Murder most fancy, p.6
Murder Most Fancy, page 6
Esmerelda shot me a look of revolt and disgust.
‘Pazzia is now the only fashion magazine that has run a profit in hard copy and digital for the past three quarters straight,’ I said. I really had to stop listening to so many podcasts poolside; they were too chock-full of accidental learning. ‘The only other magazines making a profit in hard copy these days are gossip mags,’ I said with a nose wrinkle.
‘Dude’s a psycho,’ she repeated.
‘Mental health is no joke,’ I said.
She stared at me in a unique blend of frustration and earnestness. ‘I’m totally not joking. He’s legit psycho. Won’t leave me alone. Calls friggin’ constantly. Sends me stuff.’
‘Heinsmann?’
‘Yes, Heinsmann!’
‘Calls you? Esmerelda?’
I was having difficulty wrapping my head around the concept.
‘He like totally wants me to do this thing. Dude won’t go away,’ she said seriously. ‘He’s, like, a little … scary.’
In the short time we had known each other, Esmerelda and I had faced some uniquely terrifying and intimidating characters, none of whom had seized her attention. But Laurie Heinsmann, an effeminate middle-aged magazine editor, apparently troubled her.
‘What does he send you?’ I asked.
Horses’ heads? Dead fish wrapped in newspaper? Roses with their heads snipped off?
She leaned in conspiratorially. ‘Gucci sneakers,’ she said with disgust. ‘Chanel sneakers. Like, hello? What the fuc—frig, right?’
‘Heinsmann sent you Gucci and Chanel and from that you got psychotic?’
Personally, I questioned the mental health of someone who thought turning down free Gucci and Chanel was problematic.
‘Sneakers!’ she said earnestly and leaned back, as if that answered the question.
Honestly, some puzzles are more complicated than others, and some puzzles are just, well, puzzling.
‘But you love sneakers,’ I said, walking straight into the trap.
‘Dude, I love real kicks. They’re not real. Do you know what would happen if I went around in Gucci sneakers? My rep would be trashed.’
You can’t die on every hill. What I really wanted to say was, ‘Are they Ace? Or Rhyton platform? If so, I can dispose of them.’ But I didn’t. I let it go. Getting to the end of this conversation was worth more to me. I could buy the sneakers, not that I would; sneakers were not really my ‘thing’, unless they were select Jimmy Choos and were free, and then I would be willing to try them on. But time spent scurrying down the rabbit hole with Esmerelda? I could not buy that back.
‘Okay,’ I said, pressing forward. ‘Apart from the shoes, what seems to be the problem? Why is he scary?’
It could not be sexual harassment. Esmerelda was over twenty-one and not a nubile young man fresh off the cover of GQ or Men’s Health with abs and skin like a baby’s tooshie, if a baby’s tooshie was tanned to perfection, as was Heinsmann’s preference.
Silence.
This was going to be good.
‘Esmerelda?’
She touched the teapot again, as if it may have magically warmed up in the past ten minutes. I picked up the rotary dial phone from the Burr Walnut Queen Anne coffee table and ordered more tea.
We waited in silence for two minutes until the tea arrived.
The tea was poured.
I sipped the tea.
At this stage in my spiritual growth, three minutes was my Zen maximum.
‘So?’ I prompted, stretching out the word to leave no room for interpretation that I would be requiring a definitive answer.
‘He like totally suckered me. When I signed the deal for the cover last summer, I didn’t realise it was a two-cover deal.’
I am sure she used to be better at flat-out lying to me. Perhaps I can just see it with greater clarity these days. I raised my eyebrows in a rhetorical, I don’t believe you manner and pressed my lips together to convey the same sentiment.
She exhaled heavily in exasperation. ‘Fine. Like, I knew a tiny bit it was a contract for two covers. But, like, I didn’t think he’d wanna go again.’
And then it hit me. ‘You mean he’s sending you designer shoes—’
‘And flowers. And clothes. And booze. And bags, and—’ she paused in disbelief, ‘—make-up!’
