Words Can Kill (Ghostwriter Mystery 5)

by C. A. Larmer

  “It is not a normal key, no?” he replied down the crackly line. “It is one of those new smart keys.”

  “Smart key?” She’d never heard of such a thing. Her own car, an old VW Golf, was almost at vintage stage. There was nothing smart about it.

  “Yes, it has a keyless entry remote. You can activate the ignition without needing to insert a key. It’s only small, it looks like a—”

  “Remote control!” Roxy yelped, jumping to her feet and reaching across to the side table where the wicker basket sat with its motley collection. She rifled through until she found the black and silver remote. She studied it properly this time and saw the tiny Mercedes logo in one corner. She also looked around and realised there was no television set in the room. She eye-rolled herself this time.

  “I have it!” she told him.

  “Good work. You are a super sleuth, yes?”

  “Oh I’m no super sleuth, Gunter. If it wasn’t for you I’d still be looking for the TV.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Never mind. Thanks again and I’ll call if we find anything.”

  Roxy was about to explain the smart key to Caroline but the younger woman’s confused expression stalled her.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Caroline was still holding the sun visor but now had a black and white Converse sneaker in her other hand and was staring at it like she’d never seen anything so strange.

  “What?” Roxy persisted, and Caroline glanced up at her.

  “Where’s the other one?” she asked.

  “The other shoe?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it here last night?”

  She looked uncertain. “I’m not sure, to be honest. Maybe. Do you remember?”

  “I remember the shoe, but can’t remember if there was one or two. Have you checked everywhere? Under the bed? Near the front door?”

  She nodded but they both did a second search and failed to turn up the matching Converse.

  “It might never have made it to Riomaggiore, of course. Max probably just packed in a hurry and left it behind in Berlin.”

  Caroline began nodding vigorously. “Or he could have left it at Mt Pilatus. Leon did say Max took off in a major hurry.”

  “Or maybe,” Roxy said, holding the smart key in the air, “it dropped out of his bag and is currently sitting in the boot of his Mercedes just waiting to be discovered. Come on, let’s go check it out.”

  On the way back to the parking lot, the two women grabbed another slice of pizza to keep them going, mushroom this time with thick shavings of parmesan, and then made a detour to the police station to report the cap and see if a police officer could accompany them to Max’s car. If there were any items of interest in his Mercedes, they wanted an expert on hand to bag it. Caroline had already smudged her paw prints all over Candy’s cap and Roxy didn’t want to compromise any more potential evidence. Yet when they reached the station, the front door was securely locked and no one answered their knock.

  “Probably out on smoko,” Caroline suggested but Roxy was already reading a sign on the outside wall.

  She hadn’t noticed it before because the station had been open, but it gave a full list of operating times and an out-of-hours number to call in the case of emergencies.

  “According to this sign,” Roxy said, “the station is closed Monday to Friday. It’s only opened on weekends outside of summer. Mustn’t be enough business to warrant it.”

  “But didn’t you say you spoke to someone here earlier today? It’s Wednesday, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I guess with all the commotion over Candy’s disappearance, they’re manning the station more regularly. Oh well, let’s check out the car anyway. I’m not waiting around for them to show.”

  Back at the parking station, Roxy showed Aris the key and he happily waved them in where they made their way straight to the Mercedes that had been parked in by the yellow Peugeot. Roxy gave the smart key a gentle air kiss and then clicked it into place just as Gunter had instructed, and kabam! The entire car unlocked with a very soft, subtle “click”.

  “Smooooth,” Caroline said, reaching for the door handle.

  “Hang on a second!” Roxy produced a tissue from her handbag. “Use this so we don’t leave our prints all over it this time.”

  “Oooh, look who’s been watching CSI.”

  “It’s called common sense, Caroline, you should try it some time.”

  Roxy wrapped her own hand in a second tissue and then went to the boot of the car and was about to open it when she had a sudden, horrifying thought. She hesitated.

  He wouldn’t be in there. Would he?!

