Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

Chapter 1

So I’m writing again. Which is good news, I suppose, for those wanting a second book, but more unfortunate for the people who had to die so I could write it.

I’m starting this from my cabin on the train, as I want to get a few things down before I forget or exaggerate them. We’re parked, not at a station but just sitting on the tracks about an hour from Adelaide. The long red desert of the last four days has been replaced first by the golden wheat belt and then by the lush green paddocks of dairy farms, the previously flat horizon now a rolling grass ocean peppered with the slow, steady turn of dozens of wind turbines. We should have been in Adelaide by now, but we’ve had to stop so the authorities can clean up the bodies. I say clean up, but I think the delay is mainly that they’re having trouble finding them. Or at least all the pieces.

So here I am with a head start on my writing.

My publisher tells me sequels are tricky. There are certain rules to follow, like doling out backstory for both those who’ve read me before and those who’ve never heard of me. I’m told you don’t want to bore the returnees, but you don’t want to confuse the newbies by leaving too much out. I’m not sure which one you are, so let’s start with this:

My name’s Ernest Cunningham, and I’ve done this before. Written a book, that is. But, also, solved a series of murders.

At the time, it came quite naturally. The writing, not the deaths, of which the causes were the opposite of natural, of course. Of the survivors, I thought myself the most qualified to tell the story, as I had something that could generously be called a “career” in writing already. I used to write books about how to write books: the rules for writing mystery books, to be precise. And they were more pamphlets than books, if you insist on honesty. Self-published, a buck apiece online. It’s not every writer’s dream, but it was a living. Then when everything happened last year up in the snow and the media came knocking, I thought I might as well apply some of what I knew and have a crack at writing it all down. I had help, of course, in the guiding principles of Golden Age murder mysteries set out by writers like Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle and, in particular, a bloke named Ronald Knox, who wrote out the “Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction.” Knox isn’t the only one with a set of rules: various writers over the years have had a crack at breaking down a murder mystery into a schematic. Even Henry McTavish had a set.

If you think you don’t already know the rules to writing a murder mystery, trust me, you do. It’s all intuitive. Let me give you an example. I’m writing this in first person. That means, in order to have sat down and physically written about it, I survive the events of the book. First person equals survival. Apologies in advance for the lack of suspense when I almost bite the dust in chapter 28.

The rules are simple: nothing supernatural; no surprise identical twins; the killer must be introduced early on (in fact, I’ve already done that and we’re not even through the first chapter yet, though I expect you may have skipped the prelims) and be a major enough character to impact the plot. That last one’s important. Gone are the days when the butler dunnit: in order to play fair, the killer must have a name, often used. To prove the point, I’ll tell you that I use the killer’s name, in all its forms, exactly 106 times from here. And, most important, the essence of every rule boils down to this: absolutely no concealing obvious truths from the reader.

That’s why I’m talking to you like this. I am, you may have realized, a bit chattier than your usual detective in these books. That’s because I’m not going to hide anything from you. This is a fair-play mystery, after all.

And so I promise to be that rarity in modern crime novels: a reliable narrator. You can count on me for the truth at every turn. No hoodwinking. I also promise to say the dreaded sentence “It was all a dream” only once, and even then I believe it’s permissible in context.

Alas, no writers cared to jot down any rules specifically for sequels (Conan Doyle famously delighted in killing off Sherlock Holmes, begrudgingly bringing him back just for the money), so I’m going it alone here. The only help I have is my publisher, whose advice seems to come via the marketing department.

Her first piece of advice was to avoid repetition. That makes good sense—nobody wants to read the same old plots rehashed again and again. But her second piece of advice was to not deliver a book completely unlike the first, as readers will expect more of the same. Just to reiterate: I don’t have any control over the events of the book. I’m just writing down what happened, so those are two difficult rules to follow. I will point out that one inadvertent mimicry is the curious coincidence that both cases are solved by a piece of punctuation. Last year it was a full stop. This time, a comma saves the day.

And what sort of mystery book would this be if we didn’t have at least one anagram, code or puzzle? So that’s in here as well.

My publisher also warned me to work in enough tantalizing references to the previous book that readers will want to buy that one also, but not to spoil the ending. She calls that “natural marketing.” Sequels, it seems, are about doing two things at once: being new and familiar at the same time.

I’m already breaking those rules I mentioned. Golden Age mystery novelist S.S. Van Dine recommends there only be one crime solver. This time, there are five wannabe detectives. But I guess that’s what happens when you put six crime writers in a room. I say six writers and five detectives, because one’s the murder victim. It’s not the one wearing the blue scarf; that’s the other one.

I’d say Van Dine would be rolling in his grave, though that would break one of the general rules about the supernatural. So he’d be lying very still but disappointed all the same.

If I may repeat myself, it’s not up to me which rules I break when I’m simply cataloging what happened. How I managed to stumble into another labyrinthine mystery is anyone’s guess, and the same people who accused me of profiteering from a serial killer picking off my extended family one by one in the last book (natural marketing, see?) will likely accuse me of the same here. I wish it hadn’t happened, not now, and not back then.

Besides, everyone hates sequels: they are so often accused of being a pale imitation of what’s come before. Being that the last murders happened on a snowy mountain and these ones happened in a desert, the joke’s on the naysayers: a pale imitation this won’t be, because at least I’ve got a tan.

Time to shore up my bona fides as a reliable narrator. The rap sheet for the crimes committed in this book amounts to murder, attempted murder, rape, stealing, trespassing, evidence tampering, conspiracy, blackmail, smoking on public transport, headbutting (I guess the technical term is assault), burglary (yes, this is different from stealing) and improper use of adverbs.

Here are some further truths. Seven writers board a train. At the end of the line, five will leave it alive. One will be in cuffs.

Body count: nine. Bit lower than last time.

And me? I don’t kill anybody this time around.

Let’s get started. Again.

Chapter 2

There was less dread instilled in witnessing the public murder (dare I say execution) of a fellow author than there was when my literary agent spotted me on the crowded train platform, elbowed her way through the throng, and asked me, “How’s the new book coming?”

Simone Morrison was the last person I expected to see at Berrimah Terminal, Darwin, given her agency was based four thousand kilometers away. She’d brought Melbourne with her, wearing a coat that was a ludicrous mix of trench and oversized puffer. Then again, she was better dressed than I was. I had on cargo shorts and a buttoned short-sleeved shirt, which had been sold to me in a fishing store as “breathable.” I’d always believed that was the minimum requirement for clothing, but I’d bought it anyway. The problem was that, while our journey had been duly advertised as a “sunrise start,” I’d incorrectly assumed that the baking heat of the Northern Territory’s tropical climate would apply at all hours, including dawn.

It hadn’t.

And though there was light now, we were on the west side of the train, a slinking steel snake that blocked off all the horizon, and so half-mast wasn’t going to do it for warmth; the sun had to really put some effort in. The only warm part of me was my right hand—which had been skinned during last year’s murders and was only partially rehealed, thanks to an ample donation from my left butt-cheek—where I wore a single, padded glove to protect the sensitive skin underneath. In all, I was dressed more suitably for Jurassic Park than a train journey, and I found myself both willing the sun to hurry up and quite jealous of the cozy blue woolen scarf Simone had around her neck.

I say Simone’s office is based in Melbourne, though I’ve never seen it: as far as I can tell, most of her business is conducted from a booth at an Italian restaurant in the city. She helped the chef there publish a cookbook once, which was successful enough to snag him a TV gig, and she’s been rewarded with both a permanent reservation and an alcohol addiction. Every time I slipped into the red vinyl seat across from her, Simone would hold up a finger as she finished an email on her laptop (manicured nails clacking furiously enough that I pitied the person on the other end), take a sip of her tar-dark spiked coffee (bright pink lipstick stain on the ceramic, though, in an unnerving clue to the dishwashing standards of the place, she always wears red), and then say, completely ignoring the fact that she’d often summoned me, “Please tell me you’ve got good news.” She’s a fan of shoulder pads, teeth whitening, heavy sighs and hoop earrings—not in that order.

That said, I can’t fault her ability. We first met after I’d signed the publisher contract for Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, when she invited me to lunch and asked me to bring along the contract. I then sat in silence while she leafed through the agreement underlining things and muttering various incarnations of “Unbelievable” before remembering I was there too, flipping to the back and saying, “That’s your signature? No one, like, forged it or anything? You read and agreed”—she shook the pages, arched her eyebrows—“to this?”

I nodded.

“I’m surprised you can write books, because you certainly can’t read. I charge fifteen percent.”

I couldn’t tell if it was an offer or an insult. She turned her focus to her laptop, so I considered myself dismissed and squeaked out of the plastic seat, never expecting to hear from her again. A week later a document outlining interest from a German publisher and even some people wanting to make a TV show landed in my inbox. There was also an offer for another mystery book. Fiction, this time.

She hadn’t asked, and I hadn’t expressed any interest in writing a novel, nor did I have any idea what I’d write about. And the catch was I’d have to write it quickly. But I’ll admit I was blinded by the advance listed—it was far better than what I’d received previously—so I’d accepted. Besides, I’d reasoned at the time, it might be a nice change from writing about real people killing each other.

