“I wanted to ask, without spoiling anything”—she looked around with a guilty expression—“Morbund’s not, well . . . is he? I mean, in The Dawn Rises certain things happen and I just wanted to ask if he’s actually—”
There was a groan from the back row familiar to anyone who has a spoiler-defensive friend (this, for me, is Andy, who once berated me for spoiling the ending of, of all things, Titanic). I must admit I was a little cheesed at Brooke too, because although I’d known from the marketing that The Dawn Rises was Morbund’s supposed swan song (it was emblazoned on the cover, alongside a New York Times pull quote—“Unputdownable and unbeatable: McTavish is peerless”—that meant McTavish would never have to beg for blurbs), I hadn’t thought that McTavish would kill off his prized character. His books were, after all, in first person, and you already know that is a cardinal sin for fair-play mysteries in my eyes. How does a book get written down when the protagonist is dead?
Take me, for example. You know I’m not currently in the dirt, being bullied by writers under a burning sun. No: I am in a hospital room in Adelaide, finally off the train and in a plastic-sheeted bed but not yet allowed home, as the police are still gathering everyone’s statements and body parts. I’m typing this out while occasionally requesting more painkillers and scratching a thin sheet of skin from my peeling neck.
“Thank you, Brooke,” McTavish said, clearing his throat, the mere act of his remembering her name from fifteen seconds before almost making her spontaneously levitate. “I’ll keep the secret for the rest of the audience here, but I think it’s up to your own interpretation.”
It was a nothing answer, and Brooke wrinkled her nose. The Ghan staff member held their hand out for the microphone. Brooke clutched it like a toddler scared of losing a toy. She seemed to have forgotten she had four more days in which to harass McTavish, and to want to capitalize on this moment: to win him over.
“Okay, well, it’s just that the innkeeper, in the book—his name is Archibald Bench. Archie Bench.” She squinted expectantly and pronounced the innkeeper’s name in syllables, the way you gossip about an ex’s new partner (You’ll never believe who she’s dating . . . Arch-i-bald Bench), as if she and McTavish were in on the same secret.
I itched for her to get to the point. I could feel the back of my neck reddening, and I wished I’d put on sunscreen: I remember feeling certain my neck would blister and peel later.
“Am I right?”
McTavish glanced over to Wyatt, who shot him a boggled I don’t know grimace. I was pretty confused myself. I’d read all the Morbund books except the last and I’m normally pretty good at piecing things together, yet the name Archibald Bench meant nothing to me other than that an editor should have suggested swapping out the surname for something more realistic. Then again, just like I’d told Andy and like I’ve already told you, everything in a mystery is deliberate, and McTavish was up there with the best in trickery, puzzles and wordplay, and so I figured that if it was Archie Bench instead of Archie Bus-Stop or Archie Church-Pew, it must have had some significance.
“I think you’ve outsmarted me there, girl,” McTavish said at last. It was a general enough statement but, apparently, exactly what Brooke wanted to hear, as she pretty much clicked her heels with excitement and thrust the microphone back at the staff member, well satisfied that this moment, one she must have rehearsed over and over, had gone as she’d hoped.
Just quickly: I swear I didn’t conjure up that the book she was reading in the bar earlier was Misery, in which a psychopathic fan takes a writer hostage and forces him to write a dead character back to life (sorry, Andy, for the spoiler). That’s what she actually was reading. Until it got covered in vomit, at least. I assume she discarded it after that, but then again, seeing as it was McTavish’s vomit, I wouldn’t put it past her to souvenir it.
Majors offered a chance for further questions. Brooke must have been doing biceps curls in preparation for the number of times her hand shot up, and Majors did her best to pick around her but struggled with a lethargic crowd. Most of the questions were for Henry, which I didn’t mind one bit but had Royce practically wriggling out of his chair in the hope someone would target him. He almost imploded when the man with the speckled beard—I recalled the second glass of undrunk champagne in front of him—received a microphone and said, “My question’s for Ernest.”
I fumbled my own microphone to my lips and smiled to welcome the question.
“It’s a simple one,” the man said. I noticed he was on his own here, just as he had been at breakfast, on the end of a row, the seat beside him spare. “Did you kill him?”
As if on cue, a sudden surge of wind planted a stinging plume of red dust in all of our eyes. I scrambled to wipe the dust and collar my thoughts at the same time, and the best I could do was utter, “I beg your pardon?”
“Did you kill him?”
I’m sorry to rob you of the dialogue here, but my editor has censored the answer I gave, as it directly relates to the killings on the mountain last year. I can tell you that I answered simply by repeating what I wrote in the last book—the phrasing of which has been legaled enough to keep me safe. It seemed to go over well. Royce’s eyes were lava, on me the whole time.
A new hand rose. “I have a question for Henry.” It was the curly-haired wife from the couple I’d assumed to be fans: more Mongrels. She had a light Irish accent, the pitch riding up and down mountainsides. Her husband was sitting next to her, and he made a gentle grab at her elbow to pull her arm down, but she shook him off. “Where do you get your ideas?”
“Harriet.” Her husband tried to shush her and his cheeks flared with embarrassment. As a fan, he seemed the opposite of Brooke, in that McTavish’s turning their way seemed to panic him.
“I’m allowed to ask a question, Jasper,” Harriet said firmly.
McTavish headed off a lover’s tiff by leaning forward and spreading his arms. “What a fabulous question!” he said, before launching into a well-practiced answer.
If you’re wondering, writers fall into two categories: plotters, who outline their work before writing it; and pantsers, who sit down at their desk each day with no idea where the work will take them, thus flying by the seat of their pants. I suppose I am a bit of both, being that when I live the events of my books I have not much idea what is going to happen, but by the time I sit down to write, the killer has had the decency to plot most of it out for me (though I would stop short of calling the murderers I’ve encountered co-writers). McTavish revealed himself to be a pantser, stating that he started with an image, a feeling or even a color, and let that inspire where Morbund would wind up in each adventure.