THEN #2
Adam takes one; Elena helps herself to a Coke instead. Patrick mimes pouring himself a glass and Elena shakes her head.
‘Mike would let me,’ he says.
‘I don’t believe that for a second.’
Patrick turns to me. ‘What’s the legal drinking age in Switzerland?’
‘Sixteen,’ I say, wondering if he already knows this (and if so: how?).
‘You’re welcome to get on a flight to Zurich anytime you want, Patrick,’ Elena says.
‘Tonight, perhaps?’ She bumps into her brother lightly with her wheelchair as she manoeuvres in the small space to get past us.
This may or may not be an accident. ‘Will you excuse me?’ she says, not even trying to invent a reason to leave.
‘How did you know Felix?’ Patrick asks Adam, putting the wine bottle down.
‘I didn’t really,’ Adam says. ‘I work with Elena at the school.’
‘Ah.’ Patrick’s eyes flicker to mine so fast I would have missed it if I wasn’t looking at him. I can almost hear him whisper workplace romance in my ear.
Aunty Sam walks past, pausing to pour herself a drink, and we all go silent, which isn’t at all suspicious.
Even when she’s gone, it’s still awkward.
I have no idea how to segue into the question: Did you have an affair with Elena and, if so, is it still going on and, if so, where were you on the night of Felix’s death?
In fact, given that nobody has introduced me I’m not sure Adam realises I’m part of the conversation at all.
I’m getting flashbacks to the first (also last) high-school party I went to.
‘You never met Felix, then?’ Patrick asks, sounding a little desperate.
‘Only the night he died,’ Adam says.
‘Ah!’ Patrick fails to hide his excitement that one of the people we’ve been hoping to meet has thrown himself into our laps the way a juicy salmon might leap into the outstretched paw of a grizzly bear.
Keep it together, man, I think but do not say.
‘You were at Felix and Elena’s that terrible night?’ Patrick confirms.
‘That’s right. Elena had invited a few of us from work.’
‘Wow, that must have been really traumatic,’ Patrick says and he manages to look genuinely concerned, which raises the question: is he a good actor or a good person?
‘Yeah,’ Adam says. ‘It was pretty horrible.’
‘What was Felix like that night?’
‘He seemed nice, friendly, chatty.’ Adam hesitates.
‘I know some people were saying maybe he did it on purpose, but he didn’t seem down to me.
We talked a bit about bands – he was wearing a bright yellow Wilco t-shirt and I’m a big fan too – so we talked about that.
We even talked about how the new Marvel movie actually looks like it doesn’t suck arse.
He said he wanted to see it, he was making plans. ’
‘I don’t know much about what happened,’ Patrick says. ‘I still don’t understand why Felix was even outside.’
If Adam realises he’s being grilled, he doesn’t seem bothered by it. Maybe he’s grateful to have someone to talk to at a party, even if it is a teenager who talks too much. I can relate.
‘I think he said he was going for some fresh air. Maybe that was code for having a ciggie or something and he didn’t want to get in trouble with Elena,’ Adam says.
‘And then Elena got stuck in the lift?’ Patrick asks.
‘Yeah, it was wild. Like a scene from that movie.’
‘Which movie?’ Patrick asks, which is not the point.
‘The old one, the one with Keanu Reeves.’
‘The Matrix?’
‘Speed,’ I say quietly. Aunty Sam’s Keanu Reeves obsession meant I saw it for the first time when I was nine, and I’ve seen every awful movie Keanu Reeves ever made.
‘Is there a lift scene in The Matrix?’ Patrick asks.
‘Speed,’ I say again.
‘It’s not The Matrix,’ Adam says.
‘Speed,’ I say, less quietly.
Adam looks surprised to notice me. ‘That’s right.’ He still doesn’t ask who I am.
‘The lift?’ Patrick prompts gently.
‘Elena had her phone with her, so we could still talk to her,’ Adam says. ‘She told us to call the number on the lift control panel. I’m not sure what was wrong with it, but they had to reset … something? I don’t know. Jade seemed to think it wasn’t a big deal.’
‘Jade’s one of your work colleagues?’
