Murder of the Bride (2 page)

R.I.P.

The renault turned into
a winding country lane edged with glistening hawthorn and, after half a mile, entered the village of Aston-on-Trent. Several homes appeared originally to have been farm houses, though many of more modern aspect had been added as the village grew into a commuter center, situated as it was just six miles southeast of Derby.

From Manor Farm Road, Helen exited onto The Green, where a half-timbered public house displayed the words “The Malt Shovel” in brass letters on its white wall. To make the point, a hanging sign depicted a man in a leather apron digging into a pile of malt. Rex made a mental note, fond as he was of pubs.

“This road loops around the back of the church,” Helen told Rex. “Hopefully we'll find a parking space.”

“Do we have time for a pint if the pub's open?”

Helen glanced, frowning, at the dashboard clock. “The wedding service starts at ten-thirty. If I can find a spot near the church, I won't have to walk far in these shoes.”

Ahead of them, the square Norman tower of All Saints' rose above the treetops beyond the tip of the village green.

“I could drop you off and park the car,” Rex suggested. And then get a quick pint, he forbore from adding aloud.

“I'd prefer we arrive together. In any case, most pubs in England don't open until eleven.”

Rex conceded defeat. It was Helen's day, after all. “I hope they have beer at the reception,” he contented himself by saying as he gazed longingly over his shoulder at the pub.

Helen had started to reply when she exclaimed in triumph, “Oh, look, someone's just leaving,” and edged the Renault in between two other cars on the street. “We'll leave the gift here. Newcombe Court is a few miles from the village, so we'll be driving over to the reception.”

“Right-oh.” Rex wondered how long the church service would last, not having attended a wedding in decades. Had that been his own wedding? No, there had been the marriage in Edinburgh of the son of a legal colleague some years ago, a full-blown traditional affair—bagpipes, kilts, swords, and all.

He levered himself out of the car and, opening the door for Helen, shielded her under his brolly as they approached the church. The churchyard wall was linked by an oak lychgate— “lic” meaning corpse in old English, as Rex had once informed himself; the covered gate serving in olden days to shelter the coffin and pallbearers while they waited for the priest to perform the burial service. Beneath the rafters of the pitched tile roof huddled a group of gussied-up couples equipped with an assortment of umbrellas, temporarily furled.

Now that he had an unobstructed view of All Saints', Rex recognized it as a beautifully preserved example of a Midlands parish church, begun in Saxon times, with the tower, buttresses, battlements, and four Victorian pinnacles added down the ages, and incorporating the straight lines of the Perpendicular period in between. Layered with history, the brown-gray edifice gave an overall appearance of something out of a Gothic melodrama as it brooded against the gloomy late morning sky.

The clock face beneath the Norman window in the north wall of the tower pointed to one minute before the half hour. A moment later, a six-bell peal rang out, scattering a flock of thirteen ravens from the battlements. The last of the guests hurried down the churchyard path amid ancient headstones embedded in the wet grass and streamed through the pointed arched doorway of the porch.

As Rex and Helen entered the short nave, a po-faced young woman in a frilly pink dress handed them a sheet edged in gold. She ushered them toward the pews to the left of the central aisle, which had already filled up with the bride-to-be's family and friends.

Rex looked around for someone who might fit his mental picture of Clive, the mathematics teacher, but most of the thirty or so guests had their backs to him, having arrived earlier. The traffic out of Derby that Saturday morning had been surprisingly heavy and slowed down by rain.

Helen waved to a woman in a lilac outfit and large straw hat seated four rows ahead beside a bald man in a brown jacket. “That's Diana Litton and her husband,” she told Rex.

Mrs. Litton, who wore translucent pink-framed glasses and a flirty shade of lipstick, waved back with enthusiasm. Rex thought she looked like she might be good company.

“There's loads of history in this church,” Helen proceeded to inform him. “Diana brought a class here on a field trip, and I tagged along as a helper.” She pointed to the front of the side aisle, separated from the eight rows of blue-padded pews by an arcade of stone arches set atop heavy, round pillars. “Over by the organ is an alabaster tomb from the fifteenth century bearing the effigy of a local landowner in a round cap and gown with his wife lying beside him, each with a dog at their feet.”

The crouching dogs' extremities had partially crumbled away. Carved in bas-relief on the chest tomb below, a series of angels held shields engraved with coats of arms.

“The couple is united in death,” Helen whispered. “Romantic, don't you think?”

“Only if they weren't going at it hammer and tongs in married life,” Rex whispered back. “Perhaps she never let him go down to the ale house.”

