Dying Words (A Ghostwriter Mystery)

by C. A. Larmer

  What did she have? She had an old man who may or may not have been blackmailing someone, and may or may not have been murdered.

  She had an old picture that may or may not be important, and may or may not have been stolen.

  And she had a daughter who was clearly a Daddy’s girl and was going to hunt down that missing shot of her father if it killed her. Roxy just hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  She opened her e-mail account and noticed a new message from Scott’s Scanners. Cheering up, she clicked on it but her good cheer didn’t last long.

  “Still no sign of your pic,” Phil had typed. “Here tis again. Attached. Let me know if you want to put compensation request through for missing image.”

  “I don’t want compensation!” Roxy hissed at the computer. “I want the original bloody picture!” Although why she wanted it, or more precisely, why Sondra wanted it, was still beyond her.

  She clicked on the attachment anyway, and watched the old photo come to life again in front of her eyes. What is it with this picture? she thought, magnifying it considerably. Down at the bottom she reread the names that had been typed indicating who was who, and noticed for the first time that Betty’s Christian name had been spelt out while the men were given initials. Was that sexism? Human error or inconsistency? Did it even matter?

  She moved her eyes to the table in front of the group, wondering if a clue lay there. There was a large book opened, but she couldn’t see what was on the pages, and below it, a white ink pad with what looked like brown leather corners. There didn’t seem to be anything written on that, at least not that she could make out. To the right was an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts, of course—smoking was practically compulsory back in those days—but nothing else. Behind the group was the bottom half of what was clearly a large map, probably of Indonesia, squiggly black lines indicating mountainous terrain and rivers. There was nothing else of note.

  Roxy opened a fresh e-mail, attached the picture and sent it to Sondra. Then she thought about what Sondra had said and skimmed through her address book. She was right. There was one person who probably had a very good idea why this picture was so important and could clear it all up in a matter of minutes. She picked up the phone again and dialled the home number of Sir Wolfgang Bergman.

  Wolfgang’s wife, Virginia—“Please, call me Ginny!”—answered in her half-English, half-Indonesian accent, and seemed surprised to find Roxy at the other end of the phone.

  “Oh, hello!” she said. “I thought you were all finished with my husband now.”

  “Very nearly,” Roxy fibbed. “I just need to fact-check a few names I have on a photograph for the book.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Can I speak with Sir Wolfgang?”

  There was a pause. “Now is not a good time, Roxanne. Perhaps you could e-mail him directly, and he’ll get back to you when he can.”

  “I’d just rather speak with him, if you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind, he’s not well, he’s bed bound at the moment.”

  That surprised Roxy; he’d seemed dangerously robust the last time they’d met. “I’m sorry to hear that. Is it something serious?”

  “Naturally, or he would not be bed bound,” she replied coolly. “I have to go. You have our e-mail, of course?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Thank you, Roxanne.” And she hung up.

  Roxy stared at the phone gloomily. She hoped Mr and Mrs Bergman weren’t going to be quite so taciturn with the media when the book came out. As a ghostwriter, Roxy was rarely allowed to get involved in the marketing process and had to rely on the client to sell the book for her. She had assumed that Wolfgang would be a great spruiker for sales, but not if ill health, and his buttoned-up wife, had anything to do with it.

  She turned back to her computer and clicked on Google. She was going to have to do this the hard way. Roxy placed the first name, the most familiar, into Google and began scanning for information. She knew it wouldn’t be easy and sure enough, within seconds she had millions of references to the word “Brownlow”. She narrowed her search by typing in “R.T. Brownlow”, “surveyor” and “Indonesia”, crossed her fingers and waited. But she didn’t hold her breath. Much of Roxy’s biography work involved researching the older generation and they were exasperatingly private. Unlike Generation Y, this group didn’t generally set up Facebook pages and pour their life stories out on blogs and websites for the world to see. They viewed the Internet with suspicion and it made her job so much harder.

  Today, however, she was in luck. Not only was R.T. Brownlow (aka Bob) a vivid presence on the web—he had a Facebook page and a website to boot—but he had also recently made the news and a stream of newspaper websites flashed in front of her eyes.

