The Marriage Hearse (10 page)

A young, freckle-faced constable was standing guard over the scene. He stood to attention when he saw Wesley and Margaret
approaching. ‘Morning, sir. I’ve made sure nobody’s disturbed the …’

‘Thanks. You’ve done well. Jason, isn’t it?’ said Wesley, thinking a little encouragement wouldn’t go amiss.

The young man blushed self-consciously as Wesley looked down at the spot where the skeleton lay. After a few moments he squatted
down and made a cursory examination.

The bones were buried about three feet down and only part of
the ribcage had been uncovered so far. The skeletal hands were folded neatly across the chest. A laying out. There had been
some reverence in this unofficial burial. Maybe some love.

‘It looks as though she – or he – has been here for a very long time.’ He stood up.

‘Shall I call for back-up, sir,’ the young constable asked eagerly.

Wesley smiled. Maybe this was the first fatality young
Jason had come across. ‘All in good time. I’d like to call in an archaeologist I know to excavate the bones properly and I’ll
ask some scene of crime officers to give him a hand. We have to be absolutely sure that it’s not recent.’

‘Of course,’ said Margaret. ‘You must do whatever you have to.’ A smile lit up her broad face. ‘It’s quite exciting really,
isn’t it?’

‘I suppose it is. Do you know the name of the metal detectorist who found it?’

Margaret frowned. ‘Eddie,’ she said triumphantly after a few seconds. ‘Big Eddie.’

‘I know him.’

‘I half expected him back. The metal detector was still giving off signals, even after he’d dug the ring out. He seemed to
think there was more stuff down there.’

‘He was probably scared off when you mentioned the word police. I’ll make that call now. And don’t worry, Mrs Lightfoot.’

‘Oh, I’m not worried,’ she said. ‘I’m just thinking of that poor maid lying there in that cold earth all those years. How
did she get there? That’s what I want to know.’

‘Me too,’ said Wesley, taking his mobile phone from his pocket.

Françoise Decaux’s hands were shaking. Her questioning by the police hadn’t been as bad as she’d feared. In fact the young
woman detective constable had seemed quite nice. Friendly, sympathetic. For a crazy split second she’d almost contemplated
confiding in her. But authority was authority and behind the smiling face lay an iron trap. She had to avoid any dealings
with the police at all costs.

Mrs Sawyer had announced to the students that Mr Jephson was ill and wouldn’t be taking the one o’clock lesson. They were
to have an hour of private study instead, learning vocabulary and studying the next few pages of their Headway textbooks.

But Françoise had no intention of obeying these optimistic instructions. She would seize the chance to sort things out once
and for all.

She left the building by the back door – knowing that Mrs Sawyer’s office window overlooked the front and the woman’s eyes
were hawk-sharp – and skirted the garden until she came to the side gate. She looked at her watch. There would be time to
catch the bus into the town centre and be back before the next lesson at two thirty, provided the buses turned up on time.
Being used to the efficient French transport system she had found its British counterpart a great disappointment.

But today she was lucky. The bus turned up punctually and dropped her off eight minutes later in the centre of Morbay. She
had the address and she’d consulted the
A to Z
in the principal’s office when Mrs Sawyer was out. Gemma, the office junior, had promised not to tell and she was sure that
Gemma was a girl to be trusted, unlike Kirsten whom Françoise always found to be aloof and unfriendly … even, perhaps, a little
sly.

It was quite a long walk to the Loch Henry Lodge, situated as it was almost a mile from the centre in a rundown area that
had so far escaped any threat of improvement. She hesitated near the litter-strewn steps of the guesthouse for a few minutes,
watching a small, fat traffic warden sticking tickets on parked cars, before she summoned the courage to push open the dusty
glass front door. As she stepped inside, almost tripping on the threadbare, highly patterned carpet, a man emerged from the
door behind the cheap bar padded in green plastic which served as a reception desk. He was probably in his thirties with a
shaved head and the pallid flesh of his muscular arms was virtually obscured by tattoos.

