Oh Matilda: Who Bloody Killed Her? Chapter 4 by Dan Box

Our ‘hero’ John McCredden has a phenomenal memory. An award-winning crime writer pens the next piece of the summer’s hottest novel — Oh Matilda: Who Bloody Killed Her?

 

This is “summer reading” like nothing you’ve read before: a diverse field of writers collaborating on a novel that will captivate you through summer.

Each author had just three days to write their chapter, with complete freedom over story and style; it’s fast, fun and very funny.

Tune in over the summer to see how the story unfolds.

Today, Dan Box picks up the story with Chapter Four.

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By Dan Box

But then, who hadn’t bonked her husband?

The old man even tried it on with McCredden once, not that he’d really minded. It had been the ’70s, of course, and Maya’s husband was a successful director, at a time when McCredden himself was making the transition from nervous schoolboy actor to celebrated heart-throb.

Maya must have known about his infidelities.

Monogamy hadn’t seemed something she had valued either, McCredden thought, turning away and stalking back across the grass to his accommodation. Or, at least, not at the time that they’d first met, when she was sporting her two lovers around the film set like a pair of trophies.

So why make a scene about Matilda and her husband, when she herself been unfaithful? It felt like Maya was toying with them, and that made McCredden angry. Looking up, he glowered at the jacaranda.

Let De Kock deal with the body. Or Champion could do it. The bloody producer was having too much fun with this already. McCredden was really starting to dislike him.

Sure, his agent claimed Champion was a wunderkind, but now McCredden thought about it, he hadn’t actually watched any of his shows, not recently.

Nor had anyone he’d spoken to before flying to the island.

Strange. Maybe the boy wasn’t such a wonder. Not anymore. That happened; one day you were flying high, the next your career’s plunging, your films are in the bargain bin beside the checkout and you’re desperate for someone to lift you back into the skies again.

Well, McCredden couldn’t help him. He was just an actor.

Defiant, or at least determinedly insouciant, McCredden started whistling as he climbed the front steps up to his plantation house. The tune was the song from last night’s party:

I feel a little crazy

I feel a little strange

Like I’m in a payphone

Without any change

That was how his mind worked sometimes. His memory was insistent. It shifted to the other noises he’d heard during the evening. The breaking glass. The bullhorn. A man’s voice, shouting, followed by a lulling quiet. Then, just as he’d begun to fall asleep, the same voice, and a woman’s, arguing.

Something about a phone call? Or had that been McCredden dreaming?

Still whistling, he walked through the open doorway. Standing beside Matilda’s body, De Kock and Champion watched him go in silence.

A few hours later, McCredden was back, dressed in linen trousers and a crumpled Egyptian cotton shirt, unbuttoned almost to the navel, as he walked into the island’s Pandanus Lounge, where they’d been summoned by Engelbrecht, the manager, to discuss Matilda’s murder.

The place had style, he had to admit it. Distressed wooden floorboards. Leather upholstered chairs, on which were either perched or draped his fellow guests — depending, McCredden guessed, on how nervous they were feeling. A mirror ran the length of the bar, along which were stationed a rainbow’s worth of different-coloured spirit bottles. It seemed as if every mortal luxury had been laid on, ready for the taking.

De Kock walked in behind him and managed a smile, saying, “I don’t know about you, bru, but I could do with a drink”.

“I agree,” replied McCredden.

“I’ll go and forage.” De Kock headed for the bar and started mixing spirits. McCredden overheard him talking to Dario, the cinematographer, about his homeland. “That’s right, South Africa’s my natal spot. Ha Ha!” De Kock joked. McCredden winced.

The man’s accent was phony, he was certain.

Sipping his whiskey and dry ginger — while early, it had been enough of a day so far to justify a snifter — McCredden watched the other members of cast and crew slowly unwind as De Kock moved among them, pouring drinks.

Maya had mellowed from the haughty, if undeniably attractive, nymph who’d emerged from the water this morning. Engelbrecht and Kamikaze Kev, the chef, were listening to her, entranced.

