He stood across the street with rain smattering his newly acquired long raincoat. Water soaked through and dripped from the rim of the cap, even with him sheltered beneath one of the small trees lining the wide street. A faint smell of mustiness and mothballs cloyed at his nose from the garments he'd salvaged—nay, saved—from the lost and found pile, causing his skin to feel itchy. I should have found a late-night Laundromat, the thought prickled at the detective-wannabe's mind. But it was too late. It was nearing seven o'clock in the morning of this unusually cold, wet Sydney morning, and the Constable pulled the collar of the mothball-smelling coat straight up to shield his neck. It was too late to do anything about smelling like a forty-year-old ghost come alive. It was time to boogie, and if by boogie he meant, go on his crusade this morning, despite the rain, despite the cold. Despite the warning in his head saying, 'Don't do this. Don't do it. It could be career suicide.'

Hector sipped at his fast-cooling coffee—this one was definitely good. He might have to go there again later in the day, just to another one to warm up again. He let the rain pitter-patter around him; slither down him; soak him. A part of his parched country-self appreciated the sight of the droplets descending from the heavens; a wet glisten on everything he could see: he and those million-dollar houses. The rain did not discriminate. Neither would he. He knew more than the city cops realised, a lot more. He learned much about these suspects from Devi herself. They were cunning, they were shrewd, and some of them had motives like nobody's business, and one of them was definitely the culprit. Devi hadn't slipped. She hadn't fallen. An ill-fated swell hadn't swept her off that deck. Devi Dhungel was almost murdered. Something these cops didn't know until last night, until he gave them the one piece of evidence that said, 'This was not a tragic accident at sea. This was attempted murder.' The khukuri.

Too bad the seawater had stripped any fingerprints that had once been on it, but its presence in Devi's shoulder, to which the whole of Mystery Cove was witness, was irrefutable proof that someone on that boat had intended to kill her. Hector already knew the whys—there were many. He just needed to pin down the who. Before the city cops did. It had to be him. It was his only ticket out of suckville.

Hector pulled out a new black notebook he bought that morning in the only 7-11 from his lapel pocket. He quickly glanced at the first name on his list and double checked the address to make sure he had the right place, before slipping it back in his pocket, away from the rain. Then with his hands in his coat pockets, one holding tight to his badge in there, Hector strode across the street, confident that the person he sought to speak to had not left their home yet.

Captain Parry. The man who regretted Devi's disappearance the most, according to the files he'd poured over last night. In fact, he was on record, having said, "I wish I'd never agreed to take her out to sea this season. The weather's been unpredictable."

The rogue constable's shoes echoed on the quiet, glistening street as he headed for the Captain's white front door.

At exactly seven o'clock, he used the brass lion head knocker adoring the door and knocked thrice, fully intending to assert himself as an officer assigned to the Devi Dhungel Missing case when that door opened.

However, when that door opened a few minutes later and a man stifled a yawn in nothing but a white singlet and pyjama pants, something snapped in the Sherlock Holmes-channelling Constable from Mystery Cove—a place named after the bizarre 1880s disappearance of the crew aboard a small fishing vessel. His bravado and determination dwindled, panic gripped his throat, like a naughty teenager busted leaving a suspicious package smelling of cat poo on a stranger's doorstep.

"Can I help you?" Captain Parry scratched his beard, studiously staring down Hector Martinez dressed as a strange Sherlock Holmes. The coat was the wrong kind, and so was his dress, not suave enough to pull it off, yet, there he was, dressed strangely and stammering.

Hector chewed his cheek—what was I thinking?—aware for the first time how ridiculous he looked, wearing a giant coat in summer, even if it was raining. "I ..." he managed. One mere fumbled word.

"Yes."

"I ..." Hector's throat thickened nervously, he struggled to swallow his spit. What was I thinking, coming here? What if this gets back to Sergeant Winter, or the Chief, that without their permission or knowledge, I went rogue—interviewing the suspects they've already interviewed? Why didn't I wait for them? Collaborate?

