The Strange Death of Dryden-Holmes

A cybersecurity expert thought he'd commited the perfect murder, and then he started to wonder if he'd committed murder at all.

“You’re never going to let this go, are you?” said Dalton.

“I know there’s something you’re not telling me.” Redfield replied. “I can tell when you’re lying. Even if I couldn’t, when a scientist of his stature hangs himself for no reason and the police try to claim he was depressed, when all his colleagues say he was afraid of something, it’s obvious a coverup is going on.”

Dalton sighed.

“Look,” he said, “There are things I haven’t told you. That’s true. You’re right. I admit it. But they’re not what you think. If I were to tell you, and people were to find out I’d told you, I’d lose my job.”

They were sitting in Dalton’s office in Scotland Yard. Dalton sat behind an impressively large desk, while Redfield had perched herself on the edge of a grey plastic chair facing him.

“Tim, it’s me.” she said. “Tell me what you know. I can keep a secret. Look at you, you’re itching to tell me something.”

Dalton laughed.

“If you report a word of it, that’s the end of my career.” he said.

“Then I won’t report a word of it.” she said.

“All right.” he said.

“You’ll tell me?” she said, smiling.

“Only to satisfy your morbid curiosity.” said Dalton. “And because, well, it’s one hell of a story.”

“I’m all ears.” said Redfield.

“The first thing you have to know is, he didn’t hang himself.”

“I knew it.”

“He cut his own neck open with a Stanley knife.”

The smile dropped from Redfield’s face.

“You’re kidding.” she said.

“I’m not kidding. You should have seen the mess he made. It took him five attempts to hit the jugular. He was no biologist, that’s for sure. There was blood absolutely everywhere. We even thought he’d been murdered at first. There were plenty of people who wanted to murder him. Russians, Iranians, Hamas, Hezbollah, they all wanted him dead. And with good reason. Half of MI5’s intelligence-gathering capability is down to his work.

“For about a month we drove ourselves crazy looking for assassins that didn’t exist. Then we got an email from him that raised as many questions as it answered.”

“An email from Dryden-Holmes?” said Redfield incredulously. “So he wasn’t dead?”

“Oh, he was dead all right.” said Dalton. “The email was sent automatically from some server somewhere. He wrote it shortly before killing himself and scheduled it to go out a month later. Why, I still have no idea, but I’m pretty sure the old fox just wanted to screw with our heads. He wasn’t too fond of police. Shame, really. If he’d come to us, he might still be alive.”

“What did it say?” Redfield asked.

Dalton opened a drawer in his desk and took out a sheaf of papers.

“Go ahead, read it.” he said. “And then forget you’ve ever seen it. Remember, my neck’s on the chopping block if you leak a word of it.”

She began to read.

February 13^th, 2018

This is the last thing I shall ever write. I am plagued by a demon that I now believe to be of supernatural origin.

All my life I have avoided any superstitious impulse, but the ability of Girtz to defy death and to evade all forms of detection cannot be explained by science. I now have no doubt that the man was involved in occult practices, the nature of which defies my imagination.

I am a man of science. I have believed only in logic and evidence. Yet now, it is clear to me that there are forces at work in this world that lie beyond my comprehension.

I vividly remember the day the council moved that accursed individual into the house next to mine. Had I know the house next to mine was used for social housing, I would never have bought the place. In fairness, the woman who previously lived there with her two children never caused me any problems. I found her perfectly amicable.

The problems only started when she moved out and Girtz was placed there. I wonder if his placement may even have been due to some covert foreign influence, perhaps from the Russians.

I awoke one morning to the sound of the most awful music. I hesitate to even call it “music”. It seemed to consist of a man shouting over a thudding drumbeat, accompanied by an awful bass drone that sounded like wood being sawn up.

I went round to confront him, wearing my dressing gown. No, ‘confront’ is the wrong word. I went round to simply ask him politely to turn the awful racket down.

I banged on the front door and at first he didn’t answer. Probably he couldn’t hear me. I rang the bell, and banged the door again. I tried tapping the window, and then I went back to banging the door and ringing the bell. After about five minutes of that, coupled with some shouting to try to draw his attention, the oaf finally opened the door and said “What?” in the crudest possible manner.

He was about thirty-five years of age and his face was covered in tattoos, including a symbol of hate on his neck. Mixed with the tattoos was a hideous acne rash, which I don’t doubt was caused by drug use. His head was completely shaven and he was shirtless, wearing only jeans and boots. He was inordinately tall; I would say at least six-and-a-half feet, and powerfully built.