Helen feigned an exasperated sigh, but further discussion was forestalled by the opening chords to Wagner's “Wedding March” booming sonorously from a robust set of organ pipes. The muted conversations ceased. Heads turned toward the back of the church as a hugely pregnant bride sailed down the oxblood red carpet on the arm of a stout man, hair resembling white plumage backcombed over his head.

“That's Bobby Carter, a family friend, standing in for Polly's dad,” Helen murmured in Rex's ear.

Rex was more transfixed by Polly, whose frothy white dress flaunted a generous bosom while doing little to conceal her advanced condition. The old playground chant, “
Here comes the bride, forty inches wide
!” flowed unbidden to his mind as the organ music played valiantly on from the side aisle.

“Here comes the blushing bride,” chorused a hushed but resonant male voice from the pews.

“Blushing, ha!” rejoined a female.

Why, Rex wondered, had the couple left the nuptials so late? If they had been waiting for a May wedding in the hope of fine weather, they must be sadly disappointed.

A chaplet of pink roses crowned Polly's twelve-foot veil, the train held aloft by a pair of giggling teenage girls in ankle-length pink frills. The sullen young woman who had distributed the service sheets scattered petals from a wicker basket in the wake of the bridal procession.

Rex inched closer to the aisle, curious to see the waiting groom-to-be. Two young men stood at the foot of the chancel steps. One, dressed in a dove-gray three-piece suit, came across as highly impressed with himself, judging by his cocky attitude and dark, gel-spiked hair. The fair, lanky youth beside him wore a loose-fitting white tuxedo and had a pinched look about him. The disparity between Polly's fecund girth and the groom's rail thinness became all the more evident when they took their place together before the vicar.

“Timmy looks like he's about to faint,” Helen said
standing on tiptoe for a better view of the proceedings.

“If Polly doesn't give birth first,” Rex replied. “She's enormous. Are we coming back later today for the christening?”

Helen made a heroic effort to compose her face as the solemn occasion dictated, but Rex found himself greatly entertained by the spectacle, especially since the snowy-haired vicar in his pristine white surplice was straight out of central casting.

Reverend Alfred Snood introduced himself in a quavering voice amplified by a microphone and welcomed the assembly to the venerable sanctity of All Saints' Church which, he said, had officiated over many marriages down the centuries. He led the audience in prayer and enjoined them to sing “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” Those in the pews rose as the organ struck the first note, lending their voices to the choir sequestered in the polished oak stalls of the chancel, chastely adorned with white floral arrangements.

Rex sang along, looking out over the bare heads and dressy hats. Watery light penetrated the clerestory windows and jewel-toned stained glass, failing, however, to dissipate the stony chill of the old church.

“In the presence of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we have come together to witness the marriage of Polly and Timothy, to pray for God's blessing on them, to share their joy and to celebrate their love …”

Settling back in his pew, Rex closed his eyes and listened with vague attention to the vicar addressing the congregation from his elevated stance before the betrothed. “I am required to ask anyone present who knows a reason whereby these two persons may not be joined in lawful matrimony to speak now or forever hold your peace,” Reverend Snood announced.

A tomblike silence descended in what Rex could only describe as a pregnant pause, ending at length when the reverend asked the couple if either of
them
knew of a reason why they could not lawfully marry. A buzz-like mumbling arose among the guests on both sides of the aisle. Rex glanced quizzically at Helen, who shrugged in surprise.

When neither bride nor groom spoke, Reverend Snood inquired of Timmy if he would take Polly to be his wife, love her, comfort her, honour and protect her, and, forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as they both should live; and received a timorous “I will.” Polly, asked the same question regarding Timmy, responded in kind.

Lambs to the slaughter, Rex mused, wondering about the future in store for these two. They seemed so young to be getting wed—about the same age as his son, now attending college in Florida. Rex's own marriage had been curtailed when his wife Fiona died of breast cancer six years previously. A lump formed in his throat.

By the time he came to from his reminiscences, it was time to sing “Morning Has Broken,” a hymn he particularly liked and rendered with great gusto in his bass-baritone. The reverend invited the couple facing him to join hands and make their vows. Rex surreptitiously glanced at his watch. He was getting hungry, and his earlier longing for beer had quadrupled in intensity.

“Who is the best man?” he asked Helen as the individual in the dove-gray morning suit swaggered forward to give the groom the ring, while Polly accepted hers from the maid of honor.

“That's Dudley, Timmy's twin.”

“Twin?” Rex echoed in astonishment. The two men could not have appeared more different. Though not as tall as his brother, Dudley was broader across the shoulders and more muscular. He exuded vigor and virility, and there could be no denying that his features, while coarser than Timmy's, held a certain handsomeness that, along with his confident demeanor, could not fail to appeal to women.