‘No, she’s married to Haruto – he’s the one who works with us.’ Adam smiles in a way that makes me curious about what Jade looks like.
‘When did you realise Felix wasn’t there?’ Patrick asks.
‘Pretty quickly. We were looking for him to help with the lift. Someone went outside to find him. I think it was Farnoosh – she’s Sarah’s wife.’
I hope Patrick is keeping track of all these names, because I’m already lost and Adam is still speaking.
‘When Farnoosh came back and said she couldn’t find Felix, that’s when we started to freak out. Haruto went outside with her and they, you know, found him.’
‘That must have been horrible.’
Patrick touches Adam’s shoulder and rather than it being weird and creepy, which it definitely would be if I started randomly pawing strangers, Adam reacts the way a cat does when its head gets scratched. Ugh, I hate how good Patrick is at this.
‘It was pretty awful,’ Adam says. ‘We didn’t tell Elena how serious it was until she was out of the lift.’
Patrick nods. ‘You and Elena seem close.’
Adam shrugs. ‘Sure.’ His eyes find Elena on the other side of the room, now in conversation with two women with wet eyes and empty glasses.
‘Do you hang out much outside work?’
‘Elena and me? A bit. She’s great.’
Adam’s phone goes off and, intentionally or not, he cradles it in a way that stops me from seeing the name on display. ‘Sorry,’ he says, ‘I should take this.’
He steps away and Patrick and I stay where we are. Patrick’s frowning at the drinks table.
‘Have you seen my phone?’ he asks.
‘No. Why?’
‘I put it down there to pour the wine.’ He looks up and down the table, then pats his pockets. ‘Now it’s gone. You sure you didn’t pick it up?’
‘Forget about your phone for one second. Can we talk about Adam?’
‘He was there the night Felix died, so that’s an opportunity,’ Patrick says. ‘If he was having an affair with Elena, that’s a motive.’
‘He was inside the house with Elena the whole time, though.’
‘So he says. If he and Elena really did have a thing they’d cover for each other, right?’ Patrick says this with the confidence of someone who has watched too many police procedurals.
‘Someone would have seen something.’
‘Maybe they covered for Adam and Elena too?’
‘Do you think we—’ I stop when I see Patrick looking over my shoulder with an expression that suggests Elena’s whipped off her top and started to pole dance.
I turn around just as he says, ‘Don’t turn around,’ and see Ben and Lilia walking into the living room.
People turn to look at Lilia, the way they always do, and she does that annoyingly charming thing of being completely oblivious.
Torn between staying and fleeing, I panic and do the worst possible thing, which is to grab a piece of sushi off a nearby platter and cram it into my mouth.
All this means is that my mouth is full of half-chewed rice, seaweed and avocado when Ben and Lilia arrive in front of me and I have to say hello.
Well, not hello, exactly.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask, ignoring the rice that pings out of my mouth to land on the floor between us.
Lilia looks nervously at Ben, then back to me and finally at the rice. ‘Your aunt invited us,’ she says. ‘Didn’t you get my text?’
I don’t tell her I blocked her number after the funeral. I should probably unblock her to avoid exactly this scenario from happening again, but will I? (Spoiler: yes, but I’ll regret it.)
‘Heids, did you not know?’ Ben asks me. ‘I thought Aunty Sam would have checked with you first.’
I look around for Aunty Sam, who quite possibly shut herself in the pantry the moment she saw Ben and Lilia come in. ‘She didn’t.’
‘Oh,’ Lilia says.
‘I think she thought you could do with some friends around you,’ Ben says, reaching out so quickly I don’t have time to avoid his hand before it lands on my shoulder.
My shoulder! He’s touched my boobs and now we’re on shoulder-patting terms. I want to upturn the sushi platter and disappear in a cloud of rice.
Instead, I go for my default: being a bitch.
‘And instead she invited you?’ I say. The glorious thing about being unequivocally wronged is that you can get away with saying anything. (You can, right?)
‘Heidi, we’re so sorry,’ Lilia says.
‘You must be devastated.’
‘If we could talk about it, maybe I could explain?’
