MURDER BRIEF (9 page)

Robyn didn’t even blink. "Of
course."

Beverley leaned forward and said
quietly: "Well, yes, Alice had an affair. Like I said, we talked
about everything. For a few years before she died, she saw a
guy."

Eureka. Robyn tried to slow her
heart and control her breathing. "Who?"

"One of the writers she
handled."

"Who?"

"Guy called Terry Torkhill?"

Robyn regarded herself as well
read, but didn’t know the name. "OK. And were they serious?"

Beverley shrugged. "I don’t
think so. I got the impression it was just nice and uncomplicated,
which is what they both wanted."

"And how was the affair going
when she died?"

Beverley shrugged. "OK, I think.
I mean, she never complained about it."

"Have you met Torkhill?"

"Yes, quite a few times, and I
quite like him."

"Why?"

She shrugged. "He’s no oil
painting. But he’s intelligent, funny and quite nice."

"Single?"

"Yes. A bit of a loner, like
many writers."

"What does he write?"

"Crime thrillers."

"Good ones?"

Beverley grinned. "Question of
taste, I suppose. I’ve only read one. It was brutal, violent and
misogynistic. But I rather enjoyed the lack of artifice. His style
comes from within the story, rather than outside, if you know what
I mean."

She didn’t. "And Alice liked
them, I suppose?"

"I don't know. We didn’t really
discuss them. They don’t provoke much critical reflection, and she
didn't like him because of his command of the long sentence, if you
know what I mean."

"What do you think about her
sleeping with one of her novelists? Sounds a bit unprofessional to
me."

Beverley smiled. "Maybe. But
book industry people aren’t professionals. We’re in a small dying
trade with lousy pay. That’s probably why there’s so much bonking,
to compensate for the rotten conditions."

Robyn giggled. "OK. And tell me,
have the police talked to you?"

Beverley lifted her eyebrows.
"No. Should they?"

"Yes."

"Maybe they decided they’d
charged the right man and there was no point."

"Maybe. Oh, and one last thing:
do you have Terry Torkhill’s telephone number?"

"Sure. Let me get it."

"I understand you write crime
thrillers," Robyn said as Terry Torkhill led her down a short
hallway to his living-room.

"Yeah. They’re variously
described as splatter novels, blood ballets or nihilistic
noir."

"What are they about?"

"I usually bring together a
group of violent criminals who commit a dirty deed, like rob a bank
or kidnap a wealthy industrialist. But, of course, the biggest
crimes they commit are against each other."

"No good guys?"

Torkhill smiled. "The bad guys
are
the good guys."

"Any women?"

"Only if they like shootin’ and
rootin’." Torkhill smiled. "So, as you can guess, when I write a
novel, I don’t unlock the great mysteries of life or tear out a
chunk of my soul and give it to the reader. I assume you haven’t
read any of my books?"

"I’m afraid not. I’m out of
touch with nihilistic noir, though I sometimes read detective
novels, mostly Scandinavian."

"You mean novels about depressed
policemen written in Ikea prose?"

She laughed. "Yeah."

The living-room was neat and
clean as a dental surgery, with modular furniture on sea-grass
matting. Glass doors fronted a balcony overlooking Bondi Beach.
Hundreds of brown bodies lay scattered on the sand like the
casualties of an invasion force. Swimmers bobbed about in the surf;
wet-suited surfies scrawled on the front of waves. In the distance,
two oil tankers crawled along the horizon like black slugs.

They sat and faced each other
over a glass coffee-table. He was in his early forties, quite tall,
with thinning brown hair and plain features. If she stood next to
him on a bus, she wouldn’t remember anything about him when she got
off, except maybe for his twinkling eyes.

He said: "Do you know the real
difference between a so-called literary novel and a thriller?"

"No."

"There’s no objective standard
for judging a literary novel. So if it's boring or badly written,
the writer can easily blame the reader for being impatient or
lacking insight. But with a thriller, the standard is obvious: it
thrills or it doesn’t. The writer’s got nowhere to hide."

"I hadn’t thought about it like
that. I’m sure yours pass the test."

"Opinions differ."