  She held her breath and clicked on the first archived article. It was a snippet from a free Eastern Suburbs newspaper, dated three weeks ago. It was not good news. Roxy read the headline quickly and nearly fell out of her chair.

  “Local man dies after mugging gone wrong.”

  She clicked on the story and brought the copy up, quickly scanning through the text as an unsettling mixture of excitement and foreboding began tingling through her veins.

  According to the brief report, an elderly Bondi Junction man named Robert “Bob” Brownlow was found brutally bashed on the street outside his terrace house, his wallet and a gold watch missing. A police spokesperson asserted that it was likely a mugging turned fatal.

  So that’s why his name had rung a bell!

  Roxy reached down towards her filing cabinet and pulled out her latest Crime Catalogue, a scrapbook that Oliver (and now Gilda, it seems) mockingly called her Book of Death. True crime was a quiet, inexplicable passion of Roxy’s and she spent many long Saturdays, cup in one hand, scissors in the other, snipping out the most interesting, obscure or baffling crime articles she’d read that week.

  There were now twenty-five books in her catalogue, but this story would surely be in the latest, and she was right. She only had to turn back a few pages to find it. (Since hooking up with Max, it wasn’t just her fitness level that was being neglected, she was finding less and less time for her morbid hobby, too. He would say that was a good thing; she wasn’t quite so convinced.)

  The article Roxy had clipped was as brief as the one on the screen, no picture, just a few quick paragraphs from the Daily Telegraph and she reread it several times trying to take it in. According to the article, Bob Brownlow was a seventy-seven-year-old pensioner who lived alone. “Bit of a character,” one neighbour was quoted as saying. “This kind of thing never happens here,” ranted another, adding, “What’s the world coming to?”

  Roxy tapped her nails on the desk. What, indeed.

  She clicked on the photo Phil had sent her and sat back, staring at it again. This case was getting more interesting by the minute. Of the six people in the picture, three were dead, at least two under suspicious circumstances, and one was on his sick bed. Two others were still unaccounted for.

  She peered into the faces of the Reillys and wondered how they were faring. Were they still alive and kicking?

  Feeling more confident this time, Roxy returned to Google and placed the name Betty Reilly into the search engine. Once again, a million varieties appeared, so she tried narrowing her search, adding the words “Indonesia” and “survey congress”, but nothing came up.

  She repeated the process with G. Reilly and had even less success. Roxy groaned aloud; her confidence waning again.

  “I don’t have the patience for this,” she decided, dialling Gilda’s mobile number.

  This time, the detective couldn’t talk, but she promised to drop by Roxy’s apartment that evening with the information she was after.

  “I’ll grab a bottle of plonk and some sustenance on the way. Will I get enough for Max, too?”

  “Not sure.” Roxy realised with a start that she hadn’t heard from her boyfriend in two days. Technically it didn’t bother her, bu
t she knew Max, and she knew something was up. He was a regular phone call kind of guy.

  “I’ll get extra, just in case,” Gilda said, “but I’ve really gotta go.”

  And Roxy really had to ring Max. She took a deep breath, dialled his home number and then smiled when a woman answered.

  “Hi, Caroline,” she said.

  “Hey, Ms Parker! We were just talking about you.”

  Oh dear, she thought. “Discussing my insane beauty?”

  Caroline laughed. “What else?!”

  Roxy didn’t want to know what else so quickly changed the subject. “Are you moving back in?”

  “With grumpy bum? God no! Just house-minding. He’s going away tonight, you knew that, right?”

  “Of course!” she said, thinking, shit, did he tell me that? “So what else have you been up to? Max mentioned something about a new hobby.”

  “Hobby? He’s such a patronising prat! I’m doing a course on the stock market, darling, trading and all that. It’s no hobby, Roxy, it’s going to make me rich!”

  “I thought real estate was your pathway to the good life.”

