Page 41 of A Murder is Going Down

This is what happens when you put a pair of unemployed teenagers in charge of a murder investigation. What we lack in investigative skills we make up for in free time. Lilia and Ben are in their school uniform because they still have two more days left in the term before holidays begin. The way Lilia looks, you’d think she had her school uniform tailored, but, nope, she just looks like that. In everything.

Ben having his licence – and, more importantly, access to his mother’s car – almost takes the sting out of his presence. I’m tucked into the back seat with Patrick.It’s just about possible to pretend we’re catching an Uber and have nothing in common with the couple in the front seats, even if they insist on trying to engage us in conversation.

‘Do you think we should tell Sarah and Farnoosh about the life insurance claim?’ I ask Patrick, keeping my voice as low as I can without it becoming a whisper. Farnoosh, Sarah’s wife, had apparently been at the party too.

‘I don’t think so, at least not at first,’ Patrick says. ‘We don’t want them to worry that we’re trying to implicate anyone, especially them.’

‘So whatdowe say to them?’

‘I may have implied on the phone that you need some closure,’ Lilia says from the front seat before Patrick can answer. (Super hearing is one more thing she has that I don’t.)

‘What?’ I say, showing great restraint by not shouting.

‘I didn’t know what else to say. It was that or requesting a group piano lesson, and I thought that might seem suspicious,’ Lilia says.

‘Brilliant.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ Patrick says, and I can tell from his soothing tone that he knows how pissed off I am. ‘Heidi, your only job is to look haunted, maybe a little depressed.’ He looks across the car at me. ‘Yeah, that’s perfect.’

Ben parks in the carport of a salmon-brick homewith a half-dead lawn and a hatchback EV charging next to us.

‘Ben, you stay in the car in case we need a quick getaway,’ Patrick says as Ben opens the driver’s door.

‘Are you joking?’

‘These are murder suspects we’re interviewing,’ Patrick says, his face flat as a dead man’s heart monitor.

‘Is he serious?’ Ben looks to Lilia, the court of appeal, and her eyes flutter, hummingbird-fast, to mine and back before she answers.

‘It probably makes sense,’ she says. ‘Just in case.’

Ben slams the car door shut, but he doesn’t fang it out of there.

‘Quick getaway,’ I say to Patrick as we walk to the front door. ‘You’re psychotic.’

‘Aren’t you glad I’m on your side?’

Neither of us look at Lilia.

Sarah answers the door in jeans and a sloppy t-shirt withT-Rexspelled out in diamantes, which is threatening to fall off her shoulder. She’s around Elena’s age, give or take, with a nice smile and a mullet that has to be ironic.

‘Lilia,’ she says warmly. She gives her a hug, which doesn’t seem like a thing teachers are supposed to do these days, but Lilia doesn’t seem surprised. ‘How are you holding up?’

‘I’m doing okay,’ Lilia say. ‘This is Felix’s little sister,Heidi, who I told you about and her, uh, Patrick. He’s Elena’s brother.’

Sarah hugs each of us and she’s stronger than she looks. ‘Come in.’

‘Thanks for having us,’ Patrick says as she leads us inside.

‘How’s Elena doing?’

‘It’s hard, but you know.’ Patrick looks like he’s trying the haunted and depressed thing, too. At least he’s got the cheekbones for it. ‘She’s getting through it.’

‘Come through to the living room and I’ll put on some tea.’

We follow Sarah to an open-plan kitchen-dining area where a woman is perched at the kitchen bench on a stool, tapping at a laptop. She’s wearing athleisure, but the kind that’s not really designed for the gym.

‘Farnoosh,’ Sarah says, ‘this is Felix’s sister, Heidi, and Elena’s brother, Patrick. You remember Lilia, my student. I said she was coming by?’