One of Us Is Dead

104 Thursday 27 October 2022

‘You are actually home in time to bath Molly and to read Noah a story — I can’t believe it after the last few weeks!’ Cleo said, beaming. Although Roy tried to ensure they shared care of the children equally, there were times — as just recently — when a case inevitably took over his life. But he always did his best to make up for it afterwards. Such as he was doing now.

‘And I’m going to cook dinner!’ he replied, striding over to the fridge followed by a very interested Humphrey, who then sat without being told and looked up expectantly.

Grace removed a cocktail sausage from the pack in there, held it towards Humphrey’s mouth and said, ‘Gentle, boy!’

Humphrey obediently did take the treat gently and trotted happily over to his basket with it. Smiling at the dog he loved so much, Roy picked up the small pile of post on the kitchen table and quickly looked through it.

‘Still nothing from the new DNA test to confirm once and for all Pewe is not the father,’ he said, placing it all back on the table.

‘That result will come soon, we just have to be patient, Roy.’

‘I know, but I just want to be sure that sneaky slimeball won’t get a penny of Bruno’s inheritance from Sandy.’

‘Don’t give him any more of your headspace, he’s just not worth it.’

‘Yep, I agree.’

He walked over to the cupboard under the stairs, rummaged around for a few moments, then returned with a dusty bottle of red wine, holding it high. ‘Remember that bottle your cousin gave us for a wedding present? He said to open it on a special occasion.’

Cleo frowned. Then smiled. ‘I sort of remember.’

‘Well, this is a special occasion.’

‘What is?’ She looked confused.

‘I’m not sure how much credit I can really take for it, but we’ve finally nailed that bastard Rufus Rorke, bang to rights. Well — I guess a bit more than that...’

‘The one in the mortuary yesterday? You attended his post-mortem.’

‘I did.’

‘He was the man who disappeared off a yacht somewhere off the coast of Barbados?’

‘The very same. Didn’t do such a good job of disappearing out of a plane off the south coast of England.’

‘So how did he survive going off the boat in Barbados? It was late at night and the sea wasn’t calm, you said.’

Grace nodded. ‘It seems he had given a bung — a very big one — to a fisherman in Barbados, name of John Baker. Baker had to take a torn fragment of a white tuxedo, which had been immersed in seawater, and had some of Rorke’s blood on it — which he’d given to him in a vial — to the local police. His brief was to tell them he’d found it wrapped around one of his net ropes, and that having seen a photograph of Rorke in that jacket, taken earlier the night he’d gone overboard, he just wondered if it could be from the same garment. The police swallowed it, hook, line and sinker.’

‘Very appropriate choice of words, darling,’ she teased with a grin.

He grinned back. ‘So, when the Bajan police arrested Baker, not long after Glenn’s visit to see him, he fessed up pretty quickly. It had all been part of an elaborate deception — which Rorke’s wife, Fiona, was a part of. She’s been arrested and is currently out on police bail. Rorke had worn a transponder, which a colleague of this fisherman, John Baker, had been tracking via a drone with an infrared camera from another boat close by, with its lights and transponder off. Rorke was picked up and safely aboard the colleague’s boat within ten minutes of jumping from his chartered yacht.’

‘That’s insane!’ Cleo said. ‘There’s so much that could have gone wrong.’

Grace nodded. ‘Sooner or later every smart criminal gets to the point where he or she thinks they’re invincible. The longer they get away with their crimes, the bolder they become. Eventually they become reckless, and that’s when they start to make mistakes. Luckily for us. And we’ve found pure gold — Rorke’s laptop, concealed in a wine cellar at Fiona’s home, well, the home they used to share; she told us where to find it.’ He began to remove the foil from around the top of the bottle.

‘I saw a documentary some years ago, about wars — battles. The thesis was that victors rarely win wars through their clever strategies, it’s the other side that loses, through its mistakes.’

He picked up the corkscrew and began working it in. ‘I can go along with that.’

‘We were taught at school that we won the Battle of Agincourt because the English longbow was superior to the French crossbow. But the narrator in the documentary said that’s not the reason we won. The French had chosen the battleground and it was a muddy field. There was torrential rain and their knights on horseback, and the infantry, got bogged down and were picked off easily by the English archers.’

‘Yep,’ Grace said. ‘That chimes with so many cases. It’s often not what we do, not our brilliance in solving a crime, it’s the offenders making a basic mistake. Like Rufus Rorke coming back to Brighton and thinking he could get away with it without being recognized. Pure hubris.’

The cork slid out with a sharp pop!

‘That’s one of the nicest sounds in the world!’ Cleo said.

‘There’s one other sound I like almost as much,’ he replied, putting the bottle down.

‘Which is?’

‘The sound of a jury foreman’s voice saying “guilty”.’

‘Well, your friend Rufus Rorke’s death has deprived you of that satisfaction.’

‘He must be feeling very smug,’ Grace said, and sniffed the top of the bottle.

‘Rorke?’

‘He’s cheated justice twice. The first time by faking his death. And now by actually dying.’

Cleo nodded vigorously. ‘That explains it!’

Grace, reaching up to take two wine glasses from the Welsh dresser, frowned. ‘Explains what?’

‘When I was preparing him in the mortuary, he had this big rictus grin on his face!’

‘Thanks a million, my darling. That’s a great feeling, to be outwitted by a corpse.’

She walked over and put an arm around him. ‘If it’s any consolation, my love, he wasn’t smiling quite so much at the end of his post-mortem.’

Grace shook his head, and he was grinning himself now as he poured some wine into each glass. ‘Are we normal, do you think? Do other couples have conversations like this about corpses, around the kitchen table?’

She feigned a look of shock. ‘Don’t they?’ She picked up her glass and held it out to his, looking him straight in the eye. ‘If I’d thought for one moment you were normal, my darling, I’d never have married you.’

They clinked glasses. Grace looked her straight back in the eye. ‘Touché!’

‘Remember a few months back we were looking into getting a rescue dog through the RSPCA? As a companion for Humphrey — and maybe for the kids too?’

He nodded. ‘The one we liked the look of — that was supposedly very good with kids — was rehomed before we got to see it.’

‘They’ve just sent pics of another through.’ She turned her phone towards him, so he could see. Then looked at him questioningly as he flicked through the photos. ‘What do you think?’

‘He’s bloody adorable!’

‘She’s actually a she.’

‘She’s adorable too.’

Cleo grinned and gave him a kiss. ‘So are you — sometimes.’