Words Can Kill (Ghostwriter Mystery 5)

by C. A. Larmer

  Vern stayed quiet beside her.

  “But ... but ...” Roxy was struggling to understand. “He was always so flirtatious, so sleazy ...”

  “Oh, he’s just Italian is all. They can’t help themselves. It’s their nature.”

  “So Maria is married to Valentino.” Roxy still couldn’t picture it and Lily-Anne was laughing again.

  “Ooh yes, my dear, Mr and Mrs Valentino Tedesco.” She glanced around. “Not that I’ve seen either of them tonight. You seen them, Vern?”

  Vern grunted something this time and dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief but Roxy’s head was now spinning in a whole new direction.

  “Did you say Valentino Tedesco?”

  “Hm-mm. Why, dear?”

  Roxy glanced around. The penny had finally dropped. “So that’s why this place is called Ted’s? Short for Tedesco, Valentino’s surname?”

  Now where had she heard that name before?

  “Aye, Maria felt it sounded more Western-like, would be more appealing to the tourists,” John was saying but Roxy was no longer listening.

  She stood abruptly and turned to go when she remembered her second question. She turned back. “Lily-Anne, you said you got badly sunburnt one day last week. Can you remember what day that was?”

  Lily-Anne blinked at her, confused by the change of tack but, sensing her mood, she tried to think. “Oh dear, I really can’t remember.” She glanced at her husband. “Vern, you’re good with detail now, ain’t ya? You must remember, when was that?”

  Vern, who had uttered very little throughout this exchange, turned his watery blue eyes upon Roxy and said very simply, very matter-of-factly, “It was last Friday.”

  The look he then gave Roxy suggested he knew exactly where she was going with that and wondered what had taken her so long.

  Chapter 31

  “What’s taking so long?” demanded Caroline, crouching in the dark beside Roxy. “My legs are going numb.”

  “Shh,” said Roxy. “Not long now.”

  It was just after midnight and the fishing village was almost still. The shops, eateries and bars had all closed, their twinkly lights out for the night, and no one was on the streets except a few stray cats and a sleepy dog. That is, until they had crept out of the train tunnel and up the stairs towards the jetty and spotted the small group of youngsters sitting on the stone wall, dragging on cigarettes and sharing a bottle of something they were no doubt too young to be sharing.

  “Bored bloody teenagers,” Roxy said. “Doesn’t one of them have an Xbox at home?”

  “Why can’t we just wait until morning and get the police then?” hissed Caroline, equally as bored, and Roxy shook her head.

  “Because it could be too late by then.”

  “Too late for what?”

  Roxy didn’t dare to say. “Shhh!” she said instead, wishing the teenagers away.

  They watched from the shadows of the stairwell for some time, one eye on the kids, the other on Ted’s Trattoria directly across the road. Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, but was probably more like ten minutes, one of the teens threw the empty bottle into the water and they all jumped up and made their way past Ted’s and along the thin dark street that Roxy knew led away from the main road and towards Ola’s Villas.

  She watched them disappear from sight then took another good look at the restaurant, checking for movement of any kind. There was a small light on outside the front door but the rest of the place was shrouded in darkness. Eventually, after what seemed another lifetime, Roxy said, “Let’s go.”

  At the same time, she thought, “I just hope we’re not too late.”

  “But why Ted’s?” Caroline persisted, following close behind.

  “We need to get inside and look around, we need to see for ourselves.”

  Caroline grabbed Roxy’s hand. “Oh my God! You think Max is in there!”

  Roxy shook her head firmly. “No, Caro, I just hope he is.”

  A few hours earlier, Caroline and Roxy had met back in the apartment where, over takeaway calamari and mouthwatering strawberry gelato, Caroline had told Roxy everything the parking attendant had said. They now knew exactly who had come and gone between Friday morning and Saturday afternoon, and it was starting to make sense. Finally, after a week of frustration, the oddly shaped pieces of this puzzle were clicking into place.