The man was the most repulsive and violent-looking individual I have ever seen. I really thought we’d seen the last of his type in the 1980s, and yet there he was.

I asked him if he wouldn’t mind making the music a little quieter. I was extremely polite. In reply, he shouted a vile string of curses at me and slammed the door.

I returned to my house rather shaken. The music, of course, if one can call it “music”, continued unabated. If anything, he made it even louder.

I would have considered contacting the police were it not for the incident two years prior to that, where some deranged woman had levelled almost entirely unfounded and malicious accusations at me. The police at that time treated me with unnecessary antagonism and rudeness, and I have consequently had no desire to ever speak to another policeman since then.

Had it not been for my contacts in the intelligence community, I have no doubt I would have gone to prison over those scurrilous allegations.

Around ten in the morning the music ceased, only to resume again around six in the evening. It continued until nearly two the following morning.

The same happened again the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, until finally I realised that the brute intended to subject me to this horrendous cacophony on a daily basis, with only minor variations in timing and volume.

Across the road was a park, so I entertained no hope of succour from that direction, but there were neighbours on the other side of the man; a young couple of rather idiotic appearance, and I hoped they at least might put in a complaint.

My hopes were dashed when, one day, I saw them conversing with this giant brute on apparently friendly terms. It’s possible the hedges between they and him dulled the sound, I suppose.

I put in a planning application to build a high wall between my house and his, which after two months, was denied on the grounds that it would obscure the natural light reaching the house of my persecutor.

Natural light! As if a monster like him cared for natural light.

I decided to make a careful study of the man, in the hope that I might uncover something I could use to make his life more difficult. I was able to determine that his name was Trevor Girtz, a name which at first I thought suggested foreign origin, but it appeared he had been born in Coventry and had subsequently lived in Stoke.

He was thirty-two years of age and had a substantial criminal record, including numerous prison sentences for assault and drug-related offences. As for his means of support, he survived only on government benefits, and I could find no trace of him ever having been in gainful employment.

Even though he subjected me to almost unendurable noise from evening or mid-afternoon until well past midnight every day, I was able to observe him leaving the house for long periods every evening. He would go off somewhere without bothering to turn off his wretched music.

I began to track his movements by various means. I followed him from a safe distance and was also able to use footage from a number of compromised security cameras to find out what he was up to.

It became clear that he was actively dealing drugs and had a number of deeply unsavoury associates. I wasn’t at all surprised. I tried tipping off the police and the local council anonymously, but nothing came of that, or at least, they took no visible action against him.

I was on the verge of selling my house when something interesting occurred. I was walking in the town around five o’clock one day when a car slowed down by the side of the pavement where I walked. I turned to see Girtz gesturing at me obscenely from the driver’s seat. As soon as I had seen him he laughed and sped off with enormous acceleration.

I was upset, naturally, but also intrigued. The man apparently owned a top-of-the-range electric car. His drug deals were clearly proving more lucrative than I had imagined.

That the car was electric was extremely fortuitous, given my work in that field on behalf of a certain agency.

I immediately set to work attempting to identify the car and I was soon able to track its movements.

Girtz turned out to be covering more territory than I had realised in his wanderings. He spent a great deal of time at a certain nightclub of ill repute, and frequented a number of surprisingly well-appointed houses. It appeared that the picture he presented to the authorities, of a petty criminal and drug addict, was a cover for a rather high level of criminal enterprise.

I considered making more extensive investigations into his criminal dealings but that’s not really the kind of thing I like to involve myself in.

Yes, I may take credit for the assassination of a number of inconvenient politicians and businessmen in foreign climes, but there I am protected by an immense wall of digital secrecy. I possess a government-issued Glock 17 for my own protection, but I’ve always taken great care to hide my tracks, and I have never anticipated actually needing it. My operations are carried out remotely, at the behest of intelligence agencies, and as a matter of fact, I have left Britain only twice; both times to enjoy a simple holiday.

One should never foul one’s own back yard.

I decided simply to kill Girtz; whatever criminal activities he may have been involved in, were someone’s else’s problem, and, I decided, were of little use or interest to me.

Girtz kept the car in a garage a short distance away, attached to an unassuming house, where there lived only a harmless elderly lady. I suppose he simply rented the garage from her, or she may have been the grandmother of one of his associates.