Obviously, that didn’t pan out.

I knew Simone took her job seriously, perhaps too seriously, but I’ve always figured that if the publishers are half as scared of her as I am, I should be grateful she’s on my side. And, sure, I’d been dodging her calls and texts for an update on the novel for a couple of months. But following me to Darwin seemed excessive. In any case, asking a writer how their book’s coming along is like spotting lipstick on their collar. There’s really no point asking: no one ever answers truthfully.

“Pretty good,” I said.

“That bad, huh?” Simone replied.

Juliette, my girlfriend, standing beside me, squeezed my arm in sympathy.

“Fiction is . . . harder than I thought it would be.”

“You took their money. We took their money.” Simone fossicked around in her handbag, pulled out an electronic cigarette, and puffed. “I don’t refund commission, you know.”

I didn’t, in fact, know that. “You’ve come all this way to hassle me then?”

“Not everything’s about you, Ern.” She exhaled a plume of blueberry scent. “Opportunity knocks, I answer.”

“And what better place than in the middle of the desert to circle some carcasses,” Juliette chipped in.

Simone barked a laugh, seeming charmed rather than offended. She liked to be challenged, I just lacked the confidence to do it. But Juliette had always given her the combative banter she enjoyed. Simone leaned forward and gave Juliette one of those hugs where you keep the person at arm’s length, as if holding a urinating child, and an air kiss on both cheeks. “Always liked you, dear. You wound me, though, with truth. I take it you’re still not convinced you need an agent?”

“Keep circling. I’m happy on my own.”

“You have my number.” This must have been a lie, because even I didn’t have her number. She called me on private, not the other way around.

“I don’t have a ticket for you,” I cut in. “Juliette’s my plus-one. How’d they even let you on the shuttle bus? I’m sorry you’ve come all this way—”

“I don’t do shuttle buses. And I’ve got more clients than just you, Ern,” Simone scoffed. “Wyatt sorted me out.” She craned her head around the platform. “Where are the others?”

I didn’t know who Wyatt was, though her tone implied that was my own shortcoming. The name didn’t register as one of the other authors I’d seen in the program. Then again, I’d only flicked through it and hadn’t read many of the books; they were stacked guiltily on my bedside table. If an author’s biggest lie is that their writing is going well, their second biggest is that they’re halfway through their peer’s new book.

I did recall that there were five other writers on the program for the Australian Mystery Writers’ Festival. Handpicked by the festival to cover, as the website touted, “every facet of modern crime writing,” they included three popular crime writers, whose novels covered the genres of forensic procedural, psychological thriller and legal drama, as well as a literary heavyweight, who’d been short-listed for the Commonwealth Book Prize, and the major drawcard, Scottish phenomenon and writer of the Detective Morbund series Henry McTavish, whom even I knew by name. Then there was me, doing some heavy lifting in the dual categories of debut and nonfiction, because my first book was labeled as a true-crime memoir. Juliette, former owner of the mountain resort where last year’s murders took place, had also written a book on the events, but she was here as my guest. Her book had sold better than mine, and she is, I’ll admit, a much better writer than I am. But she’s also not related to a serial killer, and you can’t buy that kind of publicity, so the invites for things like this do tend to fall my way.

If it strikes you as odd that we were milling about at a train station, when literary festivals usually take place in libraries, school auditoriums or whichever room at the local community center happens to be empty enough to accommodate an Oh shit we totally forgot we had an author talk today, you’d be right. But this year, in celebration of its fiftieth anniversary, the festival was to take place on the Ghan: the famous train route that bisects the immense desert of Australia almost exactly down the middle. Originally a freight route, the name comes from a shortening of “Afghan Express”: a tribute to the camel-riding explorers of Australia’s past, who traversed the red desert long before steel tracks and steam engines. To drill the point home, the sides of several carriages had been emblazoned with a red silhouette of a man in a turban atop a camel.

While the name and logo might have attested to an adventurous spirit, the days of sweat and grit were long gone. The train had been overhauled with comfort, luxury and arthritis in mind—it was now a world-renowned tourist destination, an opulent hotel on rails. Over the course of four days and three nights, we were to travel from Darwin to Adelaide, with off-train excursions in the pristine wilderness of Nitmiluk National Park, the underground township of Coober Pedy, and the red center of Australia, Alice Springs. It was both a unique and an extravagant setting for a literary festival, and half the reason I’d agreed to come was that I’d never be able to afford the trip on my own: tickets didn’t just run into the thousands of dollars, they sprinted.

If that was half the reason, another quarter was the hope that four days immersed in literary conversations might spark something in me. That the muse might leap out from behind the bar just as I was clinking glasses with Henry McTavish himself, who never did public events anymore, and my new novel would crack wide open. I’d gush the idea at Henry, because we’d be on a first-name basis by then, of course, and he’d raise his glass and say, “Aye, I wish I’d thought of that one, laddie.”

Writing out my preposterous hopes for the journey here gives me the same shameful chill as seeing old social media photos—Did I really post that?—not least because of the horrifically cliché Scottish brogue I’d superimposed onto McTavish before I’d even met him. I think it’s obvious that McTavish and I would not wind up on a first-name basis. Though my inspiration would still come from a drink with him, in a way, so maybe I’m clairvoyant after all.

Also, I’m aware that my motivation only adds up to three quarters—half financial, a quarter creative—as my sharp-eyed editor has duly mentioned. She’s similarly pointed out that my number of writers doesn’t match those on the train—I said seven will board—but that’s, like, a whole thing. Juliette’s a writer too, remember. I promise I can add. I’ve always found fractions a little more difficult, but trust me, we’ll get to the other quarter.

Simone was still surveying the crowd for her other client. Around a hundred people were milling about on the platform, but I couldn’t tell which were the writers, or, given the festival was only using a few of the carriages, even the difference between the festival punters and the regular tourists. The staff, who were all wearing red-and-white striped shirts and camel-emblazoned polar-fleece vests, had started shepherding different groups of people to different areas of the platform. A young woman, shy enough of twenty to not look it in the eye, was panting and running her palms down her front as if they were steam irons, in the midst of apologizing to a man I assumed was her supervisor by the way he looked at his watch. I couldn’t hear the apology, but groveling has a universal sign language.

A hostess with a clipboard approached us.

“Cunningham,” I said, watching her pen trawl the list of names.

Simone gave hers over my shoulder, but then added, “It might be under Gemini’s rooms, though.”

“Cabin O-three,” Clipboard said to me. “Easy to remember: it’s oxygen!”

“Ozone,” I offered instead, given that oxygen was actually O₂.

“Correct, you are in the O zone!” Clipboard chirped.

Behind me, Juliette disguised a laugh as a sneeze. Clipboard either didn’t notice or didn’t care; she pointed her pen at Simone and said, “P-one. But enter through O. I’ll warn you though, it’s a bit of a leg,” before scurrying off to the next group.

“I’ll see you later.” Simone waved us away, her head still on a swivel.

“I think the warning about the distance was for the older clientele,” I suggested as Juliette and I strode over to the nearest carriage. We were among the youngest there by a couple of decades. “We can handle walking the length of a train.”

I was quickly humbled. The carriage in front of us was marked A. To our right, the iconic red engine cars, two huge locomotives. To our left, the train bent away so I couldn’t even see the end. I put it down, incorrectly, to curvature over distance: I was about to learn that the train ran to nearly a kilometer. So our walk was one of slowly creeping dejection, as we passed seven more carriages—including luggage, crew, restaurant and bars—and weren’t even a vowel ahead.

Around G, a throaty growl thrummed in the air, and for a second the fear that the train was leaving kicked us into a jog. Then I saw a green Jaguar cut across the car park and over the curb, parking directly alongside the train, gouging thick rivets in the grass. Given the indulgence, I expected Henry McTavish to step out, but instead a spindly-limbed man emerged. He had hair that was impossibly both wild and balding, fairy floss in a hurricane, and a long, thin frame that made his movements angular and jerky, like he belonged in one of those old-fashioned clay stop-motion films. I decided he looked like the type of character who owns a gas station and tells the nubile young holiday-goers that there’s a shortcut through the desert, imminent cannibals and various other nasty murdering sorts be damned, and said as much to Juliette.

“That’s Wolfgang, actually. And I think he’s going more for eccentric genius than lecherous imp,” she said.

That did twig some recognition. Wolfgang—singular, like Madonna, Prince or even Elmo—was the prestige writer of the group, the one who’d been short-listed for the Commonwealth Book Prize. Pedigree aside, I’d been surprised he was appearing at the festival as his books didn’t generally sit in the crime genre. I supposed his rhyming verse novel retelling of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood was his qualification.

“Clearly his books do all right,” Juliette added, raising an eyebrow as the Jaguar grumbled back off to the road. “Better than ours, anyway.”

I agreed; my royalties were more around the hatchback level. Secondhand.

