Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

The cause of the blood was sticking out of his neck: the stem of a Gemini Publishing pen. I remembered Royce waving his at me, the razor-sharp tip. It was easy to picture it plunging into the soft flesh of Wyatt’s neck, him flailing, hand against the bathroom door, grabbing at the nearest piece of cloth to try to stop the flow.

We squeezed around the door frame, none of us willing to step into the room. It was a jostle of heads to get a good look, as we overcrowded the thin corridor. Royce was at the back of the pack, hopping to get a view; he seemed annoyed that his number one suspect had turned into a victim. Jasper, after alerting us, had gone to fetch Aaron.

Simone shoved me aside, looked into the room for five seconds, and then spun back into the corridor.

“Eurgh.” She buried her head in her hands. “What a waste.”

“I know, he didn’t deserve that.” I put an arm around her.

She picked it off like seaweed. “That scarf’s dry-clean only.”

She took off, shaking her head.

“Excuse me? Can I see?” Royce was still trying to get his nose in the room; due to his stature, all he could do was push against the forest of shoulders. “Come on!”

“You’ll contaminate the crime scene,” Lisa said, turning around.

“I think you’ll benefit from my medical expertise,” he huffed.

“That’s in doubt, seeing as he was supposed to be your killer.”

“Maybe he couldn’t live with the guilt,” Royce protested. “Did himself in.”

“Stabbing yourself in the neck with a pen doesn’t seem a reliable method of suicide,” Majors said. “Besides, I don’t think many people tear apart their room and desperately try to stem the bleeding if they’ve done it to themselves.”

“Let me examine the body and I’ll tell you.”

“Royce.” I couldn’t resist. I moved my body slightly more in front of the door. “I don’t think you should be examining anything here. I’m told your whole background is a myth. You were never a pathologist, you were just an intern. Your bio’s as inflated as your ego.”

“You were happy to take my advice when it suited you,” he shot back. “I have studied for decades! I have two degrees. I went to the same university as Arthur Conan Doyle, I’ll have you know. That’s my bona fides. And,” he complained, “the Sunday Times said I had a very good grasp of realism.”

The Sunday Times had clearly not met Royce face-to-face.

“Well, in keeping with your actual experience in forensics labs, if we need a coffee I’ll be sure to let you know.”

Royce was shaking. “If you continue to treat me with such disrespect, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . I’ll withhold my diagnosis on the cause of death.”

“He’s got half a pen jammed in his throat,” I said. “I think we’ll figure it out.”

At this, Royce stormed off, forcing Brooke to step into the kitchenette alcove as he passed. She joined the back of the group, but Lisa put her hand on Brooke’s shoulder and guided her away. “It’s pretty gory in there,” she said. “You’re too young to see this.”

Wolfgang, in the end, was the first to enter the room. He stepped over Wyatt’s legs and peered at the paper on the desk, thumbing through the top few pages. I followed him in, looking around the room for more clues, but, given its size, I’d already spotted most things of note from the doorway. I couldn’t decide whether the room had been torn apart in search of something, or whether it had been the chaos of the deadly struggle. Wyatt’s bag was zipped on the floor. If someone was looking for something, they hadn’t searched all that hard.

Over Wolfgang’s shoulder I could see the top page of the stack on the desk: a manuscript with the title, typed in neat typewriter font, Life, Death and Whiskey. Then the words First draft and our departure date from Darwin, which meant he’d finished it, or at least typed the cover page, on the first day. Underneath, hand-scrawled in blue ink: by Henry McTavish. The story told itself: McTavish had finished the manuscript, signed it and handed it to Wyatt, and that had kicked off the argument I’d overheard on the first night.

“It’s not a Morbund novel,” Wolfgang said, looking up from the manuscript. I painted on some surprise: he didn’t know I’d heard Wyatt complaining about exactly that. “But it’s also not crime. It’s, well—it’s literary fiction.” He raised his eyebrows. “It’s not that bad.”

That this was perhaps the first compliment I’d heard Wolfgang ever give did not escape me. It seemed to surprise even him.

“McTavish was writing literary fiction?” Majors said.

“I mean, it’s still McTavish. He’ll never shake all his foibles—a writer’s prose is like a tattoo. Some habits die hard. But he’s improved in some areas.” Wolfgang seemed to realize he was being kind, because he chucked in an “I suppose.”