  There was just one final piece outstanding and she had a strong hunch it was waiting for them somewhere inside Ted’s.

  Clinging to the sides of the buildings where the moonlight was darkest, they edged their way slowly along the cobbled road and then past Ted’s front door and into the side alley that led to the back. It was pitch-black there and they waited a moment to let their eyes adjust before Roxy crept up to the back door and tried the handle.

  She softly groaned. It was locked.

  “She’s hardly going to leave it open with a welcome sign on the mat, is she?” Caroline whispered beside her, but Roxy was already looking around for a key. She wiped her hands above the door frame, searched a nearby pot. No luck.

  “We need to break in,” she whispered back. “We—”

  A sudden noise made Roxy stop. It sounded like a footstep, then another, then two more. They were coming from inside the restaurant and getting louder.

  “Shit!” Caroline hissed and they glanced, terrified, at each other before racing back down the alley to the main road.

  “Over here!” Roxy had spotted a large dumpster near the takeaway pizza shop. They ducked behind it just as a dark figure emerged from the alley.

  At first they could not work out who it was and Roxy tried to lean out farther to get a better look.

  “Be careful!” Caroline whispered.

  Roxy took a deep breath and was rewarded with the putrid smell of rotting garbage and fresh urine. She grimaced and tried not to breathe through her nose as she edged forward, crouching now at the side of the dumpster in the shadow of a smaller recycling bin. She squinted, trying to get a better look, and that’s when she recognised who it was. She was not at all surprised.

  “Is it the sleazebag?” Caroline hissed and Roxy glanced around and nodded.

  “Yep, Valentino.”

  Aris had already told Caroline how Valentino had taken his car from the locals’ section of the parking station at around 11:30 a.m. that fateful Friday, an unfamiliar man in the passenger seat beside him. Valentino had told Aris, in hushed tones, that he was heading to Rome to see a cousin, but Aris had wondered about that because the strange man had looked up then, surprised. When Valentino returned, the following day, the passenger was nowhere to be seen but Aris did notice, resting on the dashboard, a toll sticker for the A15 motorway, which Valentino had quickly pocketed.

  “That’s the road north of here, not south to Roma,” he had told Caroline. “I tell the police all of this, but they no care.”

  Well, thought Roxy. They’ll care now. She looked around again but Valentino had disappeared and she began to panic, glancing frantically up and down the street, when he suddenly reemerged from the alley, his back to her now as he hauled something out. It looked like a large, black sack.

  Roxy felt her heart stop.

  “What’s he got?” Caroline whispered.

  “Shh. There’s someone else coming!”

  A second figure had appeared, holding on to the other end of the sack, and Roxy stared hard for a few moments trying to work out who it was. Then she gasped aloud. She could not believe her eyes.

  “What the hell ...?!”

  “Who is it?” hissed Caroline but Roxy was now speechless. She dropped back behind the dumpster and shook her head over and over, trying to reconnect the pieces. She thought she’d had this thing solved, she thought the puzzle had been perfect, but now ...

  “Oh for pity’s sake!” Caroline climbed over Roxy and towards the side where she stuck her neck out to see for herself. A second later she was flat on the ground beside Roxy, also stunned into silence.


  Eventually, she found the words. “That’s Monty.”

  Roxy had no choice but to nod. Yes it was.

  There in the dim light of the street lamps was their guardian angel, the Santa Claus look-alike with the mop of white hair and the thick white moustache, the same man who was always ready with an eager wave and a helping hand. Yet here he was helping Valentino lift the large sack, clearly struggling beneath its weight.

  “But ... but how?” Caroline was saying. “Why?!”

  Roxy shook herself out, there was no time to think now, she had to get back out and see what they were up to. Scrambling past Caroline, she edged her way to the shadows of the recycling bin and looked out to find that the two men now had a better grip on the sack and were carrying it slowly down the ramp, towards the water. Caroline, too, had given up hiding and was crouched just behind Roxy, her eyes wide.

