Page 111 of A Murder is Going Down

Now

‘Lilia dumped Ben?’ Marianne asks.

‘She did.’

‘Wonderful. I love a villain who finishes the book dying alone,’ Marianne says, looking pleased.

I don’t tell her Ben’s already got a new girlfriend. I don’t want to ruin it for her.

Then

We sit at Elena’s dining table like this is a family dinner.

‘What’s happening here?’ Lilia asks. ‘Did you mean it when you said you knew Ben didn’t hurt Felix?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How?’

‘Because Michael did it,’ I say. ‘Or maybe Elena. Possibly the two of them. I’m pretty sure Patrick wasn’t involved, but I haven’t got all the details yet.’

Patrick holds up his hands. ‘I swear.’

Lilia stands up immediately. ‘Heidi! We need to go. Ben’s a dick, but he’s probably still outside and can take us to the cops.’

I put my hand on hers, flat on the table. ‘I want to hear it from Michael and Elena first.’

‘Are you serious?’ she asks. But she sits back down, moving her chair closer to mine.

‘Heidi,’ Elena says. ‘I’m sorry about Felix.’

It almost makes me laugh, the way she says it.

‘Was it because Felix pushed you down the stairs?’ I ask her. ‘DidFelix push you down the stairs?’

‘He did.’ Elena looks at me, scanning for surprise (zilch). ‘But that wasn’t why we did it.’

We.

Elena places one hand on her stomach. ‘I’m pregnant.’

‘Oh.’ Not what I was expecting.

‘I thought when I told him, he’d stop witheverything,’ Elena says.

‘I didn’t know he …’ I don’t finish the sentence. I might not have known for sure that Felix pushed Elena down the stairs, but I knew what Felix was like. I had my suspicions that he’d treat Elena the way he treated me, and I never did anything to stop that.

‘Felix … hit you?’ Lilia asks, her voice wobbling a bit.

‘And other things,’ Elena says. ‘He controlled our bank accounts. He never wanted me to have friends or a life outside our relationship.’

Michael scooches his chair closer to Elena’s and gives her shoulder a little squeeze. Neither he nor Patrick look shocked by any of this.

‘I didn’t know how to leave him, Heidi,’ Elena says.‘You know what he was like. I didn’t think he’d let me go. When it was just me, that was one thing. But when I found out I was pregnant, I couldn’t let him hurt the baby.’ She looks at Michael, her sweet face stricken. I can see, for a moment, how they came up with this plan.

‘You could have gone to the police,’ I say, but I know what Elena’s going to say. Even I know that the most dangerous time for an abused woman is when she tries to leave her abuser and that family violence restraining orders are as useful as a damp serviette in a crisis.

Elena doesn’t say any of this. She doesn’t say anything.