Signed, Charles Claiborne

“Sometimes the name on the label tells you more than whatever’s inside the box.”

The fog was thinning to nothing by the time I eased the car into the driveway, the last wisps dragging reluctantly along the hedges like scraps of gauze before dissolving into the morning. It was that peculiar Tasmanian kind—never quite thick enough to be dangerous, never quite light enough to be ignored. Just present long enough to remind you it had been there, then gone, like an unreliable witness too rattled to stand their ground.

The house waited where it always had. Our weatherboard—modest, squat against the slope. Battery Point prices had seemed impossible then, two young people with more hope than savings, but her parents had helped with the deposit in that quiet way the Harris family helped with things. Never mentioned again, never quite forgotten either. The house had weathered years of rain, sun, and arguments without complaint. The early light washed over it now, softening the edges, turning the flaking paint into something almost forgiving.

The garden out front still held the night's damp. The rosemary bush, the one Sandra had pushed into the soil on that first spring weekend here, was heavy with droplets that clung to its needles like tiny glass beads. She'd been convinced the herb would thrive despite my doubts about soil and drainage and all the practical objections I'd raised. It had outlasted my scepticism. They caught the light in sudden flashes as the breeze shifted, brief little prisms that split the morning into perfect, microscopic fragments—the kind of beauty that lasts just long enough to ache.

Inside, life had already moved ahead without me. The glow of the hallway light leaked out through the curtains, warm and golden against the lingering grey. In my mind, I could hear the kettle winding down, that soft whistle fading into silence. Then the delicate percussion of cutlery against bowls—cereal, probably—the sound of routine, reliable and ordinary. A symphony of small domestic noises I had walked through so many mornings without hearing, until today. Until I stood there in the drive with the image of the theatre still etched behind my eyes, realising how precious the mundane could feel when held up against the stillness of a body in a chair.

The radio hummed low in the background, drifting through the open window. The local station. A cheerfully bland presenter rattling off weather updates, slipping clumsy jokes between adverts for tyre shops and carpet sales. Then music—Tracy Chapman, her voice soft but insistent, singing about revolution. A strange choice for breakfast in Hobart. But there it was, carried on the air, pushing against the quiet as the city stretched into day.

I stepped inside, easing the front door shut behind me until the latch clicked into place. The familiar groan of the floorboards rose to meet me, the third plank from the doormat giving its usual complaint beneath my weight. That sound had been there since the first week we moved in, and after all these years it was as much a part of the house as the walls or the roof—its own kind of greeting, a reminder that the house knew me by the rhythm of my steps.

"Morning," came a voice from the hallway.

Amelia.

She drifted past like a ghost of routine, fifteen and caught somewhere between child and woman, already learning the art of being half-present. Her hair was pulled up into that careless twist she always favoured when still half-asleep—strands loose, defiant against gravity. A darker shade of her mother's chestnut, it framed a face pale from the cold, softened by youth yet edged with that sharp teenage disinterest I remembered wearing myself at her age, back in Coburg, when I'd perfected the art of sliding past my parents without making eye contact.

She wore mismatched socks—one striped, one plain—and an oversized jumper that had once been mine, now hanging loose over her frame. In one hand, a phone that cast her features in that faint, sterile blue glow of the screen. In the other, half a banana, bitten down without thought. She didn't break stride. Didn't glance up. Just moved past me with the fluid indifference of someone already existing in a different orbit.

"Morning, Millie," I said.

But by the time the words left my mouth, she was gone—already behind her bedroom door. Not slammed, not carelessly abandoned. Just... shut. That deliberate, controlled precision teenagers learn when silence says more than confrontation. The quiet skill of excising parents from the edges of their world without a fight, without a word.

I'd been the same at her age, I supposed. Shutting out my mother's questions about school while she rested between lupus flares, deflecting my father's attempts at conversation after his long shifts on the building sites. The difference was I'd had reasons—the chaos of the Coburg house, the weight of holding things together for Rick and Louise and Anthony. Amelia's withdrawal seemed to come from somewhere else. Somewhere I couldn't quite reach, despite twenty-three years of learning to read people who didn't want to be read.

The echo of her door lingered longer than the sound itself.