  “What have they got?” she hissed. “Is that ...?”

  She couldn’t say the name and neither could Roxy. They just watched, numb, for a few minutes as the kidnappers hauled the sack along the jetty and then dumped it with an ugly thud into a small runabout.

  “They’re heading out to sea,” Roxy said and was about to say something else when Caroline stood up from the dumpster and began running down towards them.

  “Oh shit!” Roxy cried. What if they had a gun?

  It didn’t matter to Caroline. She knew what was in that sack and she couldn’t let them escape.

  “Stop!” she screamed, her voice piercing the silence and echoing across the rocks on either side of the jetty. “Give me my brother back!”

  Chapter 32

  Monty and Valentino stared back towards Caroline, stunned and motionless for a few seconds before Monty shouted something to Valentino and he dashed across to the rear of the boat and began frantically tugging at something. It was the boat’s motor.

  Both women were now racing down the jetty ramp towards the boat but by the time they got close he had sparked the engine to life, released the rope from its buoy and the runabout was spurting away, heading out to sea, out into the murky darkness. Within seconds it had disappeared from sight.

  “Noooooooooo!” screamed Caroline, dropping to her knees, one hand across her mouth, sobbing hysterically. “No, no, no, please, I just want Max!”

  Roxy had reached Caroline and was pulling her up. “Come on, we need to follow them!”

  Caroline looked like she was in a daze now, so Roxy rushed past her and jumped into the first vessel she found. Damn it! It had no motor. She jumped back out, nearly toppling into the water as she did so, then corrected herself and ran down the jetty a little farther until she spotted a small dinghy with an outboard motor. She threw herself into it and stared at it. How the hell did you start the thing?

  “Get out of the way!” screamed Caroline who had caught up with her and had already released the connecting rope. She reached across the stern and pulled at some kind of lever, ensuring it was straight. Next she pulled out the choke, turned the hand grip on the throttle and yanked at the starter rope. It spluttered for a few seconds then died.

  “Bugger it!” she said then took a deep breath and tried again, slower this time, and the engine suddenly roared to life. “That’s more like it.” When she spotted Roxy’s look of wide-eyed surprise, she added, “That’s how I spent my teenage years, in case you were wondering. Had a thing for yachties.”

  Within minutes she had manoeuvred them away from the other fishing vessels and was ploughing out through the bay, following in Monty’s frothy wake.

  “What do we do if we catch up to them?” Caroline yelled across the roar of the engine and the rushing of the wind, and Roxy shook her head, clinging for dear life to the side of the vessel.

  She had no idea. She just knew they had to stick close, they had to follow Max, wherever that took them. Come what may.

  “There they are!” Caroline yelled again, clutching onto the tiller as she steered the boat with one hand, her other hand pointing towards a rush of white water in the distance. It had to be Monty’s boat, still flying, full throttle across the bay. Within minutes it would be through the inlet and out into the open sea.

  “It’s too far away!” Roxy screamed back and then gasped when a sudden ball of white light appeared from nowhere, just to the north of the kidnapper’s runabout, followed fast by another ball of light from the west.

  “What’s going on?” screamed Caroline and at first Roxy had no idea.

  Then she realised and felt a flood of relief. “It must be the coast guard!”

  Caroline took the motor down a notch and they watched from a distance as the larger vessels closed in on the smaller one, a flurry of Italian bursting out from a loudspeaker somewhere. They could just make out three or four dark figures running up and down the starboard side of one patrol vessel and what looked like guns pointing in the direction of Monty’s runabout.

  By now the runabout had stalled and there was a burst of noise again before several dark-clad figures jumped onto its bow, pushing the kidnappers out of sight, probably onto the floor of the boat to be handcuffed.

  That’s when Caroline buckled over, one hand still on the tiller, the other holding her mouth in wrenching sobs, and Roxy joined her at the stern, holding her tight as they both cried with joy and relief.

  It was over at last.

  “But what about Max?!” Caroline suddenly gasped, pushing away, a look of panic in her eyes. “Oh my God, what if he’s ...?”

