THEN
When Michael and I open the door to go to Elena’s place, the last person I expect to see is on the doorstep.
Okay, okay, maybe Lilia isn’t the last person I expect. The Prime Minister of Sweden would be more of a shock. Beyoncé would raise both of my eyebrows. Still, I’m sufficiently stunned that I stare at her, not saying anything, while she does the same.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask.
‘I’m, uh, I was going to knock,’ she says, clocking the bag slung over my shoulder. ‘Sorry, are you on your way out?’
‘Kinda, yeah.’
‘I found out something I thought you and Patrick would want to know.’ Her eyes go to Michael, who is definitely not Patrick, regardless of a similarity in bone structure.
‘And your phone broke?’ I ask. We’re still in the doorway and it’s getting weird, so I take a step forward, pulling the door closed behind Michael and me before Lilia can invite herself in.
‘I was in the area,’ she says, which sounds like a lie.
‘Uh huh.’ I look down the road and spot a car that looks a lot like Lilia’s mum’s turning the corner.
Michael sticks out his hand and I’m forced to make introductions.
‘This is Michael, Elena and Patrick’s older brother,’ I say. ‘This is Lilia. We … go to the same school.’ I see that one land.
‘You know Patrick?’ Michael asks her.
‘Sort of,’ Lilia says.
‘Tell me you’re not wrapped up in the investigation,’ Michael says. He makes the word investigation sound like something you pull out of the bathroom drain.
Rude.
‘Sort of,’ Lilia says again.
‘No,’ I say. Why does this keep happening?
‘Glad that’s settled,’ Michael says, looking between us. ‘We’re going out to Elena’s if you want to come, Lilian – was it? You can fill Heidi in on the way.’
I’m surprised by the offer. Given Michael wants me to drop the whole thing, I suspect he knows exactly who Lilia is and has only invited her to annoy me. She says yes before I can decide if I want to say no.
When Michael starts the car, Wilco are playing on the stereo and my body shivers before my brain knows why. Wilco were Felix’s favourite band – he was wearing one of their t-shirts when he died, which Aunty Sam decided was a comfort – and it’s impossible not to think of him when I hear them.
‘Sorry,’ Michael says and changes the radio station. Apparently, he gets it.
Driving with Michael at the wheel and Lilia in the back is weird. I know Lilia too well and Michael not enough. He’s the most extroverted of the siblings, which helps. His resemblance to Patrick helps too: it’s almost enough to fool my brain into thinking we’re already friends.
I’m still reeling from the revelation that Patrick might have been in town before Felix died, but I’m not ready to talk about that and especially not with his brother.
Instead, I ask Michael a string of questions about Patrick.
Michael is a chatter and tells me way too much.
Bad haircuts! The summer he decided he was going to become a puppeteer!
His first girlfriend! The latter nearly derails me (I want details), but I try to stay focused.
This might be my only chance to get some insight into Patrick from the person who knows him best.
‘I don’t get why Patrick’s suddenly decided he’s not interested in how Felix died,’ I say.
‘Hmm.’ Michael’s eyes are on the road as he navigates a tight bend and it’s hard to tell if he heard me.
‘Has he said anything to you about it?’ I ask.
‘No.’ He frowns. ‘But you know how he felt about Felix, right?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Patrick always blamed Felix for Elena’s accident.’
‘What happened the night Elena got hurt?’ I ask.
‘Don’t you know?’ Michael asks.
I’ve heard the story before, from Aunty Sam, but the people who love us can never truly be trusted to tell us the truth, can they? If Felix did something to hurt Elena, I’m not convinced Aunty Sam would have wanted me to know.
‘I’d like to hear you tell it,’ I say.
‘I’ve only heard Elena’s version,’ Michael warns me.
‘She was there.’
‘She did bang her head, though.’
‘This is a lot of build-up.’
‘Okay, okay. The way Elena tells it, Felix came home from a work trip and left his bag at the top of the stairs. Her foot got caught in the strap, she tripped and fell down the stairs.’
‘That’s all?’
‘That’s what she said.’
‘Is there a reason why Patrick blamed Felix for the accident, beyond leaving his bag at the top of the stairs?’ I ask.
There’s a long silence. Maybe that’s a coincidence and Michael is just moving through a tricky intersection that requires his full attention, or maybe it’s not. It’s the kind of silence that begs to be filled, that urges me to step in with a forget about it or a I’m being stupid.
I say nothing. (Is this personal growth? Has being so horrendously dumped by Ben and betrayed by Lilia and possibly something-ed by Patrick turned me into a more mature person capable of sitting with uncomfortable silences? The idea is thrilling.)
‘Elena told me she and Felix had been arguing before she fell,’ Michael says. ‘They were at the top of the stairs and the bag was right there. She stumbled over it, and she remembers Felix reaching out to grab her – she thought to steady her, but she fell instead.’