I hacked into the car’s electronic brain without much difficulty and was able to fully take control of it.

Girtz, of course, was in the habit of speeding whenever he thought he could get away with it. He often travelled on a certain two-lane main road, frequently exceeding ninety miles-an-hour.

No-one would be surprised by his death.

That particular road happens to have a curve in it, where accidents are common. Around there are several speed cameras, and the road is festooned with warnings, telling drivers to slow down.

I waited until he was driving one day within the speed-restricted section.

He obeyed the speed-limit there, oddly enough. He wasn’t as stupid as he looked. Actually, I suspect his previous petty run-ins with the police may even have been part of his cover. He deliberately portrayed himself as a petty criminal of no intelligence in order to throw the police off the scent of a far more elevated degree of criminal activity. Or perhaps I am being too generous. Regardless, he was smart enough not to get caught by the speed cameras.

At home in my study, I assumed control of the vehicle and gradually increased the speed until the vehicle was travelling at a hundred-and-twenty miles per hour. I only wish I could have watched his reaction, but the car had no functioning internal camera. I could tell he was feverishly turning the steering wheel this way and that, and forcing the brake to the floor in a desperate attempt to slow down, but it made no difference at all. I made the car weave around the other traffic with no regard for traffic rules at all.

Finally the car reached the bend. How I wish I could have seen the terror that must undoubtedly have been on his face. I swung the car over to the right-hand lane, then turned it abruptly into the crash barrier.

The video feed was interrupted almost immediately, but I could tell from various internal sensors that the car flipped over completely, leaping spectacularly over the barrier, and began to roll down the hill on the other side. Then the data feed was cut.

I put my hands behind my head and leaned back in satisfaction, in spite of the awful pounding beat that was still booming from Girtz’s house.

The music ceased the next morning, when I observed police milling around the house.

For several weeks I enjoyed the most sublime peace. Believe me, the chances of anyone ever tracing Girtz’s death to me were absolutely zero. My happiness was restored.

There was nothing particularly unusual about the operation for me, except that I had performed it on my own behalf. Other than that, it was all in a day’s work.

I enjoyed reading about the ‘accident’ in the news media a few days later. No-one else had been injured in the accident, which didn’t really matter to me either way, but was a bonus I suppose. The news said certain illegal substances had been found in Girtz’s bloodstream, and an amount of alcohol only just below the legal limit. The police surmised the driver had simply been speeding, and had lost control. None of this was a surprise to me.

Only a little over three weeks later, I received a terrible shock.

I was emerging from the little pharmacy on the high street in town, when I observed someone seemingly standing watching me from further down the road. I recognised that horrible face and its accompanying massive body immediately. It was Girtz. There could be no doubt about it.

I stared for a second, dumbfounded, and then took off my spectacles and rubbed my eyes. When I looked again, he was gone.

I was somewhat shaken by the experience, but put it down to overwork. Girtz was dead; there could be no doubt at all about that. The newspapers said he was dead, and no-one could possibly have survived such a horrific accident at such enormous speed.

At home I allowed myself a glass of Chianti, and once the wine had soaked into my blood, I even laughed about it, shaking my head and marvelling at my vivid imagination. I resolved to take more care over getting a proper amount of sleep in the future.

A week later I was walking through the town, immersed in an annoying crowd who were filtering into a side-street that leads to the green, when I was roughly pushed by a man walking past me. He had banged into my side quite deliberately. My blood ran cold when I saw his stature, and what he was wearing. I froze, and stood watching him. As I watched, he turned, and smiled at me with a leering grin. It was him again. Girtz. Almost immediately I lost sight of him in the crowd, and I rushed forwards, weaving through the people, saying “excuse me” over and over again, but by the time I emerged from the side-street and stood facing the green, it was apparent that Girtz had disappeared.

Still I was sure his appearance had been nothing but hallucination, but now I was worried about my mental state. It isn’t normal to hallucinate dead people pushing into oneself.

The next time I saw him was even more chilling. I looked out of my window one evening to see him standing watching my house from the park. I rushed out of the house to confront him, but by the time I got outside, he had gone.

After that I added four security cameras to the three that already surrounded my house, including one facing the park. I also loaded my Glock and placed it in the drawer of my desk. If he came for me, I would be ready for him.

I began to research Girtz’s early life. I wondered if it was possible that he had a twin, but I could find no indication of any such thing. Girtz’s birth had been recorded in the normal way, and there was no indication that his mother had given birth to a second Girtz.

