Last Writes (A Ghostwriter Mystery)

by C. A. Larmer

  “No?!” She blushed and dropped her head in her hands, unable to look at him. “I am sooo sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. It was very flattering, actually. Although I think it had more to do with Max than my wily charms.”

  She peeked through her fingers at him. “Max?”

  “Yep, you were a bit hysterical. Kept ranting and raving, something about ‘bloody Max’ and ‘that bloody policewoman bitch’ and how they could ‘go lock themselves up for life’ or something to that effect.”

  She moaned louder. “Oh God. I am so sorry.”

  He laughed. “Don’t worry about it. You were quite hilarious. We headed off and then you suddenly changed your mind and suggested I take you dancing to Bar 11.”

  “We went to Bar 11?!”

  “No, I could see you weren’t quite yourself, so I nixed that idea and brought you back here where you proceeded to work your way through my wine collection—polished off my best bottle of Pinot Grigio if you must know.” He indicated an empty bottle by the recycling bin in the corner.

  “I drank the whole thing?”

  “Well, with a little help from me.” Now he was indicating two enormous wine glasses that had been rinsed and were resting beside the sink. “Then you suddenly noticed it was 2:00 a.m. and freaked out, said you needed to get home, pronto, like you were going to turn into a pumpkin.”

  Roxy had a sudden flash of memory then. She remembered the sickly tasting white wine, remembered glugging it down and giggling, and she remembered suddenly staring at that ridiculously sized clock in the kitchen, the enormous ‘2’ zooming out at her, freaking her out. She wasn’t an owl at the best of times and 2:00 a.m. was way past her bedtime. She vaguely remembered attempting to leave, but her memory was clouding over again.

  “By this stage you couldn’t actually walk,” David explained, “so I refused to let you go. I put you into bed instead.” He paused. “Oh, and if you’re wondering why I wasn’t gentlemanly enough to sleep on the couch, you can blame yourself for that. I tried to—” His eyes swept across to the open-plan lounge room where she spotted a rumpled pillow and blanket that was sprawled across an enormous, cream suede couch—“but you kept insisting I share the bed with you. I tried sleeping out here a few times but you kept coming out to drag me back, so I eventually gave up and we both just went to sleep.”

  “So there was absolutely no ...?” She cut off, blushing again.

  His eyebrows nudged a little again. “Well, there was a teeny bit of smooching for a while there before you passed out. You don’t remember that at all?” He looked a little disappointed and she felt dreadful.

  How could she forget that? She shook her head. “I’m so sorry, David.”

  He shrugged. “Oh well, your loss.” He stood up and tried to smile but couldn’t quite manage it, and she felt like a fool. She had led the poor man on, and she had obviously done it to spite Max.

  Her heart lurched again as scraps of memories came flooding back.

  Max and Gilda.

  Gilda and Max.

  She wasn’t sure what had happened exactly, but something had happened, she knew that for sure. Had she seen them kissing? Were they holding hands? Then she remembered. It came back to her with a sudden whoosh and she realised now that it was worse than that.

  Max had taken Gilda into his bedroom. It was game over.

  Roxy felt queasy again, jumped up and ran back to David’s bathroom where she hovered over the toilet threatening to throw up. Nothing came this time so she eventually gave up, rinsed her mouth out and returned to the kitchen. On the way back she noticed what looked like a spare bedroom, but was clearly a gymnasium. There were weights of varying sizes scattered around, a fancy, multi-speed bike machine and a very high-tech looking treadmill. No wonder he was ripped, she thought, padding back to the kitchen.

  David was now clearing away the plates, stacking them in the dishwasher, and looked up at her as she approached.

  “I had no idea I’d drunk so much,” she said, peering at him apologetically through her fringe.

  He smiled. “You must have, you were pretty plastered. Even before we got back here.”

  She cringed at the words. “Sorry, it’s not usually my style, not at all. I can’t remember the last time I felt this bad.” Then she remembered David’s film preview, and that first night at Bar 11. Perhaps this was becoming her style after all.