  She braced herself then leaned down towards the boot slowly, forcing herself to inhale as every nerve in her body stood on high alert. All she could smell was a smoky petrol scent. She gave herself a shake—you’re being ridiculous, of course he’s not in there!—then, using the tissue, clicked the boot open. It sprang out and up with one swift move, and she jumped back, not daring to look.

  “You all right?” It was Caroline beside her.

  “Yes, I’m fine!” Still, she took a sideways glance into the boot and was rewarded with a gloriously empty interior. Upon closer inspection, she did discover the usual paraphernalia hidden away under the floor matting: a spare tyre, a first aid kit, and emergency stopping gear including a bright orange reflective vest.

  “No shoe?” asked Caroline and Roxy looked at her confused for a second. Her nerves were still jangling about.

  “Oh, no, not here. Anything inside the car?”

  “Nothing very interesting. But see here,” she dragged Roxy back to the front seat where she leaned in and tapped a pen at the passenger-side Styrofoam cup. “No lipstick marks. Whoever his passenger was, it had to belong to a man.” She grinned. “See, I can be a super sleuth, too.”

  “Of course, not all women wear lippie all of the time,” Roxy pointed out, but when Caroline looked at her like she was speaking nonsense, she quickly added, “Still, I reckon you’re right. I’d bet any money that cup is dripping with Jake’s DNA.”

  Caroline grimaced and backed away from the cup. “So you definitely think Jake was the guy Max showed up with that first night?”

  “Yep, and, if you’ll excuse me for a second, I have a hunch these might prove it.” She indicated for Caroline to step back out and then she leaned in and, using her tissue again, reached across the dashboard for the toll receipts.

  She then laid them out on the car’s bonnet in chronological order. There were several familiar ones, for the autobahn between Germany and Switzerland, for the Alpnachstad parking station, and for the road down to Riomaggiore. They, too, had coughed up for those tolls and they were not cheap. Yet it was the Milan receipt that had her interested. It was dated early Wednesday afternoon and was for a parking station at a Milan Bus Depot.

  “Didn’t the freeway bypass the city?” Caroline said. “We didn’t stop there.”

  “No. So why, if Max was in such a hurry, did he stop and park in Milan?”

  “Bite to eat?”

  “At the bus depot?” Caroline shrugged. “Nope, I’ve got a theory that’s where Max met up with Jake. I bet Jake caught a bus from Berlin to Milan and then hitched a ride with Max for the final leg here. We know Jake wasn’t at Mt Pilatus, so they must have met up somewhere.”

  “But why would Max even want to meet up with Jake? That’s the bit that seems totally bizarre to me. I mean, if my brother was planning a romantic rendezvous with Candy on the Italian Riviera, he’d hardly drag his freeloading flatmate along, would he?”

  “Maybe Max called Jake from Switzerland to let him know he was heading to Italy and Jake begged a ride off him. Maybe he had some business here; who knows? He was a muso, probably a pretty spontaneous guy, might have thought it’d be fun to tag along.”

  She set the receipts aside and did her own internal check of the car, searching through the various nooks and crannies, the glove box, the as
htray, the seat pockets at the back, and produced nothing more of interest, just the photography equipment and Coke bottle they’d spotted earlier, a half empty packet of gum and an old iPad charger—yet more evidence that Max’s devices were not short on battery power.

  “Oooh, I know!” Caroline reached in towards the car’s CD player. She frowned. “You want to start the car up so we can see what’s inside?”

  Roxy doubted it mattered but placed the key, as instructed, on the round keypad below the steering wheel, impressed as it all came to life, the control panel illuminated with vivid neon colour. At the same time a blast of sound came rushing out of the speakers. It was heavy and it was rock, and it had Caroline recoiling again.

  “Ewww! That has to be Jake’s. No way Max would listen to that crap!”

  Roxy located the volume and turned it right down, then clicked the CD off and watched as Metallica’s self-titled album popped out. Roxy had to agree that, unless Max’s musical tastes had changed dramatically in the six months he’d been in Germany, this was indeed more likely to belong to an American rocker with bad tatts.

