A Plot to Die For (A Ghostwriter Mystery)

by C. A. Larmer

  “How much do you have?”

  “What? Oh, about six or seven packets. About 20, 25 doses I guess.”

  The Chief stood up and waved one hand towards the hotel. “Can you show me where your stock is, plis. I would like to check it is all there.”

  The doctor had paled considerably and glanced at Roxy again who tried to give him a reassuring smile. But she was suddenly very preoccupied. She needed to get back to the library and check out that Wikipedia page. As Doc was escorted up to his room, Roxy took the opportunity, stepping into the library and logging back in. She went straight to the web browser, clicked on ‘History’ and scrolled down.

  There was nothing there.

  She frowned then repeated the process, wondering if she’d done something wrong. But no, the entire History for the web for the past three days had disappeared.

  “It’s been wiped!” she said aloud, aghast.

  Someone had beaten her to it. Helen, she wondered? Well I can outsmart you, she thought, typing the words ‘Indian Tonic Water’ into the browser. Almost the first page that appeared was the Wikipedia site she had spotted earlier.

  “A-ha!” she said, clicking it open and beginning to read.

  She might not have any proof that someone had been reading it on Tuesday, but at least she could find out what it was they were reading. Halfway down the page she noticed a link to the site on tropical diseases and clicked on that. It sprang open to reveal a variety of horrific sounding ailments including, yes, Malaria. Roxy scanned down the page, trying to take in as much as possible when loud voices could be heard coming from the staircase. She logged off and dashed out.

  Chief Davara was returning to the lobby with Doc close behind, his face now bright red with what looked like rage and indignation.

  “This is absolute nonsense!” he was saying. “I have no idea where my stock has got to. Damn it, man, anyone could have taken it.”

  At the bottom step, the Chief said, calmly, “But you told me just now that you keep your room locked up. I saw you use your key to enter. Who else could have your key?”

  “Well, there has to be a spare at reception, surely. Ask Joshua!”

  They moved towards the main desk where Joshua was standing, looking confused.

  “You guys right?”

  “Yes, Joshua,” his uncle said. “Can you tell me, plis, if there is a spare key for Dr Spinks’ room? And if so, who had access to it?”

  “Yeah, there’s spare keys for all the rooms. Mary oversees the cleaning with a couple of the chicks from the village. Any of them can use it any time they like. But—”

  The Chief held up his hand. “Is the key for Dr Spinks’ room there now?”

  Joshua turned and reached towards a group of keys at one side. He picked it out and handed it over.

  “It is not missing,” the Chief said.

  “Of course it’s not missing! They put it back!” wailed Doc.

  “Who put it back?”

  “Whoever took it, of course! Anyone could have taken it at any time. This joint isn’t supervised around the clock. Is it, Joshua?”

  He turned to the young man, his eyes imploring, and Joshua agreed.

  “Fine, so tell me this, plis, who knew you had so much quinine in your room?”

  “Well, everyone! I made no secret of it.”

  He turned to Roxy then, who was lurking in the shadows near the library.

  “Roxanne, please, talk some sense into this man. You tell him how I offered some to you when you first arrived.”

  Roxy stepped out. “He’s right, Chief Davara. He mentioned it during lunch, on Tuesday I believe. Maya was there, I’m pretty sure the Zimmermans were around, too. Any of them could have heard.”

  “The fact is, I mention it all the time. Every time a new guest arrives, I check to see if they’re sufficiently covered. I offer it around. Anyone could have realised I had it, pinched the key when the main desk was unoccupied, and come in and pilfered the stock. Or—” His eyes lit up suddenly, “they could have spotted it while they were in to see me on some other pretext. Perhaps they’d come in for a cold or something and, when I wasn’t looking, they could have jumped up and grabbed it out of my medicine cabinet and taken off with it. The cabinet’s not locked, it would have been easy to find. I have people in and out of my room all the time. In fact, just the other afternoon I had—” he stopped, clamped his lips firmly shut.

