A Trifle Dead: Cafe La Femme, Book 1

by Livia Day

  ‘Good coffee,’ Locks said, as he drank it hot from the cup.

  ‘Five sugars,’ I sighed. ‘You may as well put marshmallows in and be done with it.’

  ‘Don’t tempt me.’

  ‘I was wondering if you knew anything about a busker called Morris?’ I took a deep breath. We hadn’t told any of the buskers about why we were looking for the guy. ‘He was found dead upstairs, yesterday. Probably an overdose.’

  Locks gave me a wary look. ‘You asking if I sold him anything?’

  ‘As if I’d ask that.’ If he had, I didn’t want to know. ‘I wondered if you knew anything about him? All we have is that one name, and that he fancied redheads.’

  ‘Come off it,’ said Locks around another mouthful of coffee. ‘You know him better than me.’

  That startled me. ‘What are you talking about? I don’t know any buskers.’ I thought about the limp form hanging in the net, all that hair everywhere. Bishop had asked if I knew him, and I’d said no without hesitating. ‘He didn’t look familiar.’

  ‘Nuh,’ said Locks.

  ‘What do you mean, nuh?’

  ‘I mean nuh. He was at college with us, Tabs. You knew him, all right. Remember when Katie Feldham’s dad came in and stalked the corridors because she thought she was pregnant?’

  I laughed at that, remembering. ‘Eight guys in the Com Sci Department fled the state.’

  ‘Yeah, well she was mates with that girl Kelly, and Jen, you know, Jen with the freckles?’

  ‘Kelly, my ex-housemate Kelly?’

  Locks nodded. ‘Yeah, didn’t know she was ex.’

  ‘She moved out the other week—swanned off with her boyfriend and stuck us with an extra third of the rent, selfish cow.’ I could see Locks filing the damn information for future reference—however deeply he might sample his own stash, it’s never affected his memory.

  ‘Morris was going out with Kelly for about five minutes. He couldn’t get her to dye her hair anything but green, so he got it together with Jen instead.’

  I was lost. It all had a vague ring of authenticity, and I definitely remembered Kelly’s green hair phase, but I still couldn’t see where the long-haired dead busker fit into the picture.

  Locks rolled his eyes at my obvious stupidity. ‘He’s Ange Morris’s little brother.’

  The sandstone walls of the courtyard swam around me, and I had to sit down.

  ‘Tabitha,’ Stewart said, sounding a long way away. ‘Are ye all right there?’

  I had lost count of how many times he had had to ask me that. ‘Morris is Julian Morris? I went out with him,’ I said in a dim kind of horror, remembering a wet, not overly satisfying kiss up against a wall. ‘His hair wasn’t long, then.’ How could I not have remembered him? How could I not have recognised him, dead in a fucking net?

  He was my age, and he kissed me once, and now he’s dead.

  ‘I thought he only went out with redheads?’ said Stewart.

  I gave him a dirty look. ‘My hair was pink that year. I guess it was close enough.’

  Locks pushed himself to his feet, and I could almost hear his bones creaking with the effort. ‘You going to the glam party Sunday night?’

  ‘Are you invited?’

  He laughed. ‘I wouldn’t invite me if it was my party. I’m supplying.’

  ‘I’ll make sure to avoid the punch.’

  ‘Might be a plan. See you around, cutes.’

  When Locks was gone, Stewart came to sit on the steps beside me, and for a minute I let myself forget that I didn’t know him that well, and that Bishop kept telling me not to trust him. I just leaned on him.

  ‘So,’ he said awkwardly.

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘Basically, if I need any detective work done around here, I can go through my back catalogue of boyfriends until I find the relevant one. Freaky Mt Wellington ley lines.’ At his blank look, I said, ‘Not real ley lines, just—things connected to other things. Coincidence is a common thing around here. It’s a small city. Everyone is everyone else’s ex-boyfriend, or girlfriend, or significant-other-of-non-specific-gender. We have about one and a half degrees of separation and we blame the mountain, because—it’s there.’

  ‘My family’s from Dundee, I get the concept of a small population. The mountain ley lines thing is a bit obscure, though.’