  Roxy’s phone rang again and she pressed the answer button to find Officer Giuseppe on the other end. She began to tell him all about Max’s car, begging him to get a team together to do an official search, but he soon cut her short.

  “Do not worry about this for now,” he said, sounding breathless. “Commander Rossi has returned and he wants to speak to you immediately. He has heard from your boyfriend Max.”

  Friend, Roxy would have corrected him, if her jaw hadn’t just hit the ground.

  Chapter 23

  Commander Rossi and his petite sidekick Detective Constantini—“please, just call me Carmela”—bounced off each other like an old married couple, finishing each other’s sentences, squabbling over minor details and slapping each other playfully about the shoulders from time to time, and as Roxy watched them in action she couldn’t help thinking of that old English puppet show Punch and Judy. Except, after they dropped their bombshell, it was Caroline who looked ready to pull on the boxing gloves.

  After bolting as fast as they could to the police station, neither woman daring to think anything lest they be disappointed all over again, Giuseppe had met them at the front door and taken them through to the interview room to meet Rossi and Carmela. Roxy noticed that Caroline barely blinked twice at the hunky officer, a sure sign she was not herself today.

  The interview room was the same one where Roxy had sat earlier. This time the old fan was whirring in the corner but she couldn’t feel any benefit and was sweating now beneath her light cotton shirt. She noticed the door had been shut and wished they’d open it a crack.

  It was clear Giuseppe had already filled his superiors in on most of what Roxy had told him yet some of his information was incorrect and, while they spoke surprisingly good English, Roxy still spent the first fifteen minutes clarifying details and setting the record straight. When she had finished, she took a deep breath and said, “Look, I’m sorry to be impatient, but Officer Giuseppe said you had heard from Max and ... well ...?”

  Both women looked at him, eyes as wide as saucers, and Rossi cleared his throat, knowing he was about to disappoint. “We are not a hundred percent sure it is Mr Farrell, you understand, which is why we have called you here.” He leaned across the table to a small recorder on one side and pulled it towards himself. “Can I play for you?”

  “We would like you to identify the voice,” added Carmela. “It is very mumbled, you must listen, carefully, yes?”

  Caroline glanced worriedly across to Roxy and she gave her a reassuring nod.

  Rossi attempted to press play several times but the machine was not cooperating. He hissed something in Italian under his breath and kept stabbing at the Play button. Eventually, Carmela smacked him across the shoulder, pulled the recorder from his hands and got it working. After an agonising few seconds, a loud crackling sound could be heard, followed by an Italian voice saying, “Polizia, qual è la vostra emergenza?”

  There was another crackling sound then a man’s voice appeared speaking softly. “I ... ah... I need to speak with the police, please.”

  Caroline’s eyes widened. “That’s Max!”

  Roxy nodded, holding a finger to her lips as the operator said, “This is the police. What is your emergency?”

  There was another pause before Max’s voice returned, even softer than before. It was as though he were whispering. “I just need to speak to someone, is there someone there I can speak with?”

  “What is this regarding, please?”

  Another pause. When he started speaking again Max sounded almost embarrassed, certainly unsure of himself. “I don’t know, um, you see, I think ... I mean, I’m pretty sure there’s going to be a ... crime.”

  “Crime? What kind of crime?”

  “Um, well, I’m just worried, that’s all. I mean, I could be wrong. Oh, shit—”

  The line suddenly went dead and all that remained was the recorder’s eerie whistling sound. Rossi turned it off and looked up at them. Both women were still staring at the machine, Caroline tearful, Roxy with a hand to her mouth.

  “Can you tell me, please, Miss Farrell, is that the voice of your missing brother, Max Farrell?”

  Caroline sniffed and then nodded.

  “For verification purposes, Miss Farrell, I need you to indicate verbally please.”

  At first Caroline didn’t seem to understand him and Roxy reached out and grasped her hand. “Say yes, Caro,” she said and Caroline blinked back a tear.