The man looked Françoise up and down like the wolf sizing up Little Red Riding Hood. ‘What can I do you for, my lover?’ he
enquired with a leer.

Françoise summoned all her dignity. ‘Mr Jones, please. Which room does he occupy?’

‘Room seven. But I don’t know that he’s in. I could come up
with you and have a look if you want.’ The words were heavy with suggestion.

Françoise’s hands started to shake again. ‘That is not necessary.’

The man turned and took a key from a shelf. ‘His key’s here. You can let yourself in if you like. I’m sure he’ll be pleased
to see you. Any man would be.’ She was aware that he was staring at her body, mentally stripping her, and she arranged her
shoulderbag across her breast like a defensive shield. ‘Sure you don’t want some company?’ Another leer. The man clearly thought
he was irresistible. Or that Françoise didn’t mind as long as she was paid for her services.

‘No. Thank you,’ she said stiffly. The man shrugged and disappeared through the door. At least he had taken no for an answer.

She took the key which he had placed on the bar and hurried up the stairs. The frayed carpet was a death trap and she almost
tripped. But, undeterred, she hurried down a dimly lit corridor until she came to room seven. She stopped, her heart pounding,
and knocked. When there was no answer, she waited a few seconds and knocked again. She listened but all she could hear was
the sound of traffic outside and the tinny strains of a distant radio. She knocked a third time and, when there was no response,
she looked at the key in her hand.

It took all Françoise Decaux’s store of courage to place the key in the dull Yale lock. She turned it and pushed open the
door of room number seven with the cautious awe of an archaeologist opening up a lost Egyptian tomb.

The room was dim. A thin, stained curtain was pulled untidily across the window and it took Françoise’s eyes a while to adjust
to the light.

He was there. Lying on the bed fully clothed. Asleep. She wondered if she should wake him. He looked peaceful, his raven-dark
curls glistening against the grey pillow.

But when she saw the blood crusted on the front of his sweatshirt she put her hand to her mouth and it was a while before
she summoned the courage to touch him, to feel for a pulse. When her trembling fingers came into contact with his flesh she
found
that it was cool but not yet cold. Françoise had never encountered death before and she stood there frozen, staring at the
corpse with fascinated horror.

Then some inner voice told her to pull herself together. There was something she had to do. Something she had to find.

She opened the drawers of the cheap white dressing table one by one, searching frantically until she found what she was looking
for neatly folded at the back of the bottom drawer. With trembling hands, Françoise, thrust it into her bag before dashing
out, pausing only to make sure the door was locked behind her and dropping the key into her pocket. When she reached reception
she tiptoed out, praying the tattooed man wasn’t watching from his lair like a spider awaiting a fly.

She walked down the guesthouse steps, telling herself not to look back and not to run. She mustn’t draw attention to herself.
It was all over. And all she had to do now was keep silent.

But as she marched towards the centre of Morbay, her heart pounding, she was quite unaware that she was being followed.

The Fair Wife of Padua
is a tragedy, a tale of betrayal, murder and revenge set in renaissance Italy. It opens with a scene of celebration – a wedding
– but fleeting joy is soon to turn to horror and bloodshed
.

Although the playwright Ralph Strong’s life was cut tragically short by violence (his fate mirroring the cruelty depicted
in this, his single existing play) scholars who have read
The Fair Wife of Padua
suggest that it foreshadows the works of Webster (
The Duchess of Malfi
and
The White Devil
), Middleton and Rowley (
The Changeling
) and Ford (
‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore
) in the early years of the seventeenth century. These writers looked into what Webster called ‘a deep pit of darkness’ and
it seems that Ralph Strong viewed life in a similar way
.

