A Trifle Dead: Cafe La Femme, Book 1 (20 page)

‘
C
eege
!’ I yelled as soon as my key turned in the door. ‘You home?’

‘No need to yell,’ said my housemate, strolling out of the kitchen in his grubbiest Nirvana t-shirt and a pair of half-dead jeans that I swear I have binned twice for his own good. ‘Didn’t tell me about the dinner party.’ Ceege shared a very male nod with Stewart, cast a startled look over the mess that was a sleep-deprived Claudina, and eyed up Xanthippe with interest. ‘Long time no see. I keep telling Tabs she needs more lady friends. Come around any time.’

‘Eyes back in your head, or I’m telling Katie,’ I told him. ‘What’s this about dinner?’

Ceege jerked a thumb towards the back of the house. ‘Darrow. In the kitchen. With a wooden spoon. He wasn’t expected?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’ I’d been calling all of Darrow’s numbers, including the new one, but had received no reply. Apparently, that was because he had spent the afternoon camped out in my kitchen.

I knew what he was cooking before I reached the kitchen door. Bouillabaisse. My bouillabaisse, to be exact—well, my recipe by way of Jean-Michel’s mother in the Dordogne, that angel on earth who taught me how to make melt-in-the-mouth croissants and heavenly pie crusts.

‘Should I have brought bread?’ I asked as I stepped into my kitchen, but several baguettes were already lined up on the counter.

‘Sent Ceege out for some,’ Darrow said.

Xanthippe was already moving forward, with the momentum of a freight train. ‘You stupid, selfish, careless, bastard
arsehole
.’

He turned as she reached him, and stuck out the wooden spoon to ward her off. She hesitated, caught in a mesmerising haze of tomato and seafood and
mmmmm
. ‘Try it,’ said Darrow in his smoothest voice.

Suspiciously, Xanthippe blew on the contents of the spoon, and then took it into her mouth, tasting the soup.

‘Does it need pepper?’ Darrow asked.

‘It’s fine,’ she said, strangely calm as she licked the spoon. ‘It’s good.’ She pulled a document out of her hand-

bag and smacked him in the chest with it. ‘Sign this. Now. Dickhead.’

‘You only had to ask,’ he said, eyes innocent. Even I would have smacked him for that, but apparently bouillabaisse is the universal currency of forgiveness, or at least of temporary cease-fires. Xanthippe stood there glaring while Darrow signed the insurance forms with a flourish. She took them back and checked every signature.

‘I’ve been working on a way to make it up to you,’ Darrow added, his caramel eyes all warm in the soup haze.

Oh, yeah. I’d called it. The only reason he hadn’t signed those papers at a distance was because he wanted her to hunt him down. These two were so damaged for each other.

‘Don’t,’ Xanthippe muttered. ‘You making things up to me is always more hazardous than the original disaster.’

Darrow grinned that wicked ‘oh I’m off the hook’ grin of his, and fetched bowls.

We ate the soup with piles of French bread, the six of us. Ceege slurped his down in a hurry, then beat a retreat to
World of Warcraft
. We were being way too weird for him, and he needed a dose of reality that could only be provided by metrosexual elves. Claudina kept nodding off in her chair.

Darrow and Xanthippe watched each other in ways that made me think I should either offer them pistols at dawn, or a bedroom for the night.

‘So,’ I said finally. ‘Someone stole Darrow’s laptop and gave copies of the trap designs to Julian Morris, before Xanthippe came back to town, paying him to build the first two traps. Someone stalked me with electrified ping pong balls, and did the same to Claudina, to freak her into changing the story she told the police. I’m assuming that none of those things were done by people in this room?’

Xanthippe and Darrow shrugged at each other.

‘It never occurred to me anyone would actually build the traps,’ said Darrow, raising his eyebrows at Xanthippe. He had already been brought up to speed on her side project. ‘Let alone
pay
people to build them. They were purely designed for fictional mischief.’

‘Better be a bloody good book,’ said Xanthippe.

‘Lots of violence and smut,’ he shot back.

‘Sounds trashy. And my car…?’

‘I was researching a scene,’ Darrow admitted, appropriately shamefaced.

‘A scene in which the protagonist is dumb enough to leave off the handbrake when he gets out of a vintage sports car?’

He gave her a genuine expression of sorrow and guilt. ‘I have been looking for a replacement.’

