Page 53 of A Murder is Going Down

‘Henceaffair,’ Adam clarifies. ‘It really wouldn’t be great for Haruto if this got out. That’s why I agreed to meet you. I thought maybe you were going to say something to his wife, Jade.’

‘Haruto’s married to Jade, a woman?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does anybody else know?’ Patrick asks.

‘Just Felix,’ Adam says.

‘Felix?I thought you only met him that night.’

‘He saw us together at the party.’

I try to meet Patrick’s eyes, because this feels important, but he’s too busy making a face at Adam.

‘You were snogging your secret boyfriend at the party that he went to with his wife?’ Patrick says. ‘That’s amateur hour, mate.’

‘Thanks for the feedback,’ Adam says, looking exactly as annoyed as you’d expect at being lectured by a teenager, much less a teenager who makes the wordmatesound like a microaggression. ‘Obviously, it was not a great idea. But we were in a room, and Felix walked in on us.’

‘What did he say?’ I ask, trying to imagine the scene.

‘He just sort of laughed and said,I’ll knock next time.’

‘I’ll knock next time?’ Patrick repeats. ‘Those exact words?’ He has an expression on his face that I don’t understand.

‘Or something like that. It was awkward. I wasn’t sure if he knew Haruto and Jade were married, because he’d just met us all that night and probably couldn’t remember everyone’s names. When he left, I remember freaking out that he was going to make a casual comment about it to the wrong person, not realising it was a secret.’

Patrick seems weirdly zoned out and doesn’t offer any follow-up questions, so I jump in with my own. ‘But he didn’t?’

‘Not as far as I know. By the time we got downstairs, Felix had already gone out for his walk.’

‘And he died instead,’ I say.

‘I didn’t kill Felix to stop him from outing Haruto,’ Adam says, colder than the two millimetres of coffee left in his cup. ‘I’m already out, nobody cares. Haruto is … Haruto’s business.’

I look at Patrick, waiting for him to jump in with some Bad Cop business so I can go back to being Good Cop. But he’s staring at his coffee.

‘It sounds like Haruto’s the one with a motive, not you,’ I say, resigned to doing this solo if I must.

‘No,’ Adam says. ‘You don’t know him. He’s not like that.’

‘Whataremurderers like?’ I ask and if I don’t start being a bit nicer, Adam looks like he might storm out. ‘Do you mind if I ask what you remember from that night?’ I add before Adam can pick up his phone and keys, and get the hell out of here. ‘I was overseas when it happened and I’m trying to put it all together.’ I adopt my now well-practised haunted look. (The trick is really just to suck in your cheek.) ‘For closure.’

‘Uh huh.’ Adam doesn’t look convinced, but he’s not a total arsehole, so he softens a bit. ‘You want to know, like, what happened that night?’

‘Please. I think it would help.’

Patrick kicks me under the table, which I assume means he thinks I’m laying it on too thick. I aim for anI’m compensating for your silencekick back at him but connect with the leg of the table instead, which shudders my barely touched hot chocolate.

‘Elena invited a bunch of us over for drinks and pizza. We’re all pretty tight at school and we go out for drinks sometimes, but we’d never been to Elena’s before. I remember I nearly missed the turn-off and almost hit your aunt when I pulled in so suddenly. Then I—’

‘My what?’ I ask.

‘Your aunt. Sam, right?’

I look at Patrick, who seems to have finally emerged from his reverie. Behind Adam, Lilia’s head jerks up and I know she heard it, too. Ben is looking at his phone.

‘But Aunty Sam wasn’t at Elena and Felix’s that night,’ I say.