Greer, the writer, chatted to Zoe, the assistant director. They’d discovered some mutual friends.

Mother — Champion’s mother, that was — sat alone, saying nothing. Outside, the wind was swirling fiercely, as the storm grew in strength. Last night’s discarded plastic coconuts skittered between the palm trees.

Then Champion stood up, grinning and holding his iPhone, already recording.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he called out. “Silence please!”

That startled them. They looked round — at each other, at the doors, now trembling with the force of the gale and, finally, back at Champion.

“Sadly, I suppose, there’s been a murder,” the producer continued, smiling. “And each one of us is a suspect.” McCredden frowned. “Take Engelbrecht,” Champion said, turning to look at the manager, who seemed to shrink in the spotlight. “You wouldn’t be here, working on an island, miles from anywhere, if it wasn’t for that incident with the jet ski and your last employer, would you?”

Engelbrecht quailed. “The, the inquest cleared me …” he managed before trailing off.

“Or Dario,” said Champion, his mad grin growing even wider. “Speeding? Licence suspended for a year? I imagine those kids’ mother will be living with the consequences for far, far longer.”

Damn him, McCredden thought. Who did he think he was? John Malkovich, playing some sorrowful Hercule Poirot with the God-given right to accuse us all of murder?

There was a wild light now in the producer’s eyes, as if already calculating the fortune he’d make from his podcast. Global success. A book, maybe. A movie; that was almost certain.

McCredden stood and headed for the bar, where Dario had also scuttled after Champion accused him. De Kock stood behind it, staring past them in silence.

“And you, McCredden? Or you De Kock?” Champion called out, almost whooping now in his excitement. “You three standing at the bar there, have you anything to say in your defence?”

There was a moment’s silence, then a resounding crash. De Kock had dropped his cocktail mixer.

“This is madness!” McCredden shouted, turning his back and storming out into the tempest. He was going to have words with his bloody agent. What had she been playing at? Luring him out here, alone among strangers, and one of them a madman.

He stabbed at his mobile. No reception. The bloody storm!

“McCredden!” Champion called from inside the lounge. Against his better judgment, he returned, in time to hear the producer continue, in a hushed voice: “This thing’s like a detective story. We ought to try to solve it.”

iPhone in his one hand, Champion raised his cocktail with the other. Something dark, McCredden thought. Negroni, by the look of it.

“I’m all for crime,” the producer announced. “Drink up!” Still stunned, the others raised their glasses. “Here’s to crime!” Champion called, and downed his drink. The others followed.

Dario choked. He staggered forwards, gasping, his face turning purple. His empty glass fell onto the distressed floorboards. His body followed.

For a moment, they stared stupidly at the crumpled figure.

“Oh God, he’s dead!” Greer shouted.

McCredden bent and picked up Dario’s glass. He sniffed it.

“Bitter almonds,” he said.

“So what?” Greer was almost shrieking now.

McCredden snapped. “Christ, don’t you people read these days? Agatha Christie. Bitter almonds. That’s cyanide. Our cinematographer’s been poisoned.”

Somewhere outside — or was it only in his memory? — the song started up again:

I feel a bit fragile

I feel a bit low

Like I learned the right lines

But I’m on the wrong show

Fear rose up inside him. They were trapped here, like a bunch of shipwrecked sailors.

But he’d be fine, he told himself. The storm would end. The police would arrive. They’d sort it out. He’d go home. There would be other lazy afternoons. More days filled with Twitter, Netflix binges and spaghetti marinaras.

No, that’s not right, his fear replied. You know how this story ended.

In a hollow voice, McCredden said: “It’s the end, you see — the end of everything. None of us will ever leave here. We’re not going to leave the island …”

For app readers, swipe to the Summer Novel section to find all chapters or click to read Chapter One, Chapter 2 or Chapter 3

Dan Box is a reporter, broadcaster and author whose work has won a series of awards including two Walkleys. He’s spent most of his career bouncing between the UK and Australia, to the delight/frustration of his very understanding family.

Twitter: @danbox10