  He shrugged. “Honestly, it doesn’t bother me. It was quite nice actually.” He stopped, stared hard at her. “It was nice to see you let your guard down. And I enjoyed kissing you.”

  She crossed her arms and tried to look away, but that intensity in his eyes was back and she felt even more uncomfortable. She glanced at the clock. “Shit, it’s almost 11:00, I cannot believe I slept that long. I’d better get home.”

  “I can give you a lift if you like. I’ve got to get to the office anyway.”

  “On Sunday? It is still Sunday, right?”

  He laughed. “Yes it is, and yes I do have to go to work. The news never sleeps, you know that. Just give me a few minutes to shower and get changed.”

  As David returned to the bedroom, closing the double doors behind him, Roxy glanced around anxiously for her handbag and was relieved to find it slumped beside the front door where she’d obviously dropped it on her arrival. Thank God she hadn’t lost that along the way, and thank David she hadn’t been allowed to go dancing into the wee hours of the morning. She’d clearly had way too much to drink and way too little sense last night. She picked up her bag and noticed as she did so, a large wine rack against one wall. That must be the rack I raided, she thought, sweeping her eyes across the impressive selection of reds and whites. There were various brands of her favourite tipple, merlot, including a vintage bottle she could only ever dream about.

  Roxy stepped towards the creamy sofa, pushed the blanket to one side and dropped down into it, feeling weary to the bone. She glanced around again. She liked inspecting other people’s houses, they were always so revealing, and the revelation today was that David had a lot of money and a really good cleaner. Either that or he was a neat freak.

  The sprawling, architecturally designed house was not just tidy, it was surprisingly stylish, especially for a bloke, and a bachelor at that, and she admired the high ceilings, shuttered windows and whitewashed paint job that revealed not a single blemish. The polished floorboards were so shiny she could almost see her reflection in them, and there were plush rugs, expensive looking furniture and lamps, and a gleaming red Fender Stratocaster guitar hanging like artwork on one wall. Another wall contained a faux fireplace with a mantelpiece above it, and she spotted several gleaming trophies, including David’s Walkley.

  Beside that stood a soaring, white bookcase and she pulled herself up to take a closer look. Unlike her own bookcase at home, which was stuffed to the brim, paperbacks wedged on top of each other and at every angle, this collection was neatly placed and separated into genres—non-fiction on one shelf, literary classics on another, and then, on a lower shelf, a more obscure collection, including several sci-fi and a few cheesy sounding romances—Hot Enough For You and Lover’s Delight. She sniggered, about to inspect them further when she spotted two very familiar dust covers and reached towards them instead.

  They were books Roxy had ghostwritten, so her name was not on them, and she wondered whether he even knew they were hers.

  “I particularly like the one on that rich resort owner,” David said softly and she swung around. “I’ve been following your work for a while.”

  “How did you know—”

  “That you wrote them?” She nodded. “That’s what agents are for.”

  “Ah, Mr Horowitz. You’ve got few of his here, I see.”

  “Not his, actually. He can’t write a sentence. But he is generous, I’ll give him that. He gave me all of those books for free.”

  “Oh great,” she joked. “So no royalties for me, then?”

  He laughed, fiddling with t
he collar of his shirt. “Nope, but I do promise you, this book of mine will more than make up for it. It’s going to make you big, Roxanne, really big.”

  She smiled at his renewed self-confidence, wishing she had just a touch of it, and wondering if she’d be a whole lot more successful if she did. As she smiled at him she noticed, again, how striking his eyes were and how handsome he looked today. He had changed into a deep blue shirt, which seemed to bring out the blue in his eyes, and had combed his hair back neatly. He also looked like he’d just shaved and she caught the slight scent of something spicy.

  “Do I scrub up all right?” he asked, catching her staring at him, and she blushed. This delighted him. “Come on,” he said, smiling at her slyly, “let’s get you back home before the neighbours start gossiping.”

  Chapter 16

  Back in the relative safety of her snug apartment, Roxy swallowed some heavy duty pain killers, slipped her shoes and jeans off, and made a beeline for her bed, where she stayed, moaning to herself for hours, as much from her throbbing head as from her broken heart.

