“I’m not—”
“I know you’re not Troy Firth. But you were looking for him.”
I let that sink in.
Simone gasped. “Troy Firth is Henry McTavish. His injury.”
“Sorry to be the editor,” Wolfgang said. “But is that plausible? Majors knows the man who molested and murdered her best friend is walking around still alive, and she doesn’t turn him in to the cops?”
“It’s not plausible at all,” I agreed. “The timing’s out, for one thing. That could be a plot point straight out of any one of our books, but it’s not real life. The problem is: it’s exactly what Douglas believed. He thought Off the Rails was the true story of how Henry McTavish got away with multiple murders. He convinced himself McTavish was Firth, and that Off the Rails was a confession. Because there was just enough truth in the book to make it seem convincing, after all. But it was truth that McTavish stole, not knowing the consequences, from Majors’s story.”
Majors cleared her throat. “The idea for the book came about because I thought I saw a man that looked like an older Troy Firth, many years later. That’s it. A fleeting glimpse that triggers a random memory. That’s all we hunt for, Hatch, if you don’t understand. Writing is merely piling up the sticks and the grass and then hoping a tiny flicker sets it all aflame. Like all the best ideas, it just snapped into focus as a story. What if I’d just seen Troy Firth? That’s what I told Henry in two thousand and three. My idea. But it had details of Anna’s story. Real details. Enough to convince Douglas that it was really true. But then he approaches me at dinner after the first panel, where McTavish and I argued over Off the Rails, and he thinks I also suspect what he does. I tell him he’s mad, that my grievance with McTavish lies elsewhere, and that the plot is fiction.” I remembered them whispering, excluding Royce from their conversation. “And then I let him have it at the Telegraph Station the next night. Troy Firth was a terrible man, but he’s been dead a long time. Douglas let his desire for vengeance blur fiction with what he wanted to be the reality.”
I focused on Douglas. “That’s why you thanked me and tossed the gun after McTavish had died—you had come here to kill him, and you thought I’d just done it for you. Majors was yelling at you at the Telegraph Station because she thought you’d acted on your suspicions and killed him. Of course, you were dead wrong. Henry McTavish is Henry McTavish: where in his biography would he find time to drive school buses in Australia? And Troy Firth died in the crash. McTavish got his injuries in a hit-and-run. That’s documented. But the fact that you came here believing otherwise, and willing to kill for it—well, that’s true.”
“I didn’t kill anybody,” Douglas said, looking around the room. “Just like I told you. I picked the gun up in Darwin with revenge in my heart, sure. But I changed my mind, after what you said. About the toll it takes. I skipped the bushwalk to scatter Noah’s ashes, and I let it go.”
“Legally speaking, I didn’t kill anybody either, remember,” I said. I believed that Douglas’s intent and actions were separate. Of course, forgiveness was easier when McTavish was already dead, but Douglas had had plenty of opportunities to shoot him on the first day and hadn’t. Maybe Majors had put just enough doubt in his mind, and I’d helped him realize that true justice isn’t simply revenge. Either way, he’d come to his senses and binned the revolver at Alice Springs station. “At the formal dinner, you looked like you’d been set free. I didn’t understand at the time, but I do now.”
“You’ve solved a lot of half crimes,” Hatch said, folding his arms. “But I was promised a murderer.”
“Right. Before I start this next part, I just want you all to remember the murder weapon used on Wyatt.”
“A pen,” Hatch said.
“Not just any pen,” I corrected him. “A Gemini Publishing pen. A gift to all of Wyatt’s authors, which extends to, as I understand it: Royce, McTavish, probably Jasper, and Lisa, for her first book. Plus Simone, to whom Wyatt gave a pen yesterday.” I had recalled Wyatt’s snarky words at dinner: She didn’t come away entirely empty-handed. I gave her a consolation prize. Not that she’ll be signing anyone with it. Wyatt wouldn’t have been able to resist the opportunity to patronize Simone, handing her a pen with a Better luck next time frown. “And, of course, Wolfgang.”
“Wolfgang is published by HarperCollins, actually,” Simone said.
“Wolfgang.” I turned to him. “Just how interactive is your art project?”
Chapter 34
Wolfgang brought his hands together in a slow, droll clap. “You think you’re very clever, don’t you?” He stopped clapping and spread his hands. “The floor is yours. Entertain us.”
I didn’t hesitate: I’d been looking forward to this part. “Ever since I saw the name of your project, The Death of Literature, I knew it had to encompass some kind of humiliation of the establishment. Because you believe that your works are art, and anything else is . . . What did you call a writer like me?” I did air quotes as I reminded Wolfgang of his words on the panel. “Ah, yes. Pulp. And who’s the very embodiment of pulp fiction at the moment? Well, one might say the Scottish crime sensation Henry McTavish. Another might say Wyatt Lloyd himself, specializing in publishing commercial fiction, including not only McTavish but also Erica Mathison.”
Wolfgang yawned. “Royce tried this on already—you’re going to need a little more than that.”
“Clearly your project was designed to humiliate Wyatt. You couldn’t resist gloating over dinner on the first night, and Wyatt was mortified by what you’d told him. He yelled at you that what you were doing would ruin him. Then he tried to buy you out. I assume you declined?”
“The price of preserving literature isn’t one that can be paid by men like him.”
“Exactly. So the question becomes: what could you possibly have done that would ruin Wyatt Lloyd? The answer is simple. You’ve invited three people on this train journey: two art curators and a book reviewer. All three of them are reading The Eleven Orgasms of Deborah Winstock by Erica Mathison. All three of them have fresh copies, bought in a bookshop in Darwin. One copy is newly signed, from a reclusive author who never does appearances. All three of them, respected intelligent women, think it’s absolute genius. Why? Because Erica Mathison is your art project.”
If you’re playing along at home, you’ll know Wolfgang was at 94 mentions, and Erica was on 12. Added together as per my rules for aliases, that puts him on a certain magic number.
“Oh, you’re much better than Alan,” Wolfgang said with a smirk.
“That’s why you have a Gemini pen,” I said.
Wolfgang made a great act of pulling off an invisible mask from his chin to his forehead. His eyes sparked. “You’re looking at Erica Mathison. Wyatt didn’t know it was me. I set it up through a company, with an international account and a PO box for him to send contracts or whatever.”
“Or a pen.”
“Indeed. My plan was to sell him the most basic, abjectly dreadfully written pulp”—his wet lips popped with disgust on the P—“and he lapped it up. Like a dog. Then he made it into one of the year’s biggest bestsellers. Proving my point: true art is undervalued, and commercial art can be concocted.”
“You didn’t exactly mind the commercial aspect, though, did you? Simone told me your sales are likely miserable. And yet you pulled up to Berrimah in a two-hundred-thousand-dollar Jaguar. You’re not exactly Robin Hood.”