  ‘In-jokes usually are. A mate of mine…’ Well okay, Xanthippe, ‘used to say that it would be dead easy to be a private detective in this city. If you want to find something out, you walk around downtown and chances are you’ll bump into someone entirely relevant to the case. Or a jilted lover with a grudge. Knowing her, probably both.’ I was babbling, which probably meant I was upset. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t recognise him. Julian. Somebody I pashed is now dead. That’s so weird I can’t think about it.’

  Stewart sounded uncomfortable. ‘Is this a bad time to remind ye that my shoulders are awkwardly unsuited to being cried upon?’

  I shoved him. ‘I’m not going to cry. It’s not like he was someone I liked. Well, obviously I did for the three days we were technically going out. Well. The first day. Then I was just trying to shake him off.’

  ‘So, what now?’

  I stood up. Enough whingeing, Darling. Work to do. ‘I want to make coffees for the afternoon crowd until caffeine fumes explode out my ears. Thanks for the shoulder.’

  * * *

  The good thing about being the boss is that, while your staff may heartily resent you for ducking out on them for an hour on a whim, they can’t actually do anything about it. Unless they are Nin.

  ‘Ow!’ I complained. ‘Don’t kick me.’

  ‘You were supposed to be making experimental trifles in the kitchen.’

  ‘I stepped out for one minute.’

  Nin glared at me. ‘You gave him coffee.’

  Ah. Well, yeah. She has this thing about not being kind to drug dealers. It’s a reasonable attitude, I can sympathise with it. But giving people coffee is what I do.

  ‘I swapped it for information.’

  Nin’s eyebrows told me exactly what she thought of that, but at least she stopped kicking me.

  ‘I’ll woman the cappuccino machine for the next hour,’ I offered.

  ‘Done,’ said Lara, relinquishing her position at light speed.

  It was nearly two hours before the murder (suspicious death) collided with my life again. I almost missed the moment. I was loading up a tray with half a dozen variations on the latté when I heard Lara saying, ‘Back out the door and around the corner, and there’s another door with a staircase. They’re one floor up.’

  And as I reached for the cinnamon shaker to use over the skim mocha latte, I saw a flash of red hair heading out of the door.

  ‘What did she want?’ I asked.

  ‘Sandstone City,’ said Lara with one shrug of a shoulder. ‘She had one of their business cards.’

  A redhead with a Sandstone City business card. Coincidence? Around here? Hell, no. ‘I have to run upstairs.’ I glanced around, but Nin was in the kitchen. ‘Tell her that the aliens kidnapped me.’

  ‘Hot sex aliens with extra arms,’ said Lara with a smirk.

  ‘If you must.’ I served the lattés fast, and made my exit.

  * * *

  Simon has been trying to get Darrow to replace the Sandstone City door with a glass one for months, so they can pretend it’s a proper office. Until that happens (which, according to our esteemed landlord, will be never), they keep it propped open with a brick when one of them is in the office. Stylish.

  Ruth, the only female Sandstone Citizen, was leaving as I arrived. ‘Come to save him, have you?’ she asked, and clattered down the stairs.

  I stepped inside, and immediately saw the problem. Stewart was leaning against a messy desk with an armful of wailing redhead. What is it about this man that invites physical contact from strange women?

  He saw me over the heaving feminine armful, and looked pitiful.

  ‘Stewart McTavish,’
I scolded him. ‘Are you letting other women cry on you? I want a divorce.’

  ‘Tabitha,’ he said loudly. ‘Come in. Great to see you. This is Morris’s flatmate, Claudina.’ He gave Rose Red a push, and she unwrapped herself from him to stare at me through a haze of mascara and snot.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, sniffling. ‘Hello.’ Excellent, she was one of those women who hates to lose control in the presence of other females. That would save time. ‘Were you the girl asking about Julian?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said drawing her attention while Stewart backed away to a safe distance.

  ‘Coffee?’ he suggested, indicating a manky coffee pot with his elbow.

  ‘Ew, Stewart, I have standards,’ I said automatically. ‘Um, I mean—Claudina, would you like Stewart to make you a lovely cup of coffee?’

  ‘No thanks,’ she said. ‘He’s dead. Julian. The police told me yesterday.’

  ‘We know,’ I said awkwardly. This was all starting to feel like a whole lot of none of my business. ‘Hence our interest.’

