Words Can Kill (Ghostwriter Mystery 5)

by C. A. Larmer

“So what happens now?” asked Roxy. “Will Donald keep Candy’s share of the apartment, do you know?”

  Rossi shrugged. “I don’t think he has given it much thought. He is still in La Spezia, organising to have his wife’s remains returned to Australia. I believe Maria will accompany him for the funeral.”

  “They’re going to bury her at home?”

  “Cremate,” said Carmela. “He said something about taking her ashes on one final hike, to her favourite lookout, somewhere in the Blue Mountains, is it?”

  “Oh that’s a beautiful spot,” said Roxy. “So, he’s going to escort his wife this time.” She sighed. “If only he’d done that earlier, all of this might never have happened.”

  They contemplated that silently for several minutes before Carmela coughed discreetly and nudged her head sideways at Rossi. When he looked at her like she was crazy, she gave him a quick thwack across one shoulder and said, “The award, you idiot!”

  “Oh, yes, scusi!” Rossi then told them the exciting news. His superiors had decided to honour Caroline and Roxy with one of Italy’s highest commendations, the Civilian Valour Medal for Bravery. “The ceremony will be later in the year, but the Force will be happy to fly you back for it.”

  “Oh my God!” squealed Caroline. “That’s amazing! When do we get it? What does it look like?”

  As she rattled away, Roxy smiled but couldn’t help thinking she had all the reward she needed and he was lying under crisp white sheets in the Sant’Andrea Hospital.

  Max stirred then, breaking Roxy from her reverie, and she watched as he struggled to open his eyes before he drifted back to sleep.

  Oh Max, she thought, reaching for his hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. You’re the one who deserves the medal. If only you hadn’t been so gallant.

  All those years he’d spent chiding her for suspecting the worst, for seeing crimes wherever she looked, he’d done the exact same thing. And it had almost cost him his life.

  Indeed, underestimating Max Farrell had been Monty and Valentino’s biggest mistake. They never would have guessed that Max would follow Candy to town, nor that he would take her words so seriously and contact the police. The problem was, as he left his message on the emergency phone line, he began to second-guess himself. It all sounded a little absurd. No wonder Candy wasn’t taking it seriously! There was no substantial evidence and Donald Marlow looked harmless enough. And so Max had hung up without giving any more details, and that was his third major mistake.

  It was also the thing that saved his life.

  Not sure what to make of the confusing call, Commander Rossi had decided to despatch two officers to Riomaggiore the next day to investigate, but not until midday—too late for Candy as it turned out, but in time to stop Monty from disposing of Max, as planned, that night.

  So Monty bided his time, waiting until Candy’s body was found and the police had finally vacated the town, Donald in cuffs, a guilty shadow hanging over Maria. Once the police were gone, Monty and Valentino would dump Max out to sea, knowing he would be so weak he would easily drown and it would look like he had been there all along. Their plan would finally be complete.

  Enter Roxy and Caroline.

  When the two Aussies arrived a few days after Candy had vanished, enquiring about their missing friend, Monty began to panic. He knew he had to keep them close and so he had done everything to help them out, in effect to learn what they knew and to gain access to Max’s hotel room. There, while Roxy called Caroline, he planted Candy’s pink visor and retrieved the Converse sneaker. He later planted it in the fishing lines, hoping it would make them believe their friend was already dead.

  Little did he know it would only encourage Roxy’s insatiable curiosity because, as she pointed out to the local police, who would go hiking with just one shoe?

  “Hey, Parker.”

  Roxy looked up from her thoughts again to find Max watching her this time, his eyelids heavy, his cheeks pale. She edged closer and gave his hand another squeeze. “Hey, Max. How are you feeling?”

  He tried to smile, only managed a grimace. “Like I’ve been run over by a truck. Fifty times. Sorry, must have dozed off.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Your body’s still recovering. Those bastards fed you, but only just. Doc says it’ll be a few more days yet before you’re strong enough to get up.”

  “Caroline?” He tried to look around.

