Then
I’m ready to run for my bike (even though my lungs feel ready for a long lie-down and a cup of tea, because, really, what is the alternative here?) when the passenger side door to Elena’s car opens and Michael steps out, hair somehow capturing the wind to make him look like he’s in slow-mo.
(This guy is going to be a goddamn movie star if we ever get out of here.)
‘Michael,’ I say, barely even panting anymore. ‘Can you drive me back home? Right now? It’s an emergency, I’ll explain on the way.’ I don’t know that I can trust Michael, but I know I can’t trust Patrick and Elena.
‘Heidi.’ He seems concerned. ‘Are you okay?’
Why do people keep asking me that? Oh, yeah: I’m red-faced, demanding car keys and, apparently, I have a branch in my hair.
‘Please,’ I say.
‘Of course,’ Michael says.
For a moment, I think he’s going to do it. Then Michael looks at Elena, who shakes her head, and Patrick, who says, ‘She knows, Mike.’
So they’re all in on it. Perfect. I want to cry, but instead I feel weirdly calm. Is this how Felix felt at the end?
‘Heidi.’ Patrick steps towards me and I step away like he’s Fred and I’m Ginger. (Damn, Aunty Sam’s old dancing movies are rubbing off on me!) He holds up his hands. ‘It’s not what you think. Well, it kind of is, but it also isn’t.’
‘What’s that?’ Elena asks, finally looking at the Wilco t-shirt still balled in my hand, now covering in a light patina of dirt. I hold it up so she can see it. ‘Perfect,’ she says in a way that means the opposite.
‘It was in Felix’s old stuff,’ Patrick says.
‘I know. Michael was supposed to put it in the bin,’ Elena says.
Michael shakes his head, his gorgeous head of hair floofing around his face. (Seriously, is he travelling with his own wind source?) ‘I thought it’d be safer to put it in with the op shop stuff,’ he says. ‘Otherwise, I might get caught on CCTV putting it in a bin somewhere nearby.’
‘That’s why we’re here,’ Elena says. ‘Michael told me what he’d done and I said we had to come out and take that t-shirt to the tip, where it belongs.’ She adds, ‘If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.’
Does this mean Elena will be the one murdering me to shut me up? It would hurt less than Patrick, at least. Probably not literally.
‘This doesn’t change anything,’ Michael says. ‘It’s a t-shirt. It doesn’t prove anything.’
‘Aunty Sam knows Patrick was here that night,’ I say, desperation making me chatty. ‘She knows everything.’
‘Me?’ Patrick frowns. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I know it was you who pretended to be Felix at the dinner party that night,’ I say. ‘Aunty Sam saw you.’
‘I didn’t kill anyone,’ Patrick says.
‘It was an accident, was it?’ I ask, not trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. Better to die as I’ve lived – being a snarky bitch. ‘You and Felix just happened to be wearing matching t-shirts, so when he carked it before dinner you could take his place? Super believable, Patrick.’
‘I’m serious, Heidi. I had nothing to do with this. Not at first, anyway,’ Patrick says and he steps towards me. I shuffle backwards and nearly trip over a gnarled tree root. If I fall to my grisly death and save everyone the trouble, I’m going to be so pissed off.
‘Michael,’ Patrick says, turning to his brother. ‘We have to tell her the truth.’
‘Or not,’ I say. ‘You don’t need to tell me anything at all. You could go to the airport, jump on your plane and we’ll pretend this whole thing never happened. I’ve repressed a lot in my life, one more thing will barely even register.’
‘It wasn’t Patrick,’ Michael says, sounding resigned.
‘But Aunty Sam saw him.’
‘It was me,’ Michael says. ‘Your aunt must have got it wrong. We’re basically the same height. I dyed my hair so it would be closer to Felix’s – and Patrick’s, I guess.’ He puts a hand up to his hair. ‘I dyed it back, but it’s never felt quite the same. Too dry. Maybe I need a hair mask.’
