A Trifle Dead: Cafe La Femme, Book 1

by Livia Day

  ‘We’re not gay, we’re metrosexual. I can talk to you from here. What’s your trauma?’

  ‘I snogged Bishop today. Well, he started it. But I wasn’t exactly a helpless bystander.’

  Ceege laughed softly.

  ‘It’s not funny.’

  ‘It’s so funny, Tabitha. Have you told your mum yet?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘She’s gonna book the celebrant.’

  ‘Shut up, shut up.’ I buried my face in the cushion. ‘I need more girl friends who don’t work for me. Boys are useless at this.’

  ‘Tabitha’s in lurve with a policeman…’

  ‘Police officer,’ I corrected, the cushion muffling my voice. ‘And I am not hooking up with a man in uniform. No way.’

  ‘You are so hot for the uniform,’ he chuckled.

  ‘One more word, and I’ll tell Katie about your Harry Potter fanfic. I’ll give her your pseudonyms…’

  There was a cough from above me. I peered up, around the cushion. Ceege was holding a packet of Tim Tams, just out of reach. ‘I’ll make you a deal. We stop talking about your sick, twisted love life right now, and I’ll give you the biscuits.’

  ‘I could make my own biscuits if I wanted biscuits,’ I said prissily.

  ‘You’re fooling no one. I’ll give you the Tim Tams, and I get to kick uninterrupted dragon butt with my metrosexual elf friends. Okay?’

  ‘Eh, works for me.’ I accepted the bribe for what it was, and ripped the packet open with my teeth. ‘I do not have a thing for men in uniform.’

  ‘Whatever helps you sleep at night, Tabs.’

  Several Tim Tams later, I staggered off the couch (whoa, chocolate rush) to have a shower. The police radio was still squawking as I walked through the kitchen, and I gave it a kick as I went.

  * * *

  Hot water solves almost any stress. Baths are best, but if I make the mistake of having a bath during daylight hours, I’m there until bedtime. Couldn’t afford the time today, so a shower it was. I turned my neck into the hot spray and thought, blissfully, about nothing at all for at least ten minutes.

  ‘Tabs.’ Ceege rapped on the shower door.

  ‘Perve! What are you doing in here?’

  ‘Like I care about your wet bits. You left your radio on.’

  ‘Turn it off yourself.’

  ‘It’s not that. There’s something major going on over in Landsdowne Crescent. Like an armed siege kind of thing.’

  The water didn’t feel hot on my skin any more. I turned the tap off, trying not to panic. We’re a little touchy about sieges, here in Tasmania. ‘And?’

  ‘Your Bishop is right in the middle of it.’

  I leaned my head against the glass door. I was never going to trust chocolate scone days ever again.

  * * *

  Of course I went. Where else was I going to go? I spent my teens working alongside my mum, making sandwiches at bushfires and soup for crisis victims. It’s what Darling women do. Well, Darling women who don’t rebel at fifty and start wearing tie-dyed skirts with bells on.

  I didn’t take sandwiches. He didn’t deserve them. If Bishop came out of this alive, I was going to kill him.

  West Hobart is a steep, multi-hill suburb between our little city and the first bushy slopes of the mountain. Most days, it’s green, leafy and cheerful, despite the freezing wind that cuts straight from Antarctica. Most days, West Hobart isn’t full of police cars, ambulances, incident tape and red-faced, irritable women in sweaty tank tops and track pants who had been rudely interrupted in the middle of their yoga, pilates, step-aerobics and pole dancing classes.

  The press had surrounded the aerobics centre by the time I got there—TV crews, a few newspaper journalists, and two very indignant bloggers who were trying to convince a couple of police officers that they were legitimate press. I waved at Stewart, but he didn’t see me. Neither did Simon. I tried to catch the attention of Inspector Bobby, who came right over.

  ‘Hello, love. Don’t worry, all sorted. Bishop’s fine.’

  ‘Who’s worried?’ I said. ‘Do I look worried?’ I ignored the fact that he was acting like I was Bishop’s girlfriend—most of the station had been doing it for years. My only consolation was that it annoyed him way more than it annoyed me. ‘What’s going on?’

  I resisted the urge to ask how close it had been.