  “Yes.”

  “When did he leave this message?” Roxy asked, trying to control her own tears which were threatening to spill.

  “It came through to our emergency call service at 8:08 p.m. last Thursday.”

  Roxy began doing the maths, her brain clicking into gear as her heart plummeted. “That’s before he disappeared. Before Candy—”

  “Hang on,” said Caroline, her voice trembling a little now. “Are you saying you got this message last Thursday and you ignored it?”

  “No, no, we did not ignore it,” Rossi said and then Carmela explained.

  “This station is closed weekdays outside of peak season, so any calls from Riomaggiore come directly through to our head office in La Spezia. If it is an emergency, a team is despatched.”

  “And that didn’t seem like an emergency to you?” Caroline said, her voice now quivering with contained rage.

  Rossi held his palms up. “You have to understand, please, Miss Farrell. Your brother said no more than that. He did not give his name or explain what this, er, ‘crime’ was. Then, as you can see, he hung up.”

  “He might have been referring to a shoplifter for all we knew,” added Carmela.

  Sensing a fresh wave of anger, Rossi quickly added, “In any case, we did send two officers out the next day, around midday, and everything seemed to be okay.”

  “Okay? Two people were missing!” said Caroline.

  “No, no, not then you see,” said Carmela. “Our men patrolled the main town for hours. They spoke to shop owners and locals but could not find any problems to report. Nobody tell us these people are missing. It was only later that evening that Mr Marlow approached the officers and reported his wife missing. The officers began a search that evening and we brought in the helicopters and coast guard for a full-scale search the following morning. We later learned that your brother, too, disappeared that Friday morning.”

  “Before your officers got here,” Caroline said, barely able to conceal the contempt in her voice.

  Rossi coughed to clear his throat. “We still have no evidence that a crime has been committed.”

  “What?! Surely Max’s message ...?”

  “Again,” interjected Carmela, “it is not specific enough. We need more evidence.”

  “Which brings us to the camera,” Rossi said. He reached below the table and produced what looked like a clear evidence bag. Through the bag they could see
an iPhone encased in hot pink plastic.

  “That has to be Candy’s,” Roxy said and Rossi looked at her inquisitively so she added, “I know she has a thing for pink, that’s all.”

  It was located with the body, he explained. “Which has now been formally identified as Candace Eloise Marlow.”

  Roxy and Caroline shared a glance then, and Roxy thought how horrendous it was that someone else’s death could fill them with such relief.

  “Anyway, lucky for us, she had it inside her waterproof jacket, so we got it working,” Carmela was saying as she snatched the bag from Rossi and began clicking the phone to life through the plastic. She continued clicking until she got to the page she wanted. She held it out for them to see and Caroline’s shoulders dropped.

  “Oh, Maxy.” Her voice was brimming with deep despair. She showed it to Roxy who was also overwhelmed with a sense of melancholy.

  It was a photo showing Max standing in front of a stunning alpine view with one arm slung around Candy’s shoulder, the other by his side, the same slightly worried look in his eyes. It was almost a mirror image of the one on his Facebook page and Roxy realised they must have given both their devices to a third party to take the photos.

  “That is a picture of your brother, Max Farrell, yes?”

  Again this was directed at Caroline, again she struggled to answer until Roxy prompted her. “Yes, that’s Max.”

  “We thought so,” Carmela was saying. “There are six pictures with Mr Farrell.”

  “They were all taken last Tuesday at the same place,” added Rossi. “But we do not know this place. Can you identify?”

  Caroline slowly clicked through all six images and both women agreed it had to be Mt Pilatus. They spotted the familiar caves, the circular-shaped hotel, a bright red train sitting at an impossible angle in another.

  “Did you find any pictures with Max here in Riomaggiore?” asked Roxy. “Or maybe on that walk between here and Manorola?”

  Both detectives shook their heads.

  It was the best news Roxy had heard all day and her heart lightened a little. “So you have no evidence that Max accompanied Candy on her walk last Friday, the day she disappeared?”