The coat came off slowly, the fabric still damp from the morning mist, the shoulders heavy with a chill that clung like memory. I hung it on the rack by the door, letting it drip onto the mat. Small dark circles spread across the worn fabric beneath, tiny reminders that the outside world had followed me in whether I wanted it to or not. My hands carried the faint, stubborn scent of dust and theatre varnish—that peculiar perfume of old wood and old secrets, of performance lingering long after the curtain had fallen. I held them still, resisting the instinct to scrub them clean. Some things needed to linger, to be acknowledged before they were erased.

The kitchen hit me with a wave of warmth, too much after the theatre's cool hush. A soft domestic chaos spread across the benchtops and table: cereal bowls fogged with milk dregs, half-toasted bread cooling in abandonment, a yoghurt tub open and leaning on its own discarded lid. The ordinary detritus of family life. A tableau as familiar as breath.

And yet, after the staged perfection of the theatre's grim little production, the sight was surreal. Real life always looked untidy next to death. I'd learned that early in my career, walking out of crime scenes in Burnie into streets where people argued about parking and complained about the weather, oblivious to what had happened behind the tape. The contrast never stopped being strange.

Sandra stood at the kitchen bench, back straight, tablet in one hand. Her fingers skimmed across the glass—gallery business, funding proposals, the endless logistics of the gala that had consumed her attention for months. She moved quickly but never clumsily, that particular grace she'd carried since I first saw her at the Burnie gallery all those years ago, explaining her paintings to a copper who'd confused impasto with glazing and somehow charmed her anyway.

Her nails were freshly done, immaculate, painted in the subtle neutral tones that matched her art-world armour. Not decorative, not indulgent. Deliberate. Professional. The nails of a woman who shook hands with gallery directors and funding bodies, who moved through rooms where appearances were currency.

She was already dressed for the day, of course. A navy jacket draped perfectly over a tailored linen blouse, the lines sharp but not severe. Her hair was swept back into a twist that suggested ease, but I knew the control behind it. Years of marriage had taught me to see the effort beneath Sandra's effortlessness, the hours of practice that made everything look natural. Work Sandra. Home Sandra. Gala Sandra. Different shades of the same performance, each costume fitted perfectly to its stage.

She glanced up as I stepped in, her eyes meeting mine for the briefest heartbeat before sliding away again, smooth as glass.

"You're back early."

There was no lift at the end, no upward curl to make it a question. Just an observation, placed carefully between us like a small stone—nothing to trip on, but enough to notice underfoot. The distance in those three words told its own story. Once, she would have crossed the kitchen to kiss me. Once, she would have asked where I'd been, what I'd seen, whether I was all right. Now she simply noted my presence and returned to her screen.

I crossed to the counter, the air thick with the fading warmth of toast and brewed coffee. My hand went straight for the pot, pouring the last inch into my mug—the familiar blue one with the chip on the handle, a relic of a weekend in Port Arthur that felt like it belonged to someone else's life. Back when promotions were still in the future, when Amelia's biggest worry was a school trip to Bonorong, when Sandra's Long Gallery show was still just a draft sketch on the dining table. Back when we still talked about the future as something we'd build together, rather than something we'd survived.

The coffee had been sitting too long. Darker, bitterer than I liked, the heat already dulling to lukewarm. Still, the smell hit me in the right place—earthy, familiar, grounding. It dragged me back into the shape of home, into something resembling ordinary. A smell you could trust. A smell that didn't lie.

"Everything all right?" she asked after a moment, her voice softer but edged. Not casual. Not quite concerned, either. Her gaze had sharpened, the way it always did when she sensed something off-kilter—like she could smell it before she could name it.

I took a sip, letting the bitter liquid sit heavy on my tongue before swallowing.

"Just a false alarm," I said finally. "Bit strange, but nothing urgent."

The words came easy, practised. A lie without weight, dressed up as routine. The kind of half-truth that slid into domestic air without leaving a mark. I'd perfected it over years of keeping certain parts of the job off the breakfast table, sealing the blood and grit away before stepping into the warm chaos of family life. Sandra had learned to accept these deflections, just as I'd learned to offer them. An unspoken contract, negotiated through years of near-misses and almost-conversations.

But even as I said it, I felt the card in my pocket burn hotter, as though it had heard me lie.

She gave a small nod and lowered her gaze back to the tablet. The cool blue glow of the screen caught in the lenses of her reading glasses, turning her eyes into twin reflections, unreadable, hidden. Whatever passed behind them, she kept to herself. Sandra rarely needed to ask twice; she'd learned long ago that pressing for details was its own kind of trap. Push too hard and you got silence. Push harder and you got fracture lines neither of us wanted to test before nine in the morning.