  The colour now drained completely from Doc’s face and he reached towards a sofa chair that was placed against one wall, beside a wooden statue of a fierce looking warrior. He dropped into it. The police chief followed him over just as the Zimmermans walked in, hiking boots on and backpacks on their shoulders. They took one look at the assembled crowd, put their heads down and scurried off towards their room.

  “You were saying, Doctor Spinks? What happened the other afternoon?”

  “Huh? Oh, er, nothing. It’s not important.” He shook himself a little. “Look, Chief Davara, what I’m trying to say is, I have had many visitors over the past few weeks. It could have been stolen at any time by anyone. They could have rummaged through my cabinet and then put it aside until they were ready to use it.”

  The Chief didn’t exactly look convinced but he wasn’t stupid either. The doctor was right, it could easily have been taken by someone else.

  He smiled brightly then, as though he hadn’t just spent the past ten minutes accusing this man of poisoning and said, “Okey dokey, Doctor Spinks, I will need a full list of all the people who have been to your room to see you over the past few weeks. And a full list of the medicine you believe has been taken. But it seems very clear to me that this is certainly where the quinine has come from. I will also instruct my men to search the resort for any discarded packets. They have to be here somewhere.”

  He left the doctor sitting, drained on the sofa, and Joshua stepped out from behind his desk to join them.

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” Doc was saying. “It couldn’t be. It’s not possible...”

  “Don’t you panic just yet, Doc,” Joshua said. “We all know you didn’t do this, and my uncle’s a fair man. He’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. But I’m so confused. What’s quinine got to do with any of this?”

  Roxy pulled Joshua aside and filled him in. His jaw dropped.

  “Crikey, they think Abi was poisoned to death?”

  “Not to death, no. But it certainly didn’t help.”

  She explained about the blow to the head. “My guess is, when the killer spotted her up and about the following morning, he, or she, realised their little plan hadn’t worked. They probably hadn’t given her quite enough. So, they followed her on her walk and, well, you know the rest.”

  Joshua leant against the wall, then dropped down to his bottom. He scraped one hand through his curly hair.

  “This is all so insane and getting insaner by the minute.” He turned to look up at Roxy. “I just don’t get it, man. Who would do this? Why?”

  He shrugged his head in Doc’s direction and lowered his voice. “Surely, not?”

  “Not necessarily,” Roxy said. “We can’t jump to conclusions yet.”

  She debated whether to say the next thing but decided that she’d had enough of secrets for now. “I have to tell you, Joshua, it’s not looking great for you either.”

  He scowled. “Me?!”

  “The Chief believes that whoever poisoned Abi probably put the quinine in her gin and tonic over dinner. It couldn’t have been done too much earlier as the symptoms don’t take long to show.”

  The Chief had not said as much, but she’d just gleaned this information from the web and realised for herself that Abi’s drink had to have been tampered with sometime between pre-dinner drinks and main course for the quinine to take effect. After all, Abi was showing clear signs of poisoning by the end of the mains.

  “Do you remember how she was feeling suddenly ill over dinner? How she was sweating and feeling nauseated. How she excused herself?” />
  “Yeah, ’course. What’s that got to do with me? I didn’t pour her the G&T. Had to be one of the other staffers, surely?”

  “Not necessarily.” Roxy knelt down beside him. “It could have been placed in her drink after it was made. By someone sitting next to her at dinner, perhaps?”

  She studied Joshua’s face for signs of guilt. It dawned on her now that he knew very well that she’d been poking around on the internet—she’d given him the note for Davara after all—and could have snuck into the library at any time to erase the browser’s History. He was a likely candidate.

  But why? Perhaps he was in it with Helen. He was smitten with her, or at least that’s what Doc claimed. Or perhaps he had his own reasons for doing the hotelier in. Whatever her suspicions, Joshua didn’t look at all guilty or afraid. Instead, he just looked extremely hurt. A tear plopped out of one eye and trickled slowly down his face.

  “I wouldn’t do that, man, I wouldn’t do that to Abi.”

  He put his head in his hands.

  Roxy said, “I think we need to talk to Helen. She might be able to sort all of this out.”

