Page 51 of A Murder is Going Down

Then

Forget the heat. We’re driving out to meet Adam, which means we’re in a car and, yes, that means Ben is driving. No, I’m not thrilled about it either. I’m repeating my conversation with Aunty Sam to Patrick.

‘You straight-up lied to your aunt and told her you’d drop it?’ Patrick asks. ‘Good for you.’

‘Not good for me. Bad for me. I’m lying to a grieving aunt. That’s not right.’

‘It was a white lie.’

‘No, a white lie is telling you that you’re pulling off those pants. Mine was a regular-coloured lie.’

Patrick looks down at his high-waisted tweed pants. ‘Iampulling off these pants,’ he says.He is too, dammit.‘Anyway, they’re Michael’s. I’ve run out of clean clothes.’

Dressed in Michael’s pants, Patrick’s resemblance to his older brother is amplified.

‘You share clothes?’ I ask.

‘If he doesn’t know about it, we do.’

‘You’ve at leastheardabout washing machines, right?’

‘You could have cancelled if you didn’t want to lie to your aunt,’ Patrick says, ignoring my reasonable question. ‘I would have got over it – eventually. Although you might not have survived the FOMO of me talking to Adam without you.’

‘Nobody says FOMO anymore,’ I tell him.

‘Isay FOMO.’

‘I thought Melbourne was supposed to be cool and Perth was the regional backwater.’

‘This place is rubbing off on me.’

‘Is there anything we need to do before we get to the café?’ Lilia asks, breaking into our conversation. Obviously, she’s here too, glowing rather than sweating in all this heat I’m not mentioning. She and Ben are a matching set now.

Patrick has already filled me in on the phone call he had with Adam, which went like this (as best as Patrick could remember it and, now, as best as I can):

Patrick: We know about the affair.

Adam: (Swearing, confusion.)

Patrick: We want to talk to you about it, not to the cops.

Adam: Can we do this face-to-face?

Not bad, right? I was pretty impressed by Patrick’s wholewe know about the affairdeal. Not that I let him know that – his ego is robust enough as it is.

Anyway, all he says to Lilia now is: ‘I’m going to play it by ear.’

We’re ten minutes early to the café, but Adam’s inside at a table. He’s already drunk half his coffee.

‘Hi,’ I say to Adam, unsure whether he’ll recognise me from the party at Aunty Sam’s, where we didn’t really meet because I spent the entire time lurking awkwardly beside Patrick instead of introducing myself like a normal person.

‘Hi again,’ Patrick says. ‘This is Heidi, Felix’s little sister.’

‘Uh huh,’ Adam says, offering me no clues about whether he remembers me or not. Then he notices Lilia and Ben standing behind us. ‘Who are they?’

Patrick half turns and gives them the once-over. ‘They’re not with us,’ he says smoothly.

Ben opens his mouth, but Lilia grabs his arm and steers him towards the table behind Adam, where her super hearing will be sure to keep them up to speed.