Page 124 of Murder in the Family

I don’t think that was very likely. Dead men don’t go on vacation.

ALAN CANNING

You think he was already dead? You sure about that?

BILL SERAFINI

As sure as I can be.

ALAN CANNING

Do you have any evidence?

BILL SERAFINI

Not actual evidence, no—

HUGO FRASER

Then how can you be so certain?

BILL SERAFINI

Instinct. Plus thirty years’ experience. And the fact that it’s the only workable theory.

LAILA FURNESS

So what do you think happened?

BILL SERAFINI

I think the real Eric Fulton died in New York. Died, or maybe got killed. Remember, the city was still dealing with the AIDS crisis as late as the mid ’90s, and he would definitely have been in a high-risk group.

Add to that the fact that NYC was in the middle of a crack epidemic and fatal shootings were a daily occurrence. Trust me, you didn’t have to be a drug dealer to get caught up in that, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

JJ NORTON

It could have been a hate crime. If Eric was openly gay.

BILL SERAFINI

’Fraid so. Sadly.

LAILA FURNESS

So our serial imposter finds out some way or other that the real Eric Fulton has died, and knows enough basic info about him to apply for a passport in his name?

BILL SERAFINI

That’s my assumption, yes. And our thief was in luck – no one back in North Birmingham knew for certain where Eric was. There was no Facebook to fall back on, as we’ve said before, and they’d have found it damn hard tracking him down any other way. As far as the folks back home were concerned Eric had gone completely off grid.

HUGO FRASER

And the next they hear is 1997, when he turns up dead in a Beirut bus bombing.

Only little do they know but the dead man isn’t him at all, it’s some surfer dude from Kalgoorlie called Luke Ryder, and our mystery man has now walked off withhisidentity instead. What the hellwas this guy up to that he had to keep changing his name?

BILL SERAFINI

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