The Murder Coat is a serialised mystery featuring Evie Harroway, a second-hand shop owner with a knack for finding trouble (and trouble finding her).
If you’re new here, head over to the Chapter Index and start at Chapter 1.
Evie
The morning started like any other.
Which, given the last forty-eight hours, felt like a miracle.
Frankie was already at the kitchen table when I shuffled in, Horatio trailing behind me with the grim authority of a prison warden. She had headphones looped around her neck, toast crumbs scattered across a plate, and one of my old Sisters of Mercy records propped up like décor.
“Your house is low-key legendary,” she said, not looking up from her phone. Then, after a beat: “I mean, the crochet bats alone. People my age pay stupid money for that kind of vibe.”
I grunted, pouring tea. “Glad my poor life choices are on-trend.”
We fell into a silence that wasn’t awkward, exactly, but wasn’t comfortable either. I busied myself with the coffee plunger, watching the steam curl like smoke, trying not to notice the way Frankie kept flicking glances at me over her phone. She was practically vibrating with unsaid questions, and I was already bracing for the first one.
She finally looked up, eyes sharp. “So… that photo.”
I didn’t need to ask which one. Delores and her double.
“When are you going to ask her about it?”
“I’m not,” I said flatly.
Her brow furrowed. “You’re kidding.”
“If Delores wanted me to know she had a twin, she’d have told me.”
Frankie stared at me like I’d just announced I was giving up caffeine. “That’s insane. People don’t just forget to mention an entire sibling. Especially not when they look like an identical copy.”
“Please don’t say anything to Delores,” I warned. “This isn’t some podcast episode, Frankie. I’ll handle it.”
Reluctantly, she nodded, chewing her toast like it had personally offended her. “Still think you’re making a mistake.”
“Noted,” I said, clipping Horatio into his harness.
He flicked his tail like he agreed with her. Traitor.
The wind was only mildly hostile that morning – a rare gift from Wellington – and the footpath shimmered with rain from sometime in the night. Horatio stalked ahead of me, tail high, harness snug around his ridiculous shoulders, ignoring the sideways glances from power-suited commuters as if they didn’t exist. Which, to him, they didn’t.
I’d chosen my outfit with care – Doc Martens, a weatherproof jacket, and a black T-shirt that read Radicalised by Human Decency in jagged Metallica font. It clung cheerfully to my tits and the spare tyres around my middle, daring anyone to comment. Judging by the tightly pursed lips and studiously averted eyes, it was already offending at least three people on the walk between my flat and the florist.
Job done.
A woman in heels nearly tripped trying to avoid us, her takeaway coffee sloshing onto her blazer. She gave me a look of thinly disguised horror. I smiled sweetly. Horatio flicked his tail.
Same stretch of footpath. Same gaggle of suits pretending not to see the middle-aged woman walking her cat like it was an act of civil disobedience. Same sideways glances at my boots, my hair, my existence.
And still, I felt better. Lighter.
Maybe it was the walking. Maybe it was the distance from the jewellery box, the pendant, the ledger…and the photo of Delores and her carbon copy, that was now presumably locked in an evidence vault under Lila’s watchful eye.
Maybe it was just Wednesday.
Evie’s Alibi sat quietly on its corner, looking charmingly unbothered by crime syndicates, dodgy ex-husbands, and surveillance vans. The “CLOSED (ish)” sign still hung slightly askew on the door.
Inside, the lights were already on.
Of course they were.
“Delores,” I muttered, letting myself in.
The bell gave its usual accusatory jangle. Once unclipped, Horatio trotted straight to his fake fur throne and began grooming. Well, he had just walked half a kilometre through puddles.
Delores was at the counter, elbow-deep in a box of what appeared to be brass candleholders and ceramic chickens. She looked up with a sunny smile that immediately made me suspicious.
“Morning, darling,” she said. “You’re late.”
“It’s 8:07.”
She waved a hand. “Still late. Tea?”
I narrowed my eyes at the box beside her and felt a chill down my spine. “Please tell me that’s not more from the Godfrey estate.”
Delores blinked, then barked out a laugh. “God, no. These came from Mrs Albright’s garage. She’s finally downsizing. Said she didn’t want to be haunted by decades of ‘bad taste and poor impulse control.’ Her words.”
I relaxed. A little.
But the question hovered, sour and insistent: if that woman in the photo wasn’t a twin, then who the hell was she? A sister? A cousin? A lookalike with the same razor-cut eyebrows and the same smirk?
I wanted to ask. The words pressed at the back of my throat. Did you have a sister, Delores? Someone who looked like you? Someone you forgot to mention while cataloguing every detail of your life from the price of butter in 1983 to your neighbour’s scandalous composting habits?
But I’d learned — sometimes the hard way — not to go around lobbing accusations without absolute proof. And Delores, for all her sunny smiles and ornamental chaos, had a streak of steel. If I asked the wrong question and tanked it, I might not get another chance.
So, I swallowed the words, forced a smile. “Right, then it’s just the usual chaos, with a sprinkle of your bullshit stirred in?”
“Of course,” she said, glossing over my casual swearing. “Nothing sinister. Unless you count the toby jug that appears to be modelled after Margaret Thatcher.”
She handed me a chipped mug. I took it. Sipped. Let the warmth settle behind my ribs.
And just like that, the world began to slide back into place.
We unpacked quietly. A typewriter missing two keys. I set that aside for the local amateur repertory society. A threadbare coat with deep pockets and a faint smell of roses. A bent spoon set that looked like it had been through several divorces. An old ashtray in the shape of a fish.
No false bottoms. No ominous insignia. No ghosts…no creeping feelings of dread when I touched any of the items. Marvellous.
Customers trickled in: a uni student looking for an outfit for a 1920s-themed party, a woman from the Pilates studio who bought an old biscuit tin because it “felt like her grandmother,” a man in his fifties who came in just to ask if we sold cufflinks and left with a crocheted doily.
Old things found new homes. Forgotten objects found new stories.
And for a while, I forgot all about the jewellery box.
The ledger.
The photographs of a younger Delores and her doppelganger, laughing in the glow of a long-dead neon sign.
The cigarette case monogrammed with the initials of a woman who still haunted the edges of the city like a rumour with teeth.
For a while, I just… existed.
Coffee. Tea. Cats. Cash register. Customers.
The familiar rhythm of salvage and sale.
And in that small, ordinary moment … it was enough.
Until Horatio hacked up a furball on a vintage rug reminding me that peace is always temporary.
Nice one, so enjoying your writing xx
Much of your diction and dialogue is show stoppers. I’ll only pick my two favorites. [Said she didn’t want to be haunted by decades of ‘bad taste and poor impulse control.’] And [Until Horatio hacked up a furball on a vintage rug reminding me that peace is always temporary.] I don’t know anyone who is that clever, but now I have Evie to fill the void. Vintage.