The Reincarnation of Alastair Chamberlain

The Reincarnation of Alastair Chamberlain

1.

The antique Frodsham mantle clock chimed eleven as I removed the infuser and sipped my tea. Alastair served only the finest Darjeeling in his flat, drunk from antique 17th century China cups.

Alastair and I have been friends for years, ever since he moved here to Royal Estate Assisted Living. If I had to pick his standout quirk, it’s his obsessive compulsion about the precise arrangement of everything in his well-appointed flat, measured down to the millimeter. And given his expensive tastes, I wasn't at all surprised when he stood before me in his parlor and held out a bottle of Trafalgar’s aftershave worth at least three-hundred quid.

“Go ahead,” he said. “It doesn’t smell bad, Doris, just different. Smells wrong, somehow.”

I’d smelled it wafting off him every day at breakfast in the lounge, so when I placed my nose near the bottle and sniffed, I sensed nothing unusual. I shook my head and got back a growl of frustration.

“It’s not just its smell but how I found it placed. Label facing away, not toward, an inch leftward from its usual spot, and turned three degrees off kilter!”

I asked if he’d bumped it without realizing it, but he frowned and shook his head emphatically back and forth. I’d been properly chastised.

“I have a spare bottle. This one goes in the trash. Doris, don’t you see, this is the fourth ill occurrence this month!”

He dumped the expensive cologne down the sink drain, then tossed the bottle into the recycle.

“Remind me again about the others?”

He kept count on his fingers as he renumerated.

“First was my Mondial’s moisturizer. I found it placed incorrectly, like the aftershave. When I used it, my face turned red and tingled, and I felt dizzy. Why would that occur after years of problem-free use? Second – that pint of creamer. You know, the brand I bring along for my tea because it doesn’t give me gas. I found it top shelf, right side, not left, in the fridge. I used some in my cuppa and threw up that night. Third was the bottle of paracetamol, where the top few layers of caplets had a different shape than the others. My mild headache that day might’ve spelled my doom had I not tossed the whole mess into the bin! And now, number four.”

“Then for heavens sake, call the police, if you think someone’s trying to murder you,” I said, shaking my head in bewilderment.

“No, no, I don’t want the police traipsing about. They’ll leave a mess. Besides, I’ve binned all the tainted stuff, and the dumpsters were emptied this morning. I’m considering an alarm system. I know it’s not allowed here, but it’s better than the alternative.”

An hour later, while working through my Pilates routine at the group session in the solarium, I worried for him. I didn’t think someone actually had it in for him, but he was so terribly off kilter. His OCD nature was difficult for him in the best of times, and now this.

When I’d asked him who might wish him harm, he said that his layabout thirty-year-old son Julian had recently stormed out of a restaurant when Alastair refused to pay off his reckless gambling debts and pile on another thousand pounds of what his son termed “early inheritance”.

“Can’t you release my trust money early?” Julian had pleaded. “This is so unfair! There’s a million I can’t touch for five more years!”

2.

Alastair entered Sainsbury’s just before closing and found Cedric, the store manager and casual friend he’d known for years. They enjoyed bantering in the produce section, asking after each other and exchanging tidbits of local gossip. They’d also met a few times for a single malt at the Velvet Fox, with Alastair footing the bill so they could both enjoy the good stuff.

That’s where they were now, in the furthest booth in the darkest corner. Alastair had just presented a strange proposal to his friend. Initially, Cedric had laughed it off. Until he realized Alastair was serious.

“Look, you know how similar we look. You’ve joked that your coworkers at Sainsbury’s think we’re long lost twin brothers. In effect, you’re my doppelganger! I know this will work. Just four days, maybe a week. You live in my posh flat, eat and drink anything, even drive my Jaguar. The food at Royal Estate is four star, by the way!”

“And you’re saying you’ll pay me for it? So no one knows you’re out of town doing… what? Something dodgy?”

“You’ll get a thousand quid. And no, it’s not dodgy, nothing like that. I’ve never told you this before, but I’m still legally married. Estranged for decades, and she finally wants a divorce so she can remarry. She’s up in north Scotland. The trip and all the paperwork will take days.”

“She wants to remarry now, at her age?”

Alastair shrugged and held up his hands.

“Who knows? And frankly, who cares? I’d finally get to sever all legal ties between us. It’s been hanging over me for close to twenty-eight years now. Time to end it. And I don’t want my friends at Royal Estate to know. They think Victoria died of cancer, long before I lived in the area. I don’t want them to know about all the – you know how it is, old chap – the mess of what we’d become, Victoria and I.”

“Say I’m interested. How do we pull this off?”

“I’ll sneak you into my flat through my sliding door, on the first floor, at night. We’ll spend a day or two trying on clothes, practicing mannerisms, and learning information you’ll need when spending time with my friends Doris and Mandy. The three of us join for breakfast and dinner. And before you get any ideas, no, they’re not those kinds of friends.”

“I have to sit down to eat and talk with them? I don’t see how they’ll fall for it! Women’s intuition, and all that?”