“Attractive, isn't he?” Helen said, confirming Rex's assessment. “I wonder where his wife is.” Craning her neck, she scanned the opposite side of the aisle. “Don't see her, or the kids. Oh, look, there's Clive. Ooh, he brought a date.”

Rex discerned a trace of surprise—or was it disappointment?—in Helen's voice, and followed her gaze to where a couple sat close together in the right-hand pews. They were several rows forward, and he could only make out the back of Clive's head and, beside him, a pair of bare shoulders loosely draped with a silk shawl. The poor lass must be freezing, he reflected. Jet-black hair snaked down her back. The effect of hair, skin, and shimmering silk was nothing short of exotic. A silver hoop dangling from a pixie ear sparkled in the dim lamp light as she leaned in to address her companion.

“Looks like Clive did all right for himself,” Rex murmured to Helen, who continued to gaze across at them in bemusement.

“I'll say.”

Their attention reverted toward the altar when the vicar warbled into his microphone, “I now proclaim that they are husband and wife.” Joining the right hands of the newlywed couple, he declared, “Those whom God has joined together, let no one put asunder!”

Amen, thought Rex.

The Merry Widow
from Wales

The sun made a
brief, albeit halfhearted, appearance while the newlyweds and family members posed in front of the lychgate for photos, while the bridesmaids shivered in their pink gowns, awaiting their turn. Helen pulled a digital camera from her handbag and directed it at the group, the focal point of which was Mrs. Newcombe.

An undeniably handsome woman, she wore an off-white linen sheath dress and matching hat, its brim as wide as a satellite dish. Beside her, Bobby Carter, who had walked Polly up the aisle, grinned heartily, ruddy-faced beneath his plume of white hair growing up and out from his scalp like porcupine quills. And that must be Timmy's mother, Rex surmised as he watched a diminutive woman in a beige suit and cloche hat fuss over her son.

“Now, where did you put your inhaler, Timmy?”

“I have it, Mum.”

“Are you sure now? You look a bit peaky. Did you remember your Tums?”

A strong resemblance existed between them, Timmy having inherited his mother's weak chin, though fortunately for him, not the two whiskers sprouting from a large mole located in its center. Dudley owed her his dark hair and thin, beaky nose.

“Timmy, you're perspiring. Let me just blot your face a bit for the wedding photos.”

“I'm cold, not hot,” he told his mother in a raspy voice, swatting her off as he would an annoying bluebottle fly. Since Mrs. Thorpe was considerably shorter than her son, her ineffectual attempts to ready him for the camera proved quite comical to Rex as he watched the proceedings.

He thought it just as well the bride's mother had made the wedding arrangements, even if she did appear to enjoy tooting her own horn about it, telling all and sundry what a feat it had been organizing the event. In fact, Victoria Newcombe barely paused for breath except to smile in superior fashion for the professional photographer, a disheveled man in a suit.

“The flowers, transport, caterers, music, photography and video,
not to mention the wedding dress!” Mrs. Newcombe expatiated to her immediate circle of guests in haughty tones where the flat vowels of the region were all but absent. “Almost fifteen thousand pounds, just for this small affair. The church part was the least expensive item, can you believe! But I only have the one child and I wanted to give her a proper send-off. Thank goodness Mabel is paying for the honeymoon. She fixed them up on a package tour to Majorca.” The way Mrs. Newcombe said this denoted how common she thought the destination. “But, of course, Mabel is on her own, like me, and it's the best she could do under the circumstances.” She bestowed a gracious smile on the small woman in beige, who now smoothed Dudley's jacket in preparation for his group photo, while the rest of the guests waited, anxiously gazing up at the sky.

“Give over!” he snapped, adjusting his own tie. “It's Cry-Baby Timmy needs his nose wiping.”

“Where's Donna?” Helen asked Dudley, tactfully coming to Timmy's rescue. Or perhaps Dudley's, since the new groom looked ready to lunge at his twin.

“Kids came down with the flu, and Donna had to stay home with them. But I couldn't miss my baby brother's wedding, could I?” he declared, following up with a seductive wink at Helen.

“I thought you and Timmy were twins,” Rex interjected, suddenly taking exception to Dudley's dark designer stubble and fluorescent white teeth.

“Came out first, didn't I?”

Probably always came first, Rex decided. Dudley's aggressive, rhetorical-question style of conversation was beginning to grate, and Rex distanced himself.

Helen gestured to the maid of honor. “Amber, can you move in a bit closer so I can fit everyone in my view finder?”