"How many novels have you
written?"

"Half-a-dozen. But the last one
didn’t sell too well. I think readers are getting a bit tired of me
and the sub-genre. Time to reinvent myself."

"How?"

"I think I’ll start writing
vampire or zombie novels. For some reason, they’re selling like hot
cakes right now."

"You’re serious?"

"Of course. I’m a commercial
novelist. I follow the market. I’d even put product placements in
my novels if I could. I certainly don’t want to go back to my
previous job."

"What was that?"

"I was a lawyer."

She laughed. "I fully
understand."

Torkhill smiled and leaned back.
"Anyway, on the phone you said you’re a barrister representing Rex
Markham?"

When Robyn told him that, and
asked for a chat, she expected reluctance. Instead, he immediately
agreed in a friendly tone. Didn’t even ask what she wanted to talk
about. Just told her to come right over, as if he had nothing to
hide.

Now, she said: "Yes, that’s
right."

"And how can I help you?"

"Well, umm, I understand Alice
Markham was your contact at Grimble & Co?"

"Yeah. Looked after me for about
five or six years: read my manuscripts, negotiated with publishers,
stuff like that. I was devastated when she died."

"You got on well?"

"Yes, very well."

Time to toss her grenade. She
cleared her throat and stared out at the white sand curving around
to the headland. "Really? Well, you see, I’ve been told you, umm,
had an affair with her."

Robyn expected a vigorous
denial. Instead, Torkhill coolly sat back and crossed his arms, as
if such accusations were a daily occurrence. "Who told you
that?"

"I’d rather not say."

Torkhill shrugged. "Fair
enough."

"Well, did you?"

He looked serene. "Yes, in fact,
I did."

Robyn was surprised at his
openness. "Really?"

"Yes, for a few years."

"And when did it end?"

"When she died."

"How often did you see her?"

"You mean, intimately?"

"Yes."

"Oh, once or twice a month."

"Here?"

"Usually."

Robyn was puzzled. The Homicide
cops should have interviewed Torkhill. Yet he wasn’t even mentioned
in the prosecution brief. Why not?

She said: "Just out of
curiosity, did any Homicide detectives talk to you about Alice
Markham’s death?"

"Yes, they did."

"Really?"

"Yes. A little birdie must have
told them I had an affair with her. Probably the same one who told
you. They wanted to know if I murdered her."

Robyn desperately wet her lips.
"And did you?"

A wry smile. "Alice was murdered
on 17 September last year, correct?"

"Yes."

He leaned forward and his face
lit up. "On that day I was in London, attending a writers’
festival. In the morning I chaired a panel discussion called
The
Death of the Femme Fatale
; in the afternoon I gave a talk
called
Cherchez la Feminist
. Snappy, huh? If you want, I can
show you my passport. It’s got entry and exit stamps. So, when
Alice died, I was on the opposite side of the globe."

Robyn’s heart sank. No wonder he
was so blasé about admitting his affair with Alice. He couldn’t
possibly have murdered her.

She said: "That’s a pretty good
alibi."

Torkhill laughed. "Show me a
better one."

Though not a suspect, he still
might know some useful information. "OK. So did she talk much about
her marriage?"

"No, not much. She came here to
get away from her husband, not talk about him. But it was obviously
a shambles, and she mentioned, a couple of times, that he’d hit her
during arguments. He obviously has a bit of a temper. That’s one of
the reasons she wanted a divorce."

"And what did you do, when she
mentioned his violence?"

Torkhill sighed and looked
guilty. "Nothing. She told me not to get involved - she could
handle him. Now, of course, I wish I’d done something. She might
still be alive."

"Have you met Rex Markham?"

"Yeah, a couple of times."

"You think he’s capable of
murder?"

Torkhill smiled. "Well, plenty
of people think novelists are too wimpy to kill anyone: we’re
observers, not doers."

"You don’t agree?"

"No. Novelists are as capable of
murder as anyone - maybe more so. Remember what Graham Greene
said..."

"What?"

"…that in the heart of every
writer is a splinter of ice."

"And you think Rex Markham has
that splinter?"

