It seemed odd to me that he had a list of everyone on the journey. Why did he write down all our names, what we looked like? Of course, some writers scribble everything down as a matter of course, but this seemed excessive, specific. Why take those kinds of notes? Was he writing a book about the trip? I’m aware of the hypocrisy that I’m currently writing about the trip, but at least I waited until someone died to start. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was more than simple note taking.
It was almost like he knew something was about to happen.
Blockbuster
Chapter 7
The Ghan rolled on. The Northern Territory whipped past our window.
Rocky outcrops with scraggly, crooked trees, no taller than Alan Royce, backs bent low as if shielding themselves from the bright sun, gave way to spinifex-pocked orange sand, made all the more vibrant by the unblemished blue sky above. The horizon was far, still and flat, and the expanse of the Australian desert, which we were yet to even hit the edge of, dawned on me. We may as well have been an ant making our way across a sandpit.
Three hours after we set off, we made our first stop, in Nitmiluk National Park, Katherine. I crunched down the portable steps onto gravel. There was no station here; we had simply stopped in the middle of the tracks, and the Ghan seemed somehow more impressive by how out of place it was, shiny steel among nothing but trees and sky and birdsong. I became very aware of the footprints I was leaving in the dirt, in this place where neither I nor a giant man-made metal snake really belonged.
Up near the head of the train, almost a kilometer away, waited a queue of buses. They would take the nonfestival tourists on their scheduled day trip sailing down the magnificent Katherine Gorge: high rock walls bordering pristine, crocodile-filled waters. In front of our carriages were forty or so black fold-out chairs set up in the red dirt for the festival attendees. Another six chairs faced the group, a wireless microphone on each and portable speakers either side. Behind these was an easel with a rectangular canvas mounted on it, hidden by a black felt covering.
Juliette kissed me on the cheek, which I took to be for luck, until I realized she was walking in the wrong direction and had meant farewell.
“You’re not staying?”
“Aaron said he’d sneak me onto the gorge tour.” She grimaced with the confession, but it was a cheeky guilt. Of course, the choice between one of Australia’s natural wonders and six writers having an ego-off wasn’t really a choice at all, but I didn’t do a very good job of hiding my disappointment. She overamped her enthusiasm. “You’ll be great! . . . Unless you want me to—”
The offer was half-hearted, her body already tilted toward the tour buses like a runner waiting for a starting pistol. Behind us, people had begun to mill about in the crowd, and the writers were choosing their seats. S. F. Majors was walking up and down, carrying a clipboard stacked with paper and notes; Henry McTavish was ambling, his back to us, clutching a cane with an ornate silver top that he ground into the dirt with each step and looked at risk of splintering; and Alan Royce lap-dogged behind while chewing his ear. Henry chose the furthest of the six seats, on the end next to an already seated Lisa Fulton, perhaps hoping to shake Royce. Royce was marooned for a second, looking around to see Wolfgang already seated dead center in the prime focal point, and then shamelessly trotted to the other end of the row, picked up the last chair, and relocated it to McTavish’s empty side. I couldn’t hear him from where I was, but his mouth remained flapping in conversation, as if he hadn’t broken his train of thought at all to consider that McTavish didn’t want to sit next to him. As soon as Royce sat down, though, Lisa stood up and moved herself to the opposite end—whether this was to rub in the wasted effort of Alan’s circus or her own disinterest in sitting next to McTavish, I wasn’t sure.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said to Juliette, forcing a smile onto my face. “Take lots of photos. Try not to get eaten.”
Juliette flicked a final look over at the impromptu staging, at the gathering writers. “You too.”
“Welcome to our first thrilling panel!”
S. F. Majors, it turned out, was on hosting duties. I knew she chaired the festival board, because she’d invited me, which I mention here because in murder mystery books like these it’s generally quite a key point who invited the cannon fodder to the specific location they become trapped in. You know the scene: a character turns, holding an invitation, and says to another, “You invited me here,” to which the other character holds up the same invitation and says, as lightning flashes against their face, “No, I didn’t—YOU invited ME here.” Cue calamity. So you have that answered now: she’s the one who brought us all together.
The reason I was invited may not be important to the plot. But it’s damn well important to someone. I just don’t know that yet.
Majors introduced the panel to a smattering of applause that, in the expanse of the open, sounded more pathetic than it had indoors. I caught a couple of craned necks lusting after the final departing tour bus. I’d ended up next to Lisa Fulton on the opposite end to Royce and McTavish. Wolfgang was next to me, and Majors had filled the space between him and McTavish. We’d all shuffled our chairs down a bit to compensate for Royce’s seat switching.
I tuned out of the introductions and took my first proper look at McTavish. The main thing that struck me was that he didn’t look how I’d expected. Of course, writers can look like anybody, and it was nothing physical—his stature slotted somewhere between the blocky Royce and the spindly Wolfgang, and his wispy hair was wild enough to be uncared for but not enough to be eccentric, which is all par for the authorial course—but writers do have a look. There are a couple of variations to it—S. F. Majors’s sternness is that of a writer by whom everything is analyzed as an opportunity, for example, and Royce’s eagerness for plaudits is ego plastered over a true lack of confidence—but it’s all in the eyes: the dead giveaway. A writer’s eyes are wide and curious, taking in the world and flipping it over, interrogating and interpreting it, regardless of whether it’s for vanity or creativity. I saw it beneath Wolfgang’s scowl, beneath Lisa’s shyness, even in Royce’s maligned notebook. But McTavish had none of that: his eyes were giving off the petulant clock-watching of a student waiting out a detention. It was jarring to see my favorite writer in this light. I knew his agreeing to attend this festival was quite the coup, but now I could see why he abstained from these kinds of things: it must have started to feel like serving time.
Noticeably, his left side, the one he’d propped up walking with the cane, was, for want of a better word, crumpled. His tweed jacket seemed to hang more loosely around a coat hanger of a shoulder, his trousers baggier around a bony knee, while his right side filled out the fabric much more naturally. He wasn’t disfigured, but he was unbalanced: he looked like a loaf of bread you’ve accidentally put the rest of the groceries on top of. A drunk driver had cleaned him up one night, sped off and left him twisted and broken in a gutter. This had, of course, been bundled into his publicity: he’d been told he’d never walk again, never write again. And look at him now. Back from the brink.
His cane was leaning on the seat next to him, and I could see now that the ornate topping was a gleaming silver falcon. He slugged from a similarly gleaming flask, produced from the inside chest pocket of his tweed jacket, often enough that I wondered why he bothered to screw the cap back on each time.