  “No!” Doc was back on his feet. His colour had returned. “No one is to talk to Helen. She is not well. She does not need to hear of this. Not yet.”

  He steadied himself a little. Took a deep breath. “We will discuss it with her when she wakes up.”

  “When who wakes up?” asked Maya, appearing suddenly in her bikini, her dripping hair lank around her bony brown shoulders, a soggy towel draped across one shoulder, her beaded dress over the other.

  “Never mind,” said Doc sternly, giving both Roxy and Joshua a hard look. “This has nothing to do with you, Maya. I’ll be in my room if anyone wants me.”

  He made his way slowly to the staircase while Joshua pulled himself back up and returned to the main desk.

  Maya flashed Roxy a cheeky grin. “Oooh, isn’t he tetchy all of a sudden? What have I missed? Wasn’t that the police detective I saw leaving just now?”

  She grabbed Roxy by the hand and dragged her to the main veranda. “Come on, woman, what’s the goss?”

  Chapter 14

  Out on the deck, Maya glanced around. “Shall we grab a drink first? Where are the staff? Maurice! Popeye!”

  Popeye appeared, as though by magic, and she ordered them both a glass of champagne.

  “I’ll have mine with plenty of orange juice,” Roxy told him, glancing at her watch. It was just on 3pm. She turned to Maya. “What are we celebrating?”

  “You tell me! Something’s going down and I am clearly out of the loop. I despise being out of the loop. I can tell, however, Miss Nosey Parker, that you know all. You have that investigative reporter look about you. Come on, spill!”

  Roxy hesitated, unsure how much she should divulge. She didn’t really see any point telling Maya about the autopsy results or the native title lease for that matter. She knew how bad it all looked for Helen and didn’t trust Maya to keep quiet. But at the same time, things didn’t exactly look rosy for her husband either. They had all forgotten about Maurice’s early morning sighting of Wade’s boat. That still hadn’t been explained properly.

  Oh no, thought Roxy, there was a whole different angle she wanted to explore with Mrs Thomas and it had nothing to do with Helen or Doc.

  “I tell you what, Maya, how about you spill the beans for me?”

  Maya’s perfectly plucked eyebrows shot up.

  “Moi? What on earth have I got to do with any of this?”

  Popeye showed up then to deliver the champagne and as he placed the glasses down, Roxy wondered just how much the younger woman knew of her husband’s mysterious trip to Dormay early that fateful morning. Of course she could have been in cahoots with Wade, but it didn’t seem likely. They were hardly a united force. Roxy couldn’t really picture the flighty blonde being involved in a murder plot. For starters she’d have trouble keeping it to herself.

  But what about Luc? Just how serious was their apparent ‘fling’ anyway? If, indeed he had been forced to break up with Maya at Abi’s request, would this really lead him to kill?

  When Popeye had vacated the veranda, Roxy took a small sip of her drink and then said, very casually, “What I want to know, Maya, is why your husband lied about where he was the morning of Abi’s death.”

  Maya had clearly not been expecting this and she almost tipped over her glass, rescuing it at the last moment. She darted her eyes around the veranda, then back at Roxy.

  “What on earth do you mean? What are you saying?”

  “I think you know exactly what I’m saying, Maya. Or, if you don’t, you can probably guess.”

  She continued staring at Roxy blankly, so Roxy said, “Wade was over here very early yesterday morning, about the time Abi was killed. Then he went away and returned a second time after the police got here. I want to know why he made that first trip, so early?”

  Maya feigned a laugh and grabbed her hair, tying into a messy knot behind her.

  “This is all so silly. Are you saying, pray tell, that my husband sailed all the way over here yesterday morning to kill Abi, then sailed home again? I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous!”

  She took a long gulp of her champagne.

  “No, actually, I think Wade sailed all the way over here yesterday morning to spy on his wife.”

  Again, Maya was caught off guard, and she was speechless for a moment or two. She polished off her champagne with a second swallow and called out to Popeye for another.

