Dying Words (A Ghostwriter Mystery)

by C. A. Larmer

  “Is Berny’s wife still around?”

  “No, he told me she died in a car accident about six years ago. He’s got a new wife on the scene called Renata.”

  “Okay, but what’s that got to do with anything? I mean, why did Berny need the picture? Do you think they were still having an affair when he died?”

  “If so, why marry someone else? Besides, Sondra’s never heard of Betty. Maybe Berny just wanted the photo for sentimental reasons, was still holding a candle to Betty and it’s the only picture he has.”

  “But he was dying. Why would he want to bring attention to an affair that would only upset his daughter, not to mention this new wife?”

  “Yeah, it doesn’t really work, does it?” She chewed on her coffee cup for a while, contemplating it all. “Either way, it probably doesn’t matter now. Sondra will be relieved we found this photo. Maybe she doesn’t need me to track down everyone in it. Maybe it will all make sense to her when she gets it back and, as you so eloquently put it, I’ll be out of work again.”

  “Oh, I can hear the violins playing now.”

  “Really? I thought that was the scratchy old sofa crying to come home.”

  He laughed then just as quickly dropped his smile. “Okay, so here’s the deal. Shazza wants all our clients to clear their crap out of the office by Friday. We don’t have the space to store your shit anymore, it’s getting too cramped in here, apparently. Plus it’s not a ‘good look’.”

  He did that curly finger thing and Roxy eye rolled him in return then glanced around his office. Cramped was an understatement. It had always been a messy, dusty space, cluttered with client memorabilia and other debris, but lately it was beginning to resemble an episode of Help me, I’m a Hoarder!

  “I didn’t think you guys went in for interior design.”

  “Yeah, well, Shazza’s on a bloody mission. Did some feng shui course and reckons ours is stuffed. After last year and all the grief I went through, she reckons it was my own fault and I need to clear my bad energy or some bloody nonsense.”

  Roxy smirked. “Starting with this fab new chair?”

  “And the old boxes. They’ve gotta go, Rox.”

  “I hear you, Olie. I’ll bring my car in on Friday and collect them. I didn’t even realise I had much stuff here.”

  “Well, you do. It’s mostly just leftovers from past books—old research papers, manuals, photos, that kind of thing.”

  “Is that how you found this?” She indicated the photo in her hands.

  “Kind of.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Johnno, the Bergman publisher from Book It, rang me. They had to do an inventory of all the crap that got nicked last weekend, and they discovered from their files that they’d sent this picture off—”

  “Yes, I know, it went to the scanners.”

  “No, it was supposed to go to the scanners but then it got cut at the last minute.”

  “Cut? What do you mean?”

  “Remember you said it wasn’t in the layout of the Bergman book that you saw? Well, it was in the original, apparently, but then they were told to remove it from the book, so they did as instructed, and then, because the picture was no use to them, packaged it up and posted it to me. One of their interns sent it so they forgot all about it for a moment there. Thank God they keep records.” He paused to scratch his double chin. “Anyway, they were going to return it to Berny Tiles directly but didn’t have his address so they sent it to you, courtesy of me. Shazza got it a few weeks ago with a stack of other stuff from the publisher and chucked it in your box. Didn’t look at it properly, didn’t think anything of it, to be honest. She found it again while going through the boxes last night.”

  Roxy sat forward. “So let me get this straight. You’ve had the original picture sitting here all along? While I’ve been chasing my tail, it’s been sitting quietly in your office?”

  “Oh get off your high horse, Rox. You’ve been paid to chase your tail, don’t complain.”

  She stared at the picture again. “So Wolfman wanted this picture removed, eh?”

  “Not Wolfman, no.”

  “Then who?”

  “Johnno says the word came in from Wolfman’s wife.”

  Her eyes shot up. “Ginny?”

  “He calls her Imelda Marcos. Says Imelda took one look at the pic and demanded it be removed. Immediately. Gave no explanation, just wanted it out. Was very firm about it.”