From the programme notes for
The Fair Wife of Padua

The dig at Tradington Hall was proving rather unproductive. Not that it wasn’t a lovely spot to spend a few weeks in the height
of the summer. From the trenches Neil could see the main house – one of the finest examples of domestic medieval architecture
in the land and remarkably easy on the eye – and he was entertained by gentle music drifting from the windows of the hall’s
many rehearsal rooms. On sunny days the singers and musicians gathered out of doors and Neil could labour in the trenches
to the strains of lute and madrigal borne to his ears on the warm breeze.

But this paradise had yielded very little in the way of exciting artefacts. After an initial flurry of finds – mostly debris
from the demolition of nearby buildings – the trenches seemed bare and
Neil concluded that the area next to the stables had never been built on or used as anything other than open space. But hope
sprang eternal and he had no intention of giving up just yet and handing his temporary domain over to the builders.

When the request came from his old university friend, Wesley Peterson, to join him at Upper Cudleigh to examine some bones
that had been found in a farmer’s field, he seized the prospect of a change of scene, explaining to his colleagues that he’d
been called in by the police. After enduring the inevitable jokes about helping the police with their enquiries, he made a
rapid getaway and drove out to Cudleigh Farm, following Wesley’s detailed directions.

Wesley met him at the farmhouse and Margaret Lightfoot, now wearing her uniform in preparation for a visit to a patient, provided
them with tea before they set off down the rolling fields towards the lower meadow.

Neil had come prepared, carrying the box containing his selection of trowels, his brush and his favourite kneeling mat. The
SOCOs had yet to arrive but Neil was impatient to make a start.

Wesley squatted beside him, cursing his choice of clothing. But his light trousers would wash and wouldn’t prevent him from
doing his bit. He picked up a small leaf trowel and began to scrape away at the lower section of the ribcage while Neil concentrated
on excavating the skull area.

An hour later they were making good progress between them. Just like old times. The cavalry had arrived in the form of three
scene of crime officers who, under Neil’s direction, had donned white overalls and begun to help.

‘Definitely a woman,’ was Neil’s verdict. ‘Young too. The clavicle’s not quite fused and it doesn’t look as if the wisdom
teeth are through. Probably seventeen, eighteen, something like that.’

‘But how long’s she been in there?’ one of the SOCOs asked.

Neil shrugged. ‘There’s no dental work so either she was born before the age of fillings or she was a good girl who brushed
her teeth twice a day. I’d say she’s been there a long time.’ He grinned. ‘But I could be wrong.’

Wesley sighed. This was all he needed. The bones looked pretty
old to him but, until they were sure, they had to be on the safe side.

With a heavy heart, he telephoned Colin Bowman.

Steve Carstairs hadn’t been looking forward to breaking the news to Chief Inspector Heffernan that Stuart Richter had done
a runner. He had expected fireworks but instead the boss had taken it philosophically and sent some of the team out to check
his known haunts.

Heffernan had assured him cheerfully that Richter would turn up. Steve really didn’t know what had come over the boss. Normally
he would have threatened to have his balls for cufflinks for letting a prime suspect slip through his fingers.

Steve decided to make a quick getaway before the boss had a change of heart. And he had the address of John Quigley whose
car had been seen parked by Kirsten Harbourn’s cottage clutched in his sweaty hand.

Paul Johnson was still busy contacting the wedding guests so Steve decided to drive to Morbay alone, going via Neston to avoid
the queues for the car ferry that stretched for what seemed like miles. It was always the same in the tourist season.

The address turned out to be a chandler’s shop on one of the main roads into Morbay – or rather the flat and office above
the shop.

The side door bore the legend ‘J. Quigley and Co. Private Enquiries.’ Steve smiled to himself. From the look of the premises,
this private eye was hardly likely to put Tradmouth CID out of business.

He pushed the door open and climbed the stairs. There was another door at the top. He pressed the buzzer and waited. And when
the door was opened by a small elderly lady with a tweed suit and sharp blue eyes, he took a step back, surprised.

She peered at Steve over half moon glasses. ‘Yes? Can I help you?’