‘I’m really not sure what you could explain,’ I say, cold as the ice bath Lilia and I once climbed in together after a sauna. At the time, she’d joked about how I was the only person she’d get in an ice bath for.
‘Guys, this really isn’t the place,’ Patrick says impatiently.
I’m grateful for the interruption, even if Patrick’s motivation is more about wanting to discuss whether anyone at this party murdered my brother than defending me.
He glowers at Ben. ‘Cheating on Heidi was bad enough, but coming here might have been your second most stupid idea ever,’ he adds, which is bitchy and thrilling.
Ben takes a step back. ‘Sorry, who are you?’
‘This is Elena’s brother, Patrick,’ I say.
‘We’re here for Heidi,’ Ben says condescendingly to Patrick. ‘We’re her oldest friends.’
‘I think Heidi would really prefer if you were there for her,’ Patrick says. ‘As in: fuck off out of here. We’re in the middle of something.’
‘No offence,’ Ben says, in a way that means some offence, ‘but we don’t even know you.’
‘We want to try and make this right,’ Lilia says to me.
‘Then please leave,’ I say, emboldened by Patrick being an even bigger bitch than I am.
Lilia takes Ben’s arm to turn him around and Patrick winks at me.
‘Now where were we?’ Patrick says. Then, before I can say anything, he gets an idea and I’m the poor sucker who can see the car crash coming but is too late to stop it.
‘Wait,’ he says, and the hostility drains out of him like he’s had control of it the whole time.
‘Ben.’ He points at Ben. ‘Your dad was Felix’s doctor, right? ’
‘Uh, right.’ Ben looks as surprised by this non sequitur as he should be.
‘How was his mental health, would you say?’
‘My dad’s?’
‘Felix’s. Was he sad? Depressed? Would you say he had tendencies towards l’ennui that manifested in gloomy periods?’
‘Sorry, are you being serious right now?’
‘Did he listen to a lot of Elliott Smith?’
‘Patrick,’ I say, half-wanting to murder him, half-verging on hysterical laughter. This, I’m starting to realise, is my default position when it comes to all things Patrick.
‘I didn’t know Felix that well,’ Ben says. ‘It’s not like I read the patient files while I’m working.’
Patrick seems confused. ‘Working where?’
‘At my dad’s surgery.’ Ben, realising Patrick is not intimately familiar with his CV, explains, ‘I clean my dad’s surgery in the evening – for money.’
‘Patrick,’ I say, but he’s not listening.
‘Really,’ he says, now entirely focused on Ben. ‘That’s so interesting. Does that mean you have a key and you know the alarm code and everything?’
‘Uh, yeah.’ Ben looks at Lilia, who seems to realise where this is going even if she doesn’t know why.
‘Patrick,’ I try again. ‘Ben and Lilia are leaving. Maybe we should try talking to Elena or her friends?’
‘We need this,’ Patrick says to me, lowering his voice.
(But it’s not low enough because Lilia and Ben are right there and this isn’t like a Shakespeare play, where the villain can just hiss his asides at the audience while everyone else onstage acts like they’re wearing noise-cancelling headphones.) ‘We haven’t got anything to go on.
Other than Adam I don’t think anyone who was at Felix and Elena’s that night is even here. ’
‘What are you talking about?’ Lilia asks, but we both ignore her.
‘Felix’s medical records might give us some kind of angle, if we’re serious about investigating his death,’ Patrick whispers.
‘Did you say you’re … investigating Felix’s death?’ Lilia asks.
‘No,’ I say.
‘Yes,’ Patrick says, and I fantasise about finding a cliff to push him down. ‘It’s to do with life insurance,’ he adds. ‘Elena doesn’t get the money if Felix killed himself.’
‘Oh,’ Ben says.
‘Oh,’ Lilia says.
‘Patrick,’ I say.
‘I’m not sure what you’re asking,’ Ben says, but I think he finally does.
Patrick grins at what he must see as the perfection of it all.
To him this is all a beautiful coincidence and not a terrible idea.
When he turns away from me and towards Ben and Lilia it feels like the sun has gone behind a cloud.
‘How would you like to do something that might make Heidi finally forgive the pair of you?’ he asks.