Words Can Kill (Ghostwriter Mystery 5)

by C. A. Larmer

  “Oh my God,” said Caroline. “That’s ... that’s ...”

  “Candy?” Roxy pulled her glasses off, gave them a quick wipe.

  “What’s the reporter saying?” Caroline was almost screaming. “What is this about?”

  Roxy snatched the remote off her and turned the volume up further, but it didn’t make any difference. They still couldn’t understand a word of it. They continued staring, mesmerised for another few seconds before the reporter handed back to the anchorwoman who promptly moved on to a story about a frisky Italian politician, or at least that’s what it looked like. Roxy turned the volume back down and began flicking through channels, trying to find another news broadcast.

  “That was Candy Marlow, right? I wasn’t seeing things?” asked Caroline.

  “Yep, looked like it to me. I don’t speak a word of Italian. Did you catch any of it?”

  “No! Why would Max’s mistress be on the news?”

  Roxy gave up on the TV and grabbed Caroline’s iPad. “Let’s look it up. Maybe there’s some info on the Internet.” She stopped. “Damn it, what’s the bloody Wi-Fi password?”

  Caroline snatched the iPad from her and got busy with Google while Roxy tried to clear her head. Maybe they had got it wrong. Maybe they were so preoccupied with Max’s mystery woman they were seeing her face everywhere.

  Yet it definitely looked like Candy Marlow, a slightly younger version granted, but she had the same blonde perkiness, the same tanned, chiselled cheeks, and the same little cap, this one in white. It was a combination that made Roxy’s skin crawl.

  Why would she be on the Italian news?

  “I can’t find anything,” Caroline was saying. “I don’t know where to look. It’s not on my usual news sites.”

  “Try typing in her full name, Candace Marlow. Or try Candace and Donald Marlow.”

  Caroline tried various combinations and eventually turned to stare at Roxy, her eyebrows sky high, her red lips open wide.

  “What?!” Roxy screamed at her. “What does it say?”

  “You won’t believe it.”

  “Try me!”

  Caroline shook her head. She didn’t believe it herself. “According to this CNN report, Candy Marlow’s husband reported her missing five days ago. She’s vanished from the face of the earth.”

  Chapter 13

  Candace Eloise Marlow was a confident hiker. Passionate, too, and took every opportunity she could find to haul on the boots, grab the trekking poles and head off into rocky terrain, and the rockier the better. She’d been hiking since she was a young girl living in spitting distance of the Blue Mountains, just north of Sydney, and was considered a seasoned hiker, so it was a surprise for all when she disappeared on a walk around the relatively easy coastline of the Italian Riviera.

  Everyone, that is, except her husband, Donald. He loathed hiking, always had, and rarely accompanied his wife on her walks, usually sending her off with a warning of the dangers that lay ahead. He’d only ever walked with her a few times, he told the police as they sat questioning him in the police station in the tiny Italian fishing village of Riomaggiore, and the last time he had slipped badly on the way home and twisted an ankle. That was the final straw, and from then on he always sent his wife off alone, albeit “with great reluctance”.

  Except for the day she disappeared, he quickly added. There was a man with her that day, he’d insisted, he just didn’t know who it was.

  The police had raised their eyebrows sceptically so he rushed to explain himself. “That’s all she told me, I swear to God. She said, ‘I don’t need you, anyway, I have my own escort!’”

  Was the escort young? Old? Local? Tourist? To all of these questions, Donald had no reply. His wife occasionally found herself an escort, he said, somehow managed to con some poor bugger into accompanying her. For although she loved hiking, Candy loathed hiking alone.

  The police wondered about this. Did it mean there were now two hikers missing? Or did it mean one of them had blood on his hands? After all, Candy had now been lost for almost five days and no one had come forward claiming to know a thing. The police had already dismissed a theory that she had run off with this so-called “escort” because they had found a Nike shoe clinging to a protruding cactus, just metres from the cliff top. Donald had already identified it as belonging to his wife. What’s more, her personal items were still in their apartment, including her purse and handbag.

