Drowned Vanilla (Cafe La Femme Book 2)

by Livia Day

  I secured a sparkly drink and circulated, looking for familiar faces. Of course, this was a club in Hobart, so I knew almost everyone. But I was particularly looking for — ah, there they were. The Gingerbread women, dressed to the nines.

  Alice’s soft chestnut brown hair had to be her natural colour — it suited her in a way that the blonde never entirely did. She stood between Libby, who was tall and imposing as she stared around the room like it was offending her, and Melinda, who was curvy and nervous and looking like she might need to hurl her lunch out the nearest window at any moment.

  They headed for the bar that was serving vodka-injected oranges, Irish coffees, Dutch lager and pink grapefruit soda. Yes, those were the only options. No one was complaining.

  It’s amazing, the shit Darrow gets away with in the name of cool.

  I kept my eyes on the door, because there was one thing I needed from Shay. The coconut sprinkle on the lamington.

  Stewart passed behind me again on his way to help Darrow with the projector. ‘Ye get this look on yer face when yer plotting evil,’ he said in my ear, and I could feel his laughter against my neck. Was he doing that deliberately? It reminded me that I still had very non-platonic feelings about him, no matter how much I didn’t want the complication. ‘It’s a wee bit scary.’

  ‘Not evil,’ I protested. ‘All my deeds are virtuous.’ But Stewart had already moved on.

  I glanced up at the door again. I had almost missed their entrance. Shay stood there, trying to appear relaxed and okay in a borrowed striped suit from the Flynn by Night shoot.

  Jason slouched in beside him, defensive in jeans and a shirt that had seen better days, his whole body language screaming that he wasn’t going to make an effort no matter what.

  At least in Hobart, fewer people knew who he was. They might have seen the newspaper articles, but they wouldn’t know him personally. If he kept his head down, no one would think of him as the teenager who was out on bail for shooting a bloke.

  Well, not right this minute.

  The music started thumping. Ljungberg, who was sharing DJ duties with Ceege tonight, was in command of the music. She had bare arms and big hair, and only spoke Swedish. She played some less depressing examples of Aussie indie music mixed up with more obscure European. In between the tracks, she cracked out an actual cello and played retro tunes of the Sinatra vintage.

  There was space for dancing, there were big squishy couches to collapse on with your friends, and there were a couple of benches along one side of the room to aid the messy and uproariously funny business of eating vodka-injected oranges.

  It was going to be a good night.

  I wore a cut off white ball gown with pink Eiffel towers printed all over it, and a hem that trailed threads around my knees. I had found the perfect shoes to match: pink and strappy and not-quite Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face, but good enough for me.

  The hair was a disaster, far more Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, but my battle with hair products had left a tangled mess to which the only solution was to stack it higher, and add glitter.

  In this crowd, I wasn’t overdressed.

  I felt an odd prickle along my shoulder blades, that sense that someone was looking at me. I turned my head and met Bishop’s dark eyes as he stepped into the club. He wore a black shirt and jeans, very casual for him. He raised his eyebrows at me in a ‘Well?’ kind of way.

  Hey, the gang’s all here.

  As I smiled at him, so glad he had made it, the lights went out. There was an odd sort of embarrassed hush that always happens at moments like this — people don’t want to react too extremely in case this is part of the show, and they’ll look stupid.

  After a good ten seconds of blackness, they were proved right. This was the show.

  The projections started up again, bouncing off every wall, a flutter of black and white images. They were still at first, but then the moving film started against the back wall, looping scenes from the Flynn By Night shoot. They’d chosen the best stuff. A gangster and his moll having an argument. A couple of hoodlums threatening a shopkeeper. A femme fatale strutting past the camera. A dozen femmes fatales strutting past the camera. Heh, a lot of women got into the whole femme fatale thing, huh?

  A guy and a dame exchanging a parcel in a dark alley, shot from a neck-breaking sky angle, and then snogging messily up against a wall. I stared at that one for a long moment before slipping away to do my job.