We ducked and weaved around photographers as we got to L—people were taking selfies up against the red camel, or panoramic vistas of the length of the train—and marveled at how so many of the travelers were equipped with almost comically large telescopic lenses, near unbalanced by the weight of them, looking like untruthful Pinocchios as they raised those whoppers to eye level. In terms of magnification, the Hubble telescope hasn’t got squat on a gray nomad’s luggage compartment.

By carriage N we had broken a sweat. Sunrise had finally cracked like an egg yolk over the top of the train, and our shadows stretched long across the platform. A whoosh of air buffeted us from behind, and a golf cart overtook us, Simone hanging out the side, blue scarf flapping in the wind, looking like a frat boy smashing letter boxes from his mate’s car. The cart came to a stop in front of us at the door to O and she hopped out, clearly catching my bemusement but shrugging it off by saying, “What? That’s what they’re there for. You’ve got to get used to the first-class travel perks, Ern.”

Another clipboard-wielding staffer had produced a miniature staircase and was helping people up it and into the carriage, as the platform was level with the tracks. Beside the doors on each carriage was a series of rungs, a ladder that led to the roof. I’d love to tell you I get through the book without ascending these, but we both know Chekhov’s gun applies to both mantelpieces and ladders.

We joined the queue. Wolfgang was ahead of us, given his shortcut, and I wondered if that was who Simone had been waiting for.

She must have sensed I was thinking about her, as she turned. “Just get it over with, whatever you’re about to ask.”

“I wasn’t . . . How do you . . .” I hesitated. I had been thinking of asking her something since she’d surprised me on the platform, but I was nowhere near committing to doing it.

“You’ve taken three sharp breaths in, as if you’re about to speak, and then fizzled out. You sound like a teenager trying to ask someone out on a date. So stop whistling in my ear like a kettle and just get on with it.”

“Well.” I cleared my throat, slightly annoyed because I’m supposed to do the Sherlockian deductions in these books—they are my books after all. “I wanted to ask you a favor.”

“You know you pay me, right? Favors are for friends.”

“It’s work,” I said. “But I’m stung you don’t think we’re friends.”

“BFFs. Just don’t ask me to help you move house. Out with it.”

“He’s hoping you can introduce him to Henry McTavish.” Juliette, as ever, came to my rescue with her directness. “You used to work for him, right?”

“You’ve done your research.” Simone seemed both impressed at Juliette’s knowledge and a little annoyed to have her mystique pulled back to something as simplistic as a CV. “I was his editor, way back. Somehow landed on his first book doing a year over in the UK with Gemini as some kind of publisher’s exchange program. He pinched me over to work for him directly. Real shit-kicker of a gig.” She chuckled, then turned back to me. “Fan of the Scot, are you?”

She sounded, or perhaps I was imagining it, slightly disappointed. I’m still learning about the book world and my place in it, but even I knew then that McTavish was the sourest-tasting word in publishing—popular. It’s the paradox of authorhood: apparently if you’re good enough to be popular, you’re too popular to be any good.

“A little,” I lied. McTavish was my favorite living writer. His fictional detective, Detective Morbund, is as close to a modern-day Holmes or Poirot as they come. He’s the type of character who solves the case in chapter 2 and hangs onto it until the end, only dragging it out to unspool everyone’s lies. He’d have solved this murder already, even though it hasn’t happened yet.

“You don’t need me for that. You’re on a panel together,” Simone said. “You’ll meet.”

“I was hoping you might have the inside track. For a blurb.”

The word blurb dropped out of my lips like a grenade. A blurb is an endorsement that a publisher can use for marketing, or even put on a cover. The more famous the person on your cover is, the better for marketing (and, let’s be honest, the ego). I’m grateful to an excellent mystery writer named Jane Harper for going on the cover of my first book, and I was hoping McTavish might come through for the second. Even though, granted, I hadn’t written it yet.

Simone snorted. “Henry doesn’t blurb.”

“I just thought—”

“Blurb. No. Go.” She put a hand on my shoulder and, surprisingly, softened. “Focus on something more productive. You don’t need to hunt blurbs for a book you haven’t written yet. You’ve got four days of sitting around—use them. Get some words down.”

“Soooo.” Juliette wrinkled her nose comically. “If we’re still doing favors, is now a bad time to ask you to help move that couch?”

I was grateful to Juliette for knowing exactly what the situation called for, and the laugh headed off the inevitable awkwardness. My hand subconsciously went to my pocket and found comfort in a small felt box I had in there.

There you go: the missing quarter. My motivations for this luxurious, creative and hopefully romantic getaway are all added up now.

More people joined the queue behind us. The fledgling sun passed behind a cloud, and the sweat we’d worked up from the walk settled icily on our necks. Juliette shivered. Simone noticed, uncurled her scarf and held it out. “Here you are, love.”

Juliette took it and started wrapping it around her neck, mouthing a quick thanks just as Simone was called to the front of the queue.

At the top of the stairs, she turned back as if she’d just had a thought. “Try five thousand words by the end of the trip. That’s just a thousand and spare change a day.”

“It’s more than just the words. It’s the whole . . . fiction thing,” I complained weakly. “I don’t just make these things up. People, sort of, have to die.”

Juliette, behind me, said, “I’ll keep him to schedule.”

“Blue suits you,” Simone said, appraising Juliette’s wearing of her scarf, then to me, “I guess I’ll just cross my fingers and hope for a murder, shall I?”

Then she disappeared into the belly of the train.

Chapter 3

I should introduce you to Juliette Henderson.

We didn’t have the most romantic of starts, dead bodies aside. Our meet cute was me, a woefully underprepared city driver trying to get to a ski resort, and her, pulling over to help in the slush and mud. It turns out that she owned that very resort, and, even though I wound up having a hand in destroying it, we managed to get on quite well through the media frenzy that followed. Most people who read my first book are surprised we’re dating. “I was so sure she was the killer!” they say. I think she’s quite proud of that.

Juliette’s a head taller than I am, with legs that belong on skis, knees that have paid the price for it (at only forty-one, she clicks like the Wheel of Fortune), and the freckled, often sunburned cheeks of a life enjoyed outdoors. She wound up selling the resort’s land for a whopping sum of money and used her newfound time to write her own book about the events there. She’s comfortable enough to never have to work again, but she insists she’s not retired, she’s just waiting for her next adventure. That’s what she says when I ask her if she misses the mountain, anyway.

It’s hard to say whether surviving a book tour or surviving a serial killer is the more arduous task, but given we’d gotten through both together over the last fifteen months, we’d fallen quite hard for one another. From the moment she first helped me affix tire chains to my slippery wheels, she’s kept me on track. It’s a pretty good result, seeing as we didn’t exchange names until after the first murder.

And yes, I am proud of those lines, even if they are a bit cheesy. I’d written them down in advance, not for any book, but so I could memorize them to use alongside that little felt box in my pocket.

Inside carriage O, we funneled single file down a corridor that was tighter than I’d expected. Two-way traffic wasn’t an option, and I’d learn that, should anyone be coming the other way, it was best to duck into the little kitchenette (which stocked not only tea, coffee and a kettle, but also an axe in a fire emergency glass case, and a handle that said To Stop Train Pull Handle Down) and wait for them to cross. The corridor had fake wooden paneling atop an emerald-green carpet. The cabin doors, five in our carriage, were to one side and there were wide, hip-to-ceiling-height windows to the other. I’d learn that the rooms alternated sides between carriages, which I’m mentioning here because it’s kind of important. The cabins in the “O Zone,” in which most of the authors were staying, were on the west side of the train.

The cabin itself was tight but comfortable. A large plush seat, lime colored and about the size of a three-person couch, filled one half of the room. This would be converted into a bed at the appropriate hour, and I could see the handles on the wall behind the seat where I assumed the top bunk came out. The bunks were singles and squeezed close enough together that sitting up quickly or a little friskiness would be rewarded with a bumped head. Not a lot of space for romance.

“No locks on any of the doors,” Juliette said, wriggling the handle, perhaps thinking the same as I was. “Must be a safety feature.”

With the benefit of hindsight, I can tell you that there aren’t locks on many doors in the whole of the Ghan, except for the toilets (there was one public toilet in our section), the Chairman’s Carriage and, assumedly, the driver’s compartment. If you’re hoping for a locked-room mystery, this isn’t it. Everyone’s room was open for anyone to come and go as they pleased.

Our cabin also had a small closet, inside which was a mini-safe and a vanity mirror, as well as a small nook at floor level for our bags (we’d only been permitted hand luggage in the cabins). Even with minimal baggage, navigating the remaining floor space did require a bit of a tango with two adults. The bathroom reminded me of an airplane’s toilet, everything measured perfectly enough that the toilet seat lid lifted within one millimeter of the sink, and the door brushed both as it opened. Unlike a plane, however, there was no need for a screen or a television in the main cabin: a large window, showcasing the country we were crossing, would be our entertainment.