Xanthippe folded her arms. ‘You’ve been avoiding me while you look for a replacement?’

‘No, I’ve been avoiding you so we wouldn’t have to have this conversation until you lose the urge to strangle me with a computer cord.’

‘I’m not sure that day will ever come,’ Xanthippe told him.

Darrow smiled warmly. ‘I promise to make it up to you. Many times over, if I have to.’

‘Hmmm.’

I opened my mouth to point out that the best way Darrow could have avoided Xanthippe and her strangling urges was to sign those insurance forms when her lawyer first sent them to him. Then I shut my mouth. Interfering in other people’s love lives is always a bad idea.

‘Anyway,’ Stewart interrupted. ‘We dinnae know who, or why. After all tha’, the only thing we’ve achieved this evening is our tea.’

‘You’re welcome,’ said Darrow.

Claudina yawned, blinking her eyes rapidly. ‘Was I asleep? What did I miss?’

‘Not much,’ said Stewart. ‘Is there anything you havenae told us, Claudina? Morris was killed by a heroin overdose. If he was no drug user, where did he get it?’

Claudina rubbed her eyes, looking miserable. ‘Oh, I know where he got it.’

‘Now it gets interesting,’ Xanthippe said under her breath.

‘Well?’ I demanded.

‘It’s not exactly easy, to make rent on what Centrelink gives you, and busking,’ said Claudina. ‘Julian was broke all the time, and he kept needing more money—there was a woman or something. I think she was married and he wanted her to run off on her husband with him. I didn’t even know what he’d got into until he already … and he never used the stuff himself, I
told
you that.’

Stewart stemmed the flow of panicky explanation with a steady hand on her wrist—and I for one was grateful for the brief pause. ‘What exactly are ye telling us, now?’ he asked.

Claudina looked around the table. ‘Julian was a drug courier,’ she admitted, with a sigh. ‘He didn’t—he only did it every now and then, when he needed the money. He was trying to stop, really, he would have stopped as soon as he got Nat away from her husband…’

Xanthippe blew out a breath. Stewart shook his head. Darrow looked entirely unsurprised.

‘One precious detail,’ I said quietly. ‘Bloody freaking brilliant.’

This one we couldn’t keep from Bishop.

‘
T
ell us everything you know
,’ I said, not actually wanting to hear it.

‘I knew Julian was getting money from somewhere,’ Claudina said. ‘I never thought of drugs at first—he really was completely against using them.’

‘But not selling them,’ said Stewart.

‘His family don’t know,’ Claudina said quickly. ‘All that stuff Ange and the others told you, for your blog, that was true.’

‘Not the whole truth, though,’ he said.

‘He needed the money,’ she said, staring at my kitchen floor. ‘And there was a new guy in town who was throwing money at people Julian knew, to sell or to courier. Nat—Julian’s girlfriend—I think she was involved, somehow. He never told me all the details. I didn’t want to know.’

That was the second mention that Julian’s honey was called Nat. I exchanged a look with Stewart. Nat could be short for Natalie, or Natalia, or even Nathan. There was no reason why this Nat had to be Natasha Pembroke, who had called the police when high on prescription meds, promised to tell them something important about Julian’s death and then shot one of them with a bow and arrow instead. Oh, except she had that apricot hair. Julian did like his redheads. Predictable to the end.

Be a hell of a coincidence if it wasn’t her. But Hobart was Coincidence City.

‘That wouldn’t be The Vampire, would it?’ Xanthippe asked. ‘The man in charge of the drugs operation?’

‘That’s what they called him,’ said Claudina. ‘I don’t think it was his real name—’

‘No shit.’

Darrow raised his eyebrows at me. ‘Hate to say it, Darling, but it’s time to let your uptight cop boyfriend know what’s going on. Like now.’

‘Easy for you to say,’ Xanthippe said. ‘For once, you haven’t done anything dodgy.’

‘Comes as a shock to me, too,’ admitted Darrow. ‘Still, the night is young.’

They all looked at me. ‘You want
me
to be the one to tell Bishop about all this?’ I squeaked.

‘It has to be you,’ Xanthippe said as if this was the most obvious fact in the universe. ‘Between you, me, Darrow and McTavish, you are the person he is least likely to throw in a holding cell.’

‘Hmph,’ I said, pulling out my mobile. ‘Obviously you don’t understand anything about how our relationship works.’