  The plot thickens, thought Roxy, staring hard at Beautiful Bett again.

  Chapter 16

  Roxy knew she should be heading straight for Sondra’s house to hand the precious photo over, but there was one avenue she still wanted to go down first. She had been hired to track down the people in the photo and she really wanted to come through with at least one of them, preferably alive.

  Already in the city, she strode the few blocks it took to reach Sydney’s main library on Macquarie Street, just down from the Town Hall. She wanted to see if she could get some more information on Betty Reilly first. If she knew Sondra, and she was only just starting to, she had a hunch she would want to know who the woman was and why her father seemed to have such a crush on her.

  The State Library is a grandiose, sandstone structure in the heart of Sydney with towering Roman columns, expansive reading rooms, and a vast collection of reference material—over five million items, in fact—so Roxy headed straight for the information desk when she arrived and let the librarian do the hard work for her. After telling her what she needed, the woman tapped away at a computer for several minutes, then jotted something down on a white card and pointed Roxy towards a wide staircase that led down into the bowels of the library. Roxy made her way and promptly handed the card to another librarian at the bottom who then pointed her in the direction of an aisle titled Asia. She followed it along to the Indonesian section then used the card to locate the correct reference number.

  Within minutes Roxy had hold of Indo-Surveyors: how Australians helped map a foreign land. She tugged the heavy tome from the shelf and took it over to a side table where several student types were tapping away at laptops and tablets, not a book in sight. A scrawny, light-haired man with a poor attempt at a beard looked up as she sat down and gave her a smouldering smile (or what he thought passed for one) and she returned the smile with a look that read “In your dreams” before opening the book up. She flipped straight to the back and began scanning the index. Within minutes, Roxy had found several “Reilly” references, including a T, an E and two Gs. She started with those and immediately found information on Gordon Reilly, although not a great deal. According to the book, he was a small-time surveyor who once worked for Samsara Surveys out of Sumatra. Originally from Sydney, it said that he returned after two years and was last seen working for Henry Mapping Consultants in Chatswood.

  Well that was promising.

  Delighted, Roxy pulled the smartphone out of her bag, created a fresh “memo” and tapped in the relevant information then turned her attention to the other Reillys in the index. She already had a hunch that E stood for Elizabeth (shortened to Betty) but when she located the relevant page, her spirits dropped. Elvin Reilly was a Dutch chainman who worked in Lombok and seemed to bear no relation to either Gordon or Betty. T. Reilly was actually Timothy O’Reilly, an early patrol officer on the Irian Jaya/Papua New Guinea border and, again, no relation.

  Roxy was about to give up when, flipping through the pages, she spotted a photo that caught her by surprise. She spread the page out and stared at it. It was almost identical to the copy in her hand—a black and white photograph taken at the 1975 Survey Congress. This one, however, had only four people in the image; both Wolfgang and Betty Reilly were nowhere to be seen, and the four other men were not smiling as they were in hers. In this one, they looked sternly towards the camera, all serious and business like.

  She wasn’t sure what exactly it meant and why Wolfgang and Betty were not in this shot, but she also wasn’t sure it was relevant, so she eventually shut
the book and returned it to the shelf, noticing as she went that Beard Boy was now ogling the young woman on his right.

  Goodness me, she thought. There’s got to be better pickup joints.

  Back at the front desk, Roxy smiled at the librarian and asked, “Have you got a Yellow Pages handy? I need to look up H for Henry.”

  *********

  Henry Mapping Consultants was a small business, housed with several others on the sixth floor of a sparkling office block in the heart of Chatswood. When Roxy stepped through the elevator towards the front desk, the receptionist, a nuggety forty-something with a blond crew cut and a crooked nose, was all smiles until she mentioned the name Gordon Reilly, then he turned surprisingly combative.

  “What do you want him for?” he demanded, his mouth slanted down into a scowl.

  “I’m chasing him up for a book I’m writing,” she said, stretching the truth considerably.

