Murder of the Bride

Copyright Information

Heaven Preserve Us: A Home Crafting Mystery
© 2011 Cricket McRae

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

First e-book edition © 2012

E-book ISBN: 978-0-7387-2938-1

Book design by Donna Burch

Cover design and photo illustration by Kevin R. Brown

Cover photo images: Church © iStockphoto.com/Max Homand,
Crow © iStockphoto.
com/Daniel Cardiff, Raven © iStockphoto
.com/Frank Leung

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Dedication

In memory of Mark Challinor

Cast of Main Characters

Rex Graves
—Scottish barrister and amateur sleuth

Helen d'Arcy
—Rex's fiancée, a school counselor in Derby

Reverend Alfred Snood
—
vicar of All Saints' Church in Aston-on-Trent

Detectives Lucas and Dartford—
of the Derbyshire Constabulary

PC Dimley
—rookie constable

PC Perrin
—young policeman, going places

On the Bride's Side

Polly Newcombe
—the less than lily-white bride

Victoria Newcombe
—bride's pretentious mother

Gwendolyn Jones
—bride's aunt on her father's side

Amber Tate
—maid of honor and Polly's best friend

Meredith Matthews
—bride's friend from school who lives in London

Reggie Cox
—Meredith's sartorially flamboyant boyfriend

Bobby Carter
—
Newcombe family solicitor

Roger Litton
—Polly's former home economics teacher at Oakleaf Comprehensive

Diana Litton
—history teacher married to Roger Litton

On the Groom's Side

Timothy Thorpe
—a well-intentioned groom with a weak chin

Mabel Thorpe
—the groom's fussy and overprotective mother

Dudley Thorpe
—the groom's womanizing twin and best man

Donna Thorpe
—Dudley's disenchanted wife

Tom Willington
—the groom's boss at the accounting firm

Jocelyn Willington
—
Tom Willington's bossy wife

Clive Rutherford
—Timmy's former mathematics teacher and Helen's
ex-boyfriend

Jasmina Patel
—Clive's stunning date

Jeremy Walker
—Timmy's friend from accounting school

Elaine Price
—Jeremy's drippy girlfriend

Staff

Stella and Lydia Pembleton
—the caterers

Rachel Pembleton
—
Lydia's daughter, waitress

Harry Futuro
—
a.k.a. DJ Smoothie

“The Darling Buds of May”

Not a very auspicious
da
y for a wedding, Rex thought as he looked out Helen's bedroom window. A drizzly gray day beckoned feebly, and windy gusts rapped the branches of the willow tree against the panes of double glazing. Evidently, May in Derbyshire was no more predictable than May back home in Scotland, and Rex felt s
orry for the bride and groom who would be setting out on a new life together this very day.

Wrapped in his flannel dressing gown, Helen entered the room with a tray and placed it between them on the bed before burrowing her feet under the covers. “You must have brought the cold weather down from Edinburgh,” she said. “I had to put the central heating back on.”

“It was fine weather in Scotland when I left yesterday afternoon. Helen, you should have let me make breakfast.”

“I felt like spoiling you. I tried to make your eggs the way you like them—soft-boiled, but not too runny. And the marmalade is homemade, courtesy of Roger Litton, the Home Ec teacher at my school.”

She proceeded to pour tea into two blue mugs. “I hope the rain will clear up for the wedding today.”

“And for our hiking trip.” A keen walker and nature-lover, Rex was looking forward to their excursion into the Peak District the following day.

“I do feel sorry for Polly and Timothy,” his fiancée remarked. “But I think it's an indoor reception. Anyway, it may still turn out sunny.”

“You are the eternal optimist, Helen.” Rex took a more pragmatic view of British weather: be prepared and always take a brolly. He cracked the shell of his egg with the back of his spoon, sprinkled on some salt and pepper, and dipped a buttered strip of toast into the thick warm yolk.

“Perfect,” he complimented Helen on the consistency of the egg and, noticing she was not eating anything, asked, “Not hungry?”

“I have to fit into my suit,” she explained.

“Och, it's not like you're the bride. All eyes will be on Polly.”

“Including yours?”

“That's not what I meant.”

“I know. You're just trying to be helpful.” She deposited a conciliatory peck on his cheek. “I can't believe Polly is getting married,” she went on dreamily. “But Timmy ended up doing all right for himself, considering he was such a sickly child and missed a lot of school.”

“You said he was an accountant?”

“Yes, at quite a prestigious firm.” Helen shook her head in disbelief. “Seems like just yesterday Polly was in my office crying and carrying on. That girl had so many problems.”