  Eventually, she turned back to Roxy and said as sweetly as she could, “Why would he need to spy on his wife? You really are full of wild accusations today.”

  If she’d started batting her eyelids innocently, Roxy would not have been surprised.

  “Listen, Maya, I don’t give a toss what you do with your private life. No interest whatsoever to me. But I do think you need to understand that at this point things are looking pretty bad for your husband. His boat was spotted docking at the hotel jetty just before sunrise yesterday. No one saw him, as such, they just saw the boat, so maybe it wasn’t Wade. Maybe it was some interloper who’d nicked Wade’s boat and taken off with it. But I doubt that very much. And I’m sure the police do, too.”

  Maya was more sullen now, not meeting Roxy’s eyes so she ploughed on.

  “Quite frankly, Wade’s in thick. If you know why he was here... if he was here for some other reason, you need to speak up. Now.”

  Maya’s rigid smile had disappeared, her youthful enthusiasm now completely evaporated. She wasn’t having any fun anymore.

  “Oh God,” she groaned eventually. “I knew it was him, I just knew it!”

  “Wade?”

  “Yes, of course Wade. Luc and I woke up—” She paused, blushed a little and then scowled. “Oh don’t give me that holier than thou look! We were just having a bit of fun!”

  “I honestly don’t care one way or the other. Just tell me about that morning. You saw Wade?”

  “Yes! Well, not really.”

  “Maya, you either saw him or you didn’t see him. Which is it?”

  “I smelt him!” she blurted out.

  “You what?”

  “We were in Luc’s pad.”

  “Pad?”

  “Well, it’s really his studio—he paints in one of the bungalows out on the lawn, between the hotel and the jetty? It has great light and, even better, lots of privacy. Anyway, we nick down there sometimes if we want to... be alone.”

  She had the decency to blush again. “I’d slipped in after dinner and, well, very early that next morning I woke up suddenly. I thought I heard an engine or something. Then, soon after, I got the feeling there was someone lurking about, nearby.”

  “Okay, but that could easily have been the Zimmermans, they were out diving as usual that morning.”

  Popeye returned again and she grabbed the glass from him and took another large mouthful.

  When he left she said, “You don’t get it. It had
to be Wade. I could smell that toxic aftershave he uses. I’d pick it in a line-up.” She rolled her eyes. “You can not imagine how many bottles of Hugo Boss and Chanel for Men I have given him, yet he still insists on wearing that God-awful scent. It’s beastly!”

  Roxy was growing impatient. “So, you smelt his aftershave? Outside your room?”

  “Just the tiniest hint of it, but enough to freak me out I can tell you! I really got the impression he was spying on us. I jumped up, hid behind one of the drop sheets for a bit, then, when we thought the coast was clear, I dashed back to my room and Luc went off to see if he could spot Wade’s boat. But he didn’t. So we just assumed I’d got it wrong.”

  “What time was this, Maya?”

  “Oh, God, I have no idea.”

  “Well try and think. Was the sun up?”

  “Yes, just, but it was still early.”

  “So it could have been around 6.20am?”

  Roxy knew that was about the time Abi was meeting her horrific fate. Maya shrugged.

  “I couldn’t really tell you. As I say, I just fled to my room at the first opportunity.”

  Roxy sat back with a start. “You were the door I heard, closing that morning! About 6.30am?”

  “I guess that could have been me. I didn’t really notice the time, I just slunk under the covers and hoped to God Wade hadn’t busted us. If he had, I don’t know what he would have done. When I next saw Wade, after the police had arrived, you remember, he was acting so, well, normal, as if everything was perfectly fine between us. He didn’t seem angry with me in the slightest. So I naturally assumed I was just being paranoid. Oh God, I need a cigarette.”

  She looked at Roxy expectantly and Roxy shook her head.

  “Oh Roxy, imagine if Wade really did see us! What if he’s playing it cool? How mortifying! What am I going to do?”

  “Maya, I don’t think we need to panic just yet. But I think it might be time for you to have a serious conversation with your husband. You need to find out once and for all if he really did come to the island early that morning and, more importantly, why.”