Murder as a Fine Art (29 page)

The message light on Laura's telephone was blinking when she entered her room. The switchboard told her there was a message to call Geoff Hamilton in New York. He had left the number of both his hotel and his office. Since New York was two hours ahead, Laura tried the hotel first, but Geoff wasn't in his room. She reached him at his office.

“My God, Laura, what's been going on up there?”

“How much do you know?”

“Only what I can glean from the press reports. It's had a fair bit of coverage here, because so many of the players are American. Including yourself. And that business of Norrington writing Madrin's books is a hell of a story. I gather you were the one who solved the case?”

“I think I was more a catalyst than anything else. Does it help now that you know the identity of Erika's killer?”

“Yes. It does. I can begin to come to terms with what's happened.” He paused and Laura could picture him shaking his head. “I can see that Switzer character doing what he did, but Richard Madrin! To think the guy had Erika killed just so people wouldn't find out he didn't write those books of his.”

“I know. I didn't tumble on to that until the very end. Just before he tried to kill me. He must have been
in an absolute state knowing that Erika was going to expose his secret to the world. Knowing Erika as he did, he would have realized that he couldn't buy her silence. That book and her scholastic reputation were much more important to her than money.”

“You're absolutely right. Erika liked nice things, particularly clothes, but money never was a high priority for her. Just so she had enough to live on, buy a new outfit every so often, and do her research and writing.”

“Exposure would make Richard a laughing stock. Not a criminal. Just a vain, foolish cheat. The very opposite of the image he portrayed to the world. He must have seen Jeremy's plan as the only way out of an intolerable situation.”

“The poor man,” muttered Geoff with bitter irony. After another pause, he continued, this time with a hint of excitement in his voice. “I had a phone call earlier today. From a professor of zoology at Columbia University. He and Erika were close. In fact, they had been lovers, but that was over sometime before I met her. They remained friends, and he and I get along just fine. He's spent the past month or so in the wilds of Brunei researching something — orangutans probably. Zoologists will never leave those poor animals in peace. Anyway, he's been completely out of touch, didn't know anything about what happened to Erika until he got back to the university and a colleague told him that she had been killed in a fire ‘somewhere up in Canada.' It seems that before she left, the professor installed a remote access application on her computer which gave her the ability to logon to his local network server. By using his user ID and password, she could upload her material to his secure drive as back-up files.”

“Are you telling me Erika's book is in this professor's computer in New York?”

“That's exactly what I'm telling you. When Ed — his name's Ed Godwin — booted his computer and called up the directory, he found twenty-four of her files. So she must have uploaded the chapters she had written before going up there, as well as what she wrote at the Centre. If there are twenty-four chapters the book must be pretty complete, don't you think?”

“I know she was awfully close. She was really driving herself the last couple of weeks.”

“The last file was time stamped 1:26 a.m. on the morning of the fire. I asked Ed to read it. Apparently it's very long, so he skimmed through it and gave me the gist of it. It's the chapter that has all that business about Norrington writing Richard's books. According to Ed, her analysis is very convincing.”

“So Erika's book survived. Will it be published?”

“Without question. It's the last and best thing I can do for her. One of New York's leading literary agencies is a client of my law firm, and I will put them on it. If it needs some editing, we'll hire an editor. With all the publicity about the murders, and that business about the professor being a ghostwriter, I expect publishers will be clamouring for it.”

“Having her book published would have thrilled Erika. It's what she wanted more than anything else.”

“I know. It'll be her dream come true.”

And Richard's worst nightmare, thought Laura as she rang off. The humiliating tale of how he had bought the fame he couldn't achieve on his own would live on between the covers of a book.

Unable to sleep, Laura got out of bed and dressed in her painting clothes. Using her flashlight, she walked through the darkness to her studio. Her paintings
sprang to vivid life when she switched on the lights. They were good. The best she had ever done. Pure and luminous, they stood apart from the human condition, with its greed and deadly vanity. Looking at them brought Laura a measure of serenity and peace. Placing a blank canvas on an easel, she picked up her palette and brush and began to paint.