Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

“Easy, Harriet,” I said. I hardly had to explain her own crimes to her, but it seemed my talking was distracting her from any throat-slitting, so I kept going. “The thing is, you still might have gotten away with it. It was a good plan, after all. The only problem was McTavish’s death had the opposite effect to the one you wanted.

“This was supposed to free Jasper. But suddenly Life, Death and Whiskey—the book Wyatt hadn’t wanted while McTavish was alive—was valuable. You hadn’t unshackled Jasper at all, you’d clamped another chain on him. Because, whether he’s writing as himself or not, just like your New York Times review said, Jasper writes like McTavish. And so Wyatt knows he can pass Life, Death and Whiskey off as McTavish, so he doubles what he’s been paying previously for the Morbund books, so he can buy this, now posthumous, novel. A literary McTavish.” I knew now when I’d seen him on the phone at Alice Springs, he’d been rustling up the approval for enough money to do the deal. “And Jasper is more than happy with the money, so he gladly accepts. He just wants his work out there, no matter whose name is on the cover. You were arguing about him taking the deal at Simpsons Gap.

“You’re furious. You did all this so Jasper could make it on his own. You go to talk to Wyatt that night. I don’t know exactly how that conversation went, but I think I know how it ended. He tells you that he owns Jasper and there’s nothing you can do about it. To make his point, he takes out his Gemini pen and writes with a flourish on the cover page, on Jasper’s opus: by Henry McTavish. The only handwritten words on the whole typescript. It was a final insult that you couldn’t take. You grabbed the pen out of his hand and—”

“You’re free,” Harriet said, interrupting me. Her back was against the carriage door. She had eyes only for Jasper. Love, Lisa had said, would be the motive. Love indeed. “Your whole career everyone’s looked at you a certain way. You deserve so much more. They deserve everything they got. I love you so much. It was for you.”

Jasper was crying. “This wasn’t for me, Harry. Don’t say that.”

“I love you.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I love you.” She faltered. I’ve looked enough killers in the eyes to know this moment. Their eyes almost physically unglaze. It’s like waking up from a coma. “Jasper? I love you.”

“Harriet . . . I . . . I . . .” Jasper could barely get the words out. “I don’t even recognize you.”

The movement was minuscule, but I saw the tendons in Harriet’s arm flex and knew she was about to use the bottle. I lunged forward. Harriet saw me move and pushed Simone at me, which in the tiny corridor was like a ten-pin bowling strike: everyone went down. Harriet ducked through the door between carriages.

We untangled our limbs. Hatch was groaning and holding his wrist. Simone seemed okay; the blood on her neck smeared away and did not replenish. She pushed me back. “I’m fine,” she growled. “Stop her.”

I dashed into the restaurant carriage, Jasper close behind me. It was empty.

“Where the hell is she going to go?” Jasper said.

The sound of breaking glass came from the next carriage, accompanied by the howl of wind rushing into the train. We burst in to see leaves fluttering in the air, glass on the carpet under the closest window. I stuck my head out and saw Harriet’s foot disappearing over the rim. She’d scaled the ladder that was on the outside of each carriage. I looked back at Jasper and pointed to the roof. The wind was a tornado in our ears.

Hatch staggered through the door behind us, wincing as he cradled his wrist. He tapped me on the shoulder, handed me his Taser. He wouldn’t be able to get up the ladder. I nodded, pointed to the end of the carriage, where I’d remembered the sign: To Stop Train Pull Handle Down.

I’d already far surpassed my desired number of moving vehicles to stand on top of—the ideal number being, of course, zero—but, much to both my personal disappointment and the disappointment of anyone making a movie out of this book on a tight budget, for the second time that day I pulled myself out of a window.

I climbed the ladder quickly, adrenaline masking the pain in my still bloodied fingertips. On top, I could barely open my eyes against the wind. Harriet was a blur, even though she was only meters from me, hunched over like a cat. The wind rocked me backward, and my shoes slid on the corrugated roof. That’s why Harriet was crouching: I was catching too much of the wind. I dropped to my belly and slid forward.