On the seat was a pamphlet, which I picked up. It was the program for the festival, all the guests listed on one side and the schedule of activities on the other. I was aghast to realize that for festival guests the regular off-train excursions—the crystal waters of Katherine Gorge, the red-dirt hiking of Alice Springs—had been replaced by “conversations” on board. Though it looked like we still got to explore the subterranean opal-mining city of Coober Pedy, which was a relief.

I scanned the names and tried to absorb them. I’d already encountered Wolfgang, whose bio was of too high a literary pedigree to include the phrase “he lives in the Blue Mountains with his partner and two dogs” and contained a list of awards so dense they’d had to shrink the font just to squeeze his entry in. I knew Henry McTavish’s work. The other three were Lisa Fulton, who wrote legal thrillers; Alan Royce, who wrote forensics-based crime; and S. F. Majors, who wrote psychological thrillers and lived in the Blue Mountains with her partner and two dogs.

“You can have the view,” Juliette said. She fumbled underneath the window until she found a latch and flicked up a small table that had been folded to the wall. She gestured to it with a magician’s flourish: “Ta-da! Those thousand words don’t stand a chance.”

Even her good spirits couldn’t lift my funk, but I appreciated her attempt enough to put on the performance of taking out my laptop and notebook and setting them up by the window. Juliette took a seat by the door and started flipping through an advance copy of S. F. Majors’s new psychological thriller, which she’d been asked to blurb. It seemed a deliberate attempt to block me from conversation, and so I took the hint and opened my notebook.

To tell you the truth, the notes I did have were scant. While I’d studied all the rules of successful mystery fiction, I had no shape of plot or character on which to apply them. Last time I’d just written down what happened. Now I had to come up with it all from, God forbid, my own brain. The only thing I’d written in my notebook was a list of structural notes: what needed to happen in each section of the book, and at which stage of the word count these events should happen.

My list was:

10,000 words: Introduce characters, victims and suspects

20,000 words: Explore motives (note: 90% of clues to solve the crime already present)

30,000 words: MURDER

40,000 words: Suspects identified, investigated, interviews

50,000 words: Red herrings + character development (romance?)

60,000 words: A second murder

70,000 words: Action scene? (must include: ALL IS LOST moment)

80,000 words: Mystery solved

I’d broken it down like that in the hope that it might not seem so intimidating in smaller pieces. The last time Simone had checked in on my progress, I’d actually been confident enough to email it off to her, and she’d emailed back Great idea, back to basics, which seemed at the time more like an endorsement and less like the put-down that it probably was. But now, my list only reminded me of the volume of words ahead. Eighty thousand of the pesky things. I’d need to catch a hundred trains.

I took a deep breath, turned to a new page and wrote: Setting: Train.

Then beneath it, I wrote: Been done before. Obviously.

If you’re wondering, we’re a smidge over six thousand words thus far, which leaves me three and a half to ensure you’ve met everyone you need to: victims, killers and suspects. But instead I’m wasting time, writing about how I’m staring at a blank page, worried about wasting time. Nothing for it but to get started. No distractions.

My phone rang.

Just quickly: if you’re expecting this sequel to be replete with returning characters, you’ve got the wrong book. I get it, it’s nice and tidy when all the favorites come back for the sequel, but this is real life. How implausible would it be if all of my surviving extended family simply found themselves at the center of another murder mystery? It’s unlucky enough—or lucky if you ask Simone’s checkbook—that it’s happened to me twice, let alone the rest of them. I’m on good terms with my ex-wife, Erin, but we’re more casual acquaintances these days than a crime-solving duo. My mother, Audrey, my stepfather, Marcelo, and my stepsister, Sofia, would hardly be enthused by the prospect of sitting on a train for a week. They’re at a wedding in Spain actually. To be honest, if they wouldn’t mind doing me a favor and stumbling on a murder there, I could use the trip and the tax deduction for another book.

My point is: real life doesn’t have cameos.

I picked up the phone. It was my uncle Andy.

You need to know a few things about Andy. The first is that he’s a horticulturist, which means his job is to grow grass on football fields. Perhaps in contrast to the slowness of his job, he’s keen to make fast friendships and tends to reflect back the personality of whoever he’s talking to rather than being himself, in the hope it will make him more appealing. Unfortunately this often only succeeds in making him the loudest voice with the least conviction. He is, suitably to his profession, a man often trodden on.

He’s also a man who believes that youth is a fish that can be reeled back in. We’d recently thought he might have come to terms with his vintage (midfifties)—he’d at last shaved off his terrible goatee—but that hope was quickly dashed when he emerged with his hair bleached platinum blond. We’d all bitten our lips, except Sofia, never short of a barb, who’d asked what had frightened him so much.

I answered the video call to a nearly medical insight into Andy’s nostrils. I rolled my eyes at Juliette while he fumbled with the camera. The picture spun blurrily, the scuffling sounds masking a hushed argument happening just off-mic, the snipes no doubt coming from my aunt Katherine.

Katherine is my late father’s little sister. A wild youth had been transformed by a tragic accident into an uptight adulthood. She’s a stickler for rules: her star sign may as well be School Principal. She roots for the umpires and is the type of person who says, with a completely straight face, “How could you forget? It’s in the calendar.”

Katherine is at her happiest when she’s got something to fix, so Andy, who has the unfortunate affliction of doing most things incorrectly, really is the perfect match for her.

Another thing you need to know about Andy is that he wasn’t too happy with how he was portrayed in the first book. He’s adamant that I made him look like a bumbling airhead and he had more of a role in piecing together the mystery than I gave him credit for. He accused me of emasculating him, a word he repeated so often I was fairly sure both that it was new to him and that Katherine had taught him what it meant. He’d especially taken aim at a passage in which I’d referred to him as a terrifically boring man. I’d pointed out that technically I’d called him terrific, but even he wasn’t falling for that one. So I’ll try to do a bit better this time.

“Ernest! How are you, buddy?” Andy said, handsomely.

“We’ve just boarded the Ghan.” I spun the camera so he could see the cabin. “Just waiting to set off.”

Andy whistled. “You’re a lucky sod, mate. I’d love to go one day. I don’t know if you know this”—he lowered his voice, like it was a secret—“but I’m considered a bit of an amateur ferroequinologist myself.”

It’s rare that Andy’s vocabulary bamboozles me, but that was a word I had to look up later. It’s a decidedly languid way of saying one has an interest in “iron horses,” aka trains. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Andy, to whom the length of grass is a passion, was also a fan of trains.

“What NR class is it hauling? I assume about one point five tons?”

“I’ve got to be honest, Andy, I haven’t understood a single thing you’ve said. I think you might have confessed to being a feral entomologist.”

“Fer-ro—” He started to sound out the word, but then there was some chatter in the background, some measure of get to the point, and he cleared his throat.

“Hi, Katherine!” I yelled, so she’d hear me off screen.

“I’m calling in a professional capacity,” Andy said. This concerned me immediately; Andy and I have no professional association whatsoever. “I’ve got this client, and I’m hoping you might provide a consult.”

“I don’t know much about football fields.”

“No, it’s a different kind of client. It’s a mystery. You’re good at those.”

Client. Mystery. Those words were more baffling than ferroequinologist. What he was trying to tell me slowly dawned.

“Andy,” I said. “Please tell me you haven’t . . .”

“I quit! I was sick of all the—”

Grass, I mouthed at Juliette, who snorted.

“—bureaucracy. The point is, I’ve got other options now, seeing as I solved all those murders up at the snow.”

“Andy, I solved those murders.”

“Well, we solved them together. Despite what you said in your book. Right?” He grimaced in an appeal for my agreement.

I remained stoic.

“And people were interested in what was next for me, you know. If I might be able to help them.”

“Please don’t tell me you started up a—”

“My own agency! It’s called Andy Solves It!” He beamed. “I’ve always wanted to be a detective.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“Well, private investigator.”

“Don’t you need a license or something?”

“Do I?”

I didn’t know. I’d never looked into it. Juliette, who’d been eavesdropping, held out her phone. She’d found the web page for Andy Solves It!, the words splayed in a gigantic bubble font like it was a toy store. Beneath them was a photo of Andy wearing a fedora, an unlit cigar between his lips. I scrolled, scanning over the description, which read, World renowned for solving the Cunningham family murders, let Andy help you with your problems today! We solve the unsolvable!

“So I’ve got this client, and I’m a bit stuck. And Katherine said—”

“Andy.” I shook my head. “This is a bad idea.”

“I knew you’d say that.” Turning away from the screen, he said, “I knew he’d say that!” He tsked, then faced me again. “I don’t even know why she thinks I need your help. I’ve already solved a kidnapping.”

“Really?” I did a terrible job masking my surprise.

“Well, it was a dog. But I tracked it down. Jilted lover.”

“It’s always the jilted lover,” Juliette and I said in unison.

“Who wrote this biography on your site?” I scrolled past it again. “It’s terrible.”

“Robots, man. They can do anything.”

“I’m not trying to tear you down, but have you really thought this through?” I asked.

