Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

“Sure, but he was, like, a graduate or an intern or whatever. Made photocopies, fetched coffees. It’s all marketing. Wyatt knew it would sound good so they ran with it on the first book and now, eleven books later, I think Royce’s even started to believe it himself.”

I’d hinged my entire investigation on Royce’s deduction that heroin was the murder weapon, so these words made my stomach plummet. I managed to say, “He’s been quite helpful, actually.”

“You want a profile on Royce? We don’t have time. We couldn’t unpack his issues if we had the rest of the train journey. Of course he’s interested in the murder, he’s finally got a chance to live up to a version of himself that’s always been mostly a lie. I am a registered psychologist—I’ve kept up my credentials. Sure, Royce must have had training somewhere, but I’d think twice about letting him diagnose me. Research is just theoretical. You think Lisa hot-wires cars like her character?”

Mentally, I was still trying to salvage the credibility of my evidence. Even if Royce had plumped up his credentials, there was no denying that he’d researched eleven novels (and three novellas, lest I forget), so he must have had a nose for it. He had also mentioned researching heroin specifically for one of his books. Could I trust that? Or was I seeing what I wanted to see? On that, Majors was undeniably correct: I was desperate to be useful.

I opened my mouth to ask another question but she snapped a hand closed in front of me. “Well, that’s about all the time we have for today’s session, Mr. Cunningham.” She spoke in a singsong voice, breathy and quite deliberate, the way she addressed, I imagine, only her most insane patients. “I think it would be best that we continue your growth exercises another time.” She gestured to an imaginary door in an imaginary office. “I’ll leave you to make a booking with my receptionist on your way out.”

Fires had been lit in steel drums around the circumference of the cottages, and as the band got louder the dust on the dance floor rose with excitedly stamped feet. The stars were magnificent, bright pinpricks in the clearest sky I’d ever seen. Juliette was no longer at her table, and I was looking around for her near the ice tubs when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder. I turned to see Douglas Parsons, rosy cheeked, out of breath, as much tapping me on the shoulder as he was leaning against me to stay upright.

“Ernest!” he yelled with a tone of surprise, like I was an old friend he’d spotted across the supermarket and not someone he’d approached himself.

“Douglas.” I nodded, as hello felt a little formal, and besides, addressing him by name gave him another notch on the tally, and he was looking a little low at the moment.

“Enjoying yourself?” Douglas said.

“We did the bushwalk. How was your day in town? Get up to much?”

He was almost drunk enough I thought I’d get away with Shoot anybody? but I refrained.

He looked up at the stars as if having a religious moment. Eventually he said, “Life-changing.”

“I’m glad.”

“I’ve got you to thank for that. That’s what I wanted to say. Thank you.”

I hesitated, chastened already this trip from accepting apologies I didn’t understand, but gave in to his expectant eyes. “You’re welcome.”

“I mean it, Ernest.” He ripped a bottle from the ice like he was unsheathing a sword. A little avalanche of ice cubes toppled from the tub into the dirt. He held the beer out to me. I took it, again not sure what kind of accessory I was obliging myself to become. “I could tell you thought I lied to you the other day. When we met. When I said I was traveling alone.”

“Oh.” I waved it off. “No, I didn’t.”

“You did. And it’s okay. I get it. I am traveling alone, technically. But there’s someone else with me, you know, spiritually.”

I’ll reiterate the rule here that ghosts are not allowed in fair-play mysteries, and I was about ready to write off Douglas as a drunken crackpot, when he went on.

“I used to live out here. I raised cattle back home and wanted a change, and Australia seemed like the best place to use those skills. My partner, Noah, and I would watch this train go past—we could see it from our porch, and he loved it. Would check the schedules and everything. Ever since they turned it into a passenger train, I’ve wanted to go on it. For him. Well”—he spread his arms—“here we are. All we’d dreamed of.”

“But he’s not here with you, is he?” I said, though I already knew the answer. Two glasses of champagne. A solitary cheers.

“He’s dead.”

“I’m very sorry.”