Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

I thought about Simone pinching the air at Wolfgang’s sales. No wonder Wyatt was upset about the novel. It wasn’t just a departure from McTavish’s well-known character, it was a shift to a potentially lower-selling genre. But it was an interesting shift, and one that humanized McTavish a little in my eyes. Even he, after all those books he’d sold, wanted to be taken seriously.

“Lisa,” I said. “Time for you to flex. Who owns Life, Death and Whiskey now? Legally?”

Lisa thought for a second. “It’s still owned by McTavish, really, even if he’s dead. Copyright is generally the creator’s death plus seventy years. So yesterday plus seventy, I suppose.”

“But Wyatt was going to make money out of this—that’s why Royce thought he was behind the murder. McTavish delivers an out-of-genre book, so Wyatt knocks him off and suddenly its value skyrockets. Right?”

“Yes, but only from the increased sales,” Lisa said. “Wyatt’s right to publish the work wouldn’t have changed at all. He either has a contract, which he will now hold with McTavish’s estate, or he doesn’t have a current contract, and that means he has to buy it from the estate.”

“Henry was a lifelong bachelor,” Wolfgang said. “No family.”

“So where does the copyright land?”

“There will either be beneficiaries in the will,” Lisa said, “or I suppose it would go to probate, and they’ll find a suitable recipient.”

“And people can claim they are suitable recipients, right?”

“Yes, that’s what probate means—they manage all that.” Lisa shrugged. “But in Henry’s case, who could?”

“Long-lost brothers, et cetera et cetera,” Wolfgang muttered, nose still in the pages. “They’ll come out of the woodwork when there’s money involved.”

“And Wyatt’s not a suitable claim?”

“Not based on being Henry’s publisher, no.”

“They have a long relationship though,” Majors said, over by the vanity mirror and small cupboards. “It’s not crazy to think Wyatt could have been the beneficiary of Henry’s estate. Lifelong friends might make their way into a will. It gives Wyatt motive, again, for murder. But motive for murdering Wyatt—well, the person most likely to benefit would be second in line. Hey, that pen in his throat has Gemini branding on it. Where do you get one of those?”

“Publishing gift,” I said. “Royce has one.”

“He had it during his little speech,” Wolfgang said. “Dare I say, he made a great effort for us to see it in his hand.” I pictured Royce picking through the gathering, making sure the pen pointed at every one of us. It was a sharp insight.

“McTavish probably had one,” Lisa said. “Did you see a similar pen in his suite?”

I shook my head. The only pen I’d seen was a felt-tip. Then again, I hadn’t been the first one there. What had Brooke said? I came for a souvenir.

“And you,” Wolfgang said. I had to follow his gaze to see who he was looking at. Lisa. “Before you changed publishers.”

“Maybe I have one somewhere,” Lisa said. “Buried in a box at home, no doubt. I was published by Gemini a long time ago.”

“Convenient,” Wolfgang said.

“What about this?” Majors was pointing at the cupboard, where two wooden boxes were lined up next to the miniature safe, which was open and empty. She cracked one box. Inside, atop a white silk cloth, lay a Gemini pen. She checked the other, similarly stocked. I’d never realized, but the case for a fancy pen looks very similar to a coffin. “Maybe there was a third.”

“What the hell are you all doing?” Aaron asked from the doorway. Jasper and Harriet hovered behind: they must have fetched him.

“Investigating,” I said.

“Thinking,” Lisa said.

“Reading,” Wolfgang said.

“Out. Out. Out!” Aaron ushered us into the corridor and shut the door. “I can’t believe you’re making me say this, but could you not play games around a dead body?”

“It’s not a game,” I said. “If there’s a killer on this train, we want to find out who it is before they get another one of us.”

“Another one?” Brooke whimpered.

“How soon can the police get here?” I asked Aaron.

“We’re in the middle of the desert—they can’t.”

“Send a chopper,” I said.

“They’re all occupied, water-bombing the bushfires.” He was chewing his lip. “None spare.” That bastard bird, I thought to myself.

“Let’s head back to Alice Springs,” Majors said. “What’s that, six hours or so?”

“Oh, I’ll just pull a U-turn then, shall I?”

“Well, stop the train and call a bus,” I said.

“This is still a working freight line. We have to reach our stops so the freight trains can overtake us.”

“Well, change the blooming freight schedules,” Wolfgang said. He was scarily intimidating in full flight, even in his striped pajamas; he towered over Aaron. “I want off this junk heap right now.”

Aaron finally snapped. “Listen! None of you are detectives, or police. Just as we did last time we found a body, I’m going to ask you to go back to your cabins and wait. We’ll stop at Manguri, where an officer will come on board, we’ll let the freight train that’s behind us pass us, and then we’ll hoof it straight to Adelaide.”