  “Puh-lease! Way too much like hard work for me, I’m afraid. Plus they only pay you when you sell a house, which is ridiculous! No, no, the stock market is much more my style. Actually, while I’ve got you, I need a few guinea pigs for the course. Mining shares are on the up. Got a spare grand I can dabble with?”

  Roxy laughed. “Sure, let me check the pockets of my mink coat and I’ll get back to you.”

  “Oh well, worth a try. Hey, I’ll get Cranky Pants for you, he’s just packing his bag upstairs, hang on.”

  Roxy heard the phone drop and the clickety clack of heels on Max’s polished wooden floorboards. A minute later, he answered, his deep voice still churning her insides as it had done from the start.

  “Hey, stranger,” he said.

  “Sorry, Max, I meant to call. I’ve just been a little swept up with my work.”

  “What’ve you been up to this week? I thought you said it was going to be a quiet one, that you might drop over.”

  Really? She’d said that? She didn’t remember that either. “Yeah, well, I got a last-minute assignment, quite an urgent one, so ...” Roxy decided not to tell Max too much more. He hated when Roxy steered away from freelance and into the murky world of crime. Best to keep that one to herself.

  “So you remembered I was flying out tonight, right?”

  “Yeah, of course!”

  He paused. “To Melbourne? Got a Mercedes advertorial.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Nope, it wasn’t registering. How weird, she thought, that she had better recall for a stranger’s death three weeks ago, than for her boyfriend’s itinerary. “When do you go, again?”

  “About an hour. Gonna see me off?” She glanced at her computer’s clock. “I’m kidding, Parker. Don’t stress. Caro’s taking me to the airport, looking after the place while I’m gone.”

  “Okay, well, can I at least pick you up? When do you get back?”

  He seemed surprised by this. “Okay, sure. I’m back Friday arvo. I’ll text you the flight details. Thanks, Parker.”

  “Don’t be silly! I’m your girlfriend, aren’t I?”

  “Are you?”

  She shrunk in her seat, scrunching her eyes up.

  “Sorry, ignore that,” he said quickly, adding, “I love you, I’ll miss you, and I’ll call you when I get to Melbourne later this evening. Is that okay?” She could hear the wrench in his voice down the phone line.

  “Of course that’s okay,” she scolded. “Safe travels.”

  After hanging up, Roxy felt that dreadful twinge of guilt again. Her mother was right. She really was appalling at relationships. No wonder she rarely had them. Then, keen to dissipate the guilt, she turned back to Google and began trawling through the search engine results for G. Reilly again.

  After twenty minutes of hits and misses, she had a better idea. She switched her computer off, grabbed her coat and handbag and headed out again.

  Chapter 13

  What is it with the super rich, thought Roxy as she pulled her car up beside the fancy intercom at the front gate of the Bergman’s mighty mansion. They couldn’t just have a front door like everyone else. Oh no, they were all so obscenely paranoid they had to have high walls, steel gates and a security system befitting the White House. Sure, they had plenty to steal, but was it worth a life behind bars?

  She stalled her car beside the front gate, pressed the buzzer and waited as she had done many times over the past six months. Eventually the intercom crackled to life and a woman’s voice demanded, “Yes, who is that?”

  Roxy’s heart sank. She was hoping the kindly housekeeper would answer as she usually did and show her in with barely a word. She was out of luck today.

  “Hi, Ginny,” Roxy said, recognising the voice and knowing only too well that the tiny camera beside the speaker (not to mention the one on the gate) was showing Virginia exactly who was on the other end. “I was just passing and thought I might try my luck with Sir Wolfgang this arvo.”

  The crackling stopped then restarted. “I thought I made it clear, Roxanne. He’s not well.”

  “Look, I’m sorry, I wouldn’t normally drop in like this. But it is very urgent. I just want to show him a quick photograph, and then I’ll be out of his hair. For good.”

  “What’s this regarding? Exactly?”

  “It’s about an old friend of his. Berny Tiles.”