  ‘Mesdames and Monsieurs,’ came a deep, confident voice in a slightly unexpected accent. ‘May I present Le Cabaret Noir!’

  A spotlight hit the bar, and a buxom figure in a sparkly figure-hugging cocktail dress slithered over the counter, stood up in eight inch heels and threw his arms out in greeting to us all.

  Ceege hadn’t glammed it like this since his break up. I was glad to see that something was at least a teeny bit back to normal.

  ‘Kick it,’ said DJ CJ, and the music exploded around him, vibrating the crowd. Ceege made hushing motions, and Ljundberg brought the music volume down. ‘My friends, you are here to drink and dance and experience a masterpiece of modern noir cinema. Who said film noir was dead? Not us!’

  There were some cheers from the crowd, which went to show how many film students Darrow had stacked the place with.

  ‘But my friends,’ Ceege said in a dramatic voice. ‘Noir is about more than criminals, the seedy underbelly, and black and white cinema. At its heart, noir is about murder. And murder can be found anywhere. Only recently, in a sleepy town here in Tasmania, there was a sinister double death. The police think they have the real story, that the culprit has paid the ultimate price. But they are wrong.’

  It was too dark to see the expressions on the faces of the people who might actually be alarmed by what Ceege was saying. The audience loved it, crowing and cheering. The whole crowd was buzzed.

  I had stationed myself near the exit. I couldn’t stop anyone leaving, but I would sure as hell be able to see the face of anyone who tried.

  No idea where Bishop was. I had to trust he hadn’t turned around and walked right out of here when he saw that kiss up on the screen. I had faith in his protective streak outweighing everything else.

  I’d thought of every detail about tonight except for the fact that I had a walk-on (snog-on) role in the movie.

  ‘That’s right, peaches,’ said Ceege. ‘We are here to solve a murder. Tonight, we are the detectives. Watch closely, for all the clues you need to solve the crime are right here, before your eyes.’

  Light swirled around the club, flickering and dancing over faces, and then the film changed. Instead of showing clips from Flynn By Night, it showed a single track, a camera’s eye view of a person — a woman, by the shoes — walking down the path to the lake.

  There was a hush over the room. Everyone knew the story by now. How could you not, when the murder and the details of the investigation were a constant topic in the newspapers, on the radio, in the blogosphere.

  ‘Alice,’ a voice cried out across the room, a tinny messagebank recording. ‘Is that you?’

  There were maybe three seconds of silence before the film went back to wise-guys and crooked cops. The bare-armed Swede cranked the music higher, and the crowd got the idea that it was time to dance.

  ‘More clues to come, cherry pies,’ Ceege shrieked. ‘All will be revealed before midnight!’

  The montage of shots was interspersed with new footage, of the girl by the lake, running, falling. The sound of heavy breath filled the air.

  It was creepy enough for me to see the footage under these circumstances, and I knew for a fact that the feet in Annabeth’s shoes did not belong to her. They belonged to me.

  Someone moved towards the door and I braced myself. An arm caught mine, and a deep voice growled in my ear. ‘I have one word for you, Tish. Entrapment.’

  ‘Me?’ I said, catching my breath. I was pretty sure I wasn’t in danger from Bishop, but I was still running on adrenalin a
nd sparkly drinks. ‘It’s Darrow’s club. Darrow’s film. I’m an innocent bystander.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Bishop gruffly. ‘Completely innocent.’

  Stewart was kissing me again, on one of the walls of the club. Same kiss, different angle. Hell, how many of those cameras had been up there? Were the film students being given extra-curricular tuition in creepy stalkerness?

  ‘Method acting?’ I ventured, desperately embarrassed but not wanting to be distracted at this point. ‘Anyway, you’re not supposed to be here, you’re supposed to be…’

  ‘Ha,’ said Bishop, his gaze flicking towards the obvious image, then back to me. His body language had changed — his shoulders were tight and angry. ‘I don’t actually work for you, Tabitha Darling. In case you’d forgotten.’

  Then he was gone, striding on through the crowd and leaving me — well, off kilter. Wishing for a vodka orange. Staring at a kiss on a screen, wondering if it had really gone on that long in real life.

