Page 92 of A Murder is Going Down

‘You’ve tracked down another of her exes and you’re dating him too?’ Patrick says, and someone snorts. It might’ve been me.

‘Patrick,’ Michael says loudly, big-brother mode activated. ‘Leave her alone.’ Then he says to Lilia, ‘Sorry about him. Mum kept abandoning him on hillsides, but the vultures didn’t want him either.’

‘Do you want to join us?’ Elena asks Lilia, and I think about abandoningElenaon a hillside.

Ben looks like he’d rather stick his genitals in a blender than take up Elena’s offer, and mutters something about grabbing a takeaway.

‘Heidi,’ Lilia says in a quiet voice. ‘Please, can I talk to you?’

‘How did you know I was here?’ I ask, because there are coincidences and Portuguese tart addictions and then there’s this.

Lilia’s face goes the same colour as her lips. ‘You never stopped sharing your Find My with me on your phone.’

How. Embarrassing.I hope Patrick’s not listening.

‘Over here.’ She leads me away from the others, wavingBen off in the direction of the counter. He looks shitty, which perks me up a little.

‘What is it?’ I ask when we’re far enough away to avoid anyone who might be eavesdropping.

‘It’s about Felix,’ Lilia says.

‘Don’t tell me.He’s dead.’

She ignores that. ‘I ran into Adam.’

‘Adam as in Elena’s friend Adam?’ I say.

‘Yeah.’

‘Youran intohim?’ I ask, because I know Lilia well and she seems … shifty.

‘I went to that coffee shop where we met him last time and he was there,’ Lilia says.

‘That’s convenient.’

‘I went there every day for three days,’ she admits.

I’m not impressed. I’m not impressed.

‘And what happened?’

‘I introduced myself.’

‘Why would you do that?’

‘I had an idea about the case.’

‘I don’t know if there is acaseanymore.’ It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, but it feels true. Patrick and Michael will fly back to Melbourne tomorrow. I’ll go back to school. Life will move on and the cops will decide what happened to Felix on the night that he died. Eventually. Probably.

Lilia doesn’t seem to realise I’m having a moment, because she waves her hand dismissively.

‘Remember how Adam said that he saw Aunty Sam outside Elena and Felix’s house the night he died?’

‘No, I’d completely forgotten this incredibly weird and suspicious detail about the night of my brother’s death.’

Lilia ignores my tone. ‘I wanted to know if it really was Aunty Sam he saw that night or if it might have been another middle-aged lady who dresses like Stevie Nicks. Once I’d told Adam who I was, I asked if I could show him a picture of your aunt, to be sure.’

‘Verynormalbehaviour. Did he file the restraining order right there or wait until he got home?’ I ask.