3

Zelda Ko scratched her hair and scrunched her nose as she leaned closer to her laptop screen. Without looking, she reached out and pulled a Wet Wipe from the packet on her desk and absent-mindedly wiped her hands. She discarded the tissue, finished reading the article, then sat back to think for a moment. Eventually she nodded to herself, opened up a new MS Word document and copied both the link and all the text in the article, then pasted it into the document. She saved it as Zelda Home>True Crimes>New Zealand>TBD>Radsworth.

She was not yet sure whether this case was worthy of her attention, but in order to make that decision she needed to follow her process: write out a summary, let the details of the case percolate for a while, then wait for her subconscious to provide her with the answer. She also needed to do a bit of due diligence—to check whether the information Myra had given her was bona fide.

More of a university acquaintance than a friend, Myra Chadha had told her about a conversation she’d overheard regarding the well-publicised Scott Radsworth murder. Not the murder itself, so much—that was pretty cut-and-dried—but a nugget that hadn’t made the papers and indicated the possibility of an old crime: a cold case. Maybe even an unsolved murder, which was exactly the kind Zelda liked to get her teeth stuck into. Especially during summer break when she had no classes to attend.

She probably wouldn’t have paid much attention to Myra except for one thing: Her flatmate was Dr Sophie Swanephol, and Sophie was interesting for two reasons. One, she had a PhD in behavioural analysis, which was on Zelda’s list of possible future study and career options. Two, she was the co-founder of an investigations agency with Dr Paige Garnet, whose PhD was in cognitive neuroscience. Zelda wasn’t sure where her conjoint law and psychology degree would take her but Paige and Sophie’s relative expertise, as well as their world of criminal investigation, was of definite interest.

At the top of the document she typed RADSWORTH—she would change the name when she knew more—and started typing a summary of the case as it had been presented in the news article. For the next three hours, only stopping once to visit the bathroom, she expanded her online search. She noted those involved, the possible terrible secret she hoped to uncover, and made sure all the available information about the case was included in the document.

Finally, she sat back. There could be something here worth pursuing. Whether or not it would make it onto her True Crime podcast was another story; but for now, at least, this was an investigation she wanted to pursue.

Paige stood up. “Let’s go over to Cecilia’s office. Her time’s up.”

“Her time’s up?”

“You know what I mean.” Paige paused at Sophie’s desk, clearly waiting for her to stand too. “We’ll never get anywhere if we are too scared to go after clients, Soph, you know this.”

Sophie conceded a nod and followed Paige out to 2B where Paige rapped on the door. It opened almost immediately.

“Oh, hello,” Cecilia said. “I was going to come and see you today.”

Cecilia looked to be in her late forties, a little shorter than average, with a freckled face and sandy-coloured hair. She gave the impression she ran yoga or meditation retreats rather than being a commercially successful novelist, as they’d learned last month.

Sophie eyed Cecilia’s linen kaftan-type dress. It looked comfortable and light—perfect in this heat. But her sandals were rather ugly. Sophie wondered whether one could wear jandals instead, and whether this would enhance or lessen the hippie commune vibe emanating from Cecilia.

“Great,” Paige said. “Shall we talk about your potential case?”

Cecilia opened the door wider and gestured for them to come inside.

Paige and Sophie looked around the office with interest. They’d been in here before but only when it was empty. Cecilia had, in a short amount of time and with only a few pieces of furniture, managed to put her own personal touch on the space. While the second room remained empty, the main office had two very large and rather strange paintings on the wall—one of which looked somehow inappropriate—two large pot plants, a nice leather armchair in the corner, and two chairs in front of the desk, in which Sophie and Paige sat down. Cecilia dropped into the chair behind the desk and eyed them appraisingly.

“Tell me about your business,” she said.

“Well,” Paige began. For nearly ten minutes she explained their expertise and their amazing work solving cases. She omitted their first actual paid case, in which they’d rescued Mary Burmeister’s cat from the Remuera Petnapper, and instead focused on how they’d found Polly Dixon, deciphered a riddle for Trixie Bellingham, and solved the murder of Scott Radsworth.

“Very impressive,” Cecilia said, nodding. “My issue is rather different, I’m afraid. A little unusual.”

Paige leaned forward. “We like unusual.”

“I’m a novelist, as I told you, and I write under the pseudonym—” she broke off to eye them warily. “This is all confidential you know, and even though I haven’t engaged your services yet, I need you to assure me you won’t reveal my identity.”

“Of course not,” Paige said.

“Absolutely.” Sophie nodded.

“My nom de plum is W. I. Sandstorm.”

“Oh,” Sophie blurted. “I love your books.”

Cecilia smiled. “Yes.”

“I just finished The Buried Sister. I really enjoyed it. A real page turner.”

“If you bring by your copy, I’d be happy to sign it,” Cecilia added with a gracious nod.

“Oh, erm, yes, of course.”

Sophie had read all of Cecilia’s books by borrowing them from the Pt Chevalier public library, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to admit this.

“Anyway, my most recent publication was a collection of short stories by a series of authors, an international effort. But before that I’d been working on an exciting new novel called The Breaking of Dead. It’s finished, just waiting for a final review in January. You see, once you’ve completed a novel you need to set it aside for a month or so, give it space to breathe, give yourself a chance to clear your head so you can come back to it with fresh eyes. Anyway, once I’d submitted the short stories, I went to open up the manuscript and it wasn’t there!”

“It wasn’t on your computer?”