  He stared at her as though weighing this up and then shrugged. “We have no one by that name here.”

  Now she was confused; a second ago it had sounded as though he knew the guy. She said, “Well, he wouldn’t be here now. He’d be well into his seventies. But I believe he worked here once. Probably from the late 1970s until about the ’90s. I just need to track down a contact number or address for him, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

  “You’re not in my hair but I can’t help you. We don’t give out employees’ details, current or ex. To anyone.”

  “So you are saying he did used to work here?”

  “I’m saying nothing of the sort. What is it you want with him, again?” The scowling lips almost reached the bottom of his chin and that, coupled with the wonky nose, made him look a lot like an amateur boxer. Not the friendliest face to have on your front desk.

  “I just need to speak to him.”

  “And I just need to show you where the exit is.”

  He pointed a stubby finger towards the elevators, his lips now twisted upwards into the fakest of smiles and she wanted to smack him where it hurt, but she had a feeling he’d smack her right back. She tried a different tack.

  “Can I see Mr Henry then?”

  He studied her carefully. “Which one?”

  “Whichever one’s available,” she replied and his eyes squinted a little as he thought about this.

  “I will see if Mr Henry—Mr Beau Henry—is available. Your name?”

  “Roxy Parker.”

  He picked up his phone, tapped a number in and said, “Hi there, sorry to disturb you. I have a woman out here, a Rossy Parlour, wanting to see Mr Henry.” He gave Roxy the once over. “She has no appointment and I’ve already told her it’s out of the question so ... Huh? ... Oh, well, here’s the thing, she’s trying to track down ...” He lowered his voice considerably, “Gordon Reilly, but I’ve already told her she’s wasting her—” He stopped. “I have no idea.” He glanced at Roxy. “Yeees ... I suppose so, but ...” He glanced away from her and to the side. “Are you sure?” He took a deep breath. “Okay then, I’ll send her in.” He turned back to Roxy. “It’s your lucky day. Take the corridor all the way to the end. Through the glass doors. Mr Henry’s assistant will meet you there.”

  Roxy did a silent whoop of joy as she gave him a smug smile and made her way down the corridor as instructed. She didn’t know what the guy’s problem was but, like the receptionist at Scott’s Scanners, she decided he was better suited for a trendy nightclub. He had the door bitch vibe down pat.

  When Roxy got to the end of the corridor, an elderly woman was already swinging the glass doors open, ushering her through. She was well into her sixties, with white, shaggy short hair, bright green spectacles and a beaming smile that made her look twenty years younger. She was wearing a red woollen jacket over black trousers, and a colourful scarf around her neck, dangly Indian style earrings on her ears. Her friendly demeanour could not be more different to Door Bitch and she seemed more than eager to help her out, leading Roxy straight to a lounge area on one side and offering her a seat.

  “You’re here about Gordon Reilly?” she said, eyes wide behind her specs.

  “That’s right. Did you know him?”

  “Know him?” The woman laughed. “I was married to the man!”

  By the time Roxy had picked her jaw up off the floor, Betty Reilly was offering her tea or coffee. Roxy managed to ask for coffee and then waited with bated breath while the executive assistant got busy in a small kitchenette at the back.

  She returned with two cups and placed them on the table in front of them, eagerly asking, “So how is Gordon? Have you seen him?”

  Roxy’s elation evaporated. “No, I was hoping you had. I’m trying to track him down.”

  The woman sank into her chair, also looking deflated. “Oh dear, I thought you might have had some good news. We lost him, you see. Some time ago.”

  “Lost him?”

  Betty looked at Roxy, her eyes narrowing a little. “Perhaps you’d better tell me who you are and why you’re here before we go any further.”

  “Yes, of course.” Roxy pulled out the picture of the 1975 Survey Congress and handed it to Betty.

  Betty looked a little shocked and blinked rapidly a few times. “Goodness! That’s a blast from the past. Where did you find this?”

  “It was sent to me by Berny Tiles for a book I’ve just written.” She paused. “You obviously remember Berny Tiles?”