Still, as I leaned back against the counter, mug warming my palm, I felt the weight of it.

Lie number one of the morning.

And like most lies worth keeping, I told myself it didn't really count. Not a lie, not exactly—just an edit. A pared-down version of the truth, the edges shaved clean, the heart of it redacted for peace. The kind of omission marriages survive on. The kind that keeps one world from colliding into another.

But the kitchen, with its ordinary clutter and its soft golden light, didn't make it easier. If anything, it made it worse. I could still feel the theatre seat against my back, the faint wrinkle it had pressed into my shirt. And in the corner of my mind, uninvited, the man sat there still—posed in silence, shoulders arranged by someone else's hand, socks unmatched, collar smudged faintly with makeup. Not greasepaint. Not stagecraft. Something closer. Something personal.

And the card. Always the card. Folded neat in my pocket, a hard edge against my chest. A crooked line connecting that lifeless body to this kitchen, to this life, to the woman standing three steps away with her hair pinned just so, her nails immaculate, her fingers gliding over an exhibition roster as though she couldn't feel the silence thickening around us.

The radio presenter's cheerful voice cut through, announcing the time—7:34. Sandra's tablet chimed a polite reminder, some gallery meeting awaiting her attention. Down the hall, Amelia's music throbbed faintly through her closed door: synthetic, bright, oblivious.

Life went on. That was the point. Life insisted on going on. Dishes needed clearing, bins needed dragging to kerbs, emails demanded answers. Hobart would grind forward no matter who sat dead in the dark of the State Theatre.

But the curtain had already risen. I felt it in my bones, in the weight of the invitation, in the quiet duplicity of my own voice.

The performance had begun.

And me? I was already cast. Not just as detective. Not just as husband. But something else entirely—a man half in shadow, script missing pages, improvising lines he was never meant to deliver.

The doorbell rang sharp and singular—no rattle, no chime, just the blunt, metallic note of something that didn't belong.

I froze. Just half a second. Long enough to register that it wasn't unusual, not exactly. Couriers dropped by often enough with Sandra's gallery deliveries, signed envelopes from the Department, the endless flow of online purchases. But not now. Not this early. Not ten minutes after I'd stepped in from the cold, ten fragile minutes spent trying—and failing—to scrub the theatre from my skin.

Sandra's head lifted from the glow of her tablet in the kitchen, but she didn't move. Just the faint narrowing of her eyes, the slight hardening of her shoulders—a language I'd learned to read. Irritation threaded with curiosity, a flicker of awareness that something had arrived out of step.

I placed my coffee on the bench and headed for the door.

The hall felt longer than usual, the morning light spilling in sideways through the frosted pane beside the door. The floorboard by the wall gave its familiar groan—third from the skirting, always the same. A small, persistent flaw in the house, like a scar it refused to forget.

I opened the door.

The air outside rushed in, cool and faintly damp, brushing against the warmth of the house like two currents colliding.

A man in a black jacket stood on the step, plain gear, no logo, no hint of a company name. Clipboard in one hand, parcel tucked neatly under the other arm. Mid-thirties, clean-shaven, polite but already drifting elsewhere in his head—the weary efficiency of someone performing the same exchange a hundred times a day.

His eyes met mine, briefly, then slid away with practised indifference. But something about the way he stood snagged at me. Weight subtly shifted onto his left foot, right arm loose but ready. Not the posture of a career delivery driver. Ex-military, maybe. Or private security. The kind of assessment that happened automatically after two decades of reading body language in interview rooms and on the street.

"Delivery for Charles Claiborne?"

The name landed in the air with a stiffness I'd never quite learned to ignore. Charles. A word that belonged to passports, tax returns, and the rare occasions my mother had pronounced her disappointment like a court sentence. Nobody called me Charles in my real life. Not Sandra. Not my colleagues. Not even Amelia, when she was still small enough to try out different versions of Dad. The formality felt deliberate. Pointed.

I gave a curt nod. "That's me."

He handed me the clipboard. Cheap plastic, surface scuffed from years of identical signatures. The form itself was boilerplate, but the details weren't. My pulse hitched a notch as I scanned it. No sender's name. No return address. Just my own, printed neatly in a thin sans-serif font. No departmental stamp, no tracking code. A label that had been stripped of everything but intent.

I didn't ask. I signed. Questions wouldn't buy answers here—only time. The courier's face stayed smooth, unreadable.

