Excerpt of Murder by Meringue by Greta Sinclair

There are bad ways to begin a honeymoon, and then there is watching a man die under the Vivid lights while your best friend’s sneakers stick out from beneath the judging table. 

Of course, I did not know about the dead body yet when Marcus and I landed in Sydney. At that point, I knew three things unequivocally. My husband looked unfairly good after a long-haul flight. I had lost all reliable understanding of even what day it was. And after two months of waiting, rerouting, rescheduling, and pretending I was not secretly furious at Europol, our honeymoon had finally begun.

The original plan had been to head to Sydney straight from Copenhagen, trading the cold canals, warm bakeries, and unexpected murder investigation for long, romantic walks along Bondi Beach, immersion in the food culture for purely gastronomic indulgence, and no dead bodies. Then Marcus had gotten the call at the gate. A real emergency. The kind that made his face go still and my stomach drop before he even said my name.

I said I understood. I had understood. I had also spent the next two months being patiently mature in a way that deserved applause, compensation in the form of backrubs… and possibly cake.

The Fullerton Hotel Sydney sat inside the old General Post Office at Martin Place. Marcus had chosen it, and as soon as I stepped inside, I was reminded of his penchant for romance when he wasn’t being pulled in a million different Interpol directions. I stopped dead in my tracks and just stared. I felt like I had entered a fortress of sandstone, history, polished brass, and well-appointed grandeur.

I approved.

The building had an undeniable presence. Its arched windows and carved stone looked built for secrets, telegrams, declarations, bills, bad news, love letters, and whatever people sent before texting made everyone less poetic and far too fond of emojis during emotional emergencies. Bell staff moved through the lobby in dark coats. Luggage wheels whispered over the floor. Somewhere nearby, someone laughed over a phone in an accent that made Sydney feel both familiar and entirely out of reach.

Marcus checked us in while I tried to avoid studying the Vivid Sydney brochures arranged on a side table. I gave the effort four respectable seconds. Then the words food program, light walk, and after-dark tasting sucked me in.

Marcus noticed because marriage had apparently sharpened his already inconvenient powers of observation.

“You’re looking at the brochures,” he said.

“I’m just absorbing local food culture.”

His pen paused over the registration form. “That sounds dangerously close to work.”

“That depends on whether I take mental notes.”

“You already have the face.”

“What face?”

“The one that means you’re ranking what order you want to try the food.”

I folded my hands in front of me and leaned in, kissing him softly on the lips. I nearly melted at that moment. “I’m on my honeymoon. Any culinary ranking will be purely recreational.”

His mouth curved, but he allowed me the fiction.

The clerk slid over our key cards, smiling in that discreet hotel way that suggested she’d seen every possible version of couple interaction and could likely predict the result of this one. To her credit, however, she remained schtum. 

Upstairs, our room gave us a slice of city lights, winter glass, and old stone below. I should have been perfectly content. I was finally on my honeymoon, albeit delayed. We were in a beautiful hotel with all the trimmings. And I was married to a man who had remembered every detail I’d pretended to care less about.

Then Marcus set two tickets on the desk.

Pavlova After Dark.

I stared longer than dignity allowed. If I’m being honest, I think a bit of drool welled at the corner of my mouth.

“What’s this?” I decided playing coy was the better move.

Marcus took off his coat and hung it neatly in the wardrobe. “I thought we might go after dinner.”

I sidled up to him and slid my arms around his neck and kissed him deeply. He smelled almost good enough to eat. I resisted the urge to nibble on his neck and pulled back. “This is just one of the reasons I love you. The fact that it’s dessert-based just sweetens the pot.”

“That’s romantic.”

“It’s pavlova.”

He laughed then, low and tired, and the sound softened something in me that had stayed tense since the gate in Copenhagen two months earlier.

My eyes drifted to the empty floor space near the armchair. Normally, Mozart, my faithful Schnoodle, would have been there, but honeymoons were a couple’s event, not a trio’s. Still, I missed the click of his nails and the warm chocolate-brown blur of him investigating hotel corners for snacks.

Marcus came up behind me and touched my shoulder. “He’s fine. I’m sure Lizzie’s spoiling him.”

“I know.”

The words should’ve comforted me. Instead, Sydney glittered outside, Vivid called from every sign in the city, and I made a silent vow that while we were here, I would be a wife first and food critic second.

I should have known that wasn’t on the menu.

After dinner, Marcus and I left The Fullerton and stepped back into Martin Place, where the old sandstone of the former General Post Office glowed against the winter dark. The city had shifted while we ate. Office workers had thinned, tourists had multiplied, and Vivid had taken over the Central Business District one glowing installation at a time.

We walked toward Circular Quay because Sydney seemed best met on foot when it wanted to show off. George Street carried the shine of shop windows, light rail tracks, and people moving in loose streams toward the water. At Pitt Street, a crowd paused around a projection splashed across a building face. Farther down, the slope toward the quay opened into colder air, saltier air, air that felt pulled straight off the harbor and through every gap in my coat.

Customs House appeared ahead, stately and bright. Beyond it, ferries nosed in and out of the Quay, their green-and-yellow hulls moving through dark water broken by reflections. The Harbour Bridge rose to our left, all iron strength and lit edges. To our right, the Opera House shifted beneath projected color, its sails catching patterns that made the whole thing feel less built than conjured.

Pavlova After Dark had been set near the Vivid food programming area, close enough to the water for romance and close enough to cables, barricades, and staff radios to create a workplace hazard. Music pulsed beyond the dessert tents and mingled with the chime of glassware. Cameras clicked as guests drifted in coats and scarves, faces turned toward sugar and light.

I stepped inside and forgot all semblance of dignity. I’m pretty sure I started drooling.