When Steve showed his identification and asked to speak to Mr Quigley, the woman ushered him inside. ‘Oh, come in, come in.
We must all work together, mustn’t we? I’m afraid John’s out on
a case at the moment but I might be able to help you. I’m Beryl Quigley, his mother. Now what is it you want to know?’

Steve hesitated. In his police training he had been told to expect the unexpected but Mrs Quigley had him flummoxed. Did she
just make the tea and tidy her son’s office like a devoted mother or was she some would-be Miss Marple who knew everything
that was going on … and more?

He decided to take the risk. After all, she might save him a wasted journey. Beryl Quigley sat down behind an impressive oak
desk, too big for the room, and invited Steve to take the visitors’ chair. He did as he was told. Something about Mrs Quigley
reminded him of his grandmother … and he had never argued with her.

‘We’re investigating the murder of a woman called Kirsten Harbourn in Lower Weekbury last Saturday,’ he began nervously. Villains
were one thing … elderly ladies were quite another. He cleared his throat. ‘A car registered to a Mr John Quigley had been
seen in the area several times in the preceding week. We wanted to know what he was doing there.’

Beryl Quigley smiled and patted her grey curls. ‘John and I shared that particular assignment, Detective Constable’.

‘So what exactly were you doing in Lower Weekbury, madam?’ It was a long time since Steve had called anyone ‘madam’.

She glanced at the gold watch on her thin wrist. ‘As a matter of fact I’m very glad you’ve come. When John got back I was
going to call you anyway. Our brief was to watch Honey Cottage and report on the activities of the young woman who lived there.’

Steve’s mouth fell open. ‘You were watching the dead woman … Kirsten Harbourn?’

‘Naturally I was shocked when I found out what had happened.’

‘When did you find out?’ Steve asked, wondering why she hadn’t come forward sooner. Perhaps behind the innocent exterior,
she had something to hide.

‘When I read the paper this morning. I’ve been to our cottage in Cornwall for the weekend, and I like to ignore the outside
world when I’m there. The house rules are that we don’t read newspapers or watch the television news. Everybody needs a break
from the rat race, don’t you think, Detective Constable?’

‘And your son?’

‘He was here, holding the fort.’ She frowned. ‘He hasn’t mentioned the young woman’s death to me. But then officially we finished
that particular assignment last Friday – the day before she died. Perhaps he hasn’t seen the news,’ she added with what sounded
like hope.

Steve nodded. ‘So you were watching Kirsten Harbourn? Did she have many visitors or …’

Beryl Quigley stood up and reached for a file on the neat shelves behind her. ‘It’s all written down here. Times. Descriptions.
You’ll want to take it with you, of course, but can you let me have a receipt?’

‘So, er … who was it who paid you to watch Ms Harbourn? Can you give me their name?’

‘His name, Detective Constable. It was a young man. Her fiancé. I didn’t hold out much hope for the marriage myself. If he
can’t trust her at this stage then …’

‘Her fiancé? Peter Creston?’

Beryl Quigley frowned. ‘Oh no, that wasn’t his name. It was …’ She consulted the file. ‘Richter. Stuart Richter.’

Wesley Peterson returned to the station, leaving Neil, the SOCOs and Colin Bowman with the Cudleigh Farm skeleton. In an ideal
world he would have stayed until it had been lifted carefully from the ground but he knew that tracking down the killer of
Kirsten Harbourn was higher on his list of priorities than digging up an old skeleton. Even if the bones did turn out to be
fairly recent, the trail would have gone cold a long time ago and a week here or there would hardly make a difference.

Gerry Heffernan greeted him with a wide grin, almost fooling Wesley into believing that Kirsten’s killer was behind bars already,
allowing him to return to Cudleigh Farm with a clear conscience.

But no such luck. Heffernan’s good mood wasn’t a result of professional triumph. In fact Wesley found himself wondering what
had brought about Heffernan’s sunny disposition. Perhaps it was the weather.

‘I’ve had someone check on that Simon Jephson. You know, the
teacher from that college Kirsten was supposed to be friendly with. Guess what?’

