Bleeding Hearts. Lindy Cameron

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СКАЧАТЬ she usually made light of tense situations to make herself feel comfortable. There was nothing worse than getting nervous, involved or emotional in the middle of someone else's crisis.

      Get them to laugh O'Malley, and you won't have to deal with the tears, Kit thought.

      "You came all the way from Sydney to hire me on Tori's recommendation?" she asked.

      "Oh no. I didn't have this problem until I got to Melbourne. I've been in town for nearly three weeks doing some background research and setting up interviews with a host of artists, writers and musicians for a series of programs we're doing on the Melbourne scene. Tori and I had been spending a bit of time together catching up on the old days, we went to school together, when the letters started turning up. She recommended I talk to you."

      "Letters?"

      "Death threats actually."

      "Not your usual run-of-the-mill fan mail then," Kit observed. "Did you bring them with you?"

      "I brought today's little missive," Rebecca said, opening her clutch purse and placing an envelope on the table in front of her. "This one is so tacky I thought it would be enough for you to decide whether or not you could help. I disregarded the first two I got but I have another six in my hotel suite. If you take me on I thought we could meet tomorrow and work out what to do from there."

      "Have you spoken to the police?"

      "Yes, for all the good it did me. 'You're a celebrity Miz Jones, you have to expect a little attention', quote unquote."

      "I'm assuming you threw the first ones out. Why?"

      "Because I do get my share of hate mail, Kit, despite my sparkling and lovable personality," Rebecca said with a smile.

      "Why would you get hate mail? It's not like you're a current affairs journo who shoves her camera in some charlatan's face demanding to know why you're not getting a civil answer. You do the arts for heaven's sake."

      "Kit, darling," Rebecca said mockingly, "you obviously have no idea how many charlatans there are in the arts world. Admittedly most of them are administrators, which usually means they don't have an artistic bone in their bodies, but..." Rebecca wound her hands around in circles, implying she'd have a few tales to tell if there wasn't something more important on the table. She pushed the something over to Kit who picked up the envelope, pulled out the single sheet of paper covered in the standard letters cut from three different copies of probably the TV Week, and read:

      Sluts like you give hores a bad name

      Putting all loyal women to shame, to shame

      Stand back, stay away, keep your pussy well hid

      Or Dr Death will visit you and do what I bid.

      "Oh my god, that is awful," Kit exclaimed.

      "It's okay, I recognise the need to laugh when I see it," Rebecca smiled.

      "Good," Kit snorted. "Because it really is the worst poem I have ever read," she laughed.

      "So, what?" Rebecca shrugged. "You think I should ignore it?"

      "No. I wouldn't disregard this at all," Kit stressed. "I assume this person is not talking about your cat," she added.

      "I don't think so," Rebecca said, "but who would know?"

      "Sluts, whores, loyalty," Kit mused under her breath. "Did the other notes say the same sort of thing?"

      "No. They were a little more, I don't know, polite. And this is the first poem - such as it is. The other notes told me to stay away or die, without any mention of sluts or cats."

      "Stay away from what?" Kit queried.

      "I've no idea," Rebecca shrugged. "I'm more accustomed to fan mail that says I should be boiled in oil for giving Joe Bloggs a bad review. And that usually comes from Joe's mum or Aunty Gladys. It would be nice if these whackos could be more specific."

      "Nah, it's their job," Kit said. "It is the duty of all whackos to be obscure and misleading. If they came right out and said, 'stay away from my Pekingese' then we'd be able to narrow the field of suspects in no time. And where's the fun in that?"

      "This isn't much fun," Rebecca stated glumly.

      "It's not meant to be fun for you," Kit said. "Okay, first things first. Given the tone of this note, I have to ask, are you having an affair with a married man?"

      "Definitely not," Rebecca asserted. "I am in a perfectly stable and loving relationship."

      "Good. I take it that means you're also not cheating on your own someone with someone else who isn't married."

      Rebecca pressed a finger to her lips while she sorted that out. "No. Yes," she replied. "I'm not."

      "Good," Kit said, slipping the note back into the envelope.

      "Oh yeah, it's great," Rebecca said, waving her arm to attract Adrienne's attention. "It means I'm getting death threats from an unknown lunatic instead of a mad someone I might know."

      "Your dinner is on its way, " Adrienne announced, appearing at Kit's side.

      "Bugger the food," Rebecca declared. "I'll have another drink. A double this time."

      Kit waited for Adrienne to leave again before continuing. "It still may be someone you know. We can't discount that. Any ideas?"

      "Well, I did consider my ex-husband, for a brief moment, but it's not really his style. Besides I checked and Steven is on a romantic cruise of the Caribbean with betrothed number seven."

      "Colleagues?" Kit asked.

      "I suppose it's possible, anything is possible, but I doubt it. I mean why wait till I'm here in Melbourne?"

      "That's a good point. How many people came with you from Sydney?"

      "Everybody. Heart and Soul is produced by an independent company. We sell a finished program to the TV network. So we've quite literally brought everyone to Melbourne for six weeks."

      "How many is everyone?"

      "Seven, including me. We are using a few technical people from the studios here though."

      "OK. I'll need details on the other seven - their names, what they do and how long they've been working with you," Kit requested. "Plus, the names of the tech staff and everyone you've seen socially or interviewed since you've been in Melbourne, especially anyone who might be pissed off with you for any reason."

      "That's a tall order," Rebecca sneered.

      "We have to start somewhere."

      "That's everywhere."

      "That's a good place too," Kit said. "What's on your agenda for tomorrow?"

      "I'm redoing an interview with Darian Renault at 10 am and then..."

      "Is that the writer who isn't what he claimed to be?" Kit interrupted.

      Rebecca СКАЧАТЬ