Andy bristled. “I suppose you’re the only one allowed to make money out of all those deaths? I was there too, you know. But I’m supposed to go to therapy and deal with my trauma quietly, and you’re allowed to write these big books, and cash checks and be on TV and go on trains—”

His final complaint felt small compared to the others, and I wasn’t so much “cashing checks” as counting coins, but I had to admit he was right. I had processed my grief and trauma publicly, and even though the real reason I wrote it all down was to remember it, and them, in a way that ink and paper only can, I had indeed made a small amount of money from it. If Andy wanted to cash in on some infamy, deluded or not, I’d be a hypocrite to disagree.

“Okay,” I acquiesced. “This client . . .”

“I knew you wouldn’t let me down!” The video jolted like an earthquake had hit it, and I realized Andy was doing a fist pump. “So there’s this old lady, right, and she’s like a florist or whatever and someone broke into her shop. I need to know who did it.”

“Okay.”

“Great.” Andy grinned expectantly. “Soooooo . . .”

“That was a digestive okay, not an I-know-who-did-it okay.”

“Okay,” Andy said.

I want to note here, as I write this out, that Andy is making it very difficult to paint him in a better light than in the first book.

“Look, Andy, I can’t just tell you who committed a crime without anything to go on. First of all, you need a list of suspects.”

Andy looked down, off-camera, and I could tell he was writing something. “That’s a good idea,” he mumbled.

“You don’t have any suspects?”

“I mean, there are a lot of potential—”

“The population of metropolitan Sydney is not a list of potential suspects, Andrew.”

“It’s interstate,” Andy said proudly. “I’ve always wanted to go to Tasmania. Plus, I get expenses!”

“You are ripping off this woman,” I said. I heard him suck his teeth, decided I’d rubbed it in enough, and hastily added, “What about clues?”

I heard the scratch as he wrote something down again. I imagined a big yellow legal pad with the words Crime Solving: To Do scrawled across the top and, underneath, the words Suspects and Evidence. I hoped the old lady hadn’t paid a deposit.

“I mean, I interviewed her,” Andy said at last. “She was a bit shaken up and all, but her husband was much more helpful.” He paused. “Hang on. Maybe it was her brother.”

“There’s a big difference between husband and brother, Andy. You need to be specific. Words are important.”

Any mystery writer will tell you that word choice is crucial. A story changes drastically if you replace the word husband with the word brother, and while it might have made the scene of his domestic burglary more salacious, he was better off getting it right. Given we’re on the topic of word choice: Andy’s client was a botanist, not a florist. While it might be picky of me to point this out, there’s a big difference between an incestuous florist and an elderly botanist, and I did promise you accuracy.

“Let’s start with something easier,” I said. “What’s her name?”

“Uh . . .” Andy clicked his teeth as he searched for a note somewhere. “Poppy,” he said eventually, which is, in fact, not her name. Details.

“Okay, so Poppy—”

“Now, was her name Poppy or did she sell poppies?”

“Andy—”

“Or maybe it’s—”

“Maybe her name’s Poppy and she sells poppies.”

“Yes, that’s what I was saying . . .” Having a conversation with Andy is sometimes like watching a hurdler barge through all the hurdles without jumping and drag the wooden planks along: no matter the obstacle, he trudges on. “But the weird thing is, you should see the security on this place. Security cameras, keypads—man, it’s a fortress. For a florist!” Reminder: botanist. “Weird, right?”

“You think the security is there for something else? That the burglar was after whatever that was?”

“That’s my working theory.” He looked pretty proud of himself, or, at least, the inside of his nostrils did. I had to agree, it wasn’t a bad piece of reasoning, or evidence gathering. He’d successfully jumped over one hurdle. “That . . . or it’s like a flower fetish. Like a sex thing.”

I take it back: hurdles still clanked around his ankles.

“I’ve solved it then,” I said bluntly.

He lit up. “Really?”

“No, Andy. Suspects and evidence. Ask some questions. Call me back when you know, for a start, the victim’s actual name. Then I’ll try and help.”

As I hung up, the seat beneath me jolted and a long slow groan came up through the floor as the wheels ground to life for a few inches. A voice crackled through an intercom, which I realized was embedded in the roof. Juliette looked up from her book.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard the Ghan. We’ll be departing Berrimah in fifteen minutes. Please join us in the lounge for a welcome, the chance to meet your hosts, and for tea and coffee at your leisure. And may we extend a very special welcome to the Australian Mystery Writers’ Festival, joining us on board for their fiftieth anniversary. Let’s keep the murders to a minimum, please.”

“Good title,” Juliette said, pulling on a sweater and picking up Simone’s blue scarf. “Keep the Murders to a Minimum.”

“Speaking of minimums—I wrote a few words. Break?” I said, knowing I hadn’t earned one.

Juliette had the good sense not to ask just how honest I was being with my definition of few. She nodded and I stood up, but she blocked me from the door. She put both hands on my shoulders, leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.

“I know you’re stressed. First of all, I think you need to stop worrying about McTavish. Don’t worry about some stupid blurb. Think about that after you’ve written the book. Speaking of—trust me, it’ll come.”

I was surprised to find my face warming, neck flushed. Staring at a blank page can make you feel alone; I wasn’t prepared for how affecting it was simply to have someone tell me I wasn’t. I nodded.

She shook me gently. “And if it doesn’t, that’s okay too. You can spend these four days staring out the window if you like. Or you can spend them writing. But we’re spending them together. So keep the moping to a minimum, huh?”

I nodded, managing to croak out, “Thanks for the pep talk.”

“Purely selfish.” She smiled. “If you’re going to be a melancholy sod the whole trip, it’s going to be a long four days. Because once this hunk of metal starts moving, we’re trapped on it.”

Chapter 4

We joined a throng of people moving slowly through the single-file corridor, which felt more like a queue for a post office than the start of a holiday. In the next carriage along, the bloke in front of us patted his pockets and looked forlornly back at his cabin door, only meters away, before accepting that the current was against him. I recognized it as the same look Juliette gives me every time we reverse out of the driveway at home. That’s not sexist, by the way; I refuse to be the male protagonist who makes snide remarks about his girlfriend’s forgetfulness. I mention it because it’s a plot point.

After two more accommodation carriages, the corridor opened up to the bar. It was the most spacious carriage so far: hip-height maroon and brown booths ringed the walls, alongside select pairs of swivel chairs and, further toward the end, bar stools, all bolted in place to suit the train’s motion. The bar itself looked like one you’d find in a speakeasy, a wood-paneled front, racks of spirits behind and hanging glasses above. Juliette, anticipating the popularity of the seats, snagged us two chairs by the east-facing window, a slash of sunlight and a tiny table no bigger than a paperback between us. Everything was three-quarter size in keeping with the train’s space-saving design—the seat edge sat beneath my thighs instead of my knees, which wasn’t to say it was uncomfortable, but it did make me feel like I was visiting a hobbit.

As the carriage continued to fill, I was glad of our seats. The air was thick with voices: the lulling murmur of general conversation mixed with the slightly higher-pitched tone of overenthusiastic introductions: So nice to meet you! Over it all, a coffee machine behind the bar whined with a rickety tiredness that sounded like it had not properly anticipated servicing a carriage full of writers for half a week. On the liquor shelf, I spied a three-quarters-empty bottle of vodka that was similarly underprepared.

Juliette draped the blue scarf over the back of her chair and headed to the bar to snag us coffees. There was quite a line, and the girl serving—the one who’d been self-ironing with her palms on the platform—seemed quite overwhelmed.

I looked around at the rest of the clientele. I figured our O carriage was the middle of three between the bar and the back of the train (as P was further to the back and we’d walked through N), which would fit about thirty people, though I also noticed people entering the carriage from the bar end, which implied there were cabins toward the engines and maybe doubled the attendance. Subtracting the six festival writers and their guests didn’t leave much of an audience. That it was the festival’s fiftieth anniversary was probably an excuse for the excess, as this was clearly not a traditional event that relied on ticket sales. Perhaps that was also how the festival had gotten away with setting up in such an expensive location: attendees had been promised an intimacy not usually catered for at events. Meals, drinks and socializing with the writers: the chance for everyone to let their hair down together. This would wind up being true—if you counted both being murdered and murdering as letting one’s hair down—so at least everyone would get their money’s worth.

I tried to weigh up the attendees, to better gauge how the rest of my long weekend was likely to play out, or, more specifically, which wannabe—embittered by years of rejection from publishers, clutching a coffee-stained handwritten manuscript and ready to spring it on you at any time—was best avoided. The carriage had a celebratory air to it, the pre-disembarkment holiday excitement that accompanies the phrase It’s five o’clock somewhere and a glass of champagne that you don’t really want but got anyway because it feels like an adequate signpost that you’re up for a good time. It was still before breakfast, but that didn’t matter to most. Holidays are, after all, mostly extravagant charades with which to justify an addiction. A group of three silver-haired women who’d staked out a booth clinked glasses amid cheering and laughter that seemed to prove my theory.

According to my structural cheat sheet, in order to play fair I’m running out of words left to introduce victim(s), killer(s) and suspects, and I fear I’m coming up short on at least two categories. So I’ll take the opportunity to whip around the carriage now.