I started over. ‘The editor-in-chief of Pazzia is sending you all manner of free designer swag because he wants to put you on the cover? Again? For the second time in less than a year? Essentially cementing you as Australia’s most desirable model.’
I tried to hide my astonishment while making a mental note to circle back to the exact whereabouts of the Heinsmann gifted clothes, handbags, cosmetics and designer goodies.
‘Yep. This totally sucks. I only did the first cover ’cause I was desperate. Without the modelling stuff, I would’ve been unemployed and like, broke my parole. This was before I became your personal shopper, before you set Richard and Crystal on fire—’
‘—accidentally,’ we chorused together.
She nodded. ‘Yeah, totally. Anyway, Eddy said it was a good gig.’
Eddy was mother’s long-time manager. And after a string of managers who were thieves and incompetents early in her career, a godsend.
‘Eddy was absolutely correct. A Pazzia cover is an incredible step in anyone’s career.’
I explained to her about the power of the cover model. No cattle calls. Big contracts. Big opportunities. Big money. Lots of people being nice to you.
‘Still totally not worth it. I’m just, like, not into it.’
‘But—’ I said, attempting, against my better judgement and biases against modelling, to explain the many advantages of being an uber model.
‘Indigo, dude,’ she implored. ‘I don’t wanna.’
It was simple really. Someone was offering to make her a princess. But she didn’t want to be a princess. I was pretty sure she would have been happy to have the financial resources, the palaces, the chefs, the jets, the holidays, all the luxuries that came with being a royal, but she did not want the fine print. She didn’t want to be tied up by the many anti-freedom strings, conditions and expectations that came with the role.
For not the first time, I thought Esmerelda might have been a genius.
Or a spiritual guru.
Or maybe she just didn’t like the work.
‘I’d rather do this,’ she said, leaning forward on the lounge, pointing her finger enthusiastically backwards and forwards between herself and I. After a few moments, she caught herself and stopped her hand gesturing. Her cheeks warmed slightly under her flawless tan.
I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t say anything. But somewhere, something hidden deep, deep inside me became exponentially happy.
Esmerelda rolled off the lounge and sauntered towards the door. The second she turned the handle, Dylan slid back in through the crack. He missed touching her by mere inches.
His charming smile was lost on her.
‘Like, you’re a total douche,’ she said matter-of-factly, and left.
I noticed all the cinnamon scrolls were gone and the fun felt like it had departed the room too.
‘She’s a feisty one,’ Dylan said, ignoring the insult and strolling, uninvited, back in.
He had no idea.
‘Tough too,’ he said, checking the door had closed completely. ‘She almost got taken out by an enormous row of renegade luggage trolleys at the airport. It was like a runaway train. I managed to move her out of the way just in time. I don’t mind saying it scared me a little. But she didn’t bat an eye!’
I didn’t know if he was telling the truth or not; either way, I had little interest in his story. ‘I’m tired,’ I said, and I was. ‘It’s been an eventful day.’
‘I heard,’ Dylan said, switching gears and pulling a single chair, leg to leg close to my lounge. ‘The staff told me you found a body in the garden this morning! A homeless guy who’d wandered in from the Cross, they said. I can only imagine how horrible that was.’
He sat down and leaned towards me. He was very close. He smelt the same as he had in high school, of Kouros by YSL. By today’s standards (and possibly by standards in my teens), it was not a sophisticated scent; however, it remained for me, against all common sense, highly charged and bluntly alluring.
The last time he was this close to me …
I found myself in a mental time machine that involved the kind of intense and wonderous kissing, stroking, touching and … well, other things that happen in that magical time between your first teen kiss and your first time. I was so enamoured with that particular transition period, I managed to stretch it out for many, many years.
For me, one of the great benefits of pre-sex romance was that while there were substantial amounts of hope, there was no precedent. That left plenty of space for ambition and creativity.
