“When was this?”
“Oh… eight, nine weeks ago.”
I glanced at Morrie. “How come we didn’t see you then? And how do you know my name?”
“My dear Mina, you didn’t see me because I chose not to be seen. When I first appeared on the grotty shop carpet, I went in search of answers but instead found you, Moriarty, and two other menin flagrante delicto. I chose not to stick around. I’ve been watching you ever since I arrived. I know all that goes on in Argleton, and I have eyes on the shop at all times.”
I folded my arms. “In the twenty-first century, we call that stalking.”
“Indeed. Well, mystalking, as you say, may have just saved Moriarty’s life. It was I who alerted him to the death of Kate Danvers.”
“Who is Kate Danvers?”
“Officially, she’s a devoted wife and senior developer at a tech company that makes cloud-based ticketing systems for events. After years of battling with depression and anxiety, Kate committed suicide in November last year. In reality, she’s a cunning woman who has been living in the Philippines after faking her own death in November, and has only recently turned up dead with a dagger in her gut.”
I glared at Morrie. “Did you by chance have anything to do with this?”
Morrie flashed me one of his signature smirks. “Not the stabbing, but Imaybe tangentially related to her original disappearance.”
I folded my arms. “You wouldn’t happen to betangentially relatedvia some highly illegal and dangerous scheme?”
Morrie looked sheepish. “I admit, I might not haveentirelygiven up on the criminal underworld. I did try to play it straight, but do you have any idea how difficult it is to maintain my standard of living earning money legitimately? So yes, Imighthave been running a small business on the side. It’s a public service, really, and totally legit, you understand… Well,mostlylegit.”
I tapped my foot. “A business doing what?”
Morrie’s eyes widened in what he obviously thought was an expression worn by a completely innocent person. “I help people fake their deaths.”
I tossed back my head and laughed. It was either that or punch Morrie in the face, and even though I was pissed at him, he was quite exquisite and I didn’t want to be responsible for ruining his perfect nose.
“Is she okay?” Sherlock jabbed a finger at me. “She’s more unstable than that Sebastian Moran fellow you doted on so much.”
“I find sociopaths to be the most devoted employees.” Morrie tapped his foot. “All you have to do is give them interesting work to do, like assassinating bothersome people or throwing rocks at yourex-lovers. If you recall, I briefly toyed with hiringyou, before your incurable laziness became apparent.”
“And yet, it was this layabout working on the side of good who ultimately defeated the most devilishly invigorated spider at the center of London’s vast criminal web—”
“Okay, all right, you two.” I wiped tears of mirth from my eyes. “You bicker worse than Morrie and Heathcliff. Both of you calm your farm for a second while we figure this out. Morrie, you’d better explain to me how this death-faking business works.”
“It’s simple.” Morrie reached into the pocket of his jacket and removed a business card, which he placed in my hand. It was too dark in the cabin and the words too small for me to read, but the paper felt thick and expensive, with embossed words. “People come to me who want to disappear. I use my resources to help them do it. In most cases, you don’t need a body to fake a death – it’s all about the paperwork, and I have the necessary contacts and the ability to apply pressure in the right situations to grease the wheels of bureaucracy in my clients’ favor.”
“So you forge documents.” I lifted an eyebrow.
“It’ssomuch more than that.” Morrie beamed. “I offer consulting services. You wouldn’t believe how many people try to fake their deaths and fuck it up. I have years of criminal experience to draw from, and I can stop them making the simplest mistakes. Take Kate, for example. She was going to go fall off her boss’ boat and fake a drowning. Ridiculous. People always assume the best way to fake your own death is with drowning, but it’s actually the worst idea. A drowned body will usually wash up somewhere, so drownings without a body are instantly suspicious to the authorities. I advised her on a more foolproof plan.”
“Which was?”
“She would walk into the woods of Barsetshire Fells and never return.” Morrie looked pleased with himself. “Nine out of ten successful fake deaths occur in the wilderness. It’s often impossible for rescuers to locate a body, so no one is suspicious when one doesn’t show up.”
“An excellent plan,” Sherlock piped up. “As befitting a brain of the first order.”
“Precisely.” Was it a trick of my failing eyes, or did Morrie’s cheeks deepen with color at Sherlock’s praise? “And it all went off without a hitch. In November, Kate attended the Wild Oats Wilderness Survival School with a group of her colleagues. Every year, the company pays for a lavish retreat for the top achievers. This year I had Kate put herself in charge of the bookings, which meant she could control the location and activities, and she sent the group into the heart of Barsetshire countryside to learn how to build fires and drink their own urine. On the final night of the training, all attendees, including Kate, had to spend a night in the forest… alone. When the instructor went to collect her the next morning, all that was left of her camp was the embers of a fire and a suicide note. Search teams were called in, but they never found the body.”
“Because there wasn’t one,” I finished.
“Precisely. I already had Kate on a flight to the Philippines, where I set her up with a job and enough funds to see her comfortably through the next few years.”
“You’re so beautiful when you talk death fraud,” Sherlock purred, his hand reaching up to touch Morrie’s cheek.
Morrie slapped it down. “Don’t touch me again. This conversation is between me and Mina.”