Given I didn’t recognize all the writers yet, the only linking characteristic I could find was people’s choice of beverage: caffeine or champagne. So I’ll start there.

Champagne:

A man, older but not elder, seated in a two-seater across from me—gold-rimmed glasses and beard flecked with equal parts orange and gray—had one glass of bubbles in hand, another full flute in front of the vacant seat across from him.

S. F. Majors, whom I recognized from her photograph in Juliette’s advance copy, was dressed in a light gray pantsuit, with black hair pulled tightly back into a ponytail—looking better dressed for court than a holiday, and far too serious for the undrunk bubbles in her hand.

A woman with a brunette bob and a blouse adorned with native flowers was playing on her phone, squeezed onto the end seat in the booth of the ribald senior ladies and doing her best to ignore them. From the effort she was making to keep to herself, I pegged her as a writer: Lisa Fulton, by process of elimination.

Coffee:

An eager-eyed, spindly-limbed man, somewhere in his forties, whose shoulders had an IT worker’s computer hunch that threatened to swallow his head like a tortoiseshell, was surveying the room, pointing out each writer to a woman. The woman had her curly hair in a messy bun, two tendrils hanging beside her cheeks like a picture frame, and I assumed she was his similarly aged wife by her obliging yet uncaring nod, as if he were explaining to her the backstories of Star Wars figurines. He was an easy addition to the fan category.

A woman who looked far too young to enjoy or afford such a trip stirred a spoon idly through her cappuccino while reading a paperback copy of Stephen King’s Misery. I assumed at first she must have been a university student but gave her the benefit of the doubt of having a youthful face and landed on thinking she was probably a graduate publicist, because she’d chosen a work-safe nonalcoholic option and was wearing a T-shirt that said A nod’s as guid as a wink tae a blind horse, which associated her directly with McTavish’s Detective Morbund novels.

A short, stocky man wearing colorful suspenders, definitely a writer based on the quirky outfit alone, but also because he was scribbling in a notebook, was most likely Alan Royce.

And fitting into neither category was Wolfgang, standing on his own in a little alcove by the bar, holding a glass of blood-red wine that he kept sniffing unhappily.

I spied Juliette delicately carrying two rattling coffees back to our table. Of the remaining expected attendees, Simone hadn’t made the effort to attend—meet-and-greets not really being her style—which made Juliette’s bringing her scarf pointless. Neither could I see Henry McTavish. I was confident in my naming of both Alan Royce and Lisa Fulton as the ones keeping to themselves in groups of one or two and who, like me, had a look on their face that was half sizing up the rest of the room and half trying to decide if there was still time to leave the train.

I fear I’m going to break my own rule here. Mystery books like these are only fair if all the cards are on the table from the start, so to speak, and I haven’t managed to properly introduce everyone by my self-imposed limitation of the first ten thousand words, which is here. Someone important has just missed out.

I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Your book did well,” said a man in his sixties, not towering but tall enough to be looming over me in my hobbit seat, the same man who had patted his pockets on leaving his cabin. He was well dressed in a dinner jacket and leather shoes, an open collar and a loosened navy silk tie. His accent was imported—English—and he spoke with a belief that volume was equal to meaning. Which, for a man who seemed to believe everything he had to say was important, means loud.

I’ve found that people sometimes talk about how your book’s doing if they don’t want to give you a direct compliment. It sounds like a compliment, but it’s just an observation. There’s a difference between You look nice today and So I hear you’re a model, for example. I didn’t like the way he’d said it—almost leering, mocking.

“I’m very pleased it’s found an audience,” I said, choosing humility instead of matching his aggression. “I’m sorry”—I held out my hand—“I don’t think we’ve met?”

“You’re Simone’s boy, aren’t you?”

“Ernest,” I said, choosing not to be Simone’s property.

“Yeah. Ernest.” It was as if he was agreeing that my name was, in fact, what it was. He glanced around the carriage, muttering. His sentences had a way of cascading over one another, the oven between thought and speech undercooking everything: he spoke in first drafts. “Good numbers. Well published. She’s not here?”

I realized he was looking at her blue scarf, draped across the empty seat. He’d recognized it. “Oh. No, we’re giving that back to her.”

“Okay. Well, while I’m here . . .” He paused, leaned down and lowered his voice. “Look, I’d like to take the opportunity to apologize about our little . . . indiscretion.”

“I don’t think we’ve met.” I waved it off, confused. “No need for apologies.”

“I mean, it’s not polite. But it’s not really something we can police, you agree? And I figure we’re all adults. Right? And your book’s—well, it’s not for everybody. On the plus side, I’ve always been telling him to interact more online. So I guess this is a start.”

I still wasn’t sure what the apology was for, but this was certainly on the low end of apologies I’d accepted.

He sneezed, wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Allergies,” he said apologetically. It was a much better apology than the one he was trying to give.

“I’m really sorry, but”—I pointed to my chest—“I’m Ernest Cunningham, and my list of beefs is rather small. So unless you’re the guy who backed into my car two weeks ago, for which following me here would seem excessive for an apology, I think we’re probably square.” I noticed Juliette had been caught in conversation with Majors, and wished she’d hurry up and rescue me.

“Course. I should introduce myself.” He straightened his tie, sniffed again. His eyes were slightly bloodshot. If I’m honest, he looked like he was coming down off something, and not just a high horse. Finally he took my hand and shook it. “Wyatt Lloyd. I own Gemini Publishing. I publish—”

Suddenly there was a commotion from the bar. “It’s all-inclusive, isn’t it?” a man shouted in a vaguely Scottish accent. “If I want the bottle, just give me the bottle.”

I could only see the tweed-shouldered, heavyset back of the speaker, but the tone of the command, of someone quite used to asking people if they knew who he was, gave me an idea: here was the festival’s biggest draw, Henry McTavish.

“—I publish that,” Wyatt said, turning to the ruckus and raising his eyebrows. “You don’t have any antihistamines on you, do you?” He fossicked a small white packet from his pocket. “Jasper gave me these, but they’re rubbish.”

I looked at the branding. “Well, that’s because those are for seasickness, not hay fever.”

“Damn.” He sneezed again, then cocked his head back to the argument at the bar. “I better go sort it out. Glad we could smooth this over. And if you see Simone”—his head was on a swivel—“tell her I’m looking for her.”

Still having no idea what we’d smoothed over, I settled on smiling sagely, while feeling, admittedly, quite wrinkled. I felt more out of place than ever, because if I really belonged here, I should have known—as Simone had clearly expected—who Wyatt was. I did know Gemini Publishing was a big deal, based in the UK but with an Australian outfit. They’d pretty much built their business publishing McTavish. Their other authors—Royce, for one—had been dragged into prominence by association. And I now know that Wyatt, who’d discovered McTavish, had risen to co-own the company off the back of it. He had taken the time to come over and talk to me, and I’d responded by cracking jokes? By shrugging him off? I replayed the conversation in my head, feeling (irrationally, because I had my own publisher already) like I’d blown it somehow. I was clearly still figuring out how to play the social politics of being an author.

Wyatt strode off toward the hubbub, where McTavish had just slapped away the hand that a man in a red-camel-emblazoned vest had calmingly placed on his shoulder. I was left with a carriage full of writers and a now completed roll call. Suspects: check. Victims: check. Killer(s?): check.

Chapter 5

Juliette slid into her seat and sucked at her flat white with the relief and thirst of a traveler who’d just crossed the desert. “God,” she said. “I just had to lie to S. F. Majors. Said I’d almost finished her book.” She looked behind her to make sure nobody was close enough to hear. “And that I was enjoying it.”

“Aren’t you?”

“I’ve got no idea. I’ve read like three pages. The writing’s fine, I guess. But I have a sinking feeling it’s got one of those twists where the first-person narrator has been dead the whole time.”

I looked at her, amused. That went against one of the most obvious rules of fair-play mysteries. “No ghosts.”

“I know, right? No bloody ghosts. Psychological thrillers these days don’t have to follow any rules. I shouldn’t have said anything at all, but I was trying to fill the dead air. Now I’m going to have to give her a bloody blurb.” She necked half her coffee in a gulp and closed her eyes for a second. “This place is chaos—McTavish wants an IV of whiskey and that poor girl up the front looks like it’s her first time using a coffee machine. And she is not happy that he is treating her like his personal butler. Sorry I took so long. How was it down here?”

“I met Wyatt Lloyd.” I nodded over at him, in case Juliette didn’t know who he was, but she seemed to understand without needing to look. “McTavish’s publisher.”

“Yeah, I wondered about that when Simone mentioned him before. Four days at a festival seems a bit beneath the pay grade of a bigwig: authors come to him, he doesn’t come to authors.” She shrugged. “Maybe he’s got business with McTavish. What did you talk about?”

“It was so strange, actually.” I grinned. “He apologized.”

“Oh.” Juliette paused, like someone who didn’t get a joke that’s just been told, her cheeks a little tighter than they should have been. Then she read my face and relaxed. “You’re taking it well, then. Very noble of you. That’s a relief.”

