One of Us Is Dead

27 Sunday 2 October 2022

James Taylor was tapering this week in the approach to the Chicago Marathon, which meant only light, short runs. Which was just as well, he thought. It felt like a chainsaw was at work inside his skull. After leaving — or rather stumbling out of — Wild Flor at around 5 p.m. yesterday, he and Debbie had fetched up in a bar across the road, and for some reason, known only to the God of Bad Decisions, decided that ordering Negronis would be a good idea. And she was insistent on buying.

One-third Campari, one-third red vermouth and one-third gin.

And they had seemed a very good idea at the time. A second one, followed by a third, which it would have been rude to refuse. Debbie’s invitation back to her apartment had seemed a good idea too, but some bit of common sense — or perhaps decency — had kicked in. If he was going to make love to this amazing woman, he didn’t want the first time to be a drunken fumble.

Which was why, after a taxi ride he didn’t remember at all back to his beachfront apartment in Worthing, fourteen miles west of Brighton, and a fitful night’s sleep, assisted by two doses of paracetamol, he was now struggling, along his seafront route, in light rain, to complete what normally would have been an easy five-mile run for him.

And this time next week I have to run 26.2 miles! Shit!

He headed on past the pier to his left, and then the deserted pebble beach and a closed coffee stall. The sea beyond was a roiling grey. His Garmin watch told him he’d done.73 miles, just under two to go before he could turn back, and then perhaps sweat out some of the booze in the apartment block’s steam room or sauna. It was 10.54 a.m. An hour ago he’d rung Rufus Rorke’s widow, Fiona Davies, asking if he could speak to her, and she’d invited him to tea, telling him the boys would be at a birthday party, so they wouldn’t be distracted. She still lived in the home she and Rufus had shared.

He passed the 2K marker on the pavement for the Worthing parkrun, feeling a little stronger now, a Desert Island Discs podcast playing in his headphones, but he wasn’t listening, he was deep in his own thoughts. Thinking back to his long lunch and afternoon — and evening — with Debbie Martin yesterday. And what she had said.

Let’s think this through logically. Let’s say Rufus faked his death in order to get out of some kind of trouble. Maybe his wife colluded and covered for him. She might be a good starting point.

In a few hours, he would have the chance to talk to Fiona and make up his own mind.