This was the girl who had strewn rose petals over the red carpet in church. A blonde, sour-faced creature almost as tall as Timmy, she complied gracelessly with Helen's request, slouching into position with an expression of utter boredom. By contrast, the bride, whose veil was lifted off her face, smiled sweetly at the camera from a spray of honey-hued curls, clutching a large pink and white bouquet in front of her protruding stomach.

“Perfect,” Helen announced, showing Rex the digital image.

“Aye, verra nice.”

“Who did your hair, Polly?” she asked. “It looks lovely.”

“Amber. She stayed over last night to help me get ready. And she did my makeup.”

A bit heavy on the makeup, Rex thought.

“Haven't seen Gwen, have you?” Bobby Carter asked chummily, strolling toward Rex.

“Sorry. I don't know who Gwen is.”

“Polly's aunt from Wales.” Carter pulled a slim cigar from his waistcoat pocket. “Mabel went to pick her up from the train station this morning while Victoria was busy with preparations at the house, but Gwen wasn't there. Unlike the old girl to miss a good knees-up. She was due to get in at 9:45. Wonder where she got to …” Chewing on the cigar, he wandered back toward the twittering bridesmaids, inquiring after the missing aunt.

“Try her mobile,” Mrs. Newcombe instructed.

“She doesn't have one.”

“Gwendolyn is about as much use as her brother.” Mrs. Newcombe's shrill voice carried far and wide. “I don't know why we invited her.”

“Well, er, there isn't much family on the bride's side,” Carter pointed out in a low voice, though not so low that Rex couldn't hear. “Gwen is Polly's only other surviving relative, assuming, of course, Tom is dead.”

“I'd make sure of it if I only knew where he was,” Victoria Newcombe retorted. “But he disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving me with that white elephant on the hill.”

“Newcombe Court is a very fine residence, Vicky, and you are lucky to have it.”

“It's the least I deserve after he abandoned me and Polly the way he did. And please don't call me ‘Vicky.' It makes me feel like I should be working at Woolworth's or whatever it is now. I just worry he'll come back and claim the property after all this time.”

“Now, now, Victoria. He must be dead. Any self-respecting father who saw an announcement of his daughter's engagement in
The Times
would get in contact, if only to offer his congratulations. Now, don't get yourself all riled up. Today is a special occasion and you don't want to spoil it. You have worked very hard.”

“Don't I know it!”

The couple moved out of Rex's earshot, and Mrs. Newcombe went to give the photographer and videographer the benefit of her advice, pointing and gesticulating like a movie director. Helen approached, putting her camera away in her handbag.

“I got a few nice shots of the church,” she told Rex. “All Saints' is beautiful, isn't it?”

Rex thought it looked rather sinister beneath the dark clouds that threatened more rain. “Leave room on your camera for the ‘white elephant on the hill,'” he murmured.

Helen darted at him a look of surprise. “Where did you hear that? You must mean Newcombe Court.”

“Mrs. Newcombe referred to it that way, and now I'm most curious to see it for myself.”

“Victoria was always complaining about its upkeep, but it makes her feel very lady of the manor.”

“I can only pity poor Timmy—an overly protective mother on the one side and an overbearing mother-in-law on the other.”

“Victoria's all right once you get to know her, I suppose. She's
had such a lot to deal with, but today is her crowning success,
marrying her daughter to a respectable accountant. I'm looking at things from her point of view,” Helen added quickly, noting Rex's raised eyebrow.

“Victoria Newcombe certainly is the epitome of pretentiousness,” he agreed.

“Just wait until you see Newcombe Court.”

“You said that before. I cannot wait to see the blasted place. And I'm dying for a beer.”

“Oh, they won't be serving beer. Far too common,” Helen said in a mock-superior tone.

In that case …, Rex thought slyly. He told Helen he would bring the car round.

“Can we cadge a lift off you, if you're going to the reception?” asked a tawny-haired girl. A cream cashmere sweater overlaid with a string of pearls showed beneath her coat, a woolen beret stuffed in the pocket. “I'm Meredith, an old school friend of Polly's. And this is my boyfriend Reggie. We got the train up from London and took a taxi to Aston so we're without transport. Hello, Miss d'Arcy.”

“You can call me Helen now,” Rex's fiancée said with a smile. “And of course you can ride with us. How are you? It's been a while since I last saw you.”

“Fine, thanks, Helen. I heard about the engagement. Congratulations.” The girl's soft brown eyes took in Rex with a curious and kindly glance. A nice, wholesome lass, he decided. A little long in the face and nose, but with beautiful level brows and an upper lip shaped like a Cupid's bow. So much more appealing than the bridal troupe in their pink frills and fussy ribbons. He turned to the boyfriend and extended his hand.