I then had to consider whether I might not be the subject of a psychological operation, perhaps carried out by the FSB or the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence. It was impossible to be sure, but all my computers appeared to be absolutely secure.

I procured a tracking device. It was the size of a postage stamp and could be stuck to Girtz’ clothing if he ever happened to bump into me again. I bought a shop dummy, dressed it like Girtz in an idiotic old leather jacket, and practised seamlessly pulling the device from my pocket and attaching it to the jacket. After some experimentation I found that if I kept it underneath my watch, I was able to pull it out and attach it in under a second. Once attached it blended inconspicuously with the fabric of the jacket.

The element of the surprise would be the key problem to overcome. I was inclined to freeze whenever Girtz appeared. I made up my mind that from then on, I would expect Girtz at each and every moment. If he came anywhere near me, my immediate reaction would be to pull out that tracker and stick it on him the moment he looked away.

That isn’t the sort of thing I normally go in for, needless to say. My area is cybersecurity and systems penetration, not this cloak-and-dagger stuff, but my contacts proved useful in procuring a tracker that would suit my needs.

I saw him several times in the weeks after that, but always somewhere in the distance, far enough away that I was unable to follow him, much less attach the tracker. He was always leering and laughing at me in a most sinister fashion, or making obscene and insulting gestures.

Was it possible that he hadn’t been in the car when it had crashed? But the police reports said that he had. That led me to wondering whether he had accomplices in the police who were able to help him fake his death.

It even occurred to me that perhaps I had been expertly played. Sinister unknown entities, aware of my skill in cyber-assassination had deliberately provoked me to murder, and had fooled me into thinking Girtz was in that car when he wasn’t.

But who would go to such enormous lengths, and why? And why was Girtz now tormenting me? What did he have to gain by it?

There had to be an explanation, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. It was to take me quite a while to hit upon the truth.

Clearly Girtz was not dead, and he had not been driving the car that I had crashed. When the accident had occurred, Girtz had somehow realised that I was to blame for it. He had seized the opportunity to fake his own death, which was probably very convenient for him. The police coroner had been paid off, and Girtz’s persecution of me was no doubt motivated by simple revenge; an urge he was unable to resist.

That’s what I thought at that point, and only later did I realise that explanation was laughably incorrect.

My next encounter with Girtz proved to be extremely dangerous and sinister. I was standing waiting for a bus in town when I was pushed violently from behind out into the road, into the path of the o ncoming vehicle. Only my quick wits saved me. I immediately jumped out of the path of the bus and into the middle of the road, skilfully using my forward momentum, rather than trying to get back to the pavement as a lesser man might have done.

As the bus pulled up beside me, obscuring my view of the attacker, I immediately knew what had to be done. I was prepared. I ran around the bus and saw Girtz striding away, no doubt seeking to hide himself as quickly as possible. The other people at the bus stop weren’t doing anything useful; they were only standing around with idiotic expressions on their stupid faces, gawping in horror. Oddly, none of them were even looking at Girtz’s retreating back. Their attention was entirely focused on me.

I ran after Girtz, pulling the tracker from behind my watch. When I caught up with him he was immersed in a thick crowd of shoppers. I managed to get close enough to stick the tracker on his jacket. Then I thought to confront him, but Girtz was far stronger and bigger than me, so instead I stood there, watching him walk away.

I had what I needed. With the tracker I could find out where he was staying and devise a suitable method of dispatching him into oblivion.

I hurried to a taxi rank, the morons at the bus stop still gawping at me and pointing.

In my study I activated the tracking software. Girtz was stationary, inside a house not far from mine. It made me shiver to think that he had been hiding so close by all along. The nerve of the man!

I watched the computer screen all day and all night. Girtz didn’t go anywhere until six o’clock the next morning. Then he travelled to a bakery in town, where he remained. The bakery had to be a front for some kind of criminal enterprise.

I immediately walked into town, taking with me a handheld device that could be used to precisely locate the tracker, along with my Glock.

When I walked into the bakery, my heart was pounding. I knew that, in the back somewhere, Girtz was up to some nefarious business.

I queued up with the customers while I tried to decide what best to do. By the time I had reached the front of the queue, I had decided to simply barge into the back and kill Girtz then and there. When the police realised I had killed a man who was already dead, they would surely understand that I was not an ordinary murderer. Almost certainly I could call upon my contacts to help bail me out and avoid any criminal trial. I was willing to risk a few months in jail to dispatch Girtz once and for all.