"I’m sure he does." Torkhill
grinned. "And let me say, as a fellow novelist, that I hope he’s
guilty. I really do. It would boost the morale of the whole
profession."

Robyn suppressed a ghoulish
laugh. "I think he’s innocent."

"Really? Have you read his
latest novel,
Jihad
?"

"Yes. What about it?"

"At the start of the novel, the
hero is in a bad marriage. One night, he’s driving home with his
wife and crashes the car. He lives; she dies. For the rest of the
novel he’s haunted by a fear that he
deliberately
crashed
the car to kill her. That’s why he goes to Afghanistan to work as a
doctor: to heal that psychic wound."

"And you think Rex was writing
about his desire to kill his own wife?"

"Maybe."

"But it’s just a novel,
right?"

"True. But there are no
accidents in a novel. Everything means something, even if it's hard
to work out what it is."

"Hopefully, the jurors won't
read
Jihad
as closely as you. Thanks for your time." As she
stood to leave, a new thought intruded. "Oh, and by the way, did
Alice ever talk to you about a novelist called Richard Olsen?"

"You mean, the guy who wrote
Waiting for Rain
?
"

"Yes, though Richard Olsen is a
pseudonym."

"I know that. Yeah, we talked
about him."

"Did she mention his real
name?"

"Afraid not."

"Did you ask?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Asking would have been bad
manners: novelists are entitled to hide behind pseudonyms."

"OK. Thanks for your time."

Torkhill smiled ruefully. "Sorry
to disappoint you. I bet that, when you heard I was Alice’s lover,
you got very excited: thought you could pin the murder on me."

Robyn flushed, but there was no
point lying. "That crossed my mind."

A sly smile. "Well, don’t worry,
all is not lost."

"What do you mean?"

"Alice had
another
lover."

Robyn had never considered that
possibility, which seemed rather indulgent. Her jaw dropped.
"What?"

"Alice had another lover."

"You mean, you weren’t the only
one?"

Torkhill laughed at her
consternation. "That’s what I just said."

"OK. Who was he?"

"I don’t know. You see, once,
when we were kidding around, Robyn said I’d better stay on my toes,
because I had a competitor."

"Did she name the guy?"

"Afraid not."

"She might have made him
up?"

"That’s possible. But I doubt
it."

"Maybe her other lover was Hugh
Grimble."

"Why do you say that?"

"They worked together and he
looks like a ladies’ man."

"True, but he wasn’t the other
guy."

"How do you know?"

"Because I asked Alice that very
same question for those very same reasons, and she denied it. Said
he wasn’t her type."

"Maybe she was lying?"

"Maybe, but I don’t think so. I
always got the impression she didn’t like Grimble and only put up
with him because he was her boss. In fact, she often bitched about
things he did at work and poked fun at his pomposity."

"OK. So when did she first
mention this other lover?"

"About a year before she died.
Then he became something of a running gag between us."

"You weren’t offended?"

Torkhill shrugged. "No. She knew
I didn’t care. We had a good time together, but not a close, clingy
relationship. In fact, she probably mentioned the other lover to
emphasize that fact."

"You didn’t want to marry her or
anything like that?"

"Definitely not. I mean, I liked
her, I really did. She was an interesting woman. But I’m not the
marrying type. I like my freedom; like my space. Having an affair
suited me down to the ground."

"You weren’t excited about her
getting divorced?"

"Not really. I wanted her to be
happy, but I didn't want to change our arrangement."

"OK, thanks."

"Sounds a bit sordid, doesn’t
it? But I did nothing wrong. I didn’t cheat on anyone. She did, and
that was her business, not mine."

"Don’t worry. I’m not here to
judge you. Far from it."

He smiled. "Thanks."

Robyn headed towards the front
door.

He said: "Hey. You want to read
one of my novels?"

Robyn didn’t, but didn’t want to
be rude. "OK."

Torkhill went to a bookshelf and
removed a paperback, which he handed over. The title,
Slash and
Burn,
appeared above a blood-spattered knife. Though Robyn had
no intention of reading it, she dropped it into her bag, next to a
copy of
Waiting for Rain
that she’d bought an hour ago.