Dylan was creative and ambitious. We played almost every note in every symphony a youth orchestra can play. Repeatedly. With movement variations. But we didn’t play the final symphony. Dylan chose to have his rollicking finale with Tiffany Goldstein—while we were still dating. Yes, he was a horrible cheater, but he was magical in other areas. He set the bar high for every man who came after. Searing was one of the few who had sailed easily over. I suspected James Smith could clear that bar without even touching a woman.
You never forget the first few notes and I could see from his expression that Dylan was about to kiss me. A picture formed in my mind of Dylan’s hands roaming up a thigh clad in a SILC school skirt, but it wasn’t my skirt. Or my thigh.
I was transported back to the moment I found them together. The horror smacked me in the face like the first cold wave of an ocean swim, mortification washing over me. My stomach dropped and my face burned with humiliation. I knew what was coming and I embraced it. I passed out, falling gracefully backwards into my baroque lounge like a seventeenth-century heroine.
‘Still?’ I heard Dylan splutter in astonishment.
I knew I would wake up somewhere lovely and Dylan Moss would be gone. I was right. It was a good day after all.
CHAPTER 5
NOTHING DOING
A week later, I had managed to avoid Dylan and Searing and do absolutely nothing whatsoever to identify the dead homeless man in the lilies. That job belonged to Rope and Winters.
I had every intention of telling Dame Elizabeth I could not possibly be of any assistance, but the time just never seemed right. There were three unprecedented thirty-degree spring days that required swimming and sunbaking. Dior, Hermès and Alex Perry had sales—two days’ work. And it took Esmerelda and I the best part of a day to figure out how to hang the new paintings in the pool house. I did not feel it terribly wise to bring in professional help to hang art so recently repurposed.
I tried to find an Esmerelda-free device to google her Pazzia cover. But devices untouched by Esmerelda were thin on the ground. Eventually I had to ask her to find me one, at which point she used a word so shocking, so unprecedented, that I agreed to stop searching for the cover photo. That word was please. I was speechless for at least thirty seconds.
Mother remained overseas with Jed and although I had the run of the estate, I stayed in the pool house. It was cosy and her staff were on call but not living with me. Esmerelda, for reasons unknown, chose not to divulge the location of her permanent residence, but was, for the time being, and with Mother’s blessing, living in the main house.
There simply was no time to investigate the identity of the dead man. Plus, I didn’t want to. While it was true I didn’t have a job, it was also true that I didn’t want a job, and if I did want a job, it would not be identifying dead people for Australian royalty. I still had many months of entitled widow mourning ahead of me before there was even a hint of expectation that I ‘do something’ with my life. Besides, I was doing something: shopping. I was patriotically supporting the Australian economy. And the Italian economy. And the French economy.
I was sitting on my bed, buying shoes online, when I heard it. The dreaded knock. Anyone knocking on a pool house door had already made it through security in the main house (that is, mother’s maid, Patricia), through the somewhat giant and meandering house proper, down the garden path, past the gardens, courts, pool and outdoor staff and, most frighteningly, past Esmerelda.
In my advanced state of vigilance, the opening of my bedroom window mere metres away made me jump.
‘Like, your nanna’s here,’ Esmerelda said, leaning into the room through the hip-high window she had surreptitiously opened. From the outside.
There was no way my grandmother was hand-to-wood knocking on a door. I had never seen it done. I pointed towards the front door. ‘My grandmother is actually knocking?’
Esmerelda withdrew her head from inside the room to check the status of the door.
‘Nup, some other chick’s doing the knocking,’ she reported.
There was a second knock, small and polite. If a knock was refined, this was it. I was filled with a sense of dread. ‘An older lady? Looks like she supports the arts? And gardening?’
‘Dude?’ Esmerelda said, shooting me a look.
‘Okay, looks like a slightly cooler, younger version of the Queen?’
She popped her head out again. ‘Oh yeah! Totally. She’s super cute.’
God help me.
‘Could you take care of it?’ I asked hopefully.
‘I like, don’t work for you. Answer your own door.’
‘You do work for me,’ I reminded her.
‘I think I might still like, technically be your personal shopper. This is totally not shopping.’
She had me there.