"Are you all right?" Captain Parry's brows knitted together, for Hector must have been a sight.

Hector nodded, gripping his badge ever so tight that it hurt. "I'm ..."

'Use your words, Hector,' he could almost hear Devi saying, with a stupid smirk on her face.

Words. Words. What were they? He fidgeted with the badge in his pocket, debating whether he should go ahead with his daft plan.

That's when Captain Parry looked uncomfortable, suspiciously eyed him, said, "Not interested in whatever you're selling," and went to shut the door.

"Wait!" Hector flung his foot in time to keep the door from closing on his face, like a fucking psycho. Him. Not the door. It wouldn't have surprised him if the man shoved him off his porch and called the cops. What the fuck am I doing? But he wouldn't move his foot out of the way. "I know Devi!" he blurted, desperately despite intrusive thoughts trying to scare him to let go: If the Chief finds out, he'll never post me anywhere good. I'll grow old and grumpy like Gavin, and die, in the cove.

Captain Parry went from 'Get off my porch, you weirdo', to 'What?' in a matter of seconds. Naturally. "You know Devi? How?"

Hector nodded. Yes, he did, but the how? What was he going to say? He couldn't very well let suspects know that their intended murder victim was alive and breathing in a backward country town, a few hours south.

"I ... I'm a P—press—" Again, Hector hadn't meant to blurt lies, but thank god he hadn't blurted the first thing that popped into his mind—I'm a PI—just because he was some lame version of Sherlock Holmes this morning. And there was no way he was going to show his badge and say 'I'm Constable Martinez, investigating the disappearance of author Devi Dhungel.'

"I have nothing more to say to reporters." The Captain groaned.

"I not"—Hector shoved his foot an inch further into house, fearing the captain was about to kick his foot out—"just any reporter. I mean. I'm an investigative journalist," another lie easily fell out from nowhere. "I investigate things that—"

"I know what investigative journalists do," Captain Parry replied curtly, still holding the door.

"Right, right? Of course." Hector tried to gather his wits. He patted himself down for his notebook, just so he looked like he was looking for his 'card'. "I'm sorry, I must have forgotten my ID when I rushed out of the house ..." he couldn't believe how easily that lie slipped from his lips too. Who am I?

He extended his hand in what he hoped was relayed confidence and not 'I'm lying through my teeth'. "I'm Hector"—he paused, realising he shouldn't give his real name. He just lied to the man about being an investigative journalist for some weird reason. It would only take a quick Google search to see that he was lying. Fuck. "I'm Hector Smith," he used his mother's surname instead. "I'm working the Devi Dhungel missing case, for the"—another lie he had to fabricate, but what paper was he going to mention?—"independently. Freelance. I work freelance. I'm trying to rule out that her disappearance was indeed accidental, and not nefarious."

Where was all this coming from? One brilliant lies after the other. Hector's chest inflated with his ego for the first time. Maybe he could do this and not get caught after all.

"You have reason to believe something went down that shouldn't have that night?" Captain Parry's eyes narrowed and he absently opened the door wider.

"Yes. I can't quite explain it ..." Hector shrugged and then nodded, like a confused child. "It's just a feeling. I don't buy that a smart woman like her would willingly step out onto the deck if the swells were as dangerous as you said in your interviews. And it wasn't her first time out yachting, no?"

"No." Captain Parry's mouth tightened into a pout and he stepped aside as if welcoming Hector into his home.

"Given the rumours of hostilities that night, at dinner, from the various guests and staff on board, I figure it's too coincidental ..." Hector smiled, to appear pleasant, to appear harmless.

"Is that so?" Despite the open door, the captain didn't move out of the way.

He needs something more substantial than my suspicions. He fidgeted with his badge in his pocket. "An anonymous source on board that night suspects Ms Dhungel's disappearance. Falling off the boat feels like a convenient cover up, given how some guests behaved prior to her disappearance."

"And you believe them?" Parry stood stock still, his expression unreadable.

"I do." Hector shrugged. "That and a few other things I discovered during my research leads me to believe someone isn't being wholly truthful."

