says her friend worked for Favors. She cryptically mentions "Real Homes for Real People," Graham Hatter's company slogan, and says "Ask for Jojo" before vanishing.

On Thursday, Martin calls Jackson for help, feeling hunted. Jackson accompanies him to a Book Festival event, where Tatiana approaches and reveals herself as the woman from the circus. She provides a photograph of her dead friend Lena, a twenty-five-year-old from Kiev killed on Graham Hatter's orders because she planned to report his criminal operations to the police.

Gloria makes a deal with Tatiana, who produces a Memory Stick taken from Graham's pocket after his heart attack. It contains evidence of massive corruption, including Graham's co-ownership of Favors with his business partner Murdo Miller. Gloria cracks the password, "Ozymandias," from a Shelley poem she once gave Graham, and Tatiana begins transferring money into a Swiss account Gloria can access as a company director.

Jackson and Martin drive to the Hatter house, where several storylines collide. Jackson impersonates a police officer to gain entry. Inside are Gloria, Tatiana, and Pam Miller, Gloria's acquaintance and Murdo Miller's wife. Terence Smith arrives enraged, smashes through the French windows, and attacks Jackson. From outside, Martin, who has somehow obtained the Welrod, walks across the lawn and shoots Smith through the heart. Louise arrives moments later, having traced the Honda to a Hatter company. Jackson persuades her to let him leave. She then receives a distressed call from Archie, whose cat has died, and departs.

That evening, Jackson discovers a positive pregnancy test. He assumes the baby is his, but Julia tells him it is not, and their relationship ends.

On Friday, Gloria and Tatiana fly to Geneva and withdraw Graham's hidden fortune in bearer bonds, splitting the proceeds. En route to the airport, Gloria distributes her stash of cash on the doorsteps of a Hatter Homes estate. At a Geneva café, she receives a voicemail confirming Graham's death. Tatiana has vanished. Gloria resolves to use her share to right wrongs, styling herself as "Cosmic Justice."

The novel's final chapter reveals Paul Bradley completing his true assignment: He infiltrates the intensive care unit and kills Graham Hatter by injecting air into his ankle vein, then leaves a voicemail: "Congratulations, Mrs. Hatter. Our business is concluded." Lena's body washes up at Cramond; forensic evidence from Hatter's car confirms Jackson's account. Smith is linked to Mott's murder through trace evidence. Sophia discovers Martin's stolen Memory Stick inside the nesting doll she took from the murder scene. Martin enters a catatonic state. Jackson, having driven south toward London, turns around at Scotch Corner and heads back to Edinburgh, unable to abandon the man who saved his life.