"Have a good one," he said, stepping back with a nod so brief it barely qualified as farewell. No smile. No lingering pleasantries. Just the indifferent end to an exchange designed to dissolve as soon as it was complete.

The parcel was still under my arm as I closed the door, but my ears stayed on the retreating sound of the van. Too quiet for its bulk. No branding on its panels, just plain white dulled with a skin of road dust. Tyres worn unevenly along the outer edge—too many sharp corners taken at speed. A right taillight that flickered like a dying filament as it merged back towards the main road.

The kind of vehicle you saw every day but never noticed twice. Designed to vanish from memory the second it was gone.

The parcel sat in my hand like a question. Small, unassuming, but with that deceptive weight—the kind that tricks the mind into thinking there's more inside than the scales would prove. I tilted it slightly, felt the muted shift within: cushioned, fragile, deliberate. Not careless packing, but something designed to be preserved intact. Something that mattered.

The card stock was unlike anything you'd find on a courier's everyday run. Dense, almost velvety to the touch, with a faint sheen that caught the light when I turned it. Corners exact. Seal perfect. No tape, no string, no evidence of hasty hands. It had been prepared with the same meticulous attention as the MONA card burning a hole in my coat pocket—cut from the same cloth of intention. Not for mass distribution. Not for convenience. For effect.

I remained in the hallway, the stillness pressing in while the house carried on its ordinary soundtrack. The kettle clicked over to reboil in the kitchen, steam sighing from its spout. Amelia's music drifted faintly from her bedroom—muffled through closed doors, lyrics indistinct but saturated with adolescent earnestness. The radiator ticked in the corner as the pipes caught up with the morning chill.

Ordinary sounds. Familiar ones. But they didn't ground me this time. They only underscored how the atmosphere had shifted.

I stared at the parcel, its blankness staring back. A thing without a return address, without a sender, but full of presence. It felt less like mail and more like an arrival—the first scene of a play I hadn't auditioned for, the first page of a story slipped into my hands without consent.

And whether I opened it or not, I already knew: I was in it now.

From the kitchen, her voice carried again, light but pointed:

"What's that?"

Sandra. Always tuned in, even when she pretended not to be. Her eyes might still be on the tablet, fingers flicking through emails or funding proposals, but her attention had shifted in full. I could feel it across the air between us, the way you sense a spotlight even before it blinds you. That subtle tilt in her tone—not suspicion, not yet, but awareness.

I looked down at the label again, though I'd already memorised it. Cream stock, thick, expensive. The kind of paper you notice even when you're trying not to. Almost indistinguishable from the MONA invitation that still pressed insistently against my chest from the inside of my coat. Too close a match to be accident. A thread, tugging tighter.

My thumb traced over the printed name—Charles Claiborne. The formality stared back like a rebuke, cold and unfamiliar in this house where I was only ever Charlie. The kind of name you use when you want distance. Or when you want to remind someone who they are on paper, stripped of comfort.

No sender. No clue. Just this box and a mounting sense that someone, somewhere, knew exactly what they were doing.

I let my shoulders rise in a small shrug.

"Not sure. Probably something from the station."

Lie number two.

The words left my mouth with the ease of muscle memory, slipping past my tongue before my conscience could catch them. Too smooth. Too quick. That was the danger of long practice: deception becoming indistinguishable from reflex.

I didn't wait for Sandra to probe, didn't give her the chance to fix me with that quiet, discerning gaze she reserved for gallery openings and late-night arguments. Instead, I turned, parcel tucked against my side, and made for the study. Casual on the surface, though my pulse had its own ideas.

The floorboards murmured softly under my weight. The heating system gave a tired metallic tick as it cycled, a reminder that we'd been meaning to have it serviced for months. Outside, a magpie's warbling call carried sharp through the thinning fog, that brash morning announcement of territory that never failed to split the silence. Ordinary sounds. Ordinary life.

But the weight in my hand wasn't ordinary.

And the intent wasn't the station. I knew that as surely as I knew my own name—my real name, the one people actually used, not the formal rebuke printed on the label.

This was from the same hand that had placed a dead man in a velvet theatre chair before dawn. The same mind that had slipped a MONA invitation into a pocket like a signature flourish. Someone who thought in performances, in staging, in acts.

And here it was: the second act. Hand-delivered to my front door. Addressed not to Detective Claiborne of Tasmania Police, not to Charlie the husband, but to Charles Claiborne—a role I hadn't agreed to play, but one they'd already cast me in.