Hugh Hamilton
"You know, it might have been an idea to look at this before," said Hugh, wincing slightly. He handed the note to Ben.
"'Dear diary. Today I think I'll murder my bro--,'" read Ben. "Well, I guess we got the relevant half."
"Yup."
"Does this mean we have to have to go back to whatshername's?"
"Yup."
And they did. Hillary spent the first twenty seconds of their re-acquaintance visualising suicide.
"May we--"
"No," said Hillary.
"That sounds like guilt to me. What do you say, Hugh?"
"Cuff her."
"Jesus."
"Close," said Ben. "But there's two of us."
Hillary neglected to breathe.
"Can you explain this note?" said Hugh, perfecting legal righteousness for the first time.
Hillary blinked. "I can, actually. Looks like the unmistakable melodramatic scrawl of my younger sister."
"Sister?" said Hugh.
"Yes, you've heard of them?"
"Girl siblings?"
"Well done."
"So you weren't the one who wrote this note?"
"I believe my sister is presently at the greengrocers on Speight Street. Good day," said Hillary, rejoined curtly by the door.
Occupying no more than a metre and a half of footpath, the greengrocers compensated by rising steeply towards the second floor, the produce only degrees away from toppling to the ground. Standing at street level by the register, Ben and Hugh were mildly surprised to find a familiar figure.
"Grace!"
"Ben?" said Grace. "And... Drew?"
"You remember us," smiled Ben.
"Well, I haven't yet succeeded at forgetting. What can I do for ya?"
"Drew?"
"Yes, Drew, she remembers us," said Ben, nudging his increasingly significant other. "Now what can you tell us about this note?"
"What note would that be?" said Grace.
Hugh had not brandished the note as normal.
"Drew," said Ben sternly. "The note."
Suppressing a wail, Hugh fished once more into his pockets and, after more attempts than usual, came up with the note.
"Nothing," said Grace.
"Are there any people working here who might have written it?"
"I have a Klaus and a Shelly, if that's any help to you."
"The one who isn't Klaus, please."
"Shelly!"
A few moments passed before a small, youngish woman half-fell to the footpath. Her apron bore the residue of a recent fruit massacre.
"Yes?" There was apprehension in her voice.
"Mind entertaining these two a bit?" said Grace. "Just look pretty and keep your sentences short and they shouldn't bother you too much."
Shelly shrugged.
"Good. I'll be smoking out back," said Grace, lifting her dress and bounding up the dangerous incline.
"Shelby, is it?" said Hugh, wanting to do to somebody else what Grace had done to him.
"Shelly," said Shelly.
"Sorry, I know. I didn't mean... I knew exactly what your name was. Must have come out wrong," said Hugh, blushing horribly.
Ben smiled oilily. "Excuse my friend Drew. He gets funny around stunningly beautiful women."
Shelly vomited quietly onto her apron.
"Shelly," said Hugh, trying to recover face. "Shelly. We... Shelly."
"The note," interrupted Ben.
"Of course, of course. What can you tell us about this small piece of Shelly?"
Shelly glanced at the bloodied note.
"So that's where that got to." Shelly reached into one of her pockets and retrieved a similarly sized piece of paper. "Here's the other half."
Ben slapped Hugh's approaching hand and took the other half of the note.
"'--adband. Two megabytes more and I would have had every second of Three Guys, Three Girls and a Trendy Apartment,'" he read.
"I tend to write smaller once I reach the right side of a page. And fuck you, it's a comfort show," said Shelly. "Now why on earth do you have that?"
"Do you have another brother called Adband, by any chance?" said Hugh.
"What?"
"What he means is, do you have any idea who would want to stab your brother?" said Ben.
Grace appeared suddenly with a tray of biscuits.
"Hey Drew, I was rifling through some of our ancillary stock and I remembered how much you liked Iced Vo Vos at Christmas time."
"Mince pies," mumbled Hugh, taking a biscuit nonetheless.
"Ooh, lovely," said Shelly, helping herself to one also. "Oh, and about that stabbing thing."
"Yes?" said Ben.
"Mum."
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