‘What is it, Rex?’ His dog was making bark/whine noises at him in an excited way again. It was clear the dog wanted to impart a message, but Albert could not decipher what the sounds Rex made were supposed to mean. He tried to guess, ‘You can smell gravy bones and think you are overdue a treat?’
‘Did someone say gravy bones?’ asked Hans, skidding to a stop, and barking gleefully. ‘They are in that cupboard there.’
Rex licked his lips and tried again. ‘There were two bad men here. They were in the café yesterday and outside it again last night. Plus, they were following us, or maybe Hans and the other human he was with this morning.’
‘Gravy bone, yes?’ said Albert, his voice taking on an excited edge to see if Rex would react and let him know he was on the right track.
‘That cupboard there!’ squealed Hans. ‘Right there!’
Albert started opening cupboards, certain Kate wouldn’t mind that he’d fed her dog a biscuit.
‘No, right there,’ barked Hans, pointing his head and eyes at the right door and wondering why the human was looking everywhere else.
‘Ah, here we are.’ Albert found a box of dog biscuits and doled out one each.
Rex was miffed that he couldn’t get his human to listen to his clear and simple message and knew that if he took the gravy bone, which he dearly wanted, the old man would assume he’d got it right and that would be that. He turned his nose up at the treat and focussed his gaze on his human’s eyes.
Hans, having scoffed his biscuit in under a second, snatched the other one the man still held in his hand and started crunching that too.
‘Hey!’ snarled Rex, swearing under his breath. The dachshund was licking up crumbs when Rex moved his front right paw and accidentally trod on the smaller dog’s left ear. Pinning his head in place, Rex then leaned his weight that way to ensure the dog couldn’t move and the old man couldn’t see him. ‘Now, where was I? Oh yes, I remember. OPEN YOUR NOSE!’ he barked loud enough to make his human jump. ‘You’ve got two humans following us around and a human who was murdered. They were all in this house together!’
‘What’s got into you, Rex?’
Han’s couldn’t get his ear out from under Rex’s paw and couldn’t turn his head to bite him either. His only option was to let out a soulful whine, the type a human couldn’t hope to resist.
‘You’re standing on Hans.’ Albert had to get hold of Rex’s shoulder and shove him backwards. Even then, Rex tried to keep his paw in place on top of the dachshund’s ear.
‘Keep pushing your luck, sausage,’ he growled, watching Hans play the part of the wounded dog. Hans was clinging to Rex’s human as the old man lifted the smaller dog into the air for a cuddle.
‘Am I going to have to shut you in the garden?’ Albert asked, looking down at Rex with an accusing stare.
‘Me?’ Rex couldn’t believe his ears. ‘You think I’m the one to blame. Well, that’s just perfect. I hope the two of you will be very happy together.’ Angry that the dachshund was winning, Rex took himself out of the kitchen to wait by the front door. He didn’t want to have to look at his human giving the annoying sausage dog the affection which Rex felt was rightfully his.
‘Did the nasty big dog hurt you?’ Albert asked Hans, getting a lick on his chin in reply. ‘Yes, I bet he did. What a brute he is.’
Albert’s baby talk as he petted Hans reached Rex’s ears as he sat facing the inside of the front door. If they were at home, or even back in their room at the pub, it would be one of those occasions where he accidentally widdled in a certain someone’s shoes.
Albert put Hans down to continue his search. There had to be something here that would exonerate Kate. If she had been here alone all evening waiting for Joel to get home, then surely there would be some evidence to prove she hadn’t driven her lover’s body to Wales.
He found a tower computer. Unable to tell if it was hers or Joel’s, it didn’t really matter because he doubted he would be able to access it. However, he had to wonder if Kate had maybe used it on the evening in question. Would a computer forensic scientist be able to prove that it was Kate using the machine?
To get an answer, he called Randall.
‘Hey, Randall,’ he jumped in as soon as he heard his son’s voice. ‘If a person were using their computer, doing social media whatnot and the like, could one of the forensics guys tell who was using it just from the profile being accessed?’ Albert wasn’t certain he had the terminology right. He didn’t do social media; to him it was all a bit odd to be sharing everything with everyone, but he expected Randall would understand what he meant.
‘You mean look at entry of passwords and the keystroke record to determine that the messages on a person’s social profile were sent from a particular computer? Yeah, sure. No one under the age of fifty uses a computer to do that though, Dad. Everyone uses their phone. Plus, if I understand your question, you want to prove a person was in a certain place when the messages were sent but that won’t work.’
Grimacing because his ray of hope had proved so fleeting, Albert asked, ‘Why not?’
‘Because it would only show that the computer was the one used. It wouldn’t prove who used it. Passwords can be obtained, or even shared