  “She’s downstairs, trying to get her mitts on some magazines, I suspect. There’s fashion to catch up on.”

  He half smiled, his lips cracking a little. “You okay?”

  “Moi?” She held a hand to her breast as if surprised. “I’m perfectly okay, now we’ve found you. Plus they’re going to give us a medal, don’t you know? We’re now fully fledged heroes, so you better start treating us with some respect!” She smiled. “Hey, your parents rang earlier, tried to come and see you but we put them off. Said you needed more time to rest.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Thank Caroline, actually. I think she’s grown up a lot this past week.”

  “Yeah right,” he said, this time managing to smile.

  And there it was, his full-throttle, melt-your-heart smile and she felt herself exhale as she soaked it up.

  “I’m so sorry, Max,” she said eventually, but he held a finger up.

  “No ... nothing to be sorry for.”

  “Oh there’s plenty. I won’t go on about it, I promise, but I do need to say this before your bloody sister comes back and takes over again.” She hesitated, took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry, Max, that I behaved so badly when you first told me about the Mercedes job, and I’m sorry that I let you go without so much as a congratulations or a good-bye. But mostly I’m sorry that I could never quite step up when we were going out.” She sniffed back a small tear. “Can you ever forgive me?”

  He smiled again and reached a hand to brush her tear away. “You saved my life, Roxy. I think I can forgive you. It’s the least I can do. Now ... can you do one thing for me?”

  She gave him a sideways look. “What, saving your life wasn’t enough?!” She smiled but he wasn’t smiling back.

  “It’s about us,” he began and she went to say something but he held a hand up to stall her. “Can you please be my best mate again?’

  She looked crestfallen. “I never stopped.”

  “Oh yes you did, for a while there. When we started going out.” His voice was croaky with emotion. “I lost you, Parker, you changed.”

  She bowed her head. “I’m so sorry—”

  “It’s okay, it’s fine, really. But I want my buddy back.” He waited until she looked into his eyes and said, “Can we forget this whole relationship crap, we’re so bad at it and I miss you, I just want to be mates again.”

  “Best mates?” she asked.

  “Best mates for life.”

  Roxy threw herself across Max’s chest causing him to groan. “Oooh, sorry, sorry.” She looked into his eyes again. “I do love you, you know?”

  “I know, that’s why we have to stay friends, so you keep that up.”

  “Can I ask just one small favour?”

  “What?! Now I have to do something for you?” It was his turn to smile. “Of course, Parker, I’ll do anything. I owe you my life.”

  “No, just this.” She slowly leaned in towards him and placed her lips very gently on his. They kissed then, just softly, just for a few seconds, but slowly the sadness of the past six months dissolved and the terror of the past week subsided, and she knew he was absolutely right. She had struggled to call him her boyfriend because that hat had never quite fit, despite their best efforts. He was her best friend and there was no denying it.

  “Oh get a room!” came Caroline’s voice from the doorway where she had been watching them, several magazines in one hand, a tray of plastic cups in the other. She glanced around. “Oh, this is a room. Well, then, go right ahead.”

  “We’re done,” Roxy said, laughing as she stepped back.
>
  Caroline placed her things down then handed Roxy a cup. “Latté with two sugars, right?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Roxy and Max shared an impressed glance but Caroline wasn’t watching, she was reaching for the iPhone in her handbag.

  “Okay, I have more messages to report.” Max groaned. “No, no, this won’t take long.” She began tapping at the screen. “Okay, so, Mum says, make sure the hospital feeds you plenty of nutritious raw vegies, none of that overcooked mush, Dad says the Australian embassy has called and wish you a speedy recovery—fat lot of use they were. Umm, Oliver left a quick message, sending his best to you, Max, and telling you, Roxy, to stay out here for a while and I quote, ‘work is as slow as a snail’s plop’.” She paused so Roxy could groan this time. “Oh, and Gunter called from Berlin, Max, to say take as long as you need, your job will be waiting for you when you return.”

  “That’s good to know,” Roxy said and Caroline’s eyebrows shot up.

