I looked out the window at the thousands of termite-hill mine shaft markers. I was trying to determine, among the many theories, motives and suspects, where the truth was. Solving a crime was much like opal mining. Dig hole, check hole, leave hole. If I’m honest with you, I thought I’d solved enough of it to rule out four suspects by this point, and I needed only a single piece to eliminate the rest. I just had to dig one more hole.
A Land Cruiser four-wheel-drive kicked up a plume of dust, weaving through a track cut between the opal plots, and pulled up alongside the train. The car wasn’t marked as police, and neither was the man who got out, but it was clear that this was either an officer or a detective. He carried a small backpack and wore a wide-brimmed hat that was floppy with regular use, the complete opposite of the straight-from-the-packet tourist gear that Douglas wore. The man wore a beige set of ill-fitting farmer’s clothes and had a moustache thick enough that I figured he’d grown it to stop flies from getting in his mouth. He leaned back through the Land Cruiser’s door and spoke into a two-way radio mounted on the dash, then walked across to the train and rapped on the side of the bar carriage.
The corridor was so silent—the other guests being better at following rules than I was—that leaving my room felt illicit. Having spent three days in motion, rattling tracks underneath us, the quiet was even more profound. Murder seems exciting in fiction, but it’s a roller coaster of adrenaline in real life, and sometimes you need a moment alone. This was the mood of the carriage: everyone withdrawn and reflective.
Cynthia was asleep in the chair outside Wyatt’s room. I tiptoed past her.
In the bar carriage, Aaron was chatting to the police officer when he spotted me. His arm went up immediately, finger pointed. “No,” he said. “No. No. Not this again. Not you. We have professionals now. Back to your room, please.”
“I want to know what’s going on,” I said.
“Is this the amateur detective?” The policeman’s moustache twitched with a smirk. “Who’s been helping out?”
“He’s not helping,” Aaron said firmly. “They’ve been running amok, if I’m honest with you.”
“Ernest.” I crossed the bar and offered the policeman my hand.
He shook it. “Detective Hatch.”
“Please, Detective,” Aaron begged. “This farce has gone on long enough. I don’t think we should be enabling this further.”
“I needed to talk to Ernest at some point, it may as well be now. I’m sure his contributions will be valuable.”
I couldn’t help but puff my chest a little. My contributions would be valuable. Damn right they would be. The detective put one hand on my back and shepherded me into a seat. I could tell, even through my shirt, that he had thick, rough hands. He looked settled, unrushed: I figured he planned to travel with us to Adelaide and then catch the next train back to Manguri to pick up his car.
“Tell me what you know, partner,” Hatch said, and I’ll admit to a little flutter of excitement at partner.
“Well, Henry McTavish collapsed in the middle of an event yesterday morning. We suspect poison. Possibly heroin, though we’re open to other theories.”
“We?”
“Alan Royce and I.”
“Ah, the one who used to be the pathologist?” Hatch held both hands clasped in front of him. I figured he was one of those detectives whose mind was electric enough not to need notes. A real Morbund type. He nodded slowly. “Well, you’ve got that right, we think. Heroin. According to the bloods.”
What do you know, I thought, intern or not, Royce has come through.
“So what else?” the detective asked.
“Most people here had some reason to do McTavish in,” I said. “I’d say it ranges from dislike to strong hate, depending on the suspect. Starting with S. F. Majors, for example. She thinks that McTavish—”
“Yeah, yeah.” Hatch unclasped his hands and waved my explanation away. “Let’s talk about all the facts before we get into theories. What about the second murder?”
“That was earlier this morning. We found Wyatt, McTavish’s publisher, stabbed through the throat after the train left Alice Springs. Now, that makes it tricky: arguably Wyatt had the most motive to kill McTavish, as he stood to make a good deal of money out of the increased posthumous value of the next book.” I described to him the behind-the-scenes of why McTavish’s last words—literally, his handwritten name on the cover page likely the last mark he left on the world—would increase in value for a publisher. “But who has the motive to kill Wyatt? Well, if we look at our suspects again, we could think about Lisa Fult—”
“Yep. That’s excellent work. Yep.”
“I haven’t really told you my theories yet.”
“We’ll get there, we’ll get there.” He reached into his breast pocket and now took out a notebook. He clicked his pen, then spun it around his knuckles like a poker chip. “Now, Wyatt Lloyd. You found his body once you were on the move. Well, Jasper did. He’s in the room next door, said he could hear everyone traipsing past and, once he was awake, could smell blood. Did anyone see Wyatt leave the dinner at the Telegraph Station?”
“I didn’t,” I said. “I can’t speak for everyone else. Would you like me to follow that up in my next interviews?”
“Let’s take it one step at a time. Before we assign anything more to your caseload.” Click, click. The pen spun. “So no one’s seen him since the dinner. It’s conceivable he died before you left Alice Springs?”
“I don’t think so. The blood looked fresh . . . ish.”
“Fresh-ish?” He rolled the word around like it was a different language. “That’s Royce’s medical opinion?”
I cleared my throat. “Not exactly. I decided Royce was a bit of an Achilles heel, so I thought it best if he kept his distance on this one.”
“That seems like a reasonable decision. Take tire-kickers out and use your own, extensive, experience.” He lingered on the word extensive.
My smugness was rapidly eroding. I realized his phrasing—caseload, partner—was the same you’d use to send a child down to the shops for some ice cream. Now, I’ve got a veeery important mission for you, Deputy!
“And so the medical consensus of Wyatt’s time of death was developed”—he swirled the pen in the air—“how, exactly?”
“It was fairly obvious.”
“Yes. Fresh-ish. Very good.”
“Are you taking the piss?”
“No, Mr. Cunningham, I’m taking this very seriously.” He wrote something down. “So it’s conceivable that Wyatt Lloyd was murdered before the Ghan departed Alice Springs.”
“I suppose. I mean the blood was fresh.”
“Ish.”
“Yes,” I relented. “He could have been dead awhile. I don’t know.”
“Ah.”
“Look.” I leaned forward. “Did you want my analysis of each suspect? I’ve conducted several interrogations.”
“Interrogations? Impressive.”
“In my opinion—”
“I think we’ll stick to the facts for now”—he smiled—“Mr. Cunningham.”
“You’re not interested in my take on this at all, are you? You were just buttering me up.”
His teeth showed through his bristles, like a white tiger glimpsed behind a thatch of jungle. “No. I don’t need your shambolic theories, and I could do without your theatrics. I just need you to help me ascertain some facts regarding the timelines.”