The woman at the counter asked me what I wanted, which caught me off-guard, interrupting my thoughts.

“A sausage roll.” I replied.

“Anything else?” she said.

At that I opened the hinged wooden counter top that barred my way and ran into the back of the bakery.

The woman shouted after me.

“Hey, you can’t go in there!”

In the back I found a man taking pastries from an oven.

“Are you OK, mate?” he said. “Can I help you?”

Using the handheld device I quickly located the tracker. It was stuck to Girtz’s jacket, which was hanging among some other coats.

Then Girtz had to be there, but where? I searched the back room thoroughly, but there was no sign of Girtz. All I could find was a walk-in refrigerator full of frozen goods for baking, and a store cupboard.

“Where is he?” I said to the man.

“Where’s who?” said the man.

“Girtz.” I said, and I pulled out the Glock.

The man turned pale.

“T-There’s no-one else here.” he stammered. “It’s just me and Karen.”

“I know you’re lying.” I said, but I could do nothing about it, so I put the gun away in my jacket and walked out the back door. Before exiting I turned and said to the man, “If you tell anyone about this, I will come back, and I will kill you.”

“I won’t tell anyone!” said the man. He was pale as death.

After passing through the back door I found only a courtyard enclosed by a high brick wall. Embarrassingly, I had to go back into the bakery so I could exit via the front.

I wondered if the woman at the counter was in on the criminal side of the enterprise, or only the man. Girtz must have left before I had arrived, I decided, leaving behind his jacket.

At home I continued to monitor the tracker. At six in the evening, Girtz, or at least, the jacket, went back to the house nearby, apparently taking a bus.

I watched the computer screen all night again, even though I was very tired. I had a suspicion that Girtz would again leave the house at six in the morning, so at half-past five I made my way to the house, taking the Glock, and watched from a safe distance.

At six o’clock the door opened and for a moment I thought I saw Girtz, but then I realised I was looking at the man from the bakery, wearing Girtz’s jacket. I had been played. Girtz had loaned his jacket to the man, to throw me off the scent. Obviously he had discovered the tracker.

I went back home and tried to sleep, in a state bordering despair, but I wasn’t able to sleep at all. I finally understood beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was dealing with a formidable adversary. Girtz was inordinately smart, and probably well-connected with criminal groups, and possibly even foreign intelligence agencies.

By the morning, a conviction had formed itself in my mind. The very next time I saw Girtz, I would have to kill him, by whatever means necessary. That was the only way to deal with him.

I took to carrying the loaded Glock wherever I want. When I worked at my computer, I carried it in a holster concealed under my shirt.

Girtz was a dead man; he just didn’t know it yet. He had counted on my fear of the law to protect him, but he had pushed me too far. Now he would pay.

I didn’t have to wait long. Only two days later, Girtz reached new depths in his persecution of me.

I awoke suddenly from a deep sleep, unaware of my reason for waking. I switched on the bedside lamp and groped around on the bedside table for my spectacles, half-asleep. Suspicious, I pulled out the loaded Glock from under my pillow. Then a horrible voice spoke, startling me into full consciousness.

“That won’t do you any good.”

Girtz was sitting on the little chair in the corner of my room, which I used to prop open the door when needed.

“You!” I exclaimed, and I levelled the gun at him. “How did you get in? This place is fully alarmed.”

“Alarms are no barrier to a dead man.” he said.

“You are not dead,” I shouted, “but you soon will be!”

He laughed; a hideous low sardonic laugh, as if to demonstrate how little fear he had of me.

I discharged the Glock into him, three times to make sure.

“No, you’re wrong.” he said. “I am dead, and the dead cannot be killed.”

I fired the Glock again, and again, to no effect.

“I’m leaving now,” he said, “but I will return.”

With that he faded and disappeared.

I collapsed on the bed, trembling, and shouted in fear, “Oh God! Oh my God!”

I have never been superstitious and have never believed in ghosts or spirits, but I had been confronted with clear evidence that Girtz had somehow managed to persist in the form of a demonic spirit. There could be no other explanation. I saw him as plainly as I now see the computer screen in front of me. I heard him speak, and damned if I hadn’t smelt him as well. Girtz had a characteristic odour about him.