Captain Parry chewed on Hector's words before silently walking back into the house, the door wide open. Hector took this as an invitation. He brushed his wet shoes on the straw mat outside, stepped in, and closed the door behind him.

"I hope you like coffee. I was about to make some myself." The Captain disappeared one door down the corridor and Hector heard, "You can hang your wet coat on the hooks there. Don't track water in or the wife will kill me when she wakes ..."

"I'd love some coffee." Hector slipped off his old-new trench coat, realising it wasn't entirely waterproof. His jumper was wet in places. So much for a raincoat. "I've been enjoying Sydney's coffee while I'm here."

"So you're not from around here?" Captain Parry asked as Hector stepped inside a large open-plan modern kitchen, in contrast to the century-old facade of the house.

"I'm ... I'm from"—Hector pulled at his collar, suddenly feeling a flush of heat. "Down south."

"Relax. I'm only busting your chops." Captain Parry laughed, scooping ground coffee into the portafilter of his fancy barista-style coffee machine, and set about making two freshly brewed mugs of coffee. Hector wondered for a moment how much those things cost and whether he could find a decent one to take home with him. "So what do you need from me, Mr Smith?"

"I was wondering if you could tell me what happened on that trip from your perspective." Hector stood by the edge of the kitchen counter. "Did anything seem odd on that trip or that day? Anything that you might have thought irrelevant when you talked to the police or remembered since then?"

"Sit." The man slid a mug of coffee, complete with a dusting of fine cocoa powder, across the wide stone island, and pointed at the cosy bar stools tucked beneath the overhang.

Hector took the order gladly and sat hugging the hot mug, trying to warm his cold, wet hands. "Did anything seem off that trip? Between Devi—Ms Dhungel and others?"

"You're asking me for gossip?" The Captain walked around the counter with his own brew and dropped on a stool beside Hector.

"It's not gossip if it leads to us finding her." Hector stared into his drink, thinking of poor Devi back home, worried that the world has forgotten her, that her loved ones were out to get her.

"You don't think she's still alive?" Parry stared, drink partially raised to his lips. "It's been days ... a week."

Hector let out a nervous laugh. "No, of course, I didn't mean her being alive. I meant it'd be nice to find her body, to allow her family to say goodbye. Or at least know what happened to her. Give them some sort of closure."

Suddenly, Captain Parry guffawed next to him so loudly, Hector practically jumped, spilling his coffee all over the white marble countertop. He scrambled from his seat, trying to scoop the coffee back with his hands so it did not cascade down onto that gorgeous parquet floor.

"Here." The Captain tossed a tea towel his way, swiping moisture from the corner of his eyes from laughing.

"Why are you laughing?" Hector felt his cheeks burn red hot. Had he said something stupid? Was this a male version of Devi he was facing?

"It's just, what you said, family—giving them closure!" Captain Parry slapped his thigh, as a woman in her fifties stepped down the staircase, tying a robe around her slim body.

"What's all this ruckus early in the morning, Johnny?" she asked, surprised to see a stranger in her kitchen.

"Mr Smith, meet my wife, Karen. Karen, Mr Smith here is a young and coming investigative journalist, hoping to make a name off Devi's disappearance." The man was still chuckling. "He thinks if he can get to the bottom of it, give her family closure ..."

Hector stood between the husband and wife, wet tea towel in his hands, hoping Mrs Parry was kinder of the two. Maybe she'll tell her husband to behave, to be kind to the stranger who's here to find out what happened to his friend. Instead, Mrs Parry joined her husband in the chuckling.

"Did I say something wrong?" Hector looked from one to the other.

"It's not what you said, dear," Mrs Parry chimed in. "John and I have known Devi for a long time, ever since she got together with Charlie. We know what her family is like. That's all. Here, give me that." She reached for the coffee-stained towel. "John, make the gentleman another coffee, and I'll have a latte too." She dumped the towel into the sink, then gently directed Hector away from the kitchen, down the corridor again. "Come."