  Oh no, they feared the worst for Mrs Marlow, and now Mr Marlow, too, was also in full panic mode. Or, at least, that’s how he came across, his hands madly twisting at his handkerchief, his eyes fluttering about like a crazy man, his naturally pale skin red and splotchy. Still, one of the detectives, a large, barrel of a man called Mario Rossi, had his suspicions. He wondered whether they could believe a word that came out of the middle-aged Australian’s mouth.

  Rossi’s partner, Carmela Constantini, was smaller, prettier and had no such qualms. “Pfft! The cliffs are steep, the pathways shabby,” Carmela had hissed at him in Italian later. “We have been expecting something like this for years. Finally, it has happened. Why do you need to see a crime when the only crime I can see is with the council for not repairing the pathways?”

  “He is dodgy,” Rossi had retorted. “He is hiding something. I can tell.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We keep looking, of course, but we keep one eye on Mr Marlow. Just in case.”

  Meanwhile, 500 kilometres way, Roxy and Caroline were also keen to clap eyes on Donald Marlow. They had already tried and convicted him in their own minds and decided he had to be guilty of something. They just weren’t sure what.

  Soon after recognising Candy on the TV screen in their hotel room, they had swiftly got to work, tracking down information and finding out all they could. So far the details were sketchy and unsubstantiated but what they learned sent shivers down their spines. According to news reports and what they already knew, the Marlows must have driven directly from Mt Pilatus last Wednesday to the Italian Riviera where Candy supposedly owned a holiday apartment. Two days after arriving, on the Friday, Candy had set off on a five-hour hike and never returned.

  “According to Italian police,” Caroline said, reading directly from the latest Internet report, “‘Mrs Marlow disappeared on the nine-kilometre Sentiero Azzurro, or Blue Trail, a magnificent stretch of coastline that links the ...’” She hesitated, unsure how to pronounce the next words. “Sinky Teary?”

  She spelt out the word Cinque Terre and Roxy said, “I think it’s pronounced Chinkwa Tare.”

  “Yeah, whatever, so she went missing on this Blue Trail, apparently, not far from some town called Manarola, wherever the hell that is.” She shrugged. “Anyway, it says here that the coast guard is currently combing the waters off Manarola but believe there is little chance of finding her alive. ‘They hold grave fears for the Australian national’s safety, blah, blah, blah.’ Oh, oh, listen to this bit! ‘According to unsubstantiated reports, Candace Marlow may have been accompanied by an unidentified man.’”

  Caroline looked up at Roxy, her lips forming a perfect O. They were both thinking the same thing, both had an idea who that unidentified man might be, but neither was willing to articulate it.

  Caroline returned her attention to the news feed. “It also says here that Mr Donald Marlow is ‘currently assisting police with their enquiries’. Yeah sure he is,” she spat. “He knows what happened to his wife. He’s probably the man she was spotted with before she vanished.” She started clicking her fingers frantically. “I know! He must have found out about his wife’s affair, it probably wasn’t the first time, and he tossed her over the edge in a fit of rage. Maybe it was the final straw!”

  “So where does all this leave Max?” Roxy asked softly. His name was nowhere to be seen in any of the articles, his face nowhere to be found on the TV channels or in the background to photographs.

  Caroline looked at her again, her brow knotted together. “Max can loo
k after himself. He’ll be fine. Plus we don’t even know Max is anywhere near this Motorola place.”

  “Manorola,” corrected Roxy.

  “Whatever, sounds like a mobile phone company to me. We keep making this assumption that Max is with Candy, that he followed her down the mountain. But what if that was just a quick fling, it meant nothing, and he headed off—as he told my mum he would—to Rio de Janeiro? Maybe he’s there right now, happily basking in the sun quaffing Caipirinhas as we speak.”

  “Still doesn’t explain how Jake managed to see Max over the weekend before he died,” Roxy pointed out, adding, “and what the hell is a Caipirinha?”

  “Brazilian national drink, darling. Made with cachaça, sugar and lime juice. Quite delicious.”

  “What are you? A walking cocktail encyclopedia?”

  She bat her eyelashes. “I’ve had more than my share of Latin men, I’ll have you know.”

  Roxy didn’t doubt it. She grabbed Caroline’s iPad and began tapping away.

  “Now what are you looking for?”