  Betty nodded. “Of course, although I haven’t seen him in years. I did read about his death. That was very sad. He was a lovely fellow.”

  Roxy studied the older woman’s face but she didn’t look like a grief-stricken lover so she had to assume their dalliance, if there was one, was in the past. She proceeded to fill Betty in on the Wolfgang Bergman biography and the series of unfortunate incidents that had happened since, including Brownlow’s mugging and Berny’s final words, asking for Roxy Parker.

  “His daughter, Sondra, seems to think there’s some important message in all of this and has asked me to hunt down the people in this photo. She thinks maybe you might have some idea why this picture was so important to her father. Do you?”

  Betty looked bemused. “Not at all.”

  “Can you tell me about that day, the day the picture was taken?”

  She placed the photo back on the table and Roxy noticed her hand was shaking a little. She wondered if that was from old age, or something else.

  “It was obviously the Survey Congress.”

  “Yes, can you tell me about the Congress?”

  “Well, they were all much the same. Lots of drinking, lots of partying, not a lot of congressing going on. They’d have official meetings at the start of the day, but then it would all sort of ... deteriorate from there. It was a bit like the Wild West, I guess you could say.” Her earlier smile had disappeared and she looked a little shaken as she said, “Not much to tell.”

  Roxy recalled Wolfgang saying a similar thing, and wondered just how wild it got.

  “So how were you involved? I gathered these congresses were pretty blokey affairs.”

  “Oh they were. Us wives were dutifully called upon to organise the lavish parties, book the hotels for the visiting ‘dignitaries’, the likes of Wolfgang Bergman who always flew in from one of his mines to honour us with his presence.” Was that cynicism in her voice? Roxy wondered. “We didn’t take part in any of the official meetings, you understand, were just required to pretty up the cocktail parties and dinners, so to speak. Then after that the women would generally head back to the hotel, exhausted, and the men would hang around the bar, drinking, playing poker, smoking enormous cigars. As I said, not much to tell.”

  “Yes , but did anything happen at this particular Congress?”

  Betty began blinking rapidly again and looked like she was about to say something when she had second thoughts. She thrust her lips together then into a forced smile and shook her head, her dangly earrings flying about as she did so. Roxy didn’t say a word, hoping her s
ilence would encourage her.

  Eventually Betty sighed and said, “I wasn’t really part of the Congress, you do understand that, my dear?”

  “But you’re in this shot.”

  “Only because they dragged me into it. Same with Wolfgang. He’s not a surveyor. We were both on the sidelines watching the official photographer and the lads called us over to jump in at the end. He’d already taken a series of snaps, this isn’t the official shot.”

  “Yes,” said Roxy, “I’ve seen that one.”

  “I shouldn’t have even been there, my toddler was back at the hotel with the sitter and I ... I don’t know why I hung around. Stupid really.” Her face clouded over and as she raised her cup to her lips, Roxy noticed the shaking had not subsided.

  “You have a child?”

  Her face brightened as she took a quick sip. “Yes, Brian. Not much of a child now, of course. He turned forty last month—I don’t know where the time goes!” She smiled and stared wistfully out the glass doors. “Anyway, I’m surprised this picture ever saw the light of day. I can only guess that Berny wanted it because it was a bit different to the usual stuffy pictures they take at these events.”

  “And maybe because you were in it?” she asked.

  Betty looked back at her surprised and Roxy said, “I know about ... what happened that night.”

  She didn’t really, she was just taking a stab in the dark, but Betty’s sudden rapid blinking and the red blush that now crept up her neck were all the confirmation she needed.

  “How do you ...? Did he tell you that?” She looked mortified.

  “No, Betty. I worked it out.”

  “But how? I don’t understand ...” A buzzing sound interrupted them and Betty looked around anxiously, then got up to answer her desk phone. She talked to someone in a hushed voice, darting glances back at Roxy as she spoke, then hung up the phone and returned, still blinking madly.