“Taking what well?”

Juliette’s cup stopped halfway to her mouth. “Didn’t you just say he apologized?”

“Yeah, that’s what’s so funny about it. It’s absurd.” I felt like a comedian trying desperately to save a crowd, the only choice being to double down on the joke and make something funny by sheer force of will. This was funny, right? “He must have thought I was someone else. I have no idea what he was apologizing for.”

Juliette scratched her forehead and sucked air through her teeth. “You haven’t seen it, have you?”

“Seen what?”

“I’m sorry, Ern, I just didn’t think you were in the right headspace—”

“Right headspace for what?”

A loud clap of hands interrupted us. The staff member who had been defusing McTavish now commanded the attention of the cabin. A stockman’s Akubra hat was snug on his head, hair hanging underneath like vines. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to reveal sinewy muscled forearms, the type that could hold down either a sheep for shearing or a disgruntled alcoholic Scotsman. He waited for the room to settle—the table of rebellious seniors took the longest—and then spread his arms widely.

“Guests,” he began, and I recognized his voice from the intercom, “on behalf of me and my team, I’d like to welcome you to the start of our historic journey aboard the Ghan. I invite you to reflect on the traditional owners of the many lands we will travel through on our journey, including my people, the Arrernte people, whose lands you may know as Alice Springs, and the Larrakia people, on whose land we begin our expedition today.” He paused to a round of applause. “My name’s Aaron and I am your journey director. I hope we’ll get to know each other well over the next four days. I’m here if you need anything, as is Cynthia”—he pointed behind the bar—“who will keep you both caffeinated and intoxicated. So out of the two of us, she’s the one to keep on your side.”

This was met with the half chuckle that meets the basic expectation of a pause and a smile in a formal speech.

“And now for the exciting part. Our end of the train has the special privilege of hosting the Australian Mystery Writers’ Festival’s fiftieth anniversary”—a clap—“for a trip filled with scintillating insights into the minds of some of the country’s best writers.” Clap. “We will be departing momentarily, and the first session, a meet-and-greet panel with all the guest authors, will be held at midday.” He paused again, but the clapping had run out of stamina, and this was welcomed only by the plodding slap of a couple of hands. “But before we start the fun stuff, we will be serving breakfast.” This rejuvenated the applause, with perhaps the most enthusiastic response yet.

“This Writers’ Festival has the run of eight carriages, including this bar, the Queen Adelaide Restaurant and the Chairman’s Carriage, which we have specially borrowed for this trip from our friends at the Indian Pacific. The Ghan today has two locomotives hauling thirty-five carriages, at a length of seven hundred and eighty meters and with a total weight of one thousand four hundred and fifteen tons.”

I expected people to be disappointed by the replacement of breakfast with statistics, so was surprised to hear a murmur through the crowd, one of both interest and opinion, as if several people were scratching their chins and agreeing Yes, I was thinking that was an appropriate weight for the journey, which taught me a lesson about hobbyists I should have already known: everyone’s an expert.

Aaron continued to list off figures, and I quickly realized, from the bent backs and leaned-forward concentration of the guests, that Andy’s fellow ferroequinologists found this dull tirade of data frothingly exciting. “Across our two-thousand-nine-hundred-and-seventy-nine-kilometer journey, we expect to use seventy-five kilograms of barramundi, sixty-two kilograms of cheese, over a thousand bottles of wine”—this got a small cheer from the rambunctious retirees—“and approximately forty thousand liters of fuel.” This was again met with a murmur of definitely educated opinions on the fuel required for the trip, this time with a line of dissent (easy to identify—it’s a semitone lower in a murmur): I would suggest that they could do it in thirty-nine if they optimized the engines.

“I hope they’ve got a coupon,” Juliette whispered, leaning forward.

I snorted, which turned Aaron’s attention, and therefore that of the rest of the room, on us.

“Did we have a question?” He meant it genuinely, but it was impossible to not feel spotlighted.

Juliette’s cheeks flamed. “Oh, sorry. Just a joke.” When Aaron continued smiling gently at us, Juliette added, “I just thought you might need a coupon . . . for the fuel . . . Four cents a liter on forty thousand liters . . . it’s a solid discount.”

Nothing kills a joke’s momentum like overexplanation. Juliette did get a couple of laughs, but I caught one passenger looking aghast at us, as if horrified we dared joke about something so crucial as fuel quantities.

Juliette was saved from any further humiliation by a jolt of the carriage, just violent enough that those standing rocked and gripped the chair backs nearest to them. This was accompanied by the metallic groan of one thousand four hundred tons waking up. The scenery started to roll horizontally past the windows.

“That’s my cue to wrap it up, I suppose. Just one caution—you’re likely to see a bit of smoke occasionally. It might be in the distance, but it might be closer than you’d like. Don’t panic. These bushfires are natural, though, to be fair, deliberately lit.” This drew a little gasp, which he’d clearly hoped for, and he grinned. “Believe it or not, our little arsonist is a bird. A kite bird, to be precise. They hunt down bushfires and pick up flaming sticks, which they fly over and drop in dry patches of grass. Once the area is aflame, they catch the fleeing rodents. So if you see fire, unless it’s on board, nothing to worry about!” Aaron gestured toward the restaurant carriage. “Breakfast is served, at your convenience.”

The hungriest were up quickly, but I was happy to sit for a minute. Now that we’d set off, the spell of the journey had taken hold of me slightly. Watching the chicken-wire fences of Berrimah terminal trundle past, replaced by pristine blue sky and vibrant monsoon-season-flourishing greenery, underpinned by the click-clack of the wheels rolling over the tracks beneath us and piping-hot coffee in hand, I had to admit to feeling the magic. I felt, well, posh.

In fact, I was so charmed, it took me at least another fifteen minutes to remember to ask Juliette what exactly she was hiding from me about Wyatt Lloyd.

Chapter 6

“One star?!”

I almost flung the phone across the table, as if it were a hot coal superheated by the incriminating internet browser I had just opened. On-screen was the Goodreads page for my book, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, where a new review had been posted. The review had a little red star. Just one.

“One bloody star?! Where the hell is he?”

“Ern,” Juliette said gently, “I think you might be overreacting.”

I looked around. A few heads had turned from their breakfast at my outburst. The restaurant carriage was fitted out with a dozen or so four-seater booths with flip-down seats. Pristine white tablecloths and polished silver cutlery glinted in the shafts of sunlight shining through the panel windows, and jade-green strip lights lined the roof. I spied Henry McTavish dining in the far corner with Wyatt and—and this incensed me further—Simone. They were all leaning forward, shoulder blades hunched like vultures’ wings. That’s a posture exclusively reserved for scheming.

I made to stand, but Juliette put a hand on my arm and gave a pointed cough. I followed her gaze and was surprised to see my left hand had curled around a knife. It was more of a reflex, grasping something nearby as I went to stand, but it surprised me enough that I dropped it with a clatter.

“A bit of the old Cunningham family blood still in me,” I said with as much lightness as I could muster. I put the phone down, and Juliette flipped it screen-to-tablecloth so the red star wasn’t staring me in the face. She needn’t have bothered; it was seared into the back of my eyelids.

Today’s date. A single red star. One word underneath: Ghastly. Author of the review: Henry McTavish.

Wyatt’s apology ran through my memory: I mean, it’s not polite. But it’s not really something we can police, you agree?

“Maybe his finger slipped,” Juliette suggested.

“Ghastly is a seven-letter word.”

“I meant the star rating.”

“So he’s capable enough to log in, type in the name of my book, pull up the page, enter the review field, and type his review, and then he fumbles on hitting the five-star button?” I stared back at McTavish’s table. What the hell were they talking about? How could my agent buddy up to them after this?

“Ern?” This time Juliette snapped her fingers in front of my nose.

Cynthia heard the snap and interpreted it as a summons, which made us feel both classist and apologetic as we ordered our pancakes and scrambled eggs.

“Sorry,” I said, after we were alone again. “I’m just . . . processing. Has it been up long?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I only saw it in our cabin, just before we left for breakfast. I didn’t want to freak you out. I wasn’t, like, deliberately hiding it.” Her lips tightened in an appeal for understanding. I remembered her telling me to forget about petitioning McTavish.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

“It’s fair enough. Although”—she looked at the table setting— “in retrospect, I probably should have told you when there weren’t knives to hand. Just remember, the only people who read reviews are the authors themselves, and other writers.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” I said, then admitted, “I was hoping I’d fit in a little better.” It sounded childish, but I’d been worried about it since the invite. All the other invitees had published multiple books or had multiple accolades; they were writers. I’d simply been at a place where a bunch of people had killed another bunch of people and been the one to write it all down. I’d already felt like an imposter; now I knew for sure that at least one of my contemporaries considered me one. I figured it wouldn’t be long before the others joined the chorus.

“You haven’t even met everyone yet—”

“I don’t . . . I don’t know if I deserve to be here.”

There was more to it than that, of course, but that was the best way of saying both of my concerns in the same sentence. It was about as much as I was ready to admit to, in any case.