How happy I was that day to see the sun rise over the horizon! But I knew daylight was no barrier to this fiend. I had seen him many times during the day since his death, and twice he had physically pushed me.

I began to earnestly research the spirit world. Most of the books I found on the topic were full of silly superstition, and the Internet worse than useless, but I managed to locate a handful of old books that I thought might possibly be helpful.

I began to carry out certain arcane occult practices that I hoped could deter Girtz from further visits, or perhaps even banish his form from the Earthly realm altogether.

Nothing helped. He began to appear to me regularly, at first sitting on the chair in the corner, but when I removed that, striding about my room.

I felt that he meant to kill me, but intended to take his time about it. Sometimes he would knock things off the shelves, smashing fragile objects on the floor, haranguing me about the assassinations I had carried out from behind my computer screen. He appeared to know everything about my past and present; nothing was hidden from him.

Finally I decided I must confront him with the utmost directness.

When I next awoke to find him looking over me with a sadistic sneer on his face, I demanded to know why he was persecuting me. Jumping out of bed so as to put some distance between him and myself, I implored him to tell me the reason for his continual haunting of me.

“For pity’s sake, tell me what you want!” I said, my voice almost breaking into a sob. “I’m sorry I killed you! But you … you drove me to it. It was your fault! Why are you torturing me?”

He laughed wickedly, then walked steadily towards me. I backed away until I was pressed against the corner of the room. He approached until his face was inches from mine. Then he said, “I’m going to drive you insane. Then I’m going to kill you.”

And then he began to laugh uproariously, throwing his head back.

I could faintly see straight through his head to the wall on the other side of the room.

I sank to my knees.

“Please!” I cried. “Please leave me alone!”

He only laughed, and taunted me.

I awoke the next morning to find myself still slumped in the corner of the room, apparently having passed out.

This happened only a week ago, and since then he has followed me everywhere. For perhaps five hours every day he mocks and insults me. Even when I walk outside, his face hovers in front of me, detached from his body, or the apparition of it.

I can stand no more.

Redfield put the sheaf of papers down on Dalton’s desk.

“Bloody hell.” she said.

“Exactly.” said Dalton.

“He was insane.” she said.

“We thought so,” said Dalton, “but naturally we had to wonder why. It wasn’t impossible that he was the victim of some species of psyop carried out by foreign agents. MI5 spent weeks looking into that. I know that for a fact.

“The odd thing was, his brain was completely normal at autopsy, and they went to some lengths with the examination.”

“That doesn’t prove anything.” said Redfield.

“No.” said Dalton. “It was weird though. He was sane for more than sixty years, then he lost the plot. That’s not very common. If it wasn’t for me, MI5 would still be doing their heads in over it, even now.”

“You?” said Redfield.

“Always check everything.” said Dalton. “Never take anyone’s word for anything. That’s the maxim I live by. I did some digging and guess what?”

“What?” said Redfield, half-laughing.

“There was a mix-up at the coroner’s. They had another fellow in around the same time, also high priority, and somehow they managed to get themselves confused about who was who.”

“No!” said Redfield.

“Oh yes.” said Dalton.

He was pleased he had decided to tell her. Redfield was an appreciative audience.

“Take a look at this.” he said, and he took a second sheaf of papers out of his desk and passed it to her.

“Autopsy report.” said Dalton. “Turned out he had a massive brain tumour. Started in the frontal lobe on the left and spread into the parietal and temporal lobes. If he hadn’t killed himself he would have been dead within a few months anyway.”

“Poor man.” said Redfield, shaking her head.

“Well I wouldn’t feel too sorry for him.” said Dalton. “He did murder an innocent man, after all. To say nothing of whatever else he was involved in. Better not to know.”

“At least he murdered someone awful.” said Redfield, with a hollow laugh.

“Unfortunately not.” said Dalton. “The man who moved in next to him was a harmless accountant. No tattoos. No interest in popular music. He bought the house outright with years of savings.”

Redfield’s mouth fell open.

“You’re kidding me!” she said.

“Nope.” said Dalton. “Dryden-Holmes was completely and utterly off his head.”

Dalton stood up and took his and Redfield’s coats from a coat stand.

“Drink at the Fox and Duck before we head home?”

“You bet.” said Redfield, putting her arms around him.

“And then, I think, a night of passion.” said Dalton.

“You promised you’d fix the boiler.” said Redfield.

“Oh.” said Dalton. “Yeah, that’s what I meant. A night of passionately fixing the boiler.”