Voicemail. Fantastic. ‘Bishop, it’s me, Tabitha. I’m at my place, and—well, I have some new evidence about the Morris case. You’re not going to like it. But I need to talk to you. As soon as you can?’

‘Mm,’ said Xanthippe after I disconnected. ‘You didn’t mention the rest of us. Good call.’

‘I’d prefer he not turn up with a gun squad,’ I sighed. ‘Or, you know. Multiple pairs of handcuffs.’ I waved them all out of my kitchen. ‘You can all go to the living room and watch Doris Day movies. I’m going to make a blueberry syrup cake to lull a police officer into a false sense of security before I make him wish he’d never been born.’

Claudina was the last to leave the kitchen. ‘Tabitha—are you sure this man of yours is trustworthy? It’s just—there was a police officer hassling Julian, before he died. He was really freaked by it.’

‘Bishop’s one of the good guys,’ I assured her. ‘Pretty much the definitive good guy.’ I didn’t mention his habit of being insanely suspicious of the men in my life—if I barely remembered dating Julian, he didn’t count, right? ‘If I can anaesthetise him with enough cake, he will —’ probably ‘— listen to us, and make sure the information goes to the right place. You’re safe here. Promise.’

Claudina smiled suddenly, the expression looking odd on her pale and drawn face. ‘I feel safe around Xanthippe. I reckon she could hold her own against an army of police or drug dealers, or anything.’

‘You have no idea,’ I muttered.

There was always the possibility that Bishop wouldn’t hear my message until morning, but I kept finding more excuses to stay awake. First, the blueberry syrup cake had to bake, and then I made hot drinks for everyone, and then I did the washing up. I would regret it at
5am
when it was time to drag myself out of bed and meet Nin at the café, but it wasn’t the first time I’d pulled an all nighter and gone on to bake for ten hours straight.

It was after midnight when I made one last check on my living room full of people.

Ceege had gone to bed. Claudina was asleep on the couch, her head on Xanthippe’s lap and her feet on Stewart’s. They were both asleep, too. Darrow sat in my favourite armchair, his feet up on the coffee table, snoring lightly.

The end of
Die Hard
was flickering on the screen—after Claudina went to sleep, the others had taken a quick vote for anything but Doris Day, and I had been too busy baking to put up a fight about it.

I switched off the TV, and left them all to their sleep. They would be moaning about cricks in their necks tomorrow, but it made me feel safe to have them around.

Just as I turned the key to lock the back door, there was a knock on it that scared me out of my skin. ‘Tabby?’ said a voice on the other side.

I practiced some deep breathing for a second and then unlocked it again. ‘Constable Gary! What are you doing here?’

My favourite constable eased himself in the door, cheerful as ever. ‘Smells like blueberry syrup cake. Expecting Bishop, are you?’

‘You know me well.’ I locked the door after him. ‘Want a piece? He seems to have stood me up.’

‘Thought you’d never ask. I’m just checking up on you,’ he added. ‘Bishop said something about a possible stalker? We wanted you to know there are people around, looking out for you. A few of the blokes volunteered to help out.’

‘I didn’t think he was taking it that seriously,’ I said, a little surprised.

‘You know we wouldn’t take any risks when it comes to you, Tabby.’

Aww, sweet. I wasn’t going to bitch about them being overprotective after the week I’d had, anyway. I cut Gary a piece of cake, and gave it to him on a saucer. ‘I left Bishop a voice message earlier, but I don’t think he’s checked his mobile.’

‘Probably not.’ He ate a bite of cake, licked his fingers, then pulled a familiar mobile phone out of his pocket. ‘He left this at the station. I was going to drop it into him on the way home, but it’s pretty late. Might wait until the morning.’

‘Oh,’ I said, checking the temperature of the cake before I popped it away in a Tupperware container and into the fridge to chill. I flinched like I did every time I opened the fridge door now, and I could feel Gary looking at me strangely so did my best to hide my reaction. ‘It can wait until tomorrow, I guess.’ Part of me wanted to confess everything that was going on, but I stopped myself. Bishop was going to be annoyed enough already without me going to a constable before I talked to him.

‘Is it true you two are going out now?’ Gary asked, through another mouthful of sticky crumbs.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ I admitted. ‘If he doesn’t change his mind between now and tomorrow night.’ Which he could well do, once I confronted him with Darrow and Xanthippe’s evidence, not to mention Claudina’s little bombshell.

