Chapter 2
Before we get to the murder, though, you’ll have to meet GG.
(The nickname comes from her maiden name, Gertrude Goodwin, which is an amazing superhero name if only she had the inclination and a Lycra onesie.) Dad and Aunty Vinka have never been all that keen on GG, although they wouldn’t say so.
Aunty Vinka thinks Grandad moved on too quickly after Grandma died, and Dad once told me she has “bad politics.” I’ve never been totally sure if they come here out of a sense of duty or to check on the house.
“I’ll go up and tell her,” Dad says, not moving.
“I can do it,” Aunty Bec offers, also not standing up. “We’ve kind of bonded.”
“Since when?”
“I had a conference in Dunsborough and stayed here for a week a few months back. After Mum and Dad died.”
Shippy, slouched so deeply on the couch that his fading chest tattoos are visible, farts into the silence and I stand up.
“I’ll tell her,” I say.
“You don’t have to do that, Ru,” Dad says.
“I don’t mind. I’m kind of bored anyway.” (Do I just not mention the fart if nobody else is going to?)
“And you think she’s the cure for that?”
“Andy,” Aunty Bec says, but mildly.
“Race you, then.” Dad takes off.
Upstairs, my victorious (but slightly puffed) dad raps lightly on GG’s door, then doesn’t wait for an answer. GG is propped up in bed, covered by her flowery pink quilt, and knitting something small and blue.
“Have you come to say bye before you hit the road?”
“About that,” Dad says. “You’re going to have to put up with us for another night.”
“What?” GG’s head jerks up.
“There was a snake in the garden.”
“A snake?”
“Nick tried to catch it.”
“Sorry?”
“With kitchen tongs.”
“Oh. I heard some kerfuffle in the garden.”
“He’s gone to the hospital, so we’re sticking around to make sure he’s okay.”
“You’ll stay here?”
If you’re thinking GG seems at best confused and at worst disappointed that her extended family will be spending more time with her—yeah, me too.
Possibly I’ve been a bad almost granddaughter and not listened sufficiently attentively to her stories about her (dead) cat, her (dead) son, or her (dead) husband(s), but shouldn’t she want to spend time with me?
“I’m sure Nick will be fine,” I say, in case she’s worried. I’m not actually sure Nick is going to be okay, because I always thought brown snakes were deadly. (That was the thesis of my sixth-grade report on Australia’s deadliest animals, and I got two gold stars.)
“Is that okay?” Dad asks.
“Of course it is,” GG says, rallying. “Do we have enough food in the house?”
“The pantry is stocked for the apocalypse,” Dad says. “Were you a Scout, Gertie, or just a hoarder?”
“A Brownie,” she says, although I think the question was rhetorical.
“Can I get you anything?”
“I’m fine for now. Just happy having a rest. Could I borrow your phone, though, Andrew?”
“There’s no coverage in the house,” Dad says slowly, like Gertie’s losing it—which, if she’s forgotten this basic fact, maybe she is?
“Telstra works now.”
“Does it? I’m with Optus.”
“Me too,” I add, although nobody asked.
“Gertie,” Dad says, “don’t you have a cell with Telstra? Can I get it for you? And, by the way, what’s happened to the landline?”
“The landline’s broken and my cell’s useless because I missed a bill.”
“I can have a look at the landline, if you like,” Dad says—somewhat disingenuously, because he’s the only person I know capable of making a broken phone worse. The one time I asked him to help install an app on mine he Snapchatted a random selfie, then reset the whole thing to factory settings.
“If you don’t mind,” GG says, and Dad looks immediately panicked. My snort is too loud, because he looks at me, either hurt or pretending to be.
“I think you’re forgetting the summer I fixed the wiring for the downstairs lights,” he says.
What I remember from that summer is Dad getting first stuck and then zapped after attempting to get at the wiring by jamming himself into a crawl space under the wooden floorboards, which Grandad inexplicably built for Oompa Loompa proportions, but it doesn’t seem polite to say so.
“Maybe later,” GG says, letting him off the hook. “The boy next door can always take a look. He’s handy.”
“Do you want to come downstairs with us, Gertie?” Dad asks. “It’s probably time for some lunch.”
GG shakes her head, and Dad is out the door before she can find another DIY job for him to balls up. I start to follow him, but GG stops me. “Ruthie, can you do me a favor?”
“Can I get you a cup of tea or something?” Slowly I’m turning into every other woman in this family: offering tea just to avoid silence.
“No, I’m fine. I was just hoping you could get something down for me?
” She points toward the wardrobe: a massively wide wooden thing that outlived Grandad and will probably see us all off, if only because nobody can figure out how to carry it down the stairs.
“There’s a box,” she says. “Could you reach it for me? I’m just in the middle of a tricky bit.
” She raises the knitting in case I need proof.
“Sure.”
The box is on top of the wardrobe, next to GG’s old typewriter (which is the approximate size of a small car) and an old-fashioned suitcase.
It’s cardboard, with a fitted lid, and big enough to fit a bowling ball.
(I really hope it doesn’t contain a bowling ball.) Someone, presumably GG, has written for M on the side with a red marker.
“Where do you want it?”
“On the bed, please.” It’s lighter than I expected, but the reaching and twisting required to get it down still make me wince. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I rub at my shoulder, embarrassed she’s asking me if I’m okay and not the other way around. “I tweaked my shoulder at tennis the other day.” Wrenched would be more accurate. “Do you need anything else?”
GG hesitates, but then she shakes her head. “I’ll ask your father if I do.” I’m not going to argue with that.
Downstairs, I head for the bookcase to grab an Agatha Christie or a Sherlock Holmes, undecided which pompous windbag of a detective I’m in the mood for.
I’ve finished the book I brought with me for what was supposed to be a weekend visit, and I’m in the mood for a comfort read.
Reading, eating, and going to the beach are really all there is to do down here, and I’m not a big beach person.
Dylan walks past as I drop into the couch. He looks at the book covers.
“You’ve graduated from Enola?” Dylan and I spent one summer vacation here so obsessed with the Enola Holmes novels that we decided we were going to set up our own detective agency.
Unfortunately, our first and last case, the Mystery of the Broken Window, was solved in under two minutes when we found a dead crow on the washing machine, and by the time the next summer came around, Dylan had moved on.
“Enola holds up,” I say, and Dylan nods as he walks away.
I open The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, thinking not of Sherlock or Enola or even Dylan, but instead wondering about the box in GG’s room and who M might be. I’ll find out eventually, but it’ll take a while.