Then
We’ve made it back to Aunty Sam’s. The first I know that Lilia has followed me out of the car is when she puts her hand on my arm and I jump.
‘I’ve got to talk to you about something,’ she says.
‘Your lips are moving. I think you might be doing it already.’
‘I’m serious. It’s about the message on Ben’s phone.’
‘Okay?’
Ben – of course – cracks open the driver’s side door and sticks his head out. ‘You guys okay?’
‘We’re fine, babe.’ Lilia looks pointedly at me. ‘Talk later,’ she says, which probably only sounds like a threat to me. Then she gets back in the car.
‘What was that about?’ Patrick asks as we go inside, where Aunty Sam’s cello is vibrating the house. The living room and kitchen are empty, so presumably Michael and Elena have fled this unofficial concert.
‘I don’t know,’ I say, honestly. ‘My head’s a mess.’
‘It was a lot,’ Patrick says. ‘I might go have a lie-down for a quick hundred years or so.’
‘At least we know Elena wasn’t having an affair,’ I say, trying to buck him up. ‘Not with Adam, anyway,’ I add, remembering that phone call I’d overheard Elena make. ‘She did tell someone she loved them.’
I go to the kettle and flick it on, while Patrick hovers. ‘What about Felix walking in on Haruto and Adam?’ he says. ‘What did you make of that?’
‘It feels like it should be significant. Felix uncovers this secret and then he’s dead, what, half an hour later. But it doesn’t feel like a super strong motive for murder.’
‘Does it sound like something Felix would have done, though?’
‘Which part?’
‘Say I’ll knock next time and walk away?’
I take out two mugs and drop two of Lipton’s finest into them as the kettle starts to whine. ‘Maybe? If he knew Haruto was married, I don’t think he’d have felt obligated to tell his wife, if that’s what you mean. I think he would have enjoyed having a secret he could hold over someone.’
I wait for Patrick to ask something else, but he’s spaced out again, so I keep talking.
‘Both Adam and Sarah said Farnoosh was the only one who went outside. She didn’t come and get Haruto until after she’d spotted Felix in the water, so I don’t really see how Adam or Haruto could have slipped out without anyone noticing. ’
Patrick nods, without saying anything. I’m still not convinced he’s listening.
‘Except Adam would have covered for Haruto,’ I say.
‘Uh huh.’
‘And Sarah would have covered for Farnoosh,’ I go on.
‘Right.’
‘Farnoosh had the opportunity, but why would she kill a guy she’d just met for the first time that night?’
I pause again, in case Patrick wants to take the opportunity to snap out of his funk, but all he does is nod.
I suspect he has no idea what he’s agreeing with; I could be trying to get him into crypto and he’d sign away his life savings right now.
Although Patrick’s life savings is probably, I don’t know, five pairs of shorts and two pairs of Wayfarers.
‘Do you think Adam really saw Aunty Sam outside Felix and Elena’s place?’ I ask. ‘It seems really weird that she would be there.’
Really weird is underselling how much space this thought is taking up inside my brain – space that probably could be used to understand quantum mechanics or the plot of a Christopher Nolan movie.
‘Hmm,’ Patrick says.
‘Patrick!’ I’m ready to throw his mug of tea at him as he reaches out to take it. ‘Am I boring you? You’ve said three words in the last ten minutes and one of them was hmmm.’
Patrick rubs at his face with the hand that’s not holding the hot tea. ‘Sorry, I’m tired. I might go have that lie-down.’
I don’t think I believe him. Patrick doesn’t seem tired, he seems off. But I don’t say that as he slouches off with his tea towards the bedroom he’s sharing with Michael.
My phone beeps and Lilia’s name flashes up on the display. I should have blocked her and Ben forever the day they sat me down to tell me they’d been promoted to we and I’d been demoted to a me.
Lilia’s message says this: Ben deleted that message from Felix off his phone.
It takes me a moment and a sip of my tea to figure out what she’s talking about. I didn’t realise Lilia overheard the confrontation with Ben at his dad’s surgery over that message: Are you going to tell her?
I’ve also let new thoughts of an Elena–Felix fight and Aunty Sam’s secrets push that deeply weird message out of my mind.
Muscle memory makes me start to reply to the message. Then I stop myself. If Lilia thinks she’s going to investigate her way back into a friendship with me, she is headed for disappointment and I’m happy to help her get there.
To avoid the temptation of a reply I leave my phone on my bed and go along the hall to Patrick’s room. The door is not quite closed, so I knock once then push it open.
Patrick isn’t napping on the sofa bed as I expect, but standing at the wardrobe with his back to me, so I can’t see what he’s doing. He yelps as I come in.