  “Manorola, I want to find out where it is, exactly.”

  The younger woman stretched her long arms into the air then walked across to the window, looking out at the view. It was midmorning and the mountain was fast disappearing under a shroud of mist. It looked almost eerie, matching the mood that permeated their room. Caroline folded her arms, lost in her thoughts until Roxy gasped audibly behind her. She swung around.

  “What?”

  “Tell me again, exactly what Max said to your mum the morning that he called.”

  “I already told you, he was heading to Brazil for a few days.”

  “Did he say Brazil?”

  “Yes. Well, not exactly, no. He said he was heading to Rio de Janeiro, which is the same thing—”

  “No, no it’s not!” Roxy cried. “It all makes sense now.”

  “It does?”

  She joined Caroline by the window and showed her the iPad screen. “Here’s the Wikipedia page on Manarola, right?”

  “Riiight.”

  “It says here that it’s part of a popular tourist area called Cinque Terre or, in English, the Five Lands—‘a rugged portion of coast on the Italian Riviera that is comprised of five towns’.”

  “So?” Caroline’s eyes were starting to glaze over again.

  “Bear with me. So, Manarola is one town, there are four others that all border each other along the coast.” Roxy produced five fingers and began to count them off. “There’s Manarola, Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia and, wait for it, Riomaggiore.” She gave Caroline a “ta-dah!” look but the younger woman’s expression remained unchanged and Roxy scowled impatiently. “Riomaggiore! Doesn’t that sound a lot like Rio de Janeiro to you?”

  “So?” Caroline repeated and Roxy felt like swiping her across the head with the iPad.

  “So, I think your mum got it wrong. I think your brother rang her early last Wednesday and said he was heading to Riomaggiore, not Rio de Janeiro. She heard wrong. He’s not in Brazil. He’s in Italy, on the Cinque Terre!”

  Now Caroline was catching on. Her eyes widened, her lips gaped. “Gee, that does make more sense and they do sound very similar ... So you think this proves Max is really there, in Italy, with this Candy woman?”

  “Well, yes. The problem is, ‘this Candy Woman’ has vanished and so has Max.” Roxy gave her a pointed “Are you with me yet?” look.

  Caroline was shaking her head. “It doesn’t mean anything, Roxy. You don’t honestly think Max went over the cliff with her, do you?” Tiny traces of fear flickered into Caroline’s eyes and she was shaking her head from side to side, as if that would somehow push it away.

  Roxy turned her attention back to the iPad and continued tapping.

  “What are you doing now?” Caroline demanded, hands on her hips.

  “I’m looking up Google Maps. It’s time to visit the Five Towns and hope to God Max is still in one of them.”

  Chapter 14

  Seaside villages don’t come much more picturesque than Riomaggiore, one of the most popular of the Cinque Terre, its shell-coloured buildings tumbling like broken crockery towards the azure bay below. The farthest of the five villages from Mt Pilatus, Riomaggiore was a good five-hour drive through the Swiss countryside into Italy, down past Milan and along a jaw-dropping, winding road west of the port city of La Spezia, and it was almost dark by the time the women arrived.

  They had checked out of the Hotel Bellevue at record speed, just making the 11:00 a.m. train back down the mountain, Leon Schelling looking relieved to see the back end of them. By midday they were on the road, their purpose renewed, their brains on overload. Once again, the surrounding beauty went largely unnoticed as they imagined a hundred different reasons why Max hadn’t phoned.

  Caroline tried out her old theory that Max’s phone was simply flat and he was blissfully unaware of all the fuss, but Roxy was feeling typically pessimistic. Logically, the whole thing made a kind of terrifying sense: Max starts an affair with a married woman in a romantic Swiss hotel. He checks out of his room early and follows her to the Italian coast. Perhaps he’s still smarting at Roxy’s rejection, perhaps he’s just lonely or needs this distraction, or maybe he really has fallen in love. Roxy tried not to settle on this last conclusion but she knew only too well how all-consuming Max’s heart could be. Isn’t that what forced her to push a wedge between them in the first place? Max had declared his love first, he’d wanted her to move in, and she had found it all too suffocating. Perhaps in Candy Marlow he’d found a kindred spirit, someone who liked his puppy dog act, encouraged it even?

