Page 4 of A Murder is Going Down

‘What ’orrible news,’ said my host sister when I told her my brother had died suddenly. ‘Does zis mean I can have my bedroom back?’

It’s not like I was happy to hear that Felix was dead. We’d never been close, but I hadn’t specifically wished forhis death since the day he slammed my finger in the car door when I was twelve, because I accidentally broke his favourite mug. (He was twenty-two – what twenty-two-year-old has a favourite mug?) But going home early? That part was pure relief.

Not until I found myself back home in Mount Lawley with Aunty Sam, poking my finger into the holes of the ripped-up chesterfield and listening to her run cello scales again (andagain), did I consider I might have been too hasty. (Maybe carob is something you could learn to love?)

‘I’m not sure you should have come back,’ Aunty Sam had said at the airport, looking like Helena Bonham Carter caught in a windstorm when she tracked me down in baggage claim. ‘The funeral won’t be big.’

I’d said—

Now

‘This is the short version, is it?’ Marianne asks.

‘I’m getting there.’

Then

My parents are dead. Sorry to blurt it out, but I find it’s easier to get the whole orphan thing out of the way. Everyone always wants to know why I live with my aunt, but nobody knows how to bring it up politely, so they circle around the question for so long, like a great white closing in on a surfer, that I want to grab them and shout:Ask me!

Mum and Dad died from cancer, one after the other, when I was only eight and Felix had just turned eighteen. Dad was diagnosed while Mum was going through chemo, and by the time we got to Mum’s funeral, he could barely stand up. Mum’s sister, Aunty Sam, moved back from London to take us in, despite possessing the maternal instincts of a quokka (they may be cute as hell, but quokka mothers have been known to fling theirbabies at predators when attacked so they can make their escape).

The loss of my entire immediate family by fifteen can’t bode well for my own life expectancy, even if what happened to Felix is a special case.

The morning of Felix’s funeral I’m ready too early, sweating in a black dress that’s too tight around the arms and too short to be entirely appropriate. The only good thing to happen in Switzerland was that I grew five centimetres, which is great for my ambitions to make the A-grade netball team, but means most of my clothes are now too small.

I’m wondering if I could get away with black jeans instead when my phone beeps. It’s a message from Lilia. I was expecting one before now.

Can I come to the funeral?

To stop myself from replying, I get up to check my reflection in the mirror of the old-fashioned dresser by the front door. The make-up Aunty Sam talked me into wearing was a mistake: my skin is Jaffa-adjacent, mascara has created spider legs around my eyes and my lipstick has started to bleed. I resemble an off-duty clown.

If Lilia is coming to the funeral, I don’t want her to see me like this. (If she’s texting me half an hour before it starts, trust me when I sayshe’s coming to the funeral.) Better to look washed out and grey-skinned than like I’ve madean effort, especially since she’ll probably bring Ben now that they’rein loveand everything. (Don’t mind the italics, it’s just that he used to be my boyfriend, so it’s a whole thing.)

Aunty Sam finds me scrubbing my face clean in the bathroom. ‘We’ve got to go,’ she says, resplendent in layers of floaty black material that might be a dress or a repurposed throw rug. ‘What happened to your face?’

‘Nothing.’ My reflection looks more like myself: pale skin, a few half-hearted pimples and a cluster of broken capillaries around my nose to add a touch of wino chic. Nobody can accuse me of having made an effort.

Aunty Sam must see the lippie stains on the towel, but she doesn’t mention it. My only living blood relative is not a perfect guardian, but she doesn’t give one shit about things like stains on towels or mug rings on coffee tables, which is an underrated personality trait.

You probably think I should skip the next bit. Hearing about the funeral of someone you don’t know, and never will, is right up there with listening to someone tell you about their dreams.

But this is relevant stuff. Because the person responsible for my brother’s untimely death will be there.

So, you know, pay attention.

Now

The lift intercom buzzes, but the buttery newsreader voice is distorted by static, so I have to push my ear against the speaker to hear what he’s saying.

Marianne is not going to be happy.

‘What did he say? Have they fixed it?’ Marianne demands, while I’m still rubbing at my ear and wondering whether squirting hand sanitiser directly into the ear canal is a no-no.

Is the lift moving? is what I want to say.Are the doors opening?But I opt for diplomacy and speak to her the way I might to a lost kid in the supermarket. ‘They’re waiting on someone to come out. It’s probably going to be twenty minutes or so.’

‘Twenty minutes?Is there even enough air in here to last us that long?’

‘The man on the intercom says it’s perfectly safe. There’s more than enough air in here.’