Page 67 of A Murder is Going Down

‘There hasn’t been an official cause of death confirmed,’ I say carefully.

‘But you think it was suspicious?’

‘Yes,’ I say, not giving Patrick a chance to say the opposite.

‘I’m only telling you this in case it matters, although I can’t really see how it would,’ Haruto says. An electric charge zings down my spine, but I keep my face impassive. At least, I hope so.

‘When I was in the bedroom with Adam, I thought I saw something through the window that faces out the side of the house,’ Haruto says. ‘I was looking that way and for a second, I thought I saw someone going up the cliff towards the road that runs behind their property. I was pretty freaked out because, you know, what if they saw us?But they were gone so fast, I thought maybe I imagined it. Itwasdark, too. It could have been a cat.’ But Haruto’s tone says he doesn’t think it was a cat.

‘Did you see what they looked like?’ Patrick asks, not sounding like a guy who thinks Felix’s death was an accident.

‘No.’

‘Adam didn’t say anything about this,’ Patrick says.

‘He had his back to the window. I didn’t tell him. I didn’t want to worry him about the possibility that someone might be watching us. Felix had already walked in on us, so we were still kind of freaked out about that.’

‘You definitely didn’t see who it was?’

‘I couldn’t even say if it was a man or a woman. Or human.’

‘Could it have been someone from the party?’ Lilia asks.

Haruto shakes his head slowly, but like he’s thinking about it. ‘Afterwards, I thought maybe it could have been Felix. Maybe I saw something yellow? But the person I saw was heading away from the water. I can’t see how he could have fallen into the water from way up next to the house.’

The sound of heels on floorboards bring us back.

‘I’m afraid I’d better head into work,’ Jade says, reappearing. ‘Did you get everything you need or do you want to stay and chat to Haruto?’

I look at Patrick, who gives me a tiny shake of his head, and Lilia, who shrugs.

‘I don’t think we have any more questions,’ I say.

‘Great.’ Jade gives her husband a big smile he doesn’t really deserve. ‘Honey, do you mind feeding the cat? I completely forgot and she’s starving, but now I’m late. I can walk the kids out.’

I see Patrick bristle a little at the wordkids.

‘Okay,’ Haruto says, looking surprised. He offers goodbyes, then heads off to find his hungry cat.

We follow the clip clop of Jade’s shoes out the front door and down the path to her car. She opens the door, then hesitates.

‘You don’t need to worry about being careful around me,’ she says to me, like the others aren’t here. ‘I know about Haruto and Adam. I assume he told you?’ When I nod she continues, ‘I don’t know why you’re asking so many questions about what happened to Felix, but I hope you’ve got everything you need.’ She touches my shoulder lightly before saying, ‘I know I only met Felix that night, but he seemed lovely.’

Then she gets in the car and drives off, leaving Patrick, Lilia and me to discuss What. The. Hell! all the way home.

Now

‘Are you okay?’ I ask. Marianne doesn’t answer. ‘Marianne?’

Marianne is sitting on the floor of the lift again, looking at her hands and breathing the deep, slow breaths of someone who is trying to calm themselves down.

‘Do you want me to stop?’

Marianne shakes her head. She’s still listening, then. But something is wrong. I have a bad feeling I might know what it is, but, man, do I hope I’m wrong.

Then

I have to contain myself until we’re an appropriate distance from Jade and Haruto’s house. Then I start talking. Istalkingeven the right word? Words are coming out of my mouth, for sure, but much faster thantalkingsuggests. I’m not leaving gaps between sentences for others to jump in. I’m monologuing like a middle-aged white dude on a podcast and it goes something like this …