Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

“Wonderful,” Majors said. “Let’s move on to audience questions.” Royce deflated a little at getting timed out, but she either didn’t notice or didn’t care, as she gestured toward the black-cloth-covered easel behind her. “And after that, we have a special treat for you. So. Questions?”

Misery-girl’s hand was up first. Majors made a show of looking around at the otherwise unmoving crowd, before selecting her with an obvious lack of enthusiasm. A wireless microphone was delivered into the audience by a staff member, and the young woman stood up.

“My question’s for Henry.” She bounced a little on her toes as she spoke. “My name’s Brooke and you might know me as the president of Morbund’s Mongrels!”

Morbund’s Mongrels were McTavish’s die-hard fans. McTavish showed little recognition of the mention of his fan club, nor did he noticeably clock the phrase on her T-shirt (A nod’s as guid as a wink tae a blind horse, which is a Scottish colloquialism for plain speaking and as close to a catchphrase as Morbund had, as he often delivered it during his monologuing solve). I’d suspected Brooke was his publicist when I’d first seen the T-shirt, but now that I knew she was Head Mongrel, it made sense that she was on the train specifically to fawn over Henry. The price of the trip still seemed excessive for her age (I still pegged her as early twenties, not least because I figured the passion to organize anything, let alone be the president of a global fan club, dissolves like sugar in water after you turn twenty-five) but I supposed she came from money. Either that or her adulation was such that it didn’t matter how hard she’d had to scrape, from how many shifts of bar work or mopping fast-food floors, to meet her idol. Henry’s words echoed—the things people have threatened to do to me to get their hands on a manuscript—and I wondered if there were any other Mongrels on the train, and if their obsession was another reason he no longer did events like these.

“I wanted to ask, without spoiling anything”—she looked around with a guilty expression—“Morbund’s not, well . . . is he? I mean, in The Dawn Rises certain things happen and I just wanted to ask if he’s actually—”

There was a groan from the back row familiar to anyone who has a spoiler-defensive friend (this, for me, is Andy, who once berated me for spoiling the ending of, of all things, Titanic). I must admit I was a little cheesed at Brooke too, because although I’d known from the marketing that The Dawn Rises was Morbund’s supposed swan song (it was emblazoned on the cover, alongside a New York Times pull quote—“Unputdownable and unbeatable: McTavish is peerless”—that meant McTavish would never have to beg for blurbs), I hadn’t thought that McTavish would kill off his prized character. His books were, after all, in first person, and you already know that is a cardinal sin for fair-play mysteries in my eyes. How does a book get written down when the protagonist is dead?

Take me, for example. You know I’m not currently in the dirt, being bullied by writers under a burning sun. No: I am in a hospital room in Adelaide, finally off the train and in a plastic-sheeted bed but not yet allowed home, as the police are still gathering everyone’s statements and body parts. I’m typing this out while occasionally requesting more painkillers and scratching a thin sheet of skin from my peeling neck.

“Thank you, Brooke,” McTavish said, clearing his throat, the mere act of his remembering her name from fifteen seconds before almost making her spontaneously levitate. “I’ll keep the secret for the rest of the audience here, but I think it’s up to your own interpretation.”

It was a nothing answer, and Brooke wrinkled her nose. The Ghan staff member held their hand out for the microphone. Brooke clutched it like a toddler scared of losing a toy. She seemed to have forgotten she had four more days in which to harass McTavish, and to want to capitalize on this moment: to win him over.

“Okay, well, it’s just that the innkeeper, in the book—his name is Archibald Bench. Archie Bench.” She squinted expectantly and pronounced the innkeeper’s name in syllables, the way you gossip about an ex’s new partner (You’ll never believe who she’s dating . . . Arch-i-bald Bench), as if she and McTavish were in on the same secret.

I itched for her to get to the point. I could feel the back of my neck reddening, and I wished I’d put on sunscreen: I remember feeling certain my neck would blister and peel later.

“Am I right?”