‘What?’

‘He’s only on the sex offenders’ register. Sacked from a school in Nottingham for interfering with a fifteen-year-old girl.
What do you think?’

‘Define interfering.’

Heffernan shrugged. ‘The conviction’s for sexual assault which can cover a multitude of sins. We’ve asked Nottinghamshire
police for the details. If he is prone to sexual violence he could be our man. He has gone missing.’

‘Mmm.’ Wesley didn’t sound convinced.

‘Anyway, we’ve got a photograph of him from the computer.’ He passed Wesley an image of a handsome young man with a strong
chin and brown, wavy hair. It was a face from a
Boy’s Own
comic book. A hero; a flying ace; an explorer. He didn’t look like a sex offender. But then sex offenders rarely do.

Wesley stared at the picture. ‘So he was friendly with the dead woman. Wonder if she fancied him.’

‘Wouldn’t be surprised. Wish I had his good looks,’ he grinned. ‘Now it’s just a question of finding him.’

‘Him and Stuart Richter. Makes you wonder how many other men there were in Kirsten Harbourn’s life.’

Wesley could see the CID office through the glass front of Heffernan’s lair. Rachel had just walked in. He told Heffernan
he wanted a word with her and hurried to her desk, just as she was sitting down.

‘How did you get on with Marion Blunning?’

Rachel looked up and smiled. ‘Quite well actually.’

She looked pleased with herself and Wesley waited patiently to hear the reason why.

‘First of all she told me about Kirsten and the builder who was working on Honey Cottage. Mike Dellingpole his name is. He
tried it on with her. Marion didn’t think he turned nasty or anything like that, but apparently relations were a bit strained
afterwards. According to Marion, she never told Peter about it.’

‘We’ll have to have a word with him. Anything else apart from randy builders?’

‘Kirsten visited a clairvoyant in Neston.’

‘Do you know the name?’

‘Georgina. Don’t know the surname but she shouldn’t be too hard to find. Marion said Kirsten was worried about something at
work.’

‘What?’

‘You tell me. That’s all she said. But I reckon we should be concentrating on the college. I’ve heard that missing teacher
hasn’t turned up yet.’

‘And he’s got a conviction for sexually assaulting a schoolgirl.’

Rachel gave a low whistle. ‘So there’s a crazed ex-boyfriend and a sex fiend on the loose. As far as suspects go, we’re rather
spoiled for choice, aren’t we? I just hope we can get this cleared up quickly. I’ve got rehearsals for this play three evenings
a week.’

Wesley smiled. ‘The price of stardom. Pam’s talked about getting tickets. Think she’ll enjoy it?’

Rachel’s cheeks turned red. ‘It’s a bit gruesome but … Yes, I’m sure she will. I presume you’re planning to go with her?’

‘I suppose so.’ He tried to sound casual. ‘Did Marion say anything else?’

Rachel thought for a moment. ‘She noticed that the wedding dress hadn’t been hung up properly.’

‘So?’

‘It was the most important and expensive dress she’d ever wear. She’d hardly have hung it up with the shoulder twisted and
the back crumpled up. I checked with the crime scene people and nobody remembers the dress being knocked down and put back
up again. But someone other than Kirsten hung that dress up.’

Wesley looked rather confused. ‘So you think her killer went to the trouble of hanging her dress up? Why would he do that?’

‘I’ve really no idea.’ She sat there for a few moments deep in thought, but even she couldn’t come up with an answer. She
looked up at Wesley. ‘What’s this about a skeleton at Cudleigh Farm? I know the Lightfoots. She’s a district nurse.’

‘I know. I’ve met her. A metal detectorist found some bones. There’s a team there now digging them up. Neil Watson’s with
them.’

Rachel rolled her eyes to heaven. ‘Should have known. So is it something for us to worry about then?’

‘Can’t say just yet.’

Rachel put her head in her hands. ‘As if we didn’t have enough to do.’