  Roxy shook the miserable thought away and refocused. Okay, so for whatever reason, Max hooks up with Candy and decides to follow her down the mountain to Italy. Perhaps they had prearranged a romantic rendezvous on a deserted cliff walk. The husband wasn’t a hiker, that’s what the press had said. Perhaps Max and Candy thought they would have more privacy that way. She was spotted with an unidentified companion, after all. Yet the husband gets wind of this, follows them on their walk. Perhaps he has a gun, perhaps an assailant? Either way, he somehow manages, by accident or design, to send poor Candy tumbling to her death. And Max ...

  Roxy gulped back a tear. Perhaps Max fell, too—she couldn’t bear to think of it—or perhaps he had made a run for it and was currently in hiding, terrified the husband would catch up with him. She shook her head again. Max wasn’t a coward, she told herself, he wouldn’t hide away, terrified of anyone.

  Would he?

  She gasped, remembering the text Max had sent while she was still in Sydney. The one she had decided meant, SOS.

  Perhaps it really was a cry for help. She racked her brain now, trying to recall exactly when the text had come in. It was back in Sydney, she remembered now, late Friday night. That would have made it some time Friday morning in Italy. The same morning Candy had disappeared.

  So why didn’t he finish that text? And why hasn’t he been in touch since then? And what did any of this have to do with his dead flatmate, Jake?

  “Oh my God,” Roxy exclaimed, clutching the steering wheel.

  “What?”

  “Max’s neighbour in Berlin, Holly, said that Jake was speaking to somebody in Italian before he died. Jake’s murder has to be connected to all of this, it has to!”

  Caroline thought about that. “You know, we are in Europe, Roxy. Half the continent probably speaks Italian. Unlike us uneducated Aussies, these guys are all multilingual. Hell, even the Roma gypsies speak four languages, they probably say ‘benvenuto’ before they rob you. I don’t think it proves anything. Besides, Jake was in Berlin, remember. Not Italy.”

  Roxy groaned. “I know, I know, I’m grasping at straws.” She pretended to bang her head against the wheel.

  “Easy, tiger. One drama in the family is more than my mother could stand. Let’s just try not to think about it too much, try to get there in one piece, okay?”

  Roxy nodded. It w
as an impossible task. Her mind was already running away with a whole new string of theories.

  Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps ...

  ********

  “Psst! You look for room?”

  Roxy broke out of her reverie to find an older man with a mop of white hair and a thick white moustache staring keenly at her. They had just parked their car at the top of Riomaggiore in the cramped and overpriced parking station, and were making their way slowly down the main road which was steep and cluttered with shops, restaurants and tourists at every glance.

  As they walked down the cobbled road towards the centre, Caroline struggling to keep her suitcase upright, Roxy studied every person they passed, hoping to spot Max amongst the faces. She scanned the cafés, too, wondering if he was nestled inside, sipping a cold beer, or strolling farther down, towards the train station and the sea.

  Caroline was more preoccupied with her cumbersome suitcase and it wasn’t until the Santa Claus look-alike caught their attention that they realised they were, indeed, in dire need of accommodation. Darkness was slowly descending and they hadn’t even thought to book a hotel or look for a tourist information centre.

  “You look for room?” the man said again, clearly used to repeating himself to tourists. He was standing outside what was clearly a hat shop, leaning against a banister overloaded with fisherman’s caps, straw hats and sports caps, one hand on his hip, his bushy white eyebrows raised.

  The women reset their course and wheeled their suitcases across.

  “Yes we are,” Roxy said and he waved them closer with one hand and reached for his mobile phone with the other.

  “Two?” He was holding two fingers up. “How long-eh?”

  “Oh, um, I’m not sure, a few nights, maybe.”

  His eyebrows wedged together. “You Australia?” They nodded and he smiled. “I like Australia.” He then bashed some numbers into his phone, flashing the women quick glances as he made the call. “Ninety euro a night?” he said at one point and they nodded. He nodded along and kept talking. Eventually he hung up and smiled widely. “Hugo, he come-eh. He has good room. Clean room. Just here.”