Page 90 of A Murder is Going Down

Mad with him, but not enough to push him down a cliff, I remind myself.

When I get back to the main bedroom Patrick is taping up the last of the clothes boxes.

We each pick up a box to carry downstairs. ‘Heidi, I know you’re still pissed off with me for abandoning our Hardy Boys adventure—’

‘What is it with your family and the Hardy Boys?’ I interrupt.

‘But you can still talk to me. If you want,’ Patrick continues.

I hate this feeling that I can’t trust Patrick, so I give him one more chance.

‘That day at the café when Lilia and I ran into you and Elena,’ I say. ‘What were you guys talking about?’

Patrick screws up his face. ‘I can’t remember.’

I look sadly at him as we carry our boxes into the lift and hit the button to go down. (Would it be too much if the lift got stuck right now? It doesn’t happen, I’m just wondering.)

‘What were you and Lilia really doing at the café?’ he asks.

There’s another moment, like the one in the car, where I want to tell him everything and demand an explanation that doesn’t implicate him – or Elena – in Felix’s death.

Then the lift door opens.

‘I can’t remember,’ I say, carrying my box out to the living room.

The toilet in the downstairs bathroom flushes and Michael walks out as Patrick and I dump our boxes by the front door.

‘How’s it going up there?’ he asks.

As Michael walks from the bathroom to the bookshelf, where he’s boxing up books, I’m aware of a puzzle piece somewhere clicking into place. There’s something my subconscious wants me to know. Something to do with the toilet? But I’m too stupid to see it.

‘We’re done with the clothes. Do you want help with the books?’ Patrick asks Michael.

‘Elena wants someone to start on the kitchen,’ Michael says. ‘She and Sam are out in the shed. What kind of prick owns a leaf blower, am I right?’

‘Heidi?’ Patrick touches me on the shoulder and the puzzle pieces disappear.

We go to the kitchen and use newspaper to pack dishes, bowls and glasses.

I’m half-reading an old Calvin and Hobbes comic strip when my silenced phone vibrates in my pocket and I pull it out. Lilia again. Of course. I swear, but quietly.

‘What is it?’ Patrick asks, stuffing a twist of paper into a wine glass.

‘Just—’ I flash him my phone screen so he can see the name and the string of missed calls.

‘Lilia’s really gone full stalker, huh?’

‘Kind of.’

‘Do you want my advice?’ he asks.

‘Has anyone ever wanted your advice?’ I ask.

‘Fine.’

‘I was being a bitch. Tell me.’

‘Now I don’t want to,’ he says.