  ‘I had to identify his body,’ she said, scrubbing at her face with the back of a hand.

  I went straight to Ruth’s desk, and found a box of tissues. Men never have the really useful office supplies. ‘Why you?’ I asked when I gave them to her. ‘Why not his mum, or his sister?’

  ‘His mother is a mess about the whole thing,’ Claudina said, blotting her eyes. ‘Ange agreed to do it, but she asked me to come with her.’

  ‘So,’ said Stewart, more comfortable now there was a desk between him and the crying woman. ‘Why come tae us?’

  Claudina put the box of tissues down, and flicked her hair. ‘They think he’s some kind of drug addict. The police. It’s so stupid. I mean, it was Julian.’ For a minute, she seemed to have forgotten she was talking to strangers. ‘Sami said you were giving cards out at the mall, asking about him, and I checked out your blog. I want you to do a story about how the police have got it all wrong.’

  Stewart winced at that. ‘Your Bishop is gonnae kill me, Tabitha.’

  ‘It was inevitable,’ I told him. ‘He has deep sexual jealousy issues.’

  ‘I mean,’ said Claudina. ‘No one who knows him would ever think that. Julian wasn’t into drugs and stuff—he’s a vegetarian.’

  ‘Okay.’ I was prepared to let that one go, though I knew enough vegetarians to find her premise dubious. ‘When did you last see Julian?’

  ‘The day before yesterday,’ she said. ‘He went out after breakfast, and didn’t come home. I didn’t think much of it, until the police came around…’ She took a deep, shuddery breath. ‘We weren’t together, you know. Not a couple or anything. We just shared a place.’

  That surprised me. ‘I thought—’

  ‘Yeah,’ Claudina said. ‘Everyone thinks that. Because of the hair. Even his mum thinks we’re a couple. Mine’s not natural, anyway.’

  ‘Really?’ That did impress me. ‘What do you use?’

  ‘Henna, the real stuff. It works great, but the roots are just starting to come out, look.’ She leaned in, and I smelled chamomile as I saw the tiny glimpses of ash-blonde amongst the red.

  ‘Excellent,’ I said, then noticed that Stewart was giving me a funny look. ‘What? You ask a question, then.’

  ‘All right,’ he said in his low burr. ‘Why would Morris come here, tae this building?’

  Claudina was startled. ‘Here? What do you mean, here?’

  ‘The next floor up,’ I said. ‘You didn’t know?’

  ‘This is where he died?’

  ‘It’s where he was found,’ Stewart said.

  Claudina’s freckles stood out brightly on her pale face. ‘Is that the only reason you’re interested in all this? Because it’s your building?’

  ‘I think plenty of people would be interested,’ Stewart said slowly. ‘I’m covering the story for Sandstone City, and yer perspective on Morris could be very valuable.’

  She looked uncertain. ‘I’ve got to get back, now. To see his mum. I promised I’d go straight after work. But you can call me, if you want.’

  Stewart handed over a notebook, and Claudina scribbled down her details. ‘I’m glad someone cares,’ she said before she left.

  ‘Right,’ said Stewart, letting out a long breath after we heard her footsteps disappearing down the stairs. ‘Clearly I need tae hire ye as my bodyguard.’

  ‘You can’t help it if you have a face that makes women cry.’ I looked at my watch. ‘Damn, it’s almost closing. Nin’s going to kill me.’

  ‘Can I draw on your walls tonight?’ he asked as I made a scramble for the door.

  That surprised me. ‘It’s Friday night, you don’t have anything better to do?’

  ‘With tha’ big empty wall calling me? Ye must be joking.’

  ‘I’ll be cleaning until about seven. If you really want to stay later than that, continuing your hot love affair with my walls, come by after closing and I’ll give you the back door key.’

  Call that security? Bishop’s voice thundered in the back of my brain, but I ignored it. I wasn’t talking to him right now. And it was hard to be suspicious about Stewart after rescuing him from a soggy damsel.

  * * *

  ‘Ceege, are you home?’

  There was silence as I let myself into our share house. Sandy Bay is half fancy beautiful mansions and restored cottages owned by shiny rich people, and half dodgy falling-apart student residences. Guess which I lived in.