  The music was too loud to think, and the victim’s eye view of the camera kept returning to the screen, intercut with footage of Greg Avery and his wife playing crime boss and traitorous dame. There was a detective skit or two, and then we saw a horde of teenage boys in nice suits shooting at each other with their fingers as they ran across Main Street.

  Some of the best footage had been grabbed when people didn’t think they were being filmed. There was a wicked bit of Xanthippe in her full get up, teaching a row of glammed up teenagers how to vamp for the camera, Ingrid Bergman style. Stewart (I knew it was Stewart, he had crowed about it during the editing sessions) had filmed Darrow in his stupid beret, directing the action and having sandwiches thrown at him by a gang of kids in flat caps, dressed up as urban urchins. It was like one enormous gag reel for the cheapest movies ever made.

  Then there was the camera-eye view again, down by the lake. The woman with the shoes stopped at the sight of a car parked haphazardly near the water, its boot firmly closed.

  ‘Alice?’

  That was the worst of it. It was Annabeth French’s real voice, taken from a message on French Vanilla’s hidden sim card. I hated myself a bit for that part, but Darrow had insisted on putting it in when he realised what we had. This film wouldn’t be forgotten in a hurry. ‘Alice, call me back when you can.’

  The editing was choppy here and there, but very effective.

  Now we were back to the new footage, of my feet down by the lake. The camera swung up, and this time the full message played: ‘Alice, call me back when you can. Some people are looking for you — me — well, you. Don’t come here, it’s the first place they’ll look.’

  It gave me chills to hear it. Xanthippe had refused to show us any of the text messages she had found on the memory card, insisting they weren’t anyone’s business, and had nothing to do with Annabeth’s death.

  I mostly believed her.

  But the phone messages, those she had shared.

  The camera fell, as if its owner had been hurt. It hit the ground with a shudder and you could see blonde curls and a female shoulder. I knew it was me, I remembered recreating it for the camera, but for a moment all I saw was Annabeth.

  The image blurred and jumped, and then everything went black. The lights didn’t come on again. The music was dead. And I was too far from the action.

  I squeezed and pushed my way through, because I knew exactly where to go. The laptop that fed directly to the screen was in the back room.

  Finally people were realising that this was not the show. The lights were really out, the power was dead, and I was still elbowing my way through all of them, in the dark.

  I found the door finally, shoving it open just as Darrow reached me with a torch. ‘Ceege is checking the power board, no drama.’

  The lights came on again, and we stared into the office. The smashed remains of the laptop were scattered across the floor. A table had been overturned. Bishop was securely holding a struggling, furious Libby, AKA Gingernutz of The Gingerbread House.

  ‘Damn,’ I said softly. Not who I had expected.

  ‘Tabitha,’ Bishop demanded. Fury poured off him. ‘What exactly were you hoping to achieve here?’

  Not this.

  Ceege came in with Melinda in front of him. She looked tear stained and soggy, but at least she hadn’t thrown up recently. ‘Found this one at the power box,’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘We’re not going to say anything,’ Libby said flatly, crossing her arms.

  ‘I think that comes as a relief,’ said Bishop, letting go of her. He was still glaring at me.

  ‘How is this my fault?’ I said defensively.

  ‘Oh, I think we’ll find a way.’ Me getting involved in any kind of police business was his least favourite thing. It was a fair cop. I’d known that he wouldn’t approve.

  ‘Where’s Alice?’ I asked, turning my attention to our culprits instead. Why would they do this for her?

  ‘Alice didn’t do anything!’ Melinda protested. She didn’t look defensive though, but afraid. Interesting. What did she have to be afraid of?

  ‘Yes she did, she really really did, and we have to find her.’ I was starting to worry now. Nothing had gone as planned. ‘Has anyone seen Jason or Shay?’

  ‘D’ye miss the part with the lights goin’ out?’ asked Stewart, at my elbow. ‘No one’s seen anyone.’