  Roxy swiped her tears away then reached over and, using the technique Caroline had used earlier, revved the engine back to life. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

  Caroline grabbed her hand to stall her. “I’m not sure I can.”

  Roxy placed her other hand on Caroline’s and gave her a reassuring smile. “Come on, Caro. We’ve come this far. We can go the final leg. We can do this. For Max.”

  Max’s heart was still beating, but only just. As they puttered their way to the runabout, they watched with horror as two officers were leaning over Max’s limp body, one performing CPR, the other monitoring his watch. The kidnappers had been hauled off and onto the second patrol boat, but Roxy couldn’t even look their way. She never wanted to set eyes on Monty and Valentino again.

  A familiar face appeared then, leaning out from the first patrol boat. It was Officer Giuseppe with a life jacket on and a rope in his hands, which he was now flinging towards them. Caroline grabbed it and secured it to the bow then watched as Giuseppe and another officer pulled them close enough to tie the two vessels together. Within minutes the women had clambered off and were sitting to one side of the patrol boat, blankets wrapped around their shaking bodies, watching mutely as the officers continued working on Max.

  After what seemed like forever, one of the officers yelled something in Italian to Giuseppe who yelled something back then turned to look at Caroline.

  “We need to get him to a hospital, fast!”

  Before she could respond, one officer was releasing the small motorboat Roxy and Caroline had used and was reversing it out of the way while two other officers were hauling Max’s lifeless body onto their patrol boat, a third continuing with the CPR. As Max’s body was set down carefully at the stern, both women gasped.

  He looked like a total stranger. Max’s gaunt face was unshaven and smudged with dirt, his usually floppy hair oily and clinging to his head, the clothes on his body filthy and torn. His eyes were not open and his limbs were not moving, but the vessel now was, at rapidly increasing speed, heading in a southerly direction, away from Riomaggiore.

  Caroline, too, was flying across the boat, trying to get to her brother, but Roxy held her back. “I need to be with him!” she screamed. “I need to hold him!”

  “Let them do their job, Caro. They don’t need us getting in their way.”

  “But he’s my brother!” she wailed and Roxy screamed back at her.

  “And he’s my boyfriend!” There she’d said it. “But it’s not about us
. We need to let them bring him back.”

  Caroline nodded wearily and dropped her head into her hands again as Giuseppe wrapped the blanket around her tighter.

  The vessel was now flying across the bay and Roxy stole a glimpse back towards the second patrol boat, which was following close behind. At the forward bow she spotted two men sitting cross-legged, their hands behind their backs, their heads hung low, several officers standing on either side. Suddenly one of the men looked up and straight towards her. Roxy couldn’t see his face clearly, but it had to be Monty, she could just make out a mop of white hair, something white near his mouth.

  A fierce wave of anger and betrayal rippled through her then and she wanted to raise her fists and scream at him, but she did none of that. She simply shook her head and looked away.

  “Tea!”

  Giuseppe was holding a flask out towards her and Roxy accepted it with a grateful nod. After a few refreshing gulps, she handed it back and asked, “How did you know?”

  He looked over her shoulder to the second boat. “We have suspected Valentino for some time, but we were not sure about his accomplice,” he called back, his voice difficult to hear above the drone of the boat’s large engines. “I am sorry it had to get this far, but we needed to catch him in the act.”

  “Monty?”

  “Yes, Monty Tedesco.”

  And then, in a whoosh, it came to her. It all made sense now and she was shocked that she had not realised it earlier. “They’re related, right?”

  “Monty is Valentino’s uncle.”

  No wonder Valentino’s surname had sounded so familiar earlier that evening. Suddenly, Lily-Anne Waver’s words began ringing in Roxy’s ears, the words she had used that first night they had arrived in Riomaggiore and Monty had helped them find lodgings: “So Monty Tedesco strikes again,” Lily-Anne had said. “He’s always at his hat perch, helping everyone.”