A Trifle Dead: Cafe La Femme, Book 1

by Livia Day

  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.

  21

  ‘Tell 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…

  22

  I woke up, which was a plus.

  My first thought was that it was getting late (or rather, early) and Nin was going to kill me if I didn’t make it to the café on time, for our re-opening. The prep work filling the fridge might placate her, but nothing short of actual attendance would be good enough for those eyebrows of hers. She would judge me so hard, and there was a serious possibility that she might bake me in the oven for dessert.

  My second thought was that I wasn’t wearing shoes. Given that the shoes I had been wearing were my powder blue Prada wedge-heeled boots that I had bought in Italy, this was cause for some distress.

  Not quite ready to open my eyes, I reached out with my bare feet in case my boots were somewhere nearby. My toes came into contact with the crisp, cold metal bars of a cage.

  That was when I remembered the whole bit about nearly dying on my kitchen floor, and realised how lucky I was to be alive right this second.

  Except that I was in a cage. Gary had tried to kill me, and he had left me barefoot in a cage.

  Son of a bitch.

  I sat up so fast that the cage floor rocked under me. Not just a cage. A hanging cage. Like Tweety Bird.

  My throat hurt, and my chest as well. Panic lurched through me as I remembered the details. Gary had held me down and stopped me breathing.

  And I used to give him extra marshmallows in his hot chocolate.

  Holy everloving fuck.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked now, and the sound of his voice made my whole body clench up in fear. I could hear him, but not see him.

  ‘Oh, just fine, Gary,’ I said after a moment, tucking my bare feet under me. In my cage. I had a cage now. ‘You know, kidnapped. And it’s a bit chilly in here. But otherwise…’

  ‘Sorry I had to do that,’ he said. I could see him now, folded back in a corner of the room, sitting on a rickety stool beside a workbench. There was no electricity down here—the dim light came from an old-fashioned kero lamp. The place was full of old, broken furniture, and boxes of junk.

  ‘Yes, well I can see why you had to,’ I said sarcastically. ‘What with me being all relaxed and joking in my kitchen. Obviously I deserved this.’ I clamped my lips down, as I could see the sharp tone was affecting him. Pissing him off was not the best plan right now, even if sarcasm was my automatic reaction to feeling afraid and angry. ‘So,’ I went on, brightly. ‘If you wanted to put me in a gilded cage, you might have scraped the rust off first.’

  Long silence.

  ‘That was a joke,’ I added. ‘Am I not supposed to joke with my kidnapper? Maybe you should let me know the rules. The management requests that abductees not enjoy moments of levity in the presence of their captor.’ More silence. Except, you know, from me. Becau
se I don’t do silence. ‘Have I been kidnapped, Gary? Wouldn’t want me to get the wrong end of the stick about this one.’

  ‘Mostly,’ he said, sounding a bit embarrassed.

  ‘Mostly kidnapped. I suppose I can work with that.’ I took a deep breath, willing myself to keep up the bantering tone. Light-hearted, frivolous. Like, it’s totally normal to be locked in a cage by a police officer and former friend. ‘Are we thinking ransom, Gary?’

  For a minute, I pictured a Mel Gibson movie style scenario, with Stewart dropping a package of money into a rubbish bin, Bishop hiding on a rooftop with a covert gun squad, Xanthippe and Darrow as the loose cannon vigilantes, and Ceege in a cocktail frock leading an army of beautifully dressed elves as they came to my rescue.

  With my brain, I’m never bored.

  ‘No,’ said Gary, and I had to reel back my thoughts to figure out the question I had asked.

  So, not ransomed. ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘You,’ he said, and he tilted his head up so he was finally looking at me. ‘I want you, Tabby.’

  It was a lot harder to pretend that this situation was in any way funny. Breathing calmly and evenly had also become more difficult.

  We were in the space under someone’s house. It was musty and dark, and not properly sealed. There were a couple of yellowed slits of windows on the far wall, which suggested the house was (like most houses in Hobart) built on a slope. My eyes were getting used to the dim light, and I could see various shapes hanging from the ceiling. Models of Kevin Darrow’s traps, made from paper and sticky tape and icy pole sticks. There were a few ping pong balls littered around the place. And there, jammed up between a chest of drawers and an old wardrobe, was a shape that looked like another person.

  ‘Who’s that?’ I asked, straining to see.

  Gary laughed, and leaned over to give the figure a push. It lolled out like a corpse, and I screamed before realising that it wasn’t a person, alive or dead.

  It was a mannequin. It wore some of Crash Velvet’s costume items, and had a mad wig of blue hair. Lurid makeup had been scraped over its face. I knew without looking that its nails would be sparkly matte purple—Poison Flesh. ‘Julian Morris’s masterpiece.’