“Hey! Your book’s just as good as any of theirs. Besides, we’ll be out of mobile reception in a few hours. No one is even going to see—”

“Copped a pasting from the old Scot, I see.” The man in rainbow suspenders whom I’d suspected of being Alan Royce stuck out a hand and proved me right. “Alan Royce. Mind?”

He didn’t wait for an answer or a shake, wriggling his way into the seat across from Juliette with a grunt. His blocky frame did not sit comfortably in the little table booth. His bulbous ears had more hair than his head, protruding antennae of such length that I decided he could hardly be unaware of them and likely they served some function similar to a cat’s whiskers, considering his peripheral vision was reduced by his tiny teddy-bear eyes. When he got himself settled, he looked around, or perhaps his ear hair thrummed, and he snapped his fingers at Cynthia. Embarrassment flooded through me: now she’d definitely think we were a table of snappers.

While he ordered, I noticed he’d placed the little notebook he’d been carrying around open on the table. It was a cluttered mess of notes, but I caught that he’d written in all caps: KEEP THE MURDERS TO A MINIMUM and next to it the word TITLE? Underneath that was a list of names, including both mine and Juliette’s, and dot-point descriptions. Next to my name he’d written: cherub-esque face: wide-eyed, often confused, unacademic. Next to Juliette he’d written: out of his league. This is probably why I’ve focused so much of my own description on his ear hair. Authors are a petty bunch. He also had a list of notes about the train, which you’ve already read in my own descriptions. There are only so many ways to describe the carriage: emerald-green carpet; in case of emergency, pull here; axe; barramundi = 75 kgs. He’d even nicked Juliette’s joke, having written: fuel coupon.

He caught me reading and flipped the notebook over. Authors are a protective bunch, too.

“You write forensic thrillers, don’t you?” Juliette attempted to change the topic away from my review.

“My protagonist is a forensic pathologist, if that’s what you mean. Dr. Jane Black: eleven books, three novellas.”

“I used to love CSI,” I said.

Alan rolled his eyes. “I prefer to think that I write novels about society, depravity and humanity, and the crime itself is just the engine for a more . . .”—he paused in obvious affectation—“enlightened conversation around some real-world issues. I find all that CSI stuff quite”—his lips curled into a cruel smile as he deliberately chose his next word—“ghastly.”

This was all a bit rich coming from someone who, I’ve since researched, has a novella in which Dr. Jane Black travels back in time and conducts a forensic investigation on the murder of a dinosaur. But witty comebacks are capably served by both hindsight and Google, and given I had neither at the time, I could only respond with an unacademic glare.

“You know, what you want is a one,” Alan rolled on, oblivious to my bristling. “Or a five, obviously. Because you can use both for publicity. A two, blah, that’s just bad news. But a one: that’s a history-making calamity. People will be inclined to check it out just to see how bad it is.”

“This may surprise you, Alan, but you’re not making me feel any better.”

“You know Wyatt Lloyd rejected my first manuscript four times before he agreed to publish it?” That did, actually, help my spirits a little. “It’s all part of the game.”

“You got McTavish-ed?” A female voice joined in, speaking as its owner slid in beside Alan. She’d been looking at me when she spoke, which meant she’d also seen the review. “Ernest, right?”

I nodded.

“I’m Lisa.” (Not to brag, but nailed it.) “You’re the other writers, I assume? I’d rather not sit with the guests.”

“Nice to meet you. Juliette.” Hands were extended and taken.

“Pleasure.”

“Alan . . .” Royce waited just a little too long in hope of recognition. “Royce.”

“Oh, the gory autopsy guy. My mum reads your books.”

This is another of those publishing compliments: I wouldn’t subject myself, but someone I know reads you.

“I prefer to think I write novels about socie—”

“McTavish-ed?” I moaned. “Oh God, it’s so bad it’s a verb. Has anyone not seen it?”

“Don’t worry,” Lisa said, “the only people who read reviews are—”

“—everyone on this train.”

“You’re not the only one to get a review, man,” Alan said, as if it were a competition. “He gave us all one, you know.”

“Really?” The hope in my voice was pathetic, that my misery might be shared.

“Well, he didn’t give us all one, he gave us all a review. Everyone on the program. Gave me a four.” He held up a correcting finger. “But it reads like a five.”

“Maybe his finger slipped,” Juliette said quietly.

“What did he say?” I couldn’t resist asking.

“Just one word, same as you: Splendid.”

“Maybe Ernest has had enough of the review talk,” Lisa interjected. Her eyes gave me an apology.

“Oh, come on. As if you don’t want to talk about yours?”

She looked at the table. “I really don’t.”

“Five stars!” Alan held up five stubby digits in Juliette’s face. “‘Tremendous,’ wasn’t it?”

“Something like that.”

“That’s weird.” Juliette had picked up my phone and clicked through a few pages. She offered it back to me for a look. “His profile is completely inactive. He’s literally never reviewed anyone until this morning, and then he reviewed the five of you. All at once.”

I saw on McTavish’s profile that he had indeed only made five reviews ever, and they were all from this morning. Lisa Fulton’s only published book, The Balance of Justice, a legal drama from twenty-one years ago about a car thief who’d been sexually assaulted by the judge presiding over her case, had five stars, accompanied by the word Tremendous. Alan Royce’s Cold Skin: Dr. Jane Black #11 had four stars and the word Splendid. So far so accurate. S. F. Majors’s upcoming book, Dark Stranger, the psychological thriller that Juliette was currently reading, had a three-star rating and, again, a lone word: Overblown.

“He’s ranked us,” I said before I even checked Wolfgang’s rating. It was, as I’d anticipated, a two.

“Heavenly,” Juliette recited from beside me.

“Reads like a five,” I said. Heavenly was a strangely complimentary word to use on a two-star review. Unless the context was: I’d rather die.

“I doubt Wolfgang’s seen it,” Lisa said. “Literary writers don’t brood online quite so much as we do. I wouldn’t tell him if I were you.”

Juliette and I nodded in agreement. You didn’t need the approval of strangers when you had awards laurels. Wolfgang wrote books that didn’t apologize or cater to readers, as if to say: if his works are too difficult for you (and they were for me), that’s your fault.

“It’s not exactly a fair ranking though, is it?” Alan preened, turning to Lisa. “Five stars? Come on.” He realized he was the only one laughing and folded his chortle back into his mouth. “What? You’ve always been his favorite.”

Lisa looked like she was about to hit him, before Juliette cut in to defuse things. “It’s not a competition. It’s not even a critical opinion. It’s just one man sitting at a keyboard, trying to mess with you—which you’re all falling for, by the way. It’s meaningless.”

Just so you know, it’s not exactly meaningless. I write this because that’s what I thought at the time, and, even now, writing it all out again—although for different reasons—I maintain this position.

“Doesn’t bother me,” Alan finally agreed. “He can give me a one for all I care. The blurb’s way more important than an online review.”

“He’s giving you a blurb?” I got the emphasis all wrong in my surprise, and Alan physically reeled.

“And what do you mean, exactly, by that?”

I backtracked. “I thought McTavish didn’t blurb is all.”

“He doesn’t.” Alan now had the smug look of a child with a secret. “Unless he owes you a favor.”

The arrival of food cut him off from elaborating further, and we moved away from the comparison game. I ate quickly. Unlike the train itself, I didn’t have forty thousand liters of social fuel, and I feared I’d used too much too early dealing with Wyatt Lloyd’s chattering and Alan Royce’s ego. I wanted to get back to my cabin and try to enjoy myself again, even though Lisa struck me as someone deserving of getting to know a little better.

“I really liked your book,” Lisa said as we stood up to leave. “About what happened on the mountain. Very respectful. What are you working on now?”

If respectful strikes you as a word not often used to describe me, you’d be right. She was talking to Juliette. I felt a rush of shame. I’d been so worried about fitting in that I hadn’t even given a thought to how Juliette might feel not being on the program, or how she deserved to be treated as a writer in her own light, and not just my shadow, which Lisa had just done. I said seven writers, remember?

“Oh,” Juliette said, “I’m tossing up between a few bits—”

“Waiting on her next adventure,” I said, squeezing her hand.

“Something like that.” I can tell you with the benefit of hindsight that Juliette’s smile was forced, though I didn’t clue into it at the time.

Still, Juliette, warmed by Lisa’s compliment, was cheerful on the walk back to our cabin. I was more contemplative, dragging my feet and trying to get my head around the morning. Not just because of McTavish, and the review, and the blurb, and Simone’s camaraderie with him and Wyatt, and the general indignation that four writers at a table can’t resist competing, but because Alan Royce’s notepad had annoyed me.

It seemed odd to me that he had a list of everyone on the journey. Why did he write down all our names, what we looked like? Of course, some writers scribble everything down as a matter of course, but this seemed excessive, specific. Why take those kinds of notes? Was he writing a book about the trip? I’m aware of the hypocrisy that I’m currently writing about the trip, but at least I waited until someone died to start. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was more than simple note taking.

It was almost like he knew something was about to happen.