Murder of the Bride (5 page)

Foul Play

Rex kneeled down beside
Polly while Carter held her head in his lap and tried to put the glass of water to her lips, but she started retching and convulsing uncontrollably.

“Ambulance!” the solicitor cried, and asked everyone to stand back and give Polly some room.

“What can I do to help?” the vicar warbled.

“I'll take care of her.” Victoria Newcombe crouched on the Berber carpet with a handful of white linen napkins and took Carter's place. She mopped her daughter's brow and mouth, unable to control the yellowish-green emissions oozing from the girl's lips. “Get everybody out of here,” she shrieked. “Polly! Polly!”

Rex cleared the room and suggested to the bartender that the coffee and tea service be moved into the great hall. He opened the bay window to let in some air, since the stench of vomit proved nauseating. The vicar, succumbing to convulsions in turn, flopped into an armchair. Rex rushed to his aid and loosened his clerical collar. “Can I take you outside for some air, Reverend?”

“Just need w-water … oh, let me be, dear boy,” he said hoarsely, feebly pushing Rex away and covering his mouth with a handkerchief.

Rex glanced over to where Polly lay writhing on the floor. “Let's get her to a sofa,” he suggested to her mother, who sat sideways and crumpled beside her, leaning forward on her hands.

Victoria looked up and he was appalled to see that she too had turned green. “Food poisoning,” she said between gasps. “Prawns.”

Helen and Diana Litton stood in the doorway, holding the guests at bay.

“Did someone call an ambulance?” Rex asked.

“Dudley,” Helen told him. “The nearest emergency room is at Derby City Hospital. Mr. Carter went up the tower to look out for the ambulance. Timmy has been taken ill too. His mother is with him upstairs.”

Polly moaned deliriously from the center of the room, Victoria Newcombe now prostrate on the floor beside her. Rex felt the vicar's faint pulse.

“I think he's unconscious.”

“I'll help clean up,” Diana Litton said. “I'm no stranger to vomit and all the rest of it. I nursed my late mother through years of incontinence. Meredith says she'll assist. She works as a nurse's aide.”

“Anything to make them more comfortable,” Rex acquiesced. “Though I'm at a loss what to do. I don't suppose there's a doctor in the house?” he asked without any real hope.

“We already asked if anyone had any sort of medical experience,” Helen told him. “Only Meredith.”

“Meredith seems like a capable, level-headed girl. Send her in.”

“I've brought towels and disinfectant,” the girl said.

“Good. Mrs. Litton will help you. Any ideas what caused this?”

Meredith's gaze swept over the victims. “My guess is bacteria in the food.” She considered for a moment. “E. coli and salmonella would cause these types of symptoms, but not usually so quickly. I don't really know for sure, though. Sorry.”

As Meredith and Diana ministered to the sick, Rex looked around the otherwise deserted room. The half-eaten cake with the two bride and groom figures lying side by side on the top tier presented a pitiful sight. What a tragic end to a wedding, he lamented. And everything had happened so fast.

As he left the room, he ran into Bobby Carter.

“Someone said Victoria has come down with food poisoning,” the family solicitor said.

“So did Reverend Snood.”

“I'll make sure Victoria sues Pembleton Caterers out of business. They assured us everything would be fresh and of the highest quality. They certainly charged enough. And now this.” Carter looked into the room and took out his handkerchief, which he held up to his nose.

“Perhaps you can be of some comfort to Mrs. Newcombe and her daughter. I'll go and have a word with the caterers.”

Carter raised his fist. “I'll have more than a word with those two incompetent crooks.”

“Let me,” Rex coaxed. “You'll be of more use here.”

He went in search of the caterers and found them in the kitchen in the opposite wing. This room served as their base of operations, attested to by a couple of stainless steel mobile ovens, boxes of cutlery, and reserve piles of white plates. The two middle-aged women sat stiffly with the young waitress at a pine table laden with clean serving dishes, including a fruit bowl with a decorative border of cherries and pears.

“Any news?” asked the wiry-haired caterer who had wheeled in the cake. The other sat in stunned silence, staring into space and chewing on her pinky nail.

“Not good, I'm afraid. Four people are ill, including Timmy. We're waiting for the ambulance.”