  “I thought you’d demand Max return to Sydney pronto.”

  Roxy shook her head. “Why would I do that? Max is my best mate and I only want the best for him.” She turned to look at him. “You love your job so you’d be crazy to come home now. I’ll miss you and I’ll e-mail you every single day.”

  “E-mail? That’s so passé,” scoffed Caroline but Roxy ignored her.

  “And I’ll be sure to keep the beer on ice for when you return. In fact, I’ll keep a running reservation at Pico’s wine bar, just in case.”

  Then she swooped in and gave him another kiss, but this time it was on his cheek, while Caroline rolled her eyes then immersed herself in the latest issue of Italian Vogue.

  ######

  About the Author

  Christina Larmer is a journalist, magazine editor and author of Killer Twist, A Plot To Die For, Last Writes, Dying Words and Words Can Kill (all part of the Ghostwriter Mystery series), An Island Lost, The Agatha Christie Book Club, and the non-fiction book A Measure of Papua New Guinea: The Arman Larmer Surveys Story (Focus; 2008). She grew up in Papua New Guinea, spent several years working in London, Los Angeles and New York, and now lives with her musician husband and two sons in the Byron Bay hinterland of Northern NSW, Australia. Christina is passionate about crime fiction and when she’s not scribbling away, can be found immersed in a classic Agatha Christie

  Connect with Me Online

  www.calarmerspits.blogspot.com.au

  christina.larmer@gmail.com

  Want to read more by C.A. Larmer?

  • Here’s an introduction to The Agatha Christie Book Club

  Part 1

  Everything was ready. The table was set, the flowers arranged, the English Breakfast tea was brewing in a delicate china teapot and there was a plate of cucumber and crème fraîche sandwiches beside it (crusts cut off, of course). It was the perfect backdrop for the inaugural meeting of the Agatha Christie Book Club.

  And it was the perfect place to set a murder in motion.

  As the seven members of the new book club nursed cups of tea and waved battered copies of Evil Under the Sun around with gusto, one member was watching the group very closely. This person didn’t really care about the book, didn’t give a jot about Agatha Christie if truth be told, had just pretended to care, to gain entry to this club, and to get the devious plan rolling.

  And it was a good plan! There was no point in false modesty now. It had taken a lot of time and a lot of effort, but it would all be worth it in the end. If it worked—and how could it not?—it had the potential to destroy one life, wreak havoc on another, and leave this bunch of pretenders for dead.

  They would never know what hit them.

  The book club member sniggered. Hell, even the great Agatha Christie would be left scratching her head...

  Part 2—Chapter 1 (Three weeks earlier)

  Alicia Finlay was in the wrong book club.

  She hadn’t realised it at first. Had come along, faithfully, every month for three months, the latest Pulitzer Prize-winning novel wedged under her arm, a strained smile on her lips, and pretended to be having fun. But there was no fun to be had.

  Finally, on the fourth Monday night, it dawned on her.

  You could blame the bottle of red. Alicia had been sitting quietly enough, half listening to a monologue about the central themes of this novel—something to do with British Imperialism and ‘inevitability’, apparently—when a 2007 Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon caught her eye. It looked delicious. So, too, did the plate of hors d’oeuvres that had been placed, along with the bottle and eight crystal wine glasses, just out of reach on a side table. Alicia spotted miniature crepes topped with salmon and goats cheese; asparagus sticks rolled in thin slices of prosciutto; and something that looked vaguely like pâté.

  But she knew how these things went. It would all have to wait until the serious chatter was over. Alicia glanced furtively at her watch. Forty minutes to go. Her mouth salivated and she turned to the man on her right but he was deeply engrossed in something the woman to her left was saying.

  “The glass church is, I think, a potent symbol of Oscar’s vanity and, er, the vulnerability of his misguided belief system,” the woman, Verity, a jittery, primary school teacher, explained. “It’s, well, you know... both strong and fragile at the same time. Don’t you agree, Alicia?”