For a moment, Hector panicked she was about to show him out. He wasn't done. He had come to grab some scoop, some gossip that could indicate who had tried to kill Devi that night. It was the only way to protect the woman! It was the only way to uphold his promise.

"Mrs Parry?" He paused. "Please don't kick me out. I apologise for disturbing you early in the morning ... Perhaps I should have thought about that, but please, I just want to know, who had it in for Devi that they could have used the storm as a cover to kill her that night and failed?"

"I'm not kicking you out, Mr Smith. I'm taking you to the lounge." Mrs Parry's piercing blue eyes pinned him. "And what do you mean someone tried to kill her but failed that night? How do you know this? Is Devi alive?"

Oh, fuck! I said that, didn't I? Fuck. He'd done it, spilled his own beans. Done something Devi had explicitly asked him not to before he left. 'Do not tell anyone I'm alive, not even the cops unless you trust them.' And Captain Parry was neither. Not a cop, nor someone he trusted. Yet.

"I mean ..." he fumbled for cover. Quick, misdirect her. Devi will kill me if she found out I did the one thing she asked me not to in the city. Reveal her 'hurt but alive,' status. "I mean... it's a perfect cover for murder, isn't it?" he asked instead. "My anonymous source says all her guests had motives to kill her that day; that maybe her disappearance wasn't an accident. That maybe someone used the yacht, the storm to get rid of her ..." and now he was blubbering too much. "I was hoping, since Captain Parry's knew the victim and he wasn't anywhere near the dining hall that night, that he could shed some light on a possible culprit."

"A culprit?" Behind them, Captain Parry appeared with a small wooden tray of coffees.

"Mr Smith here thinks something nefarious went down on that trip of yours." Mrs Parry took the tray off her husband and entered the lounge.

"Is that so?"

Hector swallowed nervously. All that bravado he'd had at the beginning of his conversation with the captain fizzled like soda. "I just think its convenient timing. Rumour has it Devi Dhungel was changing her Will, selling everything, and leaving the country. If someone stood to gain from her death before she could do that, wouldn't you think a mysterious disappearance in the open sea is the perfect cover? No body. No crime. From what I heard, even the CCTV on deck was out that night, at the time of the incident. Coincidence?"

Captain Parry sank into a sofa across from Hector, coffee in hand. "It's a perfect cover."

"That's what my source thought too ..."

"Who's your source?" Mrs Parry asked, sinking into the sofa next to her husband.

"I'm sorry. I can't say." Hector remained standing. "They are afraid if they openly said what's on their mind, they may become the next target."

"Why do you care about Devi Dhungel?" Captain Parry asked then.

Why do I care? Hector blinked at the man, all serious in his white singlet and pyjama pants. Because I ... I care about Devi, as a victim. As a person ... someone tried to kill the poor thing, and she's at mine, begging me to keep her safe ...

"Because," he began, unsure where he was going to go with this, "I lost my father in a similar situation. It looked like an accident, but things didn't add up." He could have bitten his own tongue for that filthy lie. Yes, his dad had died in an accident, but to use that to cover his ass? Despicable. Alas, it was done. "Mum and I still wonder what drove him to that fate that night ... what if he hadn't left the house? What if... So many what-ifs. I just. I want to help other families find the closure we never could."

"That's rough." Mrs Parry finally seemed satisfied with his answer and stared at the untouched coffee on the table, one for Hector. "Please sit. Tell us what you'd like to know."

"I want to know about Devi on that trip." Hector grabbed the coffee and sank into a single-seater opposite the couple. He pulled out his little black notebook from his pocket. "Was there anything off about her during the trip? Anything out of the ordinary? I understand you weren't at the dinner gathering. You were somewhere on the bridge, but still. You were manning the boat—"

"A yacht," Captain Parry corrected.

"A yacht." Hector nodded, trying to appear thankful for the correction and not miffed. "You were the man in charge. Did you notice any odd behaviours from your guests?"

"I've said all I could to the cops."