Alastair shushed me and shot a wary glance around the nearly deserted pub.

“I’m going to feign catching the flu. I’ll – or rather you’ll – recover quickly, but, for the duration of your stay, you’ll have laryngitis. Talking would be minimal, because it's painful. You can eat quickly at their table and hardly say a word. You’ll also need to attend some activities I’ll tell you about, to be more convincing. Oh, and take my car for a drive once a day. Have to keep the Jag purring like a kitten.”

Ten minutes and a double of scotch later, they’d shaken hands on the deal…

3.

Alastair hated leaving his garage door partly ajar, but it was the only way to open up slits between the door panels that he could see through, to keep watch on his flat’s glass sliding door. He knew that’s where the assassin gained entry.

A sleeping bag, microwave, and mini-fridge all sat behind his car, inside a small storage closet that he hid inside when Cedric came out to take the Jag for a spin.

It was two days into Cedric’s stay. Twice each day, he’d received texts from Cedric that all was going well. As of yet, however, no signs of someone trying to sneak in and poison him.

This was the nexus of Alastair’s plot – to keep watch during these most critical periods and catch the villain red handed – during meals and car drives, with Cedric away from his flat, and also late at night, when Cedric was sound asleep.

But tonight, at 3 AM, Alastair sat chilled to the bone and drowsy from sipping scotch. He struggled to stay awake, his eyes weary from squinting through the slit in the garage door. Try as he might, with his forehead resting against the garage door panel, he eventually dozed off...

4.

Mandy and I were halfway through dinner when Alastair showed. I glanced at my watch – ten past six – completely unlike him. Punctuality was his trademark, but I suppose his recent bout of flu was to blame. We’d seen him earlier at the book club, where he’d wheezed out a few words about laryngitis and barely said a word after that.

Now, as he sat down at our table and the lights dimmed for dinner, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Alastair, dear, you look awful,” I said.

Alastair wheezed out, “Sorry ladies, I’m still feeling under the weather. Doctor says I’m not contagious.”

Jeeves paused at our table and filled Alastair’s cup with strong, black tea. As always, Alistair unscrewed the cap on his creamer carton and poured in a healthy dose. I thought for a moment that he was going to overflow the cup onto the saucer. He usually added only a spot or two.

“You look so sallow. Are you still using the filler cream?” I asked.

Alastair looked puzzled.

“You know, for your forehead creases? Please don’t take this the wrong way, but we’re concerned for your health. We care is all,” I said, as I patted his arm while he took several hefty gulps from his cup.

“Discombobulated from the flu,” he wheezed, then winced a bit as he massaged his throat.

There were other strange signs, too – the lack of crispness in his collar and that small stain on his sweater vest. They weren’t up to Alastair’s exacting standards. He grasped knife and fork, and without examining them for smudges, began cutting into the chicken on his plate. Not in his usual habit of small, tidy morsels, but excavating large chunks that he literally wolfed down.

“Good, Alastair, eat all that food to regain your strength. Simply awful, the flu at your age!”

Just then, his face began to redden, and he tilted to the right. His eyes grew wider by the second, and he started to choke. In seconds, Jeeves rushed in to assist, and Doctor Horton, retired, ran over from the next table. Alastair was choking, no, more like seizing up, his eyes dimming as Mandy and I watched on in horror. Then foam began to bubble from his lips, spattering onto his sweater vest.

A half minute later, our dear friend Alastair was slumped across the table, dead.

5.

Just outside the dining room, I had finished giving my preliminary statement to Inspector Wembley when our Relations Director approached him.

“I just phoned his son Julian. He said he was already close by and would be here in minutes.”

“How’d he take the news?” Wembley asked.

“Quite shocked. Like a deer in the headlights.” Then she walked off, still shaken like the rest of us.

Mandy began giving her own statement, when, minutes later, Julian came storming through the outer doors, past the main atrium, and toward the dining entrance. That area was taped off, but he ducked beneath the plastic yellow band.

“Hang on!” Inspector Wembley shouted. “That’s a crime scene!”

I walked to the dining entrance and looked through. Julian was scrambling from table to table. At last he found Alastair’s usual seat, grabbed the creamer carton, and stowed it into a large pocket in his coat. My stomach clenched.

“What are you doing?” Wembley bellowed, and I realized he’d been standing just over my shoulder the whole time. As Julian froze in place, I looked beyond him, through the French door windows to the terrace. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“Alastair?” I said under my breath. Surely I was mistaken. The man was dressed in black sweat clothes and cap and looked fit as a fiddle, though, by the expression on his face, he was in a towering rage.

I felt faint and leaned against the wall until the atrium door burst open again and Alastair Chamberlain stormed in. Mandy’s eyes rolled back when she saw him, then slumped to the floor in shock.

“You bloody bastard!” Alastair shouted, as he fought to get past the inspector and attack his son. “I knew you were trying to kill me! I knew it! And now poor Cedric is dead!”