Michael’s eyes hold mine for only a heartbeat. (Probably a good thing, since he’s driving.) This is as close as he’s going to get to telling me that my brother probably pushed his sister down the stairs.
‘There’s no benefit in talking about any of this now,’ he says quickly. ‘Felix is dead. Elena’s rehab is coming along. She’s alive. Why are you even asking me about it?’
That’s probably the question he should have asked first.
I think about lying. I barely know Michael. Lilia is in the back seat and if I say this next bit in front of her, it’s admitting that she’s part of the team. But if I keep any more secrets in my head they’re going to start oozing out of my ears.
‘I wondered about your brother,’ I say.
‘Patrick?’
‘Do you have another brother?’
‘If only,’ Michael says. ‘What about Patrick?’
‘I wondered if he might have had a motive to hurt Felix,’ I say. ‘Theoretically speaking.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Is it?’
‘Patrick’s a peach. He traps spiders to take them outside.’
‘Everyone does that,’ I say.
‘I kill them,’ Lilia says, which is an alarming thing to learn about a person, like finding out they floss their teeth after brushing them.
Michael gives me a look that says yikes, then keeps going. ‘But I know my brother. He would never have hurt Felix. Anyway, it’s a moot point – he was in Melbourne when Felix died.’
‘He wasn’t.’ I say it before I can worry about whether it’s a thing I should say.
‘What?’ The wheel jerks in Michael’s hands and the car follows. We’re lucky the road’s quiet.
‘Patrick flew into Perth two days before Felix died and lied about it. I found his luggage tag in the wardrobe. Why would he do that?’
‘What were you doing in that wardrobe?’ Michael asks.
‘That’s not the important bit. Patrick lied about when he got to Perth. He lives with you in Melbourne – how did you not notice?’
‘Patrick was staying with a family friend for a few nights in Melbourne,’ Michael says. ‘When I’m performing, I’m not always around enough to look after him. But even if he did fly to Perth before Felix died, that doesn’t prove anything.’
‘So why hide it?’
Even Michael can’t answer that. ‘Have you asked Patrick about this?’
‘No.’
‘Let me ask. I’m sure there’s an explanation.’
‘Like what?’ It’s Lilia from the back seat, joining the chat.
Michael looks in the rear-view mirror, then back at me. ‘What you’re forgetting is that it’s Patrick who’s been driving this whole Hardy Boys thing. Why would he—?’
‘Who the hell are the Hardy Boys?’ I interrupt.
‘You’ve never read the Hardy Boys?’ Michael asks. ‘It’s like Nancy Drew for boys.’
‘Who’s Nancy Drew?’
Michael ignores that. ‘The Hardy Boys are brothers who investigate crimes in an old series of novels. They’re actually pretty … I’m getting distracted. My point is, why would Patrick push for an investigation if he was secretly a murderer?’
The word murderer shuts us all up, but not for long.
‘Guilt. Or, like, the thing murderers do when they return to the scene of the crime.’ Lilia is hitting her stride. ‘Also, I’ve read Nancy Drew.’
‘I think that only happens in bad crime procedurals. I’ve been in a few of them,’ Michael says.
‘It’s a weird lie,’ I say.
‘I know my brother. Anyway, we’re nearly here. Lilia, didn’t you have some big revelation you were supposed to share with Heidi here?’
I’d forgotten all about that.
I twist in my seat and Lilia gives me a nervous smile. ‘It’s not that big of a deal,’ she says. ‘Not like the luggage tag or anything.’
‘Are you planning on revealing it via charades? Spit it out,’ I say.
‘I looked at Ben’s phone. He erased his messages with Felix, but he didn’t wipe his call log. He called Felix the night he died, just after six p.m.’
I think about the timeframe. Felix died around eight p.m.
‘Felix would have still been alive then.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Did Felix pick up?’
‘No.’ Lilia frowns. ‘At least I don’t think so.’
We pull up outside Felix and Elena’s house. I’m all for going straight to the trail, but Michael blurts out he’s busting for a wee and bolts inside, barely pausing to stab in the alarm code before running for the bathroom.
‘He seems nice,’ Lilia says after a long silence.
‘Does Ben know you looked at his phone?’ I ask.
Lilia shakes her head. ‘Of course not.’
‘Did you find anything else juicy on there?’
I’m joking, but Lilia’s silence makes me look sideways at her.
‘What?’
‘It’s probably nothing,’ she says, just as Michael comes back out the front door.
‘Those three coffees this morning might have been a mistake,’ he says. ‘Shall we go?’
I lead the two of them around the house and away from the river to show them the place where the police think Felix fell. Or jumped. Or was pushed. Then we bush-bash through the scrub to find the window, from which Haruto must have seen whatever it was he saw.