Pavlovas gleamed under colored light. Crisp white meringue carried cream, passionfruit, berries, finger lime, lemon myrtle, wattleseed, macadamia, and sugar-work curled into delicate shapes. One miniature pavlova wore green citrus pearls. Another carried a glossy passionfruit finish bright enough to test every vow I had made involving restraint.

Marcus watched my face and gave a small smile. “You’re already ranking them.”

“I’m appreciating meringue as an undervalued culinary art form.”

“You’ve been practicing that line, haven’t you?”

“Too stiff?”

He laughed at my cooking joke, and I took his hand before dessert stole every scrap of newlywed focus I had left.

Suddenly, something besides the meringue caught my attention. I spotted Marta Bell, a well-known personality in culinary circles.

Sydney’s dessert queen stood near the featured pavlova, smiling at guests, accepting praise, and holding herself through every compliment by sheer will. Her display used cream-and-gold cards, elegant ribbons, and the words “authentic Sydney pavlova” in lettering soft enough to seem expensive.

But for all the pomp and circumstance directed toward the dessert, it seemed Marta believed she was the true star of the show. 

I had no idea yet what it proved.

As Marcus and I walked along, you could tell the event had two worlds. Guests saw light, music, champagne, and dessert arranged for photographs. Behind that shine, people hauled crates, checked plugs, argued over table placement, and prevented the public from discovering how much glamour depended on gaffer tape.

I had just been thinking of how much chaos Mozart would have caused had he been present when I caught my first glimpse of what I had always envisioned as a “real” Australian.

He moved along the backstage edge of Pavlova After Dark in an old oilskin coat and work boots. He focused intently as he checked power leads, nudged a rubber mat flat, shifted a barricade, and guided two servers through a narrow gap between a lighting stand and a dessert table. His hair was staging a revolt, sticking out a million different directions from beneath a wide-brimmed, sweat-stained hat banded by crocodile-teeth. The sun had leathered his face into a ruddy map of lines and wrinkles.

The harbor sat behind all of it, dark and busy, as ferries moved past Circular Quay. But for as dark as the harbor was, the Opera House was alive with light and changing color. Bursts of red and blue and green gave way to vibrant oranges and yellows. The Museum of Contemporary Art stood across the water near The Rocks, its facade catching light from the festival crowd. Every landmark seemed to be performing, while the brawny roadie kept the machinery grinding beneath it from biting anyone.

A staffer backed toward a coil of cable, tray balanced in both hands. The worker I’d spotted earlier caught the corner of her crate before fruit, glass, and dignity hit the pavement.

“Steady there,” he said. “This bit of kit’s already trying to murder me. Don’t give it ideas.”

The server laughed. “Ta, Bluey.” 

“Too easy,” he replied and flipped her a jaunty salute.

“Bluey?” I chuckled.

Marcus followed my glance. “Crocodile Dundee?”

“It’s the hat, I think.”

“You sound impressed.”

“I respect anyone standing between dessert and electrical chaos.”

Bluey crouched near a bank of cables tucked behind one of the dessert stations. He studied the ground, the cable path, the scuffs near table legs, and the gap between a crate and a lighting stand. Then he reached behind the coil and dragged out a flattened cardboard box.

“Bugger all,” he muttered. “People’ll stuff rubbish anywhere, long as it isn’t their boot.”

He crushed the box under one arm and stood. One corner swung into the light. I could just make out a laughing kookaburra.

The logo flashed briefly, cheerful and old-fashioned, stamped in dark ink, slightly smeared, on cardboard and looking far more rural than Marta Bell’s polished cream-and-gold world. I looked toward Marta’s table again. Every box, bag, ribbon, and card belonged to the same elegant brand family.

Not a bird in sight.

I turned it to Marcus, just to mention it, but applause rolled across the event. The tasting announcement began and the crowd shifted. The kookaburra vanished into the bin.

A sudden bark came from my left. I stopped so fast Marcus nearly walked into me.

“No way,” I muttered. My gaze darted through the crowd.

Marcus turned his head. “Was that...?”

A second bark answered him, sharp and bright.

A chocolate-brown Schnoodle, my Chocolate-brown Schnoodle, burst through a gap between two guests, ears bouncing, tail whipping, body vibrating. Mozart saw me and launched himself forward.

I crouched without thinking. He crashed into my knees, licked my chin, and spun in a tight circle, displaying no visible remorse for arriving in the wrong hemisphere.

“Mozart,” I said, grabbing his harness. “You’re supposed to be with Lizzie.”

He sneezed with enthusiasm, lobbing doggie snot all over me.

“Technically,” a familiar voice  behind him, “he is.”

I stood, dog wiggling in my arms, and stared.

Lizzie Hayes, my best friend and photojournalist, stood near the media line, camera strap around her neck, dark curls pushed back from her face, expression caught somewhere between guilt and mounting a legal defense. 

She was supposed to be home watching my dog. Instead, she was standing in Sydney, all of a whopping six feet away from me, during Vivid Sydney while I clutched said dog.

“Explain,” I ordered. “You’ve got two minutes. Go.”

Lizzie winced. “Hello to you, too.”

“One minute, fifty-seven seconds.”

“Okay, okay. The Wandering Foodie assigned me to shoot Vivid’s food coverage. It was last minute. Total chaos. I didn’t tell you because you finally got your honeymoon, and, being the thoughtful person I am, didn’t want to bother you.”

“You brought my dog to Australia.”

“You would have preferred I left him in some heartless kennel? What kind of irresponsible monster do you think I am?”

“Wait a second. You’re on assignment for the magazine? With which writer?”

Lizzie worked exclusively with me, or so I had thought.