Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

“We can help,” I pleaded. “We have experience.”

Aaron looked us up and down like he was choosing us for five-a-side. “The poor bloke’s past helping. We’re an hour from Alice. If I can ask you to sit tight in your rooms for just a little longer, we’ll have this all cleared up.”

“We’re not offering to help Henry,” Royce said. “We’re offering to help you.”

“I appreciate it, Mr. Royce, but we have it very much under control. As unfortunate as the circumstances are, we are well trained in such eventualities.” Aaron extended an arm behind us, toward our cabins. Behind him, Cynthia still scratched at the floor, yellow gloves to her elbows. The carriage smelled like bleach. “Now, if I could ask you to return to your cabins.”

“You have murders on this train often, then?” I asked.

“I’m sorry?”

“We think Henry McTavish was murdered,” I said, grimacing at including Royce in that we, but needs must. “And while you might be practiced in the odd old bird dropping off in their sleep, when it comes to murder, trust me, you’re going to need our help.”

Aaron clicked his tongue. I could see him replaying McTavish’s death in his mind. He huffed air through his nose as he settled on a decision. “I appreciate your concerns, but Mr. McTavish lived a life of excess, it appears. It caught up to him. That’s all there is here.”

“You’re wrong,” Royce spat.

Aaron’s eyes went hard. “I’ve been very accommodating with you both—”

“He means, what if you’re wrong? If there’s been a murder on the train, that means there’s a murderer,” I added, with a smile I hoped was more magnanimous than deviant. “You can cart off the body in Alice, sure, but by the time you figure out we’re right, we’ll be halfway to Adelaide, and you and all your guests will be trapped with a killer.” I lingered on the word guests. The magic password here was so obvious I only had to hint at it: corporate liability.

Aaron frowned and checked his watch. I could see him calculating the value in our opinions versus the time it would take to get to Alice Springs, where the real police would be better placed to help him, killer or not. “When you say . . . experience . . .” He twirled a finger in the air, speaking warily, still unsure, but the opening was there. “You’re not police.”

“We have skills,” I said.

“You’re writers.”

“Royce used to be a forensic pathologist.”

Aaron was unimpressed. “And what did you used to be?”

I ignored the dig and tried one more Hail Mary, spreading my arms wide. “Look, I get it. It seems ridiculous. But I’ve been here before. I’ve looked a serial killer in the eye. I’ve had people die in front of me. People I could have—should have—helped. So when I tell you I know what we might be up against, I’m not doing it for bragging rights, I’m not doing it for kicks.” I paused, and then decided to just tell him the truth. “I’m doing it because I’m scared.”

Royce gave me a judgmental look: Wuss. I heard Cynthia rip her dishwashing gloves off behind me with a wet thuck and toss them in her bucket.

I lowered my voice. I knew I was cooking up a pantomime here, but I needed to be as over-the-top as possible to get past Aaron’s disinterest. “This killer doesn’t strike at night or in shadows. They struck in broad daylight, in front of all the other passengers. You think a killer like that stops at just one? You think they’re following the train timetable? No. McTavish was just the start. And if you think an hour’s not so long, that you can wait it out, well, I hope for your sake we’re wrong.” I grabbed Royce’s shoulder. “Come on, Alan. We’re going back to our cabins and barricading the doors. Aaron, I advise you to do the same. Otherwise some people on this train are going to ‘used to be’ a lot of things. And I don’t mean retirement.”

Royce, who hadn’t figured out my plan, was like a boulder to turn around, but eventually fell into grumbling step. “Ernest, we have to see the body,” he mumbled under his breath.

I hissed at him to shut up.

We kept walking.

Aaron’s hand on my shoulder came right on cue.

“Five minutes, okay? And just so you can tell me if any of the guests are in danger. You better not be screwing around. So help me God, there’s coppers in Alice who owe me a favor and they will throw the bloody book at you.”

Henry McTavish’s death had been violent, but without gore or evisceration, and so his body was unmarked. He looked physically similar to when he was alive—a little paler, perhaps—and there was a trickle of vomit on his chin, though that could be passed off as sleeping drool. But, in death, his body lacked something more indefinable, like an elastic band without the snap. A lettuce without the crunch. Prose without voice.