Only Esmerelda could describe one of the world’s richest women and the country’s biggest philanthropist as ‘your nanna’ and ‘some other chick’ who was ‘super cute’.
‘For goodness sake, Elizabeth!’ I heard Grandmother’s impatient voice chastise before the handle turned and the unlocked front door opened. ‘Just walk in!’ I could picture her rolling her eyes at poor Dame Elizabeth.
‘You are such an impatient old bull,’ Dame Elizabeth said in a voice I felt certain she reserved for use on Grandmother alone. ‘What if she has company?’
‘With the fleetingly friendly felon hanging out of her bedroom window?’ Grandmother said. I could imagine her glaring at Dame Elizabeth while pointing at Esmerelda half-in, half-out of my bedroom window.
‘Your nanna totally remembers me!’ Esmerelda beamed proudly.
The sound of footsteps in the hall was closely followed by the two matriarchal women entering my bedroom.
‘Dudes. I mean chicks. I mean ladies,’ she said by way of greeting.
Esmerelda’s road to self-improvement was paved with rocky road.
‘Grandmother! Dame Elizabeth!’ I exclaimed in false delight. ‘What are you two doing here?’
‘The better question is, what are you doing here?’ Grandmother demanded, removing several crisp Dior shopping bags from a cream satin club chair and offering it to Dame Elizabeth. Dame Elizabeth accepted, plucking a wet bikini from a green silk tufted shell chair opposite her and, after pressing the damp patch with a hanky from her purse, offered it to Grandmother.
It was an unfortunate turn of interior design events that the only table in my bedroom, a lovely German-designed one-piece sandalwood affair with the smoothest polish, sat almost directly underneath the very window that, at least temporarily, housed Esmerelda.
The dame, the dragon and the degenerate.
‘Well? Why are you here?’ Grandmother repeated.
I was lost. Where was I supposed to be? I opened my mouth to speak but Dame Elizabeth beat me.
Putting her hand on Grandmother’s, she said, ‘Don’t be so hard on her, Florence! Perhaps there is a reason they are recreating?’
I had never noticed it before, but the two of them had a patter going. They played off one another with such ease, it was clear this was a rhythm they had honed over many years. And, quite possibly, many cognacs.
‘After all, it has barely been a week. Perhaps they are having a break?’
‘Dude!’ Esmerelda snorted to Dame Elizabeth. ‘Like, her whole life is a break.’
‘You will notice Dame Elizabeth used the plural, not the singular,’ Grandmother said to Esmerelda.
Esmerelda may not have been a grammatical whizz but she instinctively knew when she was being insulted. She narrowed her eyes at Grandmother and stood straight in the window frame. Flat-footed or not, she was intimidating at her full height, and surf-slack Esmerelda disappeared, replaced with street hustler, gut-you-with-a-rusty-butter-knife Esmerelda. The tension in the room accelerated.
I had a horrible sinking feeling I knew what the passive-aggressive duo were implying.
‘You think we should be out hunting down the identity of the man who died in your garden?’ I asked, desperately hoping I was wrong.
‘Is there another task requiring your urgent attention?’ Grandmother lobbied, eyeing the glossy shopping bags lining the bedroom walls.
‘But Grandmother—’ I began, getting to my feet.
‘Don’t give me that widow-in-mourning spiel,’ she growled. ‘That only works on your hapless mother. God knows it would have worked on my son.’
Dame Elizabeth silently crossed herself at the mention of my dead father.
Grandmother pulled herself straight in the shell chair. ‘I may have coddled you for too long when he passed.’ She paused to structure the next sentence, probably to include a plausible deniability clause. Wise. She had essentially run my life from the time my father died until I married Richard. Then I may have let Richard do it.
The point was, I was running things now.
‘Indigo, dear,’ Dame Elizabeth said, taking over. ‘I think what your grandmother is trying to say is that too much pity is not good for one’s soul.’
‘Definitely,’ Esmerelda said, accidentally releasing some of her intensity. She immediately crossed her arms at Grandmother in compensation for the lapse.