‘Thought it was the Scotsman you fancied,’ observed Gary.

‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘It’s always been Bishop.’ Well, mostly.

I was distracted by a strange twist on Gary’s face, and had a horrible thought. He wasn’t seriously interested in me, was he? The girls at the café always teased me about his crush, but they say that about everyone. Two complete strangers walk through the doors, they start planning how the two of them should hook up.

And besides, if he did have a crush on me, that didn’t have to mean anything. I get crushes on people all the time, and it barely slows me down.

Gary smiled again quite normally as he finished his cake and rinsed the plate in the sink. ‘Should cheer him up, anyway. He hasn’t been the same since … well, you know.’

I was getting to be an expert in avoiding references to my dad, spoken or otherwise. ‘We’re all fine here,’ I said brightly, hoping to hurry him on out of there. ‘I’ve got…’
a living room full of outlaws and desperadoes
, ‘…people looking out for me. You know, with the whole stalker thing. So, I’m fine. Good.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Gary. ‘Give us a call if you hear anything suspicious.’ He paused by the kitchen door, flashing me another one of those cheerful, freckled smiles that took over his whole face. ‘It wasn’t urgent, was it? The message you left Bishop?’

‘Oh, it was nothing,’ I said. ‘Just—date stuff.’ Gary had worked with Bishop for ages, and I’d known him since he was a new recruit. I don’t know why I suddenly felt like there was something wrong going on here.

‘You’re not still poking your nose in about the Trapper, are you?’ asked Gary, and he sounded genuinely concerned. ‘The case is closed.’

I managed a laugh. ‘I never was poking my nose in, thank you very much. That was Bishop’s delusion. Between you and me, I think he has a Nancy Drew fetish.’

Okay, that was the wrong thing to say. Gary’s smile froze off his face, making him look empty and just
not
the cheerful lad who rocked up to my café for lunch four or five times a week. A stab of worry went right through me, like I had missed something really important. ‘You shouldn’t lie, Tabby. Not to me.’

Even then, with the warning signals blaring, I didn’t quite believe what was going on here. Gary: harmless. It was built into me to not take him seriously. But there was weight to his words, and a whole lot of what sounded like threat.

I stepped back, opening my mouth to call out to Xanthippe and the others, but Gary came at me, slamming my side into the kitchen cupboards. We both went down in a tangle on the floor, and I got in a closed-fist thump on his ear before he smacked me hard in the mouth. ‘You can’t tell me you didn’t notice,’ he said in an ugly tone. ‘Not after all this.’

He pinched his hand hard over my nose and mouth, and my brain flared with red panic as I saw him pull a roll of industrial tape out of his jacket pocket. I bucked under him, but he had the better position, and pinned me to the floor with his body. I drummed my heels on the floor, desperate to make some kind of noise.

The lack of breathing was a problem.

Here I was, struggling under him while he taped up my mouth, dealing with a whole bunch of thoughts that were really coming in far too late. The police had got Darrow’s laptop back—and I had never thought to ask which police officer actually did the bringing back. You didn’t expect stolen laptops to find their way home, police or no police. Gary hung around the café a lot. He could have been one of the customers that Darrow discussed his novel with.

But that was an entirely stupid train of thought, because that suggested that Gary might actually be…

Well, yes.

Gary was friends with Amy and Danny. He had access to their house. Which would explain how a cage was constructed in their basement long before Danny fell into it. There had been a police officer hassling Julian, too, but I couldn’t remember who had told me that, because my lungs were burning now, and my head had gone all black and woozy.

Gary had Bishop’s mobile, and if he listened to the messages, he knew I had evidence about the Trapper case.

Gary always ate his side salad. Damn it, I was never going to hassle anyone about side salads ever again.

Gary regularly asked me advice on his love life, but never followed through on my suggestions. He had also regularly chatted to me about the Trapper, passing on the gossip, trying to impress me with it.

Gary must have stuffed my fridge full of ping pong balls. Someday, I would have to ask him how he did that. Because, you know. Fridge full of ping pong balls. If you think about it, that’s a bloody hard thing to do.

Gary was the one who threatened Claudina.

Gary was trying to kill me.

Sleepy now. Lungs hurting. Between his hand and his tape, I still couldn’t breathe. And everything went black…