  Max and Gilda.

  Gilda and Max.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about them. A mini movie of that moment on Saturday night kept flashing through her brain—Max leaning into Gilda’s ear, whispering sweet nothings then leading her gently by the hand towards his bedroom.

  His bedroom!

  “Agrrggh,” she groaned, pulling a pillow over her head in a vain attempt to block it out.

  Roxy could have handled anything, she decided, anything but that. Two of her favourite people. Now together. Now intimate. Her heart squeezed tighter.

  If truth be told, she had expected it. Had even enabled it by dragging Gilda along to Max’s party. So why was she so surprised? And why, she wondered, did it hurt so much?

  Roxy knew the answer, of course, had known the answer for some time, but she wasn’t about to admit it now. Not after Saturday night.

  Throughout that miserable afternoon the phone rang several times, but Roxy ignored every call. There were two from Gilda, sounding bright and breezy, as though nothing had happened, and it made Roxy want to get up and stab her through the telephone. There was also one from Max. He didn’t say much either but he did sound guilty. And so he should! He asked her to call and she threw a shoe at the answering machine by way of reply.

  And, of course, there was one from her mum, oblivious to her pain, rattling on about her nosy neighbour Valerie, some horrendous shopping expedition with Charlie, and checking they were still on for the following Sunday.

  “And isn’t that atrocious Tina Passion woman with the same agency as you?” she finished off. “Such a shock about her. Valerie was a closet fan, she’ll be most upset. Oh, well, call me when you can be bothered to find the time.”

  Roxy sat up.

  What was she saying about Tina Passion?

  She whipped the sheets back, struggled out of bed and grappled for the phone. It was too late, her mother had hung up. She stared at her clock radio. It was not yet 6:00 p.m. She flicked the radio on and began scanning for the news. All she could find were bad pop tunes and a cricket round up. She switched it off and dashed into the lounge room to try her luck with the TV. There was nothing on the commercial stations and the twenty-four-hour news channel was doing a story on the African famine. Growling with exasperation and the remnants of her worst-ever hangover on record, she then staggered through to the sunroom and clicked on her laptop. As it slowly whirred to life, she grew impatient, grabbed the phone and dialled Oliver’s home number. His machine picked up.

  “Olie, it’s Roxy. Just wondering what’s going on.”

  Next, she tried Oliver’s mobile but it was switched off, so she dropped the phone back on the handset and said, “Bugger it, I’m going over.”

  Then she returned to her bedroom, peeled off last night’s crumpled shirt, and hit the shower. Within twenty minutes, Roxy had changed into fresh blue jeans and a grey T-shirt, and was storming through the streets of Kings Cross, handbag wedged under one arm, worried look stenciled to her face. Oliver lived just a short walk from her place and a million miles away.

  While Elizabeth Bay was a little shabby, it still had an elegant air, a lot like a spinster aunt who held her head high. Oliver’s suburb, Kings Cross, was more your trashy younger cousin, the one who wore her skirt too short, her hair too bleached, her eyeliner way too thick. It was Sydney’s main red light district and boasted more strip joints and seedy bars than you could poke a crack pipe at, but like loving family members, the two suburbs were still close, and it took just five minutes for Roxy to storm past the iconic El Alamein Fountain towards Oliver’s aging art deco building.

  As she approached, Roxy spotted a police car pulling up in the opposite direction, its siren and lights off. She watched as it double parked out the front of his apartment block and gasped when the back door swung open and Oliver stepped out. He didn’t say anything, simply slammed the door and waited for the vehicle to drive away before turning around and stepping towards his front door.

  Roxy called out Oliver’s name and he spun around, a dazed look upon his face. He didn’t seem to recognize her, so she stepped closer.

  “It’s Roxy. Are you okay?” He looked relieved to see her but said nothing. “What’s going on, Olie?”

  He glanced around. “Not here,” he said quietly, motioning into the building and grappling for his keys.

  It took him a few moments to unlock the door and she knew, for certain now, that something terrible had happened, but she wasn’t about to get ahead of herself. Her brain was pounding enough as it was.