Aunty Sam and her dodgy eyes. Why didn’t I force her to get glasses?
‘Although,’ Michael goes on, ‘I’m slightly insulted to learn that I have the physique of a sixteen-year-old.’
‘Oh.’ I look from Michael to Patrick’s faces. ‘I knew it,’ I say.
Patrick snorts. ‘Heidi, I know it pains you that you didn’t solve the mystery, but come on.’
‘I really did.’ I try to explain, ‘Before Aunty Sam called me and said she saw you here that night, Patrick, I was certain it was Michael.’
‘How?’ Michael asks, genuinely curious, and I’m inappropriately pleased to have the opportunity to showcase my brilliance, when possibly I should be running for my life instead.
‘A few things. For one, there was the house alarm and the bathroom,’ I say.
‘What?’
‘When we came out to the house to search for clues, Michael,’ I say.
I’m almost apologetic. ‘You’d supposedly never been here before – Patrick told me that.
But when we got here you were so busting for a wee you went inside first and put in the house alarm code.
Then you ran straight to the toilet, without asking for directions.
How did you know the code or where the bathroom was if it was your first visit? ’
Michael looks annoyed. Beside him, Elena puts one hand over her eyes.
‘And they say you’re one of the great rising stars of the stage,’ Patrick says.
‘Also, the whole I’m sorry note was always pretty unbelievable,’ I add.
‘I told you,’ Elena breaks in. ‘It was ridiculous and you would know that if you’d asked my opinion first.’
Michael looks sheepish. ‘It wasn’t my best idea.
But when you said you were going to come here to look for clues, I thought maybe I could help convince you that Felix had killed himself.
I had the note in my pocket, and when I spotted the Coke can, I pretended to tie my shoe and just chucked it in there for you to find. ’
‘Using stationery from the hotel you’d been staying at before Felix died?’ Elena says.
‘I didn’t see the logo. It was very subtle. Suprisingly classy, really.’ Michael sounds defensive.
‘Pretty suss that the note turned up right after I told you Haruto said he saw someone outside that night. I assume that someone was you?’ I ask.
Michael nods. ‘When I went outside for some fresh air as Felix, I hiked up the side of the cliff, staying off the path in case someone came out to look for me sooner than I thought they would. I didn’t mean to get so close to the window.
I was trying to make it up to the road so I could walk to the train station and get back to my hotel before anyone saw me. ’
‘Was that your hair that I found on a bush?’ I ask. ‘The thing I thought was a thread?’
‘Yeah, that was a genuine clue.’
‘And that is why you got rid of it.’
‘Sorry.’ He gives me a face that adds not sorry to the end of his words.
‘How much did you know about this?’ I ask Patrick.
‘I figured it out after we saw Adam,’ he said.
‘How?’ I’m seriously pissed off that Patrick solved this before me.
‘It was something Adam said when we spoke to him the second time. He said that when Felix walked in on them, he – Felix, I mean – said, “I’ll knock next time.”’
Elena shakes her head and Patrick, despite everything, grins at her.
‘Michael says that all the time when he walks into a room and gets surprised. It’s a total tic,’ Patrick says to me.
‘It wasn’t proof of anything, but it made me wonder.
He nearly said it that night Lilia came over for dinner until Elena cut him off.
’ Patrick’s eyes flicker up and down my face. ‘I was scared you’d catch that.’
‘Is this why you suddenly changed your mind about wanting to find out what happened to Felix?’ I say. ‘Because of what Adam said?’
‘I didn’t know anything for sure,’ Patrick says. ‘But it got me thinking. Then I found Michael’s luggage tag and realised he’d lied about when he got to Perth.’
‘But I found the luggage tag,’ I say. ‘And it had your name – P Maidenhead. How do you explain that, if you’re not a part of this from the start?’
‘Actually, I found it first,’ Patrick says.
‘But the initial on the luggage tag was P,’ I say.