  ‘Come on, Tabby, you know I can’t tell you anything.’ Inspector Bobby patted my arm. ‘It wasn’t guns, thank gawd. I’ll send Bishop over when he’s got a minute.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ I said in a panic. ‘I’ll catch up with him later. In fact, don’t even mention I was here. I was never here.’

  Stewart and Simon weren’t part of the gaggle of press any more. I found them behind one of the ambulances, Simon keeping a lookout while Stewart took discreet pictures on his smart phone.

  Several paramedics came out of the aerobics centre that was apparently named the Jiggle It Fitness Hub (it amused me no end that the press would have to repeat that name with a straight face over and over again), pushing a uniformed figure on a gurney. I tried to see who it was, but I was distracted by the sight of a grim-faced Bishop walking alongside. He looked like he was having a really bad day.

  What I didn’t do was cross the police tape and throw myself into his arms. So proud of me.

  ‘So,’ I said, tapping Simon on the shoulder and scaring the hell out of him. ‘How do you have an armed siege without guns?’

  ‘She used Olympic standard archery equipment,’ Stewart muttered, leaning out a little further to get clear shots. ‘Luckily, she’s not an Olympic standard archer. She’s one of the instructors here, resident expert on something called Bellycise.’

  ‘Completely barmy, then.’

  ‘I wouldnae care to judge.’

  A woman was brought out next, flanked by police on both sides. She had apricot hair under the towel they were using to cover her face from the cameras. She wore a Jiggle It Fitness Hub t-shirt, harem pants and designer sneakers. A third uniform carried a large evidence bag with a bright green bow and several arrows inside.

  Stewart pulled back before the paramedics reached the ambulance. ‘We should be away. Action’s done. I’ve got crowd reaction, and some contacts to follow up.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Simon. ‘It’s like the city put on a bizarre crime spree this week, just for us.’

  ‘So glad you’re having fun,’ I said crossly. The two of them skipped around the ambulance before the paramedics reached the back doors. I didn’t move fast enough, and the sight of the figure on the gurney slowed me down. ‘Gary!’

  Bishop’s head whipped around. ‘Tish, what are you doing here?’

  I ignored him, my eyes on my favourite hungry constable, who was pale under his bright freckles. ‘Gary, did you get shot?’

  ‘Just a bit,’ Constable Gary said, looking sick. His arm was heavily bandaged.

  ‘Out of the way, please,’ said one of the efficient paramedics, and I stood well clear.

  ‘I’m not happy, Gary,’ I called as they loaded him into the ambulance. ‘Heroics are very unsexy. Don’t do it again!’

  He laughed weakly. ‘I’ll try not to.’

  I blew him a kiss, then turned to look at Bishop. There was no avoiding it, really. ‘I happened to be passing by.’

  ‘Uh-huh. That radio of yours is not supposed to be used by non-police personnel.’

  ‘I don’t know what radio you mean, except the one my dad left with me, which is in storage. Don’t even know which box it’s in.’

  Bishop nodded slowly. ‘You okay?’

  I punched him lightly on the arm. ‘I heard “armed siege”. What do you think?’

  ‘It wasn’t exactly that.’ Bishop shook his head, thoroughly pissed off, though not with me for once in his life. ‘We were brought in by a hoax call from someone who said she had information on the Morris case. As soon as she saw us, that fitness instructor turned around and went into a storeroom
. We were about to send someone in after her when she came out with her bows and arrows. No one even knows what her issues are.’

  Bishop rolled his eyes in the direction of the ambulance, as they closed the doors. ‘I was talking her down, nice and calm. Gary didn’t say a bloody word to her, and halfway through, she shot him for no reason! Poor bastard didn’t even twitch. Lucky her hands were shaking, she only got him in the arm.’

  I couldn’t stop looking at him. He was weirdly calm, like this was the sort of thing he dealt with every day. Which, I guess it was. There he was in one piece, all dark and chiselled. Apparently I did have a thing for men in uniform. Damn it. I reached up and put my hands on his face, and kissed him.

  Probably the most chaste kiss I’ve given anyone since I was about fifteen, I might add. No tongues. Barely even mouth. But then Bishop leaned his forehead against me, and I sighed a happy little sigh. This was nice. It felt right.

