Page 65 of A Murder is Going Down

‘God, Patrick. How does your body function?’

‘Magnificently.’

We hurry along the street and I’m surprised by how cold the wind is. Wasn’t it summer just a moment ago? I’m wishing I’d brought a jumper when Patrick pulls one out of his messenger bag and puts it on without breaking his stride. (It’s quite impressive if you, like me, have ever walked into a traffic light while trying to button up a cardigan.)

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ Patrick asks, as he turns the jumper up at the cuffs.

‘That’s my jumper.’

‘This.’ He looks down. ‘No, it’s mine … I think? Isn’t it mine?’

The jumper is grey with little specky black sparkly bits. Lilia bought it for my birthday last year. On me, it’s oversized. On Patrick … it’s still oversized. He’s a skinny guy.

‘Oh, shit, this isnotmy jumper,’ Patrick says. ‘Sorry. I have one like this but less … sparkly.’

‘It’s the sparkles that make it work for you.’

‘Do you want me to take it off? Am I making you jealous by how good it looks on me?’

‘Just wash it later, that’s all I ask. I love that jumper.’

Lilia meets my eyes, and I know she remembers where it came from too.

Jade and Haruto’s house is a limestone oasis in a sea of office buildings and dermatology clinics. It’s the kind of worker’s cottage that might once have belonged to a working-class family but now requires two partners on six-figure salaries to have a chance at owning it. A thrum of bees comes from the small native garden as we walk through the gate, and our knock is answered so quickly it’s hard not to imagine the pair of them were standing behind the door waiting for us.

Jade surprises me by being gorgeous: straight black hair cut into a lob, a slash of red lipstick. She’s wearing some kind of green silk pants with a matching top that would make me look like I was still in my pyjamas, but she looks like she runs a covert whisky bar. In the 1930s. Next to her, Haruto is so nondescript that by the time I’ve looked at him from head to toe, I’ve forgotten what his face looks like.

If I’d had to pick one of them to have an affair with, it wouldn’t have been him.

‘You must be Patrick and Heidi,’ Jade says. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’

Haruto takes Patrick’s hand to shake. ‘I can really see the family resemblance,’ he says kindly. ‘I’m so sorry about your brother.’

‘Heidiis Felix’ssister,’ Jade corrects before I have to, and he pivots, literally, to shake my hand too.

‘Of course,’ he says, blushing so furiously it’s endearing. ‘You look a lot like him, too.’

I think I already like Haruto. That doesn’t mean he’s not a potential murderer.

Lilia pops out like a cuckoo from a clock behind Patrick. ‘I’m Lilia, a family friend,’ she says.

There’s another round ofnice to meet you’s and Haruto doesn’t claim that Lilia is also the spitting image of Felix, which is a relief.

We settle on a velvet couch in the living room, where Lilia produces the biscuits, Haruto brings out a pot of tea on a tray, and I contemplate sucking the slightly bitter tea through my Tim Tam. Jade tells us what she remembers about the night Felix died and it is a familiar story. Haruto chimes in occasionally but seems otherwise content to let his wife lead the conversation. All the while I’m peppering him with micro-glances, trying to imagine how this pleasant, pudding-faced guy has managed to get a wifeanda boyfriend, while I can’t even hold on to the one not-so-great boyfriend I had.

Haruto doesn’t seem nervous that we might know about him and Adam or, if he is, he doesn’t show it. That might mean nothing, or it might mean he’s an accomplished liar. I file that bit of information away in the part of my brain where I keep all the important stuff, like flags of the world and my childhood phone number.

Jade and Haruto don’t mention a fight between Elena and Felix or seeing Aunty Sam lurking in the shadows. There isn’t anything noteworthy in what they say about the pizza (‘a little greasy’), the conversation (‘Sarah did go on a bit about her house renovations – how excited are we supposed to be about doorhandles?’) or my brother (‘Felix was a sweetheart’).

Finally, they get to the moment that Felix went outside.

‘He didn’t look well,’ Jade says, and I glance over at Patrick because this isnewinformation.

‘How so?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know.’ Jade screws up her face a bit, although I can’t tell if she’s trying to replicate the grimace of pain she last saw on my brother, or just thinking hard. ‘The whole night he’d been so nice and charming, but when he said he wanted to go outside, he looked off. Pale maybe.’

‘Did he saywhyhe wanted to go outside?’ Patrick asks.