‘That’s me,’ Michael says. ‘Michael’s my middle name – first name is Paul. I always hated being called Paul. I was named after my crappy dad, which Mum thought was a good idea when I was born. I asked everyone to call me Michael instead when I was pretty young. Then I adopted it professionally.’
I’d thought Patrick was joking when he made fun of Michael for having a stage name. ‘Your mum called you Patrick and Paul?’ I ask, making a face.
‘I escaped with Penelope as a middle name,’ Elena says.
‘And Mum was too lazy to bother with a middle name by the time she got to me,’ Patrick says. The siblings laugh, which feels wrong in the middle of a murder confession.
My phone is a lump in my pocket and I berate myself silently for not calling for help when I had the chance. Now I’m stuck out here with at least one murderer and two co-conspirators who are planning to do what with me, exactly?
‘After you found the luggage tag, you came to me,’ Elena says softly to Patrick, leaning hard on her stick.
‘And yet neither of you thought to throw the bloody luggage tag in the bin?’ Michael says.
‘I asked Elena about it because I knew that she must be in on it,’ Patrick says.
‘No one would mistake her own brother for her husband. Plus, you know, sis, I don’t want to criticise your planning, but it was strange that you called your friend Sarah and not your husband when you were trapped in the lift.
If you hadn’t known Felix was already dead, calling him would have been the logical thing to do. ’
‘I told you we should have brought Pat in on it,’ Michael says to Elena. ‘He’s detail-oriented. I don’t care what his Econs teacher says.’
‘Measure twice, cut once,’ Patrick says. ‘That’s my motto.’
‘It’s bad enough that you’re involved,’ Elena says to Michael. ‘Patrick is a literal child.’
‘I’m a child?’ Patrick scoffs. ‘This was the worst-planned murder since Wile E Coyote tried to kill off Road Runner.’
‘Which time?’ I ask.
‘All the times.’
‘Does that mean all that stuff about you wanting to move to Perth was bullshit?’ I ask Patrick, ignoring the disappointment settling in my stomach like a bad meal alongside the fear that’s been there this whole time.
‘The uni visit was,’ he says. ‘But not the rest. I really have been thinking about moving over here to be closer to Elena.’ His eyes want me to believe him. ‘When Mike told me you thought it was me who flew into Perth before Felix died, it seemed like an easy cover story.’
Just because we’re standing around like family members making weekend plans doesn’t mean I’m not rigid with the tension of wondering: what happens now?
‘I really wanted to tell you,’ Patrick says to me, stepping closer.
I take a step back. ‘Why didn’t you?’
‘I didn’t know what you’d do.’
I try to imagine what I would have done if Patrick had told me. Would I have gone to the police? Confronted Elena? Told Aunty Sam? Maybe some of those things. Maybe all of them. Maybe none of them.
‘Heidi.’ Elena’s hand on my shoulder feels weak. (When did she get so close to me?) Her face looks tired and the hand on her stick is shaking, just a little. ‘I’m sorry.’
Michael looks at Elena and sees what I see. He takes her elbow. ‘You need to sit down. Can we move this inside?’
‘I’m not going in there with you,’ I say.
‘My sister needs to sit down, so if you want to know what happened, I suggest you follow us.’
Michael heads into the house, Elena leaning heavily on him.
Patrick stays where he is. He looks almost as knackered as Elena. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says again. ‘I was trying to keep you out of it. If the police ever figure out what happened, I could be an accessory after the fact or … look, I don’t really know how the law works outside the movies.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Come inside,’ he says. ‘You know they’d never hurt you, right?’
I absolutely do not know that, but it feels good to hear Patrick say it. I’m still not sure I want to go inside with these people when the rumble of a car engine turns us both around and we see a familiar Volvo bouncing along the driveway.
‘What the hell?’ Patrick asks.
The car pulls up at a rakish angle and out jump Lilia and Ben. ‘What the hell is happening?’ Lilia asks.