  The ambulance rolled away, leaving us in full view of all remaining members of the press.

  ‘They just took pictures of us, didn’t they?’ Bishop said, his face still touching mine.

  ‘Pretty sure they didn’t.’

  Of course they did.

  * * *

  So, yeah, our paper’s somewhat parochial. Local weather girl gets married, it makes the front page. Anything to do with Princess Mary of Denmark (born around here, went to Taroona High school, don’t you know) is more important than federal politics. I don’t think I know anyone who hasn’t been worthy of at least a half page spread in the Hobart Mercury at some time in their lives, whether it’s winning a science prize at school, or picking up litter on the beaches for Clean Up Australia Day.

  Still, it was a shock to the system to see my intimate embrace with a certain Senior Constable plastered in colour across the front of the Sunday Tasmanian.

  Too late now to wish I’d blowdried my hair before running out to make a fool of myself in public. I looked like a drowned rat, cradled against Tall, Dark and Uniformed.

  All I could do was close my eyes and pray that my mother didn’t see this newspaper. I would never be able to convince her that Bishop and I weren’t an item now.

  We weren’t. We really weren’t.

  I did force myself to read the actual story—mad arrow lady wasn’t named, but the paper said she was the wife of a respectable local dentist, and her lawyer was refusing to let her make any statement to the press. It couldn’t be that hard to find out who she was with a bit of judicious Google Fu (or at the very least, checking the Jiggle It Fitness Hub website to see how many apricot haired Bellycise experts they had), but I didn’t feel up to finding out. Stewart would probably know.

  It was just after ten in the morning. I couldn’t get a park near the café, and had to walk a couple of blocks. I was standing at the lights near the GPO when I saw something that almost made me swallow my own tongue: an orange taxi turning a corner, with Darrow at the wheel. My prodigal landlord.

  There was no mistaking him. He was even wearing one of his horribly expensive designer suits. ‘Hey!’ I screamed, waving an arm at him, but he drove smoothly away without giving any impression he’d seen me.

  * * *

  Stewart was waiting on the steps in the courtyard behind the café when I arrived in a foul mood, the Sunday paper tucked under my arm. ‘Didn’t I give you a spare key?’ I demanded.

  ‘Thought I’d wait tae see if ye were talking to me,’ he said, a little sheepishly.

  ‘The rest of the mural had better be freaking good.’ We went inside together, and I threw the paper on the kitchen table.

  ‘I didnae actually take the picture they printed in the paper,’ he offered as a possible white flag.

  ‘Mm.’ I switched on the lights in the café and booted up the computer. When I typed in the Sandstone City URL, Bishop and I filled the screen, snuggling intimately.

  ‘See?’ said Stewart. ‘The one I took is far more flattering. Ye can hardly tell how bad yer hair looked.’

  I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘I’m going to spend the morning experimenting with trifle-free trifles. I may talk to you by lunchtime. But don’t count on it.’

  Hours later, the smell of paint was warring with the scent of raspberries, custard and brandy. We had the doors and windows open, and it was freezing cold despite the bright sunshine outside.

  While Stewart glued sequins to Mrs Peel’s boots, I lay on the café counter, sucking custard out of my third shot glass and reading the flyer of stolen Wearable Art Treasures that kCeera had given me. ‘You should blog this, it’s hilarious. Where did they even get a pair of ruby glass slippers with seven inch spiked heels? I want to shop where they’re shopping.’

  ‘Mm,’ said Stewart. ‘Might get us further than your so-called murder mystery.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re bored?’

  ‘The arrow-happy belly-dancing fitness instructor is a lot more newsworthy than the dead busker in a net. Not that our readers don’t prefer meringue porn any day of the week.’ He glanced over at me. ‘Ye know there’s a connection between Robinette Hood and Julian Morris, right?’

  ‘You mean that she—or someone—made a hoax call to get the police to good old Jiggle Bits yesterday?’

  ‘No, not that. Apparently this woman—Natasha Pembroke—runs local charity events to sponsor and promote health issues. Everything from dental health in third world countries to depression and suicide in local teens. Six months ago, she hired the Tin Man Tossers to provide the music for one of her soirées. That was Julian Morris on violin, his sister Ange on cello and someone called Misty Heavens playing the tambourine.’