"I don't have access to their files. Not everything. Do you remember anything that seemed insignificant then but stands out in your mind now? Like, maybe Devi had a fight with someone, a tiff, a confrontation? Was Devi going through anything, concerned about anything, anyone? Maybe she said something to you? I don't know ... anything." He couldn't believe how desperate he sounded. All to sell his story with, he supposed. Devi would be proud. Devi would be hella proud.

"There was one thing ..." Captain Parry stared at his knees.

"Yeah?" Hector placed his coffee back on the table, untouched.

"I don't know if it means anything ... I heard there was a kerfuffle at dinner. I suspect it has to do with something she said to me earlier in the week. She had popped in to check if all was in order for the trip before we set out. The crew and I were loading supplies then ..."

"What did she say to you?" Mrs Parry sat up straighter.

"What did Devi say to you?" Hector followed, his pen poised and ready to take notes.

"She mentioned her Will."

Ah, Hector almost deflated like a balloon in summer's heat. He already knew about the Will. She told them she'd changed it; many hadn't liked that she'd virtually cut them out of it. There was nothing more Captain Parry could add to it that would help point Hector to the who-dun-it of this mystery. "Go on," he urged, trying not to sound bored. Hit me with your best shot.

And boy, was it a good shot.

#

Within an hour of leaving Captain Parry's home, Hector was knocking on door number two—buzzing with what the captain had spilled—then door three, four, five, all the way to door number eight out of the ten suspects who were on the yacht with Devi that fateful day. Eight out of ten people who revealed a little nugget of gold each, whether they meant to or not. Gold Hector could use. Except for the ninth door. That door never opened. Instead, a 'For Lease' sign stared back at him, screaming 'do better, detective'. The previous tenant was gone; no forwarding address. Ad it niggled gnawed at his brain. What nugget could they have given him? What revelation could they have added to the growing list of revelations he had been harvesting in just one day of being an 'investigative journalist'?

Sitting in a burger joint nearby his hotel later that evening, Hector couldn't believe his luck. None of the suspects realised he was a cop. That they all bought his ploy—'Oh, I seemed to have forgotten my Press ID in my hurry,'—readily because they itched to talk, gossip, to sing like a Canary in a coal mine. He stared at his notes, shovelling cold, yet delicious fries, a handful at a time, almost gloating. He bet even Sergeant Winter and Gordon the high-horse riding Lead Constable didn't have the information he had. It was surprising how many people willing talked when they didn't think they'd get in trouble when they thought they were spilling other people's dirty laundry. The buzz of it hadn't yet died. So he read his notes until he polished his burger, until he'd devoured the last of his lonely fries, until he slurped the last of his no-sugar soda. Hector read. Repeatedly.

Someone had confessed to an affair, another to a jealous rage. Yet, another had expressed their rights to Devi's belongings. Other let it slip, their hatred or indifference for the victim; Devi meant nothing. And yet, some sobbed like their beloved had died. Yet another remained unbelievably docile; Devi's disappearance had the same significance as mouldy bread they had to throw away, short of saying, "Good riddance."

Every one of those nuggets made Hector's mind churn. Was it the lawyer? The boy-toy? The ex, or soon-to-be sister's ex, who'd stared down Hector the whole time? Was it the quiet and repressed sister, the nephew, the assistant who felt like she'd been done a dirty? The chef with a gambling debt, though it seemed Devi had once helped him out of a pickle? What of the old assistant, now a deckhand? Was that a glint of murder in his eyes despite his calm face? The captain who wasn't even there? What of the housekeeper? Did the riches in Devi's safe catch her eye? Was she the reason for some jewels reported missing in the police files?

So many questions, so many possibilities.Tenth door awaited Hector that morning. Something he was itching to do, butfirst, he had to see off the nurse he had hired, put her on a bus bound forMystery Cove, where his 'girlfriend' Hilde who pick her up. Tenth door, then hewould pay Sergeant Winter another visit, beg for a looksie at the CCTV footage,and then finally head home. Or stay, if they needed him, which he doubted,given Gordon's demeanour.