  Alicia darted her eyes from the side table where they’d strayed again to the grey haired woman talking and smiled awkwardly.

  “Oh, um, I...” She paused. Chuckled a little. “Actually, sorry, wasn’t really paying attention. Thought I might help myself to a glass of red.”

  “Red?”

  “You know, red wine.” She stood up. “Does anyone else want me to get them a glass while we’re chatting? Something to eat?”

  The book group’s hostess, Kirsten, sat forward with a start. As always, she was immaculately dressed, this time in a beige cotton top, black linen pants and chunky red, resin beads that looked like they’d been plucked straight out of an up-market magazine fashion spread. Her black hair had been yanked into a stiff straight bob around her neck, no doubt in line with the current fashion but, coupled with sharp cheekbones and porcelain skin, left her looking a little like a wicked witch. Alicia wondered whether she realised that.

  “Ahh, sorry, Alicia,” said Kirsten, “but it’s not really time for wine, we’re still in discussion mode.” She tapped her thin, gold wristwatch twice.

  “Oh,” said Alicia, dropping back into her seat. “We can’t discuss and drink at the same time?”

  Kirsten smiled politely, exchanged glances with another club member—they had exchanged those kinds of glances before—and shook her head, no. Her black bob did not budge.

  “Why not?” Alicia persisted and Kirsten looked slightly taken aback.

  “It’s just not what we do... here.” She fumbled for her sheet of questions. “Okay then, if we can return to the subject at hand. Where were we exactly? I think we were up to question four? Yes, style of writing. Have you got anything to say about that, Wilfred?”

  She stared pointedly at a large man with a shaggy beard and gold-rimmed glasses who was slouched in an armchair across from Alicia. He pushed the glasses back into position and then slid one hand down to his beard and began caressing it lovingly. He’d been waiting for this.

  “Right. Well, I have to say I’ve never been a big fan of Carey. I think he tries very hard but I’m not quite sure he’s pulling it off. His writing, well, it leaves a lot to be desired don’t you think?”

  A few murmurs of agreement broke out around the lounge room where the meeting was being held and, encouraged, he launched into his trademark sermon on the fallibilities of the modern author. There wasn’t a decent writer left in the world, apparently; not since Hemingway and Salinger had a good book been published. Alicia couldn’t help wondering what a microbiologist would know about that but pushed the thought away and let out a long, soft sigh instead.

  Why hadn’t she noticed it earlier? Why had i
t taken four sessions and a forbidden bottle of wine to make her see what was probably blatantly obvious to everyone else in the room from day one?

  She just didn’t fit in here.

  The truth is, Alicia Finlay couldn’t care less about literature. She just wished she did, the same way a woman who guiltily watches Desperate Housewives on TV wishes she could find the strength to switch over to that really important current affairs program on the public broadcaster. She just didn’t care enough.

  Alicia’s mind wandered now to her own bookshelf in the cluttered, semi-detached terrace house she shared with her sister, Lynette, and their black Labrador, Max. The shelf was huge, took up an entire wall and tipped ever so precariously to the right. It was bursting with well-thumbed paperbacks, mostly crime novels, and mostly by British author Agatha Christie. Alicia smiled. What really woke her up in the morning and saw her drift off to sleep at night was an old-fashioned whodunit. And if it happened to be penned by the Queen of Crime herself, all the better.

  She suppressed a giggle. Imagine if she suggested Murder on the Orient Express for the next book club! Wilfred would have a fit. Kirsten would choke on her chamomile tea. And I’d be in book heaven, she thought.

  That’s it. Enough’s enough.

  She stood up. She walked across to the side table. She picked up the bottle of red and poured herself half a glass. As she did so, the room fell silent behind her and she could feel their eyes boring into her back. She wondered if Kirsten would tackle her to the ground and wrench the glass out of her hands screaming, “But it’s not drink time yet!”

  She turned around slowly and tried for her bravest smile. Kirsten’s eyes were abnormally wide. Verity looked nervous, glancing between Alicia and Kirsten. And Wilfred had stopped stroking his beard.