  That seemed to do the trick because the crackling stopped again and a loud beeping sound indicated that the gate was about to swing open. Roxy watched it widen, then revved her car up and drove through. Just up the driveway, she heard the gate clang shut behind her. At the top she found Ginny standing at the front door, hands on her ample hips, frown wedged below a stiff, beehive hairdo.

  Roxy swung the car past the three-door garage and into a guest spot out the front, then leapt out before Ginny had a chance to change her mind and send her packing.

  “This better be important,” she snapped and Roxy tried for a warm, disarming smile.

  She already knew not to underestimate Ginny Bergman, had seen her tear shreds off her Indonesian housekeeper several times, and it was not pretty. Part Indonesian herself with a little Dutch thrown in, Ginny was now in her fifties but had obviously been a trophy bride once—she had the unblemished skin and razor sharp cheekbones to prove it. These days, however, she was so much more than that. Not only had she produced Wolfgang’s heir and “spare”—two strapping sons who were now running his operation in Indonesia—but she was also dubbed his “secret weapon” in the country. Roxy had already discovered how it worked and knew that, as a foreigner, Bergman would not have had a free pass to pilfer so many of Indonesia’s precious resources without his locally born wife.

  Ginny clearly knew it, too. She wielded a power, even over her formidable husband, that was often terrifying, and Roxy had to wonder as she glanced around for the missing housekeeper, if the poor thing had finally had enough.

  “What’s all this about Berny Tiles?” Ginny was demanding, bejewelled fingers still at her hips.

  “Oh, I just need to track down the contact details for a few old associates, that’s all.”

  Ginny eyed her suspiciously through long, fake eyelashes, then swept around, pushed the enormous Balinese-style front door open and strode through, her bum wiggling like two Miniature Poodles behind her. Roxy followed her towards the library, a large room crammed with book shelves and stuffy sofas on the darker side of the house. This is where Roxy usually found Wolfgang waiting, glass of scotch and hungry smile at the ready.

  She knew this routine by heart, having visited the Bergman’s harbourside mansion at Point Piper at least a dozen times for the book, but today she was surprised to find the library empty and Wolfman nowhere to be found.

  Ginny swept a few thick curtains aside to let in the light, muttering something about “blasted housekeepers” that Roxy couldn’t qu
ite catch, then swung back, the smile still stiff on her lips.

  “I’ll see if he’s available but I don’t like your chances!”

  Roxy thanked her and watched her wiggle back out of the room and towards the circular staircase, which she knew led towards the master bedroom. So Ginny wasn’t exaggerating after all. Wolfgang really was bed bound.

  As she waited, Roxy wondered what had knocked him about so badly, and in such a short time. He’d seemed fighting fit the last time they’d met, just a few months earlier.

  After five minutes, Ginny reappeared, her smile slightly softened, her tone a little more conciliatory. “He’s coming,” she said, then left her alone in the library.

  When Sir Wolfgang eventually appeared, some ten minutes later, he looked considerably older and a lot less robust than before. Instead of his usual garb—crisply ironed office shirt, pleated trousers and boat shoes—he was in a velvet, maroon Polo sweatsuit, tufts of scraggly grey chest hair poking out at one end, protruding beer belly at the other, and had a pair of dark slippers on his feet. He shuffled towards Roxy but when he caught her eye, she noticed the cheeky glint was still in place and he was still clutching hold of his trademark glass of scotch. Wolfgang loved his whisky and Roxy wouldn’t be surprised if they buried him with his thick crystal tumbler, the last dregs of single malt still warm in his belly.

  “Roxanne Parker, you look ravishing as always,” he said, his voice a little weaker and craggier than she recalled. “You’ve got my wife in a bit of a tizz, though.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be. She gets het up over a broken fingernail. What can I help you with on this bright and sunny day? Let me guess, you just had to see me one more time.”

  He gave her one of his lecherous smiles, licking the bottom of his lip with a short, fat tongue and glancing down her body, across her long legs and up again. She felt instant revulsion and wished she could give his scaly bald head a good slap, but she knew how this worked and she smiled benignly as he shuffled slowly to his favourite lounge chair, a dimpled leather number with soft quilted cushions.