  ‘Xanthippe,’ I said, appealing to her because — well. She was the person in the room most likely to trust me no matter how stupid I sounded. ‘We’ve been missing something about what happened that night. Even the film didn’t get it right.’

  ‘What sort of something?’

  ‘I don’t know! I haven’t figured it out yet.’ I went back to the doorway, surveying the crowd. Certain faces were most definitely not in attendance. ‘But I think Jason might have.’

  25

  From: Darlingtabitha

  is it possible to be completely sick of ice cream this early in the summer?

  From: Nincakes

  believe me, I was over it weeks ago.

  From: Darlingtabitha

  too early to start experimenting with soups for winter?

  From: Nincakes

  T, if you start talking about raspberry vinaigrette soup, I will bash you with my rolling pin. Just bake the damn friands.

  From: Darlingtabitha

  could vegemite friands be a thing?

  From: Nincakes

  I WILL KILL YOU DEAD.

  We spread out to look for them in the street outside. Trouble was, the street outside was typical New Year’s madness. There are a lot of pubs along this stretch of Salamanca, and it was about an hour to midnight. There were people everywhere, drinking and messing around and basically being stupid.

  You lose points with me when you drink unattractively, and the Hobart waterfront at New Year’s is full of unattractive drunkeness. But that wasn’t important right now.

  ‘We’ll never find them,’ I moaned. ‘This was a stupid idea.’

  ‘A couple of hours ago ye thought it was a brilliant idea,’ said Stewart breathlessly, his camera bag still slung over his arm.

  ‘It would have been if it had worked! Instead we’ve made everything worse.’

  ‘I’ll try the roof,’ said Darrow. Bishop nodded curtly and followed him.

  Stewart, Xanthippe and I looked at each other.

  ‘Where would I go if I was a femme fatale on the run from the law,’ mused Xanthippe.

  I eyed her. ‘You agree Alice has to be in on this too? More than her friends admitted?’

  ‘Up to her neck,’ said Xanthippe. ‘You can’t trust people who seem that nice. Come on, let’s see if we can find a quiet corner.’ She took off in the direction of the alley leading to Kelly Steps. This was a direct route up to Battery Point, the suburb up the hill behind Salamanca. The fastest way to escape the noise and chaos of the street.

  At the end of the alley, the chunky sandstone steps led their way
steeply up the hill. Xanthippe ran up them two at a time, then stopped halfway and pirouetted slowly.

  There was an old overgrown garden behind a big gate, just there. The wall around it was high, but you could see into it from the steps. I vaguely remembered playing there once as a child, when the building it was attached to was open for dance or drama lessons, or one of the many activities my mother thought would give me something to focus my energy on.

  The garden was a bit of a mess. I recalled my first nettle sting, and learning that it really was true you could always find dock leaves nearby, to ease it.

  Alice was in there, facing Jason. Shay was there too, hanging back, his arms crossed defensively as per usual. He looked ridiculously cute in his real suit. Like a kid playing dress up.

  We were all kids playing dress up.

  ‘What the hell was all that about in there?’ Jason hissed. ‘What are you running from, Alice? What don’t I know?’

  Covertly, Stewart slid his video camera out from the bag and took the lens cap off, lining up the shot.

  ‘It won’t be admissable as evidence,’ I said in a low voice.

  ‘That wasnae something ye were too worried about earlier,’ he whispered back, and filmed the scene anyway.

  Jason was steaming mad. ‘What was in that film that freaked you out? Like, specifically?’

  ‘What do you think?’ Alice cried back. ‘It was horrible, like they were trying to — ’

  ‘Show what really happened?’ Shay suggested in a voice much older than his years.

  ‘No,’ she said, sounding genuinely shocked. But then, she always sounded genuine. ‘They’re making some kind of sick game of Anna’s death, it’s nasty. I don’t want to remember that night.’ She turned back to Jason, entreating him. ‘Of course I wanted to get away.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said flatly. ‘But there’s a difference between running away from something you don’t want to see, and getting your mates to smash up a film and sabotage the lights. Makes you look really bloody guilty about something. So how much do they know?’