She shook her head. “The entire folder had vanished from my laptop.”

“Do you think you might have accidently deleted it?” Sophie said. “Or maybe you got a virus without realising?”

“I suppose that’s why I’m asking for your help. It is possible. But it’s gone from my external hard drive as well. That’s where I save all my work. Once on the laptop and once on an external hard drive.”

“You don’t use a cloud-based storage system?” Paige said.

“No. I had a bad experience with the cloud. My system works fine.”

“Does it though?” Paige muttered.

“Pardon?” Cecilia said.

“Could someone else have deleted it by accident?” Sophie said quickly.

Cecilia shook her head. “No one else has access to my laptop or my drive. Look, I need this sorted out. I need that manuscript back.” She lifted her chin. “It’s my best work. I think it’s award-worthy.”

“You’ve come to the right place,” Paige said confidently. “Not only do you have both of our brilliant minds, but we have an IT expert on deck. He’ll be able to tell you what happened to the manuscript and recover it.”

“Oh, fabulous,” she said. “I thought I would be publishing this one by Easter.”

“Absolutely,” Paige said. “Shall I email you with the quote for our services?”

Cecilia’s face froze for a moment, as if this issue of payment was completely unexpected. Her eyes drifted to Sophie, perhaps expecting her, being such a huge fan and all, to waive the fee. Sophie gave her an uncertain smile and turned to Paige, hoping it was clear that Paige was the one to be liaised with on this matter.

Finally, Cecilia let out a sigh, as if it was tiresome to have to pay for services rendered, and then said, “Fine. Here’s my email.” She handed Paige a business card.

“We’ll be in touch.” Paige stood up. “Talk soon.”

Outside their office door, they did a quick and silent happy dance.

A new client, at last!

“Get Leo on the phone,” Paige said as she opened the office door.

“Do you think he can recover her manuscript?”

“Yes,” Paige said. At her computer she opened the template they used for job quotes. During their downtime, which was a regular occurrence, they busied themselves with creating templates for every possible conceivable need they might have: quotes, invoices, reports, even promotional articles. As well as enjoying this process, it was turning out to be quite useful to have such documents already prepared.

“Should we call Leo even if we haven’t confirmed the case?” Sophie said, picking up her phone. “Cecilia still has to agree to the quote.”

“We need him to tell us how long it might take so we know how much to charge her.”

“I’ll text him.” The moment after Sophie sent the message, her phone beeped.

“Is it him?” Paige asked.

Sophie shook her head, reading the message. “It’s Victoria. Wondering if I’m coming home tonight.” She rolled her eyes. “Like, where else would I be?”

Victoria, one of Sophie’s two flatmates with whom she shared a beach-handy and airy cottage in Pt Chevalier, had recently started seeing someone. Victoria’s normal style was to share every detail of her life with whomever would listen—usually trying to frame information as some sort of learning opportunity for the poor soul she’d managed to corner—but of late she’d been unnaturally quiet on the subject. Secretive even. As much as Sophie didn’t want to become involved in Victoria’s sermons about love, her curiosity had gotten to the point that she might have to ask her about it. Perhaps even more unusual, however, was that Victoria had also recently started asking Sophie questions about her work. That is, instead of administering life lessons under the guise of asking Sophie how she was, Victoria seemed to be actually listening to Sophie’s replies. Perhaps she was finally learning about the give-and-take of conversation, Sophie mused.

Sophie went back to her phone and replied to Victoria that yes, she had planned on being home. She didn’t add the question, why, knowing further information would likely soon follow.

I have to have an important discussion with someone and I need privacy, Victoria’s next message said.

Sophie sighed. Victoria had done this only a month ago—she’d kicked Sophie and Myra out of the house to host a ‘special dinner’. She hoped it wasn’t going to become a regular occurrence.

“What are you up to tonight?” she asked Paige.

Paige shrugged. “I’ll double-check with Tim, but probably nothing.”

Paige had been with the reliable and devoted Tim for five years now and Sophie regularly yearned for a relationship like theirs. With Roman, preferably, but she had to let that go and accept reality. And wasn’t she sort of dating Wade, after all? Wade Wakarua, the gorgeous guy she’d had an intense crush on in high school, and whom she’d recently and unexpectedly reconnected with through the reunion murder case. Their first date had ended early—by Roman appearing on the scene to question Wade about the case, no less—and their second date had been rather nice but also rather brief, grabbing a quick drink on a Sunday afternoon. But even with the Hottest Guy From High School, it was still hard for Sophie to push thoughts of Roman out of her head. She thought she might be holding herself back, as if she wasn’t quite available. Which was ridiculous, because she’d as much as admitted to Roman that she had feelings, and to this he hadn’t said anything at all.

“Earth to Sophie,” Paige said loudly. “I’m free. Do you want to get dinner?”

Sophie nodded. “Yep.”

And so, at a little past six o’clock, just as Paige and Sophie were powering off their laptops and discussing where to go eat—at one of their tried-and-true places nearby or to venture farther afield for a change—there was an impatient rap on the door. They both froze at this unexpected intrusion, until Paige lurched forward to open the door. And there stood Sophie’s half-sister, Hannah.

“Barbie Sophie,” Paige blurted. “I forgot how much you look like Sophie,” she added, turning from Hannah to Sophie. “Especially now…” she gestured to Hannah’s face which, normally expertly made-up, was scrubbed clean.

Hannah’s face crumpled. “I didn’t know where else to go.”