“I don't know what happened,” the first woman said, helplessly lifting her hands and letting them fall back in her lap. “We've been going through the menu and can only think that the seafood might have been off. But I picked it up myself this morning from the fishmonger we always use. It was packed in ice on the way here and put straight into the refrigerator.”

“The prawns smelt perfectly fresh,” agreed the other caterer, whose smooth gray hair was worn in a short ponytail tied back with a black velvet ribbon. “And so did the shrimp. We inspect every item before purchase. The lettuce was thoroughly washed, and … well, we'll be ruined, that's all there is to it.”

“How long have you had the business?” Rex asked.

“Five years,” her partner replied. “We're sisters. Stella and Lydia Pembleton. Rachel here is Lydia's daughter. She helps out at weekends.”

“Well, let's not jump to any hasty conclusions. I just came to see if you might have thought of anything that could help explain the onset of symptoms.”

“What could it be but an unfortunate case of food poisoning?” Stella Pembleton asked. “Wait. You think it was deliberate poisoning? I can only hope,” she said with a grim smile. “Foul play would exonerate us.”

“Even in the unlikely event it was deliberate, Pembleton Caterers would be finished,” her sister Lydia countered. “No one would hire us for another event.”

Rachel ran fingers through chin-length, crimped black hair, held to one side by a tortoiseshell clasp. “Imagine something like this happening on your wedding day! Poor them. What a catastrophe.”

“Do you know Polly?” Rex asked the girl, who was about the same age as the bride.

“No, I just came in today to help serve and clear up.”

“How did you get the catering assignment for the wedding?” he asked Stella, who appeared to be the one in charge.

“We advertise online and through leaflets we distribute to bridal shops. We prepare everything fresh and serve it on our own crockery. We provide the glasses too. We're a one-stop service and offer flowers and entertainment, and even the invitations, through Patel's Print & Post in Derby.”

Rex heard a siren outside, followed by a commotion in the hall. He glanced at his watch. A good twenty minutes had passed since Polly's collapse. “No doubt we'll find out more shortly,” he said. With that, he left the morose trio in the kitchen and joined the bulk of the guests by the front door.

Two green-clad paramedics entered the hall with a stretcher and, directed by the solicitor, disappeared into the living room.

“Has anyone else been taken ill?” he asked Roger Litton, whose red polka-dot bow tie added to the surreal montage of the proceedings.

“Not so far. Diana told me the vicar hasn't come round yet. I teach Home Ec, you know. Food left out on a buffet table is prone to contamination. I'm thinking the lad who was carving the roast beef might not have kept his hands scrupulously clean.”

“He was wearing white gloves.”

“Was he? I never noticed that. In that case, it was most likely the curried prawns.”

“That does seem to be the consensus,” Rex told him.

“Rex!” Helen grabbed his arm. “Where were you?”

“Talking to the caterers. This outbreak isn't good news for them.” Especially if anyone died.

Rex fervently prayed that would not be the case. He'd had the feeling since looking out Helen's window that morning something might go wrong on the young couple's wedding day. How wrong, he had yet to determine.

Witch's Brew

“Witch … potions,” Polly
mumbled
as, tightly wrapped in a blanket, medics propelled her to the waiting ambulance on a clattering gurney. “Witch, potions …,” her voice trailed off indistinctly.

“I suppose that is another theory,” Roger Litton, the home economics teacher, remarked. “Though highly unlikely. Poor girl, but she'll be all right once they get her to the hospital. They can pump out her stomach or whatever it is they do.”

“What's she going on about witches for?” Reggie asked. “This whole thing is creeping me out.”

“She's delirious,” Meredith told her boyfriend. “Hasn't a clue what she's saying.”

“Imagine coming down poorly like that on your wedding day,” Mabel said, wringing her hands and watching as Polly was lifted into the bay of the ambulance beneath the flickering red wash of lights. “Fortunately, Timmy seems to be all right now.”

Uncle Bobby followed the second gurney carrying Victoria. “Can I go with you?” he asked a medic.

“No room, mate. Got to fit the vicar in. You can follow in your car if you like.”

Rex watched while the medics went briskly about their business. When all three patients were loaded into the ambulance, he caught up with the crew as they were getting ready to leave and asked what might have caused such a violent reaction.