‘Sorry. I knocked.’ Kind of. ‘Are you packing?’
‘Just tidying up.’ He shoves a shirt onto a hanger and bangs the wardrobe doors closed. ‘What’s up?’
‘I’ve been thinking. We should ask Aunty Sam what she was doing at Felix and Elena’s.’
‘Now?’
‘I’m not going to interrupt her practice. Are you a masochist? But after, maybe?’
Patrick picks up his untouched tea and sits down on the sofa bed, which is currently all sofa, no bed. I perch on the computer chair, so covered in clothes it’s basically an armchair.
‘How do you think she’s going to react to that?’ Patrick asks.
‘I don’t know.’ There’s something in his tone I don’t get. This is supposed to be the moment when Patrick realises I’m as invested as he is in finding out what really happened to Felix. This scene’s not playing out the way it did in my head. ‘You don’t think it’s a good idea?’
‘You don’t seriously think she could have hurt Felix, do you?’
‘No.’ Mostly. Aunty Sam could never handle the logistics of getting away with murder. She’s not a planner.
‘And even if Adam is right and she was there, she left before everyone else arrived. Felix was still alive and well.’
‘I know that.’
‘Then what’s the point?’
‘If she was there, she might have seen something important,’ I say.
‘Like what?’
‘Something we don’t know. Isn’t that what we’re doing?’ Annoyance displaces my disappointment. Patrick was the one who got me into this and now he’s acting like I’m the one with an unhealthy obsession with Felix’s death?
‘What are we doing?’ Patrick asks.
‘We’re investigating.’
‘What exactly?’
‘What happened to Felix. What are you even talking about? This was all your idea.’
‘I know and I’m sorry.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means maybe we should drop it.’ Patrick is avoiding my eyes. That or he’s really into air-conditioning vents.
‘What?’
‘We’ve heard the same story, more or less, from Sarah and Farnoosh and now Adam. Nobody at the party that night even had the chance to kill Felix, except Farnoosh and, like you said, why would she kill a guy she just met?’
‘Oh, so you were listening.’
‘I know it’s my fault for starting this.’
‘That’s it?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Patrick says. He seems to mean it, which only makes the entire situation more frustrating.
We both hear the front door bang, followed by Michael’s booming voice, and stand up.
‘Sorry,’ Patrick says again. And he leaves. This is particularly nonsensical, because we’re in his room.
I go back to my bedroom and do something really stupid. But it’s not my fault.
I’m angry. Not in my right mind. I shouldn’t be operating heavy machinery or be allowed access to my mobile in this state.
Yeah, yeah. I message Lilia back.
How do you know that?
The dots appear almost immediately, and it pings sooner than I expect.
I checked his phone and when I asked, he said it was a silly argument he couldn’t even remember.
Clearly, Lilia, like me, thinks that sounds like BS, because she adds three poo emojis.
I sit on the end of my bed and stare at my phone.
Ben deleting Felix’s message feels more suspicious than the message itself, but what am I going to do about it?
If I was a computer hacker, I could steal his phone and recover the messages.
Probably. If I was a spy, I could waterboard it out of him.
Possibly. But I am a fifteen-year-old with nothing but suspicions, a lot of free time and a three-speed bike.
What do you think about Aunty Sam being at the house that night
I hit send on my text before the part of my brain in charge of stopping me from making bad decisions can step in.
A ping. Somewhere, Lilia is holding her phone in her hand, watching those dots.
Have you asked her about it yet?
No
I hesitate. Not sure whether to add the next bit. But it’s not like Lilia and I don’t both know what we’re talking about. I send a second message:
No reason to hurt Felix tho
Another pause and I send a third one.
Felix owned part of Aunty Sam’s house
I can see the three dots forming and reforming. It’s a long one. Sure enough, Lilia’s perfectly composed message, with every bit of punctuation where it’s supposed to be arrives …
Wow! What do you think that means? How did you find out about it?
And then:
What if Felix had wanted to sell the house?
I look at Lilia’s message, re-reading it while my stomach flops back and forth like a newbie sailor on a maiden sea voyage.
I know what Lilia’s asking: if Felix had wanted to sell the house, Aunty Sam might have been forced to sell if she couldn’t afford to buy him out.
Did Felix only give her money for the deposit or was he paying off the mortgage too?
Would it make a difference to his legal rights if he had been?
Here’s something I never thought I’d say: I wish I knew more about Western Australian property law.
There’s a knock on my door. It’s Aunty Sam and I guiltily put my phone facedown a moment after Lilia sends me a ?? text.
‘Are you getting peckish?’ Aunty Sam asks. ‘Michael got something at the bakery.’
I get off my bed. ‘Sure.’ I’m not hungry, but I have an ulterior motive.