Somehow I’d become one of Australia’s most sought-after editors of true crime. When I started out in publishing I’d never read a true-crime book; I didn’t even watch crime shows on TV. But when I was living as a struggling freelancer, pregnant with Max, I was so desperate that I would have taken on a book about different varieties of ape shit if needs be. Anyway, an editor I’d once worked with in-house approached me to edit a book called Real Vampires. It started in Hungary in the seventeenth century with Countess Elizabeth Báthory, who was said to have killed hundreds of women and bathed in their blood for its restorative powers. Then the book went on to report on more recent killings, where the murderers drank blood, chewed brains, bit off lips — all those sorts of things.
The author revelled in the graphic nature of these crimes. I was pregnant and feeling nauseous already, so I needed all my strength simply to face those pages each day. In my highly hormonal state, I feared I was harming my baby just by looking at the photographs in the book. I even had weird, paranoid dreams about people killing my baby and sucking its blood. I swore I would never, ever, do a book like that again.
But then Max came along and I didn’t take on any projects for twelve months, by which time all my contacts seemed to have dried up. So when Real Vampires II came along, I had to accept. And then the true-crime books kept on rolling in, and they paid well. All of a sudden I had gained some respect in a niche market. I became the killer editor.
Eight years on, and I was comfortable with blood and gore. I’d worked with true crime author Suzi Prescott a few times already, but her publisher, Dave, was keen for us to meet before we started our fourth book together. It was a particularly ambitious project, and she was an important author for this small press. I often felt as though it was the sales of her books that helped keep them afloat. Dave relied on me heavily when it came to managing Suzi and her manuscripts. So he organised a lunch for the three of us at Donovan’s so Suzi and I could meet properly face-to-face.
The food was rather ho-hum and Dave put me on edge a bit. He was overly friendly and wore a smile as one wears a nose. There was something false about him that made me uneasy.
However, Suzi awakened my interest when she happened to mention — over our rare beef and horseradish entrée — that she was separated and had a boy who was nine. Could she be a match for Luke? Her major drawback, obviously, was her sick fascination with killers. Having worked with her, I had real insight into the dark recesses of her mind. She seemed to have a sort of obsession, and was able to belt out almost a title a year. This made her popular with publishers, but what did it say about her psyche? On the other hand, she was quite intelligent and she had a son almost Max’s age — a potential brother for him. It certainly got me thinking. Okay, so she had misplaced interests, but maybe those could be redirected over time.
Over lunch she spoke a bit too much about Martin Bryant — about how he was the killer she would like to interview more than anyone else in the whole world. I wondered how much time she had spent with killers, and whether she got some sort of a buzz from hanging out in gaol cells. Did she fancy herself to be a modern-day Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs? The killers would find her pretty, for sure: she had long curly red hair, a narrow face and green eyes that shone with curiosity when she was listening to someone. Was Luke anti-redheads? I’d have to find out . . .
‘You know what would make a great book? Martin Bryant’s lovers. The prostitutes he slept with, his girlfriend at the time of the massacre . . . Imagine their stories. Imagine how it would have made them feel. Did you know his favourite music was the soundtrack to The Lion King and Cliff Richard? His favourite film was Babe? He’s like a child.’
Dave almost had his hand on his crotch imagining the sales of a title like this. He kept on encouraging her, asking her all sorts of questions about research for such a book.
But I had other things on my mind.
‘So, are you seeing anyone, Suzi?’ I asked, gesturing in the air with my second glass of red.
The conversation was getting a little off-track, but Suzi didn’t seem to mind.
‘Not at the moment. I’ve had a couple of dates, but no one serious. It’s hard being a single mum.’
Single mums always mention how hard it is being a single mum. I thanked my lucky stars that I’d have Jarvis once I got rid of Luke.
‘How is your boy going with the separation?’ I know we’d only just met face-to-face, but we’d worked together for years, and I was genuinely interested. Since I was going through my own crisis, I felt a need to find out as much as I could about broken families, about how kids got on in such situations.
‘It’s hard on him. We share him half–half, but I feel like his life is disjointed.’
I would have loved to find out why Suzi and her husband had broken up, but that could have been crossing the line.
‘Are you still friends with your ex?’ I really wanted to remain friends with Luke, to stand together on the sidelines at Max’s cricket or football matches, cheering him on. I wondered whether this might be possible.
‘We’re civil,’ she said.
Dave tried to turn the conversation back to our next book. He wanted it out by Christmas and he was starting to talk timelines and images and legalling. His idea of a lunch conversation was truly woeful.
‘You should visit my husband’s garden,’ I said to them both, switching back to less work-related stuff. ‘It’s called Green Patch. It’s a rooftop garden for city people to rent veggie plots in recycled apple crates. Luke helps them out with advice and sells them seeds, and there are tools they can borrow in a shed. You should see the sunlight up there — everything flourishes. And they’ve recently opened up a café in a converted shipping container. They managed to poach the barista who used to work at Max’s in Carlton.’
They were both looking at me a little strangely.
‘My husband’s going to grow a beard,’ I said, as a last-ditch effort. ‘They’re sexy, don’t you think?’
Clean-shaven Dave didn’t seem to think so. The conversation turned back to the production process, who was doing what. Which was like, yeah, yeah, by now we’d all worked on three books together already, we didn’t need Dave telling us how to suck eggs.