“Were they childhood sweethearts?”

“Oh, no,” Helen said, refilling their mugs. “Timmy was bullied
mercilessly at school. Polly, on the other hand … well, let's just say
she was very popular with the boys. While Timmy was being picked
on in the playground, she was kissing all and sundry behind the bicycle shed. After she dropped out, we heard she was going with an undesirable character from Aston. So when we got the invitation to the wedding, we at the school were all rather surprised—and touched. And her mother is ecstatic.”

“Have you met Mrs. Newcombe?”

“Yes, and she's perfectly dreadful.”

Rex shot Helen a look, his spoon suspended midway to his mouth. “That's the first time I've ever heard you speak an unkind word aboot anybody,” he said, his Scottish accent betrayed in the “aboot.”

“I know, it's totally uncharitable of me, but you'll find out for yourself. They live in a Victorian Folly—one of those whimsical places built by people with more money than sense. Anyway, the headmaster used to call Mrs. Newcombe in to his office most weeks to discuss Polly's behaviour—her smoking on school grounds, the truancy, and so on, so I got to know her quite well. No dad in the picture, you see. He disappeared, quite mysteriously, while Polly was still very young.”

“An only child?”

“Yes, and only an aunt in the family.”

“It must be gratifying to know you had a positive influence on Polly's life.” Rex checked his watch. “What time do we have to get going?”

“By ten.”

An hour later, they were getting ready to leave the house. Standing in front of the hallway mirror, Rex spruced up his ginger whiskers with a brush of his fingers. The silk tie Helen had surprised him with was the same cornflower blue as her tailored suit, and the exact shade of her eyes. He leaned toward the glass. Did the tie clash with his hair? No, of course not; Helen had perfect taste in all things.

“You look amazing,” he told her reflection behind him.

Her ears beneath the blond chignon revealed the swan earrings he had bought for her when they first met, that Christmas at Swanmere Manor, the location of his first private murder case.

“You don't look half bad yourself.” She adjusted the pink silk carnation in the buttonhole of his charcoal gray jacket.

The boutonniere had been sent with the invitation. The card, a pink affair with scalloped edges and embossed in gold script, currently reposed against the clock on the living room mantelpiece. Rex had an inkling a leitmotif of pink would run through the day's proceedings. He just hoped there would be a lavish banquet. He already felt peckish, in spite of the breakfast he had consumed. “How many people will be there?” he inquired.

“Polly said it would be a small reception for family and close friends, and a few teachers from the school, including Clive.”

“As in Clive, your old boyfriend?” Hmm … Rex didn't quite know how he felt about Helen's ex-beau attending the wedding. Emotions tended to run high at such occasions, especially when everybody had too much to drink. Still, it might be interesting to finally meet the mathematics teacher and see if he was as boring as Rex imagined him to be.

“Yes, Clive will be there,” Helen said lightly, “as will the Littons. Roger was Polly's Home Ec teacher and sort of took her under his wing. Diana teaches history.”

Rex speculated anew about the tie. Undoubtedly, Helen was keen to present him in the best possible light to her friends—and to Clive, whose attendance she had flagrantly omitted to mention when she invited him to her protégée's nuptials two months ago.

He watched as she checked the locks on the windows and the bolt on the back door. “I didn't know you were so security conscious,” he remarked.

“I'm not, usually, but there's been a spate of burglaries in the county. Not that I have a lot in the way of valuables, as you know. Mostly, it's big places in outlying areas that have been targeted.”

Rex carried the gift for the bride and groom outside, a cut-glass fruit bowl that Helen had purchased. He couldn't understand why a young couple would require a gargantuan fruit bowl, and privately considered a toaster a more practical present for two people setting up house for the first time together.

He held his black umbrella over Helen's head as they started down the path to the driveway, at the same time attempting to keep droplets of rain off the gift's white and silver wrapping. Juggling gift and brolly, he opened the driver's door of her old blue Renault, which was marginally roomier than his Mini Cooper. Environmental concerns aside, he would not have opted for such a compact car had he anticipated frequent trips from Edinburgh to Derby. Next time he would take the train and save himself the leg-cramping 250 mile drive.

Installed in the passenger seat, gift perched on his knees, he pulled a map from the door pocket and located Aston-on-Trent on the outskirts of Derby, neighboring the canal village of Shardlow. Helen set the windshield wipers in motion and reversed into
Barley Close, a cul-de-sac lined with 1930s semi-detached red brick
homes, the sodden front lawns and early summer flowerbeds as forlorn as a lover stood up in the rain.

Definitely not an auspicious day for a wedding.