  Up in his apartment, Oliver had managed to locate the coffee grinder and some beans but stood standing at the counter holding them for several minutes, so Roxy took them off him and set about making coffee, strong and black.

  “I need a shower,” he muttered and disappeared into the bedroom, returning less than ten minutes later, changed and a little more alert. Roxy handed him his coffee and steered him onto his bright red sofa, wishing she’d brought her sunglasses along. She didn’t recall it being this bright.

  “There’s a couple of sugars in that,” she said, assuming he’d need them, and then sipped her own beverage slowly, waiting for him to speak. Eventually, after several long, slow gulps, he did.

  “It’s been another crap day, Rox.”

  “I gather that.”

  “You heard about Tina?”

  “Not really,” she said, bracing. “What is it?”

  “She’s dead.”

  That was what Roxy had been dreading. She squeezed her eyes shut and asked, “What happened?”

  He sighed long and low. “Don’t know, but whatever happened, they think I did it.”

  Her eyes flew open. “Who? The cops?” He nodded, looking away. “What?! That’s ridiculous! Did they actually say that?”

  He looked back at her, his eyes like a wounded animal. “Didn’t need to, Rox. Pretty bloody obvious. I’ve been in there for questioning since 2:00 p.m. Four fucking hours of the same old fucking questions.”

  Roxy’s jaw dropped. “What sort of questions? So she was definitely murdered then? No chance of suicide or—”

  “She was murdered, Rox, no question. Some bastard killed her and it’s being pinned on me.”

  Roxy placed her cup down carefully and moved closer to him. “This is all insane. You have to tell me exactly what happened. Did you meet her as scheduled at Pico’s last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was she okay? What happened?”

  “She was fine!” He was starting to snap now and she wondered whether interrogating him further was the worst thing she could do, but he was racing ahead. “She was great. We had a laugh, a bite to eat and then she had to go home.”

  “You didn’t go back with her?”

  “Of course I bloody went back with her! I’m not about to let a beautiful woman walk herself through those city streets! They’re worse than Kings Cross, every
fucking hooligan from the ’burbs comes in.”

  “Okay, easy. So you walked her back. Then what?”

  “Then I said good night and she went up. That was it.” He stopped, swallowed back his tears. “I ... I went home to watch a bit of TV then go to bed … Next thing I know I get a visit from some detectives around mid-arvo, they start grilling me with questions and then before I know it they’ve barreled me into the back of their car and taken me to the station. No time to call a bloody lawyer, nothing.”

  “But why do you need a lawyer, I don’t get it?”

  He slammed his cup down and stood up. “Jesus, Miss Suspicious, you oughta get it. It’s crime fiction 101. I was the last one to see her alive, I’m the first bloody suspect.”

  Roxy looked away, her heart sinking. Shit, she thought. He’s right. Oliver read her mind and slumped back into his seat.

  “I’m fucked.”

  “Was Gilda there? Did she interrogate you?”

  “Gilda Maltin? No, why?”

  “Never mind. So did they tell you exactly what happened? To Tina? How she was killed?”

  “No, not exactly. But they did say it was brutal. They were aggressive, Roxy, they were asking all sorts of weird questions about how long I’d known her, what subjects I did at high school, for Christ sake!”

  “Huh?”

  “Exactly. Bloody weird. Wanted to know if I’d done chemistry, or something bizarre. Anyway, I should’ve demanded a lawyer but they never quite accused me—”

  “You didn’t ask for a lawyer!?”

  “Didn’t think I needed one. Not until the last hour, when it finally clicked. The minute I mentioned it, they terminated the interview and drove me home. Bastards.” He looked up at her, his eyes watering now, his face softer. “Poor Tina, eh? Who the hell’d want to do this to her? It’s just horrendous.”

  “And so soon after Seymour and William,” Roxy added, immediately wishing that she hadn’t. Yet Oliver seemed encouraged by this. His eyes were racing around in his head and he jumped up and began circling the room, round and round the parquetry floor.