“How's it going,” Reggie said in a transatlantic accent that Rex thought might be an affectation; difficult to tell these days with young people adopting American slang and expressions. And turning up to a wedding in a suede jacket and jeans! Though Reggie
had
managed to throw on a tie—a mangy sherbet yellow one that looked as though it had been rescued from a thrift shop.

Rex attributed his testy mood to an overdue beer, or perhaps to the fact he was trying to quit pipe-smoking. Right now a quick trip to the pub would restore his spirits, but his ploy of offering to bring the car round so he could sneak in a drink looked as though it might be sabotaged by Meredith and Reggie, who stood on either side of him in the manner of two newly adopted puppies. Still, they were of legal age … “Fancy a quick one at the pub?” he asked. “While we wait for the wedding party to set off ?”

Reggie's boyish face broke into an approving grin, but Helen quickly vetoed the idea. “I think they're getting ready to leave, and I'm not sure I'd remember the way to Newcombe if we got left behind.”

Rex demurred from pointing out that if Newcombe Court was the monstrous Folly she had described, all they need do was ask its whereabouts from one of the locals.

At that moment, a rotund woman swathed in purple chiffon bounced out of a black taxi cab. “Did I miss anything?” she cried to nobody in particular.

“Just the wedding ceremony,” Rex told her with a straight face.

The latecomer was in her early fifties, her black hair parted center and smoothed back in a sleek bun. Dark eyes twinkled as she gazed up at him with flushed cheeks. “The train from Cardiff was late. Got here as quick as I could. Oh, dear.”

“The newlyweds probably didn't even notice your absence in all the excitement,” he consoled her.

“Oh, but I'm Aunt Gwen. Polly's father was my brother. I say ‘was' as I haven't heard from him in ten years. He may be dead for all I know. Or else living abroad. He always did like to travel. Oh, dear,” she repeated. “Still, Church of England and Church of Wales weddings are all much the same, aren't they? But you're from Scotland, I can tell from your accent. Are you here by yourself ? On the bride's side or the groom's?”

“I'm with my fiancée,” Rex answered, amused by the sing-song deluge of words. “We're here for the bride.”

Aunt Gwen looked positively deflated when he mentioned the word
fiancée
. “Oh, just my luck. You are a very attractive man, but no doubt there will be some single gentlemen at the reception. Ta-ra for now.” Fluttering a wave in his direction, she twirled away on feet incongruously dainty for a woman of her round proportions.

Reggie whooped with glee. “Helen,” he said, interrupting her conversation with Meredith. “That Welsh chick just tried to pick up your man.”

“It happens all the time,” Helen replied with a mischievous wink. “Must be the red hair and whiskers. Or maybe the gruff Scots burr.”

“I think the fact that I'm big and brawny may have something to do with it.”

“That too.”

Just then, the crowd behind them stirred and they watched as the newlyweds made a dash beneath a snowfall of confetti to a waiting satin pink Mercedes, whose hood ornament anchored a white ribbon forming a V across the bonnet. At the last moment, Polly whirled her bouquet into the crowd where it landed in Aunt Gwen's outstretched hands, much to the joyful surprise of the recipient.

The Mercedes pulled sedately away from the lychgate revealing to the onlookers the words
Just married
sprayed in curly white letters across the tinted rear window.

“Time we were going,” Helen said when people started moving toward their cars. “You don't mind squeezing into the back?” she asked Meredith and Reggie, leading them to her Renault.

Reggie let his girlfriend in first. When they were all installed, Helen eased the car out of its space and slipped in among the row of cars making its way to the reception.

“Did you like the wedding ceremony?” she asked her young passengers, glancing into the rearview mirror.

“Thought it dragged on a bit, to be honest,” Reggie said. “I don't know if I'd want something so formal for my wedding.”

“I thought it was romantic,” his girlfriend countered. “It should be formal. It's, like, the most important day of your life.”

“For a girl,” Reggie scoffed, and received a punch in the arm from Meredith. “I thought Timmy was going to bolt. He looked dead nervous.”

“Well, it's a big day, like Meredith said,” Helen remarked as she slowly navigated the car down the high street, stopping briefly to let the Littons' vehicle squeeze in ahead of them.

“Timmy's been having stomach problems,” Meredith explained. “Polly phoned me last week to say they were thinking of postponing the wedding. But, of course, all the arrangements had been made and the invitations sent out. Then I got a call from her saying Timmy was feeling better.”