“Nausea, vomiting, and upset stomach,” said one. “Best guess—acute case of food poisoning. Maybe some iffy mayonnaise. Did it come on fast?”

“Within an hour and a half or so of the buffet being served. Can you test for arsenic?”

“Arsenic? Got proof ?”

“I prosecuted a case of homicidal poisoning involving arsenic once. Exact same symptoms. Just a thought . . .”

“Hear that, Fred?” the medic addressed his colleague. “I'll inform ER,” he told Rex.

The driver slammed shut the back doors of the ambulance, muttering “bloody lawyers.”

“Mr. Carter,” Rex said. “I think we should gather everyone together at the first opportunity and see if we can pinpoint the source of the poisoning. Time may be of the essence.”

“I heard you mention arsenic.” The shock of events seemed to have sobered the solicitor up considerably.

“I think we should keep that under wraps for now so as to avoid more panic. We need to remind everyone not to touch or ingest anything.”

“I was on my way to the hospital.”

“I know, but I'm only a guest here, and a second-hand guest at that. You are the logical person to represent the Newcombes. Perhaps best if you stay.”

“Why do you suspect intentional poisoning?”

“For one thing, the caterers don't strike me as careless. For another, Timmy Thorpe presents signs of long-term arsenic poisoning, if I'm not mistaken.”

“Don't know about that,” Carter said doubtfully. “He has been ill, but we all thought it was a stomach bug.”

“Maybe that's what you were supposed to think. His nails tell a different story.”

“His nails?” Carter all but scoffed.

“Faint white striations, called Mee's Lines. At first I thought it was due to anemia.”

The solicitor blew out a heavy sigh. “If you want to try your hand at unmasking the culprit, it's your funeral. But I don't know that I want to go barging into an investigation without sufficient evidence. Lord knows, the family has been through enough.”

“I appreciate your position, but we shan't be barging, merely tiptoeing. Until I can validate or refute my suspicions.”

“Oh, very well, but when the police arrive, I'll go to Victoria. I take it the police have been alerted?”

“I called just before Polly was taken out to the ambulance.”

“Your fiancée told me you were something of a private detective. Of murders.”

“Just a hobby. A morbid hobby, granted. I'm a barrister by profession. An advocate as we call ourselves in Scotland.”

“Good reasoning skills and a flair for eloquence are required for that,” Carter acknowledged. “But as the Newcombe's solicitor, their interests are my first concern, which means I don't want to stir up a hornet's nest, just to play along with your hobby.”

“I promise to use the utmost discretion, and your help will be invaluable.”

Carter hemmed and hawed some more. “Presumably the hospital will conduct tests on the basis of your, er, supposition. At the very least, we have a case for negligence on the part of the caterers.”

“And at worst, murder. Reverend Snood left here with an oxygen mask over his face. It's possible he may not survive.”

“I think you may be grossly exaggerating the situation, but if what you say is true, I wouldn't mind nabbing the prankster myself and swinging him from the turrets. Could be one of the younger guests or a couple of them in cahoots. Perhaps they were practicing on Timmy.”

Rex refrained from telling Carter that he thought the poisoning had been more than a prank. Too much care and thought had gone into the plan.

“Holding your own counsel on that one, eh?” Carter inquired as together they walked back across the gravel toward the front entrance of Newcombe Court. “Well, we'll see.”

“
Quo Vadis
,
” questioned the enigmatic motto above the threshold. “Where angels fear to tread,” Rex murmured in response. He felt a sudden tightening of the stomach, a cold dread in his heart. He might be wrong in his assumptions. How much Guinness and champagne had he consumed? And yet he felt in full command of his mental faculties. On reflection, it had been two beers and not much champagne.

All the same, he decided not to mention his suspicions to Helen, who would likely agree with Carter that he was seeking evil intentions where none existed.

He popped his head through the door to the vacated reception room, preparing to seal it off until the police could investigate. His gaze swept the discarded wedding veil, which lay bunched up on the floor. The cake tray, a forlorn monument to the nuptials, stood on the cart, bereft of its miniature figures. Rex did a double-take. He could have sworn they had been lying on the empty top tier when he left to talk to the caterers. They were nowhere to be seen.

Now, more than ever, he was convinced evil was indeed at work. But who was the evil-doer?