  Sure, I was getting a bit old for the share house thing, but I wasn’t ready to accept the title ‘independent businesswoman’ and turn it into a mortgage in the suburbs yet. If ever. Also, I could never afford to live this close to the city if I wanted to buy. Location, location. There are definite benefits to living like a student, especially when you can afford to eat better than baked beans and ramen every night.

  I heard a little pad pad thump, and Kinky Boots came trotting out of the kitchen, his usual pissed-off expression plastered across his face.

  ‘Good cat. I brought you your favourite.’ I waved a bag at him. ‘Sashimi!’ Mine is a very urban cat. I’ve had to take him off latté and aioli for the sake of his waistline, but as long as I don’t skimp on the raw tuna, he’s prepared to forgive.

  I gave Kinky Boots his dinner, and lay on the couch with my eyes closed. What I should do was climb up the stairs to my room and commune with my doona for a good ten hours or so. What I wanted to do instead was put on a cute frock, spray something colourful in my ponytail and run down to the Salamanca courtyard to spend hours and hours around people and music and vodka shots.

  As if I could work up the energy. Geez, I really must be getting old.

  I wasn’t feeling up to the usual gossip and dancing. Not because my feet hurt like four kinds of hell—they always did on a Friday night, and that had never stopped me before. I’d known Stewart McTavish for two days, and I’d left him in my café with a door key and a drawer full of pencils. It niggled at me.

  Ceege’s computer loomed from the corner. The benefits of having a gamer for a housemate is that he pays the broadband bill. It was rare to see the computer without my pet engineering student attached to it like a limpet.

  And Google is a girl’s best friend.

  I hated myself for giving in to Bishop’s paranoia, but hey. Who doesn’t screen new friends these days?

  I swung myself out of the comfy couch, swatted a stack of Doctor Who novels out of Ceege’s office chair, and got online.

  Two hours later, I was still reading.

  9

  The absolute suckiest thing about running a café is working on a Saturday. I can’t avoid it. Sundays, the town centre is legitimately dead, and that’s the one thing that makes me glad Darrow didn’t set me up in Salamanca, or the espresso strip of North Hobart. My weekly sleep-in is sacred.

  But everyone shops in the centre of town on Saturdays, and they need their foamy Fair Trade vanilla mugaccinos, oh yes they do.

  So every Saturda
y, from 5am when I get up, 6am when I start the day’s prep to 8am when I open the doors, I hate everybody. I think that’s legitimate.

  Today I hated everybody slightly less than usual—I had spent a ridiculous number of hours in Ceege’s precarious office chair before crawling to bed with Kinky Boots and a trashy novel, but at least I hadn’t been downing over-priced cocktails until after midnight. I hadn’t had to rinse purple glitter spray out of my hair, and I was able to do that complicated braid that kept my hair out of the side salads on the very first try.

  I got to the café fifteen minutes early, and Nin had still managed to beat me to the kitchen. ‘How do you do that?’ I complained.

  She shrugged and smiled a little, her hands busy with what could only be her chocolate scone recipe.

  There is no universe in which chocolate scones should work, but—well, Nin has her own universe, and sometimes she lets others visit. ‘Mm,’ I said happily. ‘Chocolate scone days are always good days.’

  ‘You gave your Scotsman a key, then,’ said Nin, breaking her cardinal rule by speaking before ten in the morning.

  ‘How did you know about that? Did he steal the furniture?’

  Nin had a definite smirk on her face. ‘Go look at your wall.’

  I went out to the café, switching on the lights as I went. It wasn’t the brightest of days outside—it looked like we were in for winter a month or two early this year. Climate change has a particularly menacing sense of humour when it comes to Hobart.

  I’d seen some of Stewart’s artwork as part of my Friday night Googlefest. There was a mural at a high school in a Melbourne suburb, and a couple of graffiti-style pieces in Dundee and Glasgow from his teen years. There was a web-comic from a couple of years ago that cracked me up with its surreal characters and offbeat sense of humour—displaying much better writing skills than his Sandstone City ‘journalism’.

  But then, there was this.

  It’s a total cliché to have a café mural that depicts people in a café. You know the sort of thing—cartoony umbrellas and stick-thin girls sipping coffees in Paris haircuts. Blank, static faces.