Page 1 of A Murder is Going Down

Now

We laugh when the lift judders to a stop between floors. At first.

Maybelaughis the wrong word. There’s no amusement, just a mutual exhalation of breath and eye contact with the only other person inside the lift with me.Nobody’s panicking here, we reassure each other with our eyes. But we’re both panicking a little bit, because why wouldn’t you? In the movies this scene never ends well.

Then a red light on the lift control panel blinks on and the woman stuck here with me starts eyeballing the walls like she might punch her way out of this metal box.

‘This can’t be happening right now,’ she says. Is she talking to me, to her reflection in the mirrored wall or to the person watching the feed from the camera in the lift’sceiling, who is presumably getting some great shots of the tops of our heads?

A stranger trying to guess which of the two of us would freak out in this situation would never pick her. They’d put their money on me: the teenager in owl-glasses, wearing a tea-dress one size too big and the demeanour of a person who apologises when someone bumps into her.

The other woman – let’s save time and tell you she’s called Marianne, since we’ll be swapping names soon enough – is a forty-something dressed to run a board meeting in exactly the sort of swanky Sydney building in which we now appear to be trapped. She’s got a haircut that swishes when she moves and the kind of immaculate make-up I’d need two hours on TikTok to replicate.

But it’s her, not me, performing the kind of deep breathing I associate with women in labour.

‘Are you okay?’ I ask, momentarily breathless myself at the thought that this woman might be about to fulfil a true TV cliché and have a baby in here. She doesn’tlookpregnant, but her expensive-looking shirt is untucked, making it hard to know what’s going on underneath. I’m not a squeamish person, but there’s a difference between killing a cockroach with a thong and attempting to saw through a stranger’s umbilical cord with the ballpoint pen in my bag.

‘Just a little breathing exercise,’ Marianne says between puffs.

‘Are you claustrophobic or something?’

‘I’m. Working. On. It.’ Marianne points to the lift’s control panel, which includes an intercom speaker and a call button. ‘Can. You. See. What’s. Happening?’

It’s barely a question. I hold down the button next to the speaker and clear my throat self-consciously. ‘Hello? The lift has stopped and we’re stuck.’

The voice that comes back through the speaker only seconds later could melt butter or read the evening news. It’s the guy you want informing you about the latest awful thing to happen in the Middle East or why you should at least try to care about your sunscreen’s SPF rating. I’m so focused on the sound of the voice that it takes me a moment to tune in to what he’s actually saying.

‘… are aware of it. It appears to be an electrical fault and we’re going to need you to sit tight.’

Marianne gives me awhat does he think we’re doinglook that I return with adon’t shoot the messengershrug. My shoulders can only convey so much, though, so I’m not sure she gets it. I press the intercom button again.

‘We’re not about to rappel through the lift shaft,’ I tell the guy. (Why am I trying to make him laugh?)

‘You’ll be perfectly safe in the lift until the problemis fixed,’ he says, not even acknowledging my little joke, which is rude.

Marianne is scrabbling in her bag. ‘Bloody hell!’ she yells, so suddenly that I’m sure my heart makes contact with my oesophagus.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘My beta-blockers. I must have left them in my desk.’ Annoyance has thrown off Marianne’s breathing schedule.

‘What are beta-blockers?’

‘They. Help. Keep. Me. Calm.’

‘I don’t think we need to panic. He said it’s an electrical fault and they’re on it.’

Marianne pulls out her phone and gives it the kind of look I imagine she gives her interns when they get her a latte with regular milk, not oat. ‘Have you got a signal?’ she asks.

I pull out my own phone. ‘No. Do you?’

‘No. We should have a signal here.’

She’s right. I had one on the way up.

Spreading my cardigan on the lift floor, I sit down, cross-legged like I’m back at school. ‘I’m Heidi, by the way.’

‘Marianne.’