  ‘Sounds vile,’ I said. ‘Good detective work, though. How did you find that out?’

  ‘Only good? I was hoping for brilliant,’ said Stewart. ‘Or maybe, masterful.’

  ‘I’m prepared to downgrade you to competent if you keep going on about it…’

  ‘Ange Morris emailed me after she saw the Fitness Hub story, and gave us the scoop. Not sure what that means, if anything. But it’s a start.’

  ‘See, it is a real murder mystery,’ I said cheerfully. ‘This is what we call a clue.’

  ‘Mysteries in books have the decency tae provide properly spaced out clues that lead tae a well-plotted resolution.’ Stewart shook his head. ‘I think I’ll stick tae Hobart’s arty citizens. Fighting crime hurts the brain. Got any more for me, by the way?’

  ‘A girl I was at school with is going to protest the tuna fishing industry by chaining herself to the Tasman Bridge wearing nothing but a mermaid tail.’

  ‘Excellent!’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Honestly, Stewart, you really do believe anything that comes out of my mouth, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh.’ He sounded disappointed. ‘Ye made it up.’

  ‘Yeah, it was last week. You missed it.’

  ‘Bugger.’ He leaned back, and regarded Mrs Peel’s boots with satisfaction. ‘Glue guns are most excellent devices.’

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘If we were trying to solve the mystery of Julian Morris’s death…’

  ‘Which we’re not.’

  ‘Which we’re not, because your blog readers aren’t all that interested, and the clues don’t make sense.’

  ‘And even making the attempt would piss your boyfriend off no end…’

  ‘He’s so not my boyfriend.’

  Stewart made a cough that had the word ‘denial’ firmly lodged in it.

  ‘Shut up. Anyway, what would we do?’

  ‘Pool our information, re-interview witnesses, maybe start up some kind of spreadsheet tae compile the evidence…’

  ‘Might have known you’d be a spreadsheet geek.’ I seized on the most interesting thing he’d said. ‘When you say pool our information…’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Going to tell me who your sources were for the Trapper story?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Even if I promise to swap it for a really hot lead?’

  ‘How hot?�
��

  ‘Smoking hot.’

  Stewart gave me a suspicious look. ‘I’ll give ye one source.’

  ‘The postal worker.’

  ‘No. Constable Victor. I think he gave me a fake name, though, which is why I dinnae feel I’m compromising anything to share it with ye.’

  I’d already figured that. I might not know all the constables in Tasmania Police, but I knew a good eighty per cent of them, and had never heard of a Victor. ‘What makes you think it was a fake name?’

  ‘Because when they took him away in the ambulance, ye called him Gary.’

  I almost dropped my shot glass. ‘Gary gave you the Trapper information?’ I mean, yeah, he’s the biggest gossip tart in the station, but normally just for me. I felt cheated on. ‘Bishop would roast him for dinner if he knew.’

  Stewart laughed. ‘No, he’d blame it all on me.’

  ‘This is actually true.’

  ‘So…’

  ‘So, what?’

  ‘Smoking hot lead, Tabitha. Ye promised me smoking and hot.’

  ‘Oh, right. I saw Darrow today.’

  Stewart spun around so fast he almost fell off the table he was standing on. ‘Yer landlord.’

  ‘My missing landlord. Yes.’ I frowned. ‘Usually when he vanishes for weeks at a time, it’s because he’s off somewhere exotic. He’s been gone weeks, so I was expecting at least a bottle of duty free when he got back. But instead, he’s driving a taxi around Hobart. A taxi.’

  ‘What’s odd about that?’

  I waved my hand. ‘Darrow has more money than God. He doesn’t need to work a job like that. He’s hiding.’

  ‘From Xanthippe? Her teeth did get rather snarly when she talked about looking for him.’

  I knew exactly what he meant. Zee had a snarl that could scare wild animals. Men probably found it hot. ‘Maybe from Xanthippe. But he vanished long before she came sniffing around.’

  ‘She thought he might be involved. In the Trapper business.’

  ‘I’ve been saying the word “weird” a lot more than usual,’ I sighed. ‘Hobart isn’t usually like this. Buskers in nets, and postmen in cages, and strange women holding up corner shops with compound bows.’