The Marriage Hearse (23 page)

‘So he makes a tidy sum out of playing Cupid?’

‘Apparently fixers like Sawyer charge around ten thousand pounds to arrange
a sham marriage – that includes finding the bride and the witnesses, arranging the wedding, making the application for the
immigrant to stay in the country and arranging the divorce once leave to remain has been granted.’

Heffernan gave a low whistle.

‘Kirsten Harbourn and Simon Jephson might have been about to uncover the racket …’

The chief inspector sat forward, his forehead furrowed by a worried frown. ‘Looks like it. You think there’s a chance Richter
didn’t do it?’

‘Let’s put it this way, Gerry, I think your celebrations last night in the Fisherman’s Arms may have been a little premature.’

‘But what about his DNA?’

Wesley said nothing. He wasn’t sure what to think any more.

‘Anyway, even if Kirsten had stumbled on the bogus marriage scam,
there’s no suggestion Sawyer’s violent, is there? Jephson hasn’t been threatened.’

‘But he’s afraid. He did a runner and came to us. And Françoise Decaux’s missing.’

Heffernan shook his head. ‘That’s because she killed her husband. I bet he fancied her and assumed the marriage entitled him
to a bit more than an EU passport. He was a frustrated man in a strange land who’d just married a beautiful French lass. I
think I’d be entertaining hopes in that direction if I’d been him.’

‘Why did she visit him at that guesthouse? I’d have thought she’d have wanted nothing to do with him once the ceremony was
over and she’d collected her money.’

‘Who knows? Maybe she wanted to make sure that there’d be no problem getting a divorce. Maybe she felt sorry for him. Maybe
he asked to see her. When she turns up, we can ask her.’

‘You think she’ll turn up? You think she’s still alive?’

‘Course she’s alive. She’s lying low somewhere. She knows we’re after
her for the murder.’ Gerry Heffernan didn’t sound too sure of himself.

‘Unless the Sawyers have silenced her.’ Wesley wished he could share his boss’s optimism. But he was afraid for Françoise.
‘We’d better send someone to pick them up. Rachel won’t be too pleased.’

‘Why?’

‘This play she’s in.
The Fair Wife of Padua
. Sawyer’s the leading man. She’s got a rehearsal today. I said she could leave early. Can’t stand in the way of art, can
we?’

Heffernan gave a secretive smile. Joyce had expressed a wish to see the play. But he wasn’t ready to announce their budding
relationship to the world – or even to Wesley – just yet. ‘Let’s give Sawyer’s understudy his chance of stardom. I’ll send
Uniform to pick him and his missus up. Nothing like the sight of a few patrol cars with blues and twos to strike terror into
the hearts of the guilty.’ He gave a wicked grin.

‘I want another word with Simon Jephson. If he was really that close to Kirsten Harbourn, he might have something else to
tell us.’

‘Forget it, Wes. We’ve got Richter locked up.’

‘I know but …’

Heffernan shook his head. It was useless reasoning with a man who thought too much.

The narrow room that was Berthe Van Enk’s temporary home, was feeling more and more like a prison cell. The first heady excitement
of being away from home and independent of her strict parents had evaporated, leaving only an uneasy feeling that things were
never going to be right again. In the months she’d been in England
she had grown up. And she had learned the meaning of fear.

It had been an adventure at first … almost a joke. She would be paid a couple of thousand pounds – more money than she’d ever
had in her life – just to utter a few words. There would be no comeback. She wouldn’t even have to see the thin young man
from one of the former Soviet states again in her life. And Mrs Sawyer would make sure that everything was neatly brought
to a legal end so that the whole thing would have no impact whatsoever on her future life. It was like that strange English
phrase she’d heard … money for old rope.

When she’d given the young man a token kiss after the words had been said, he’d looked so pathetically grateful that she’d
almost felt like throwing her arms around him and kissing him for real. He’d seemed nice, her husband, with his large, sad
brown eyes. Even though they’d hardly exchanged a word, she sensed it and felt almost sad when they parted and went their
separate ways. She had experienced a sudden desire to talk to him, perhaps get to know him. But that wasn’t part of the arrangement.

Françoise had been foolish. She hadn’t been able to leave things alone and she’d gone too far. Berthe had warned her but she
had taken no notice.

She hadn’t heard from Françoise since she received the whispered phone call. She hadn’t said where she was, only that she’d
managed to get away.

Berthe looked at the mobile phone lying beside her on the bed and willed it to ring.

The maisonette smelled foul. In his hurry to depart, Simon Jephson had left something in the kitchen bin and if had rotted
and begun to stink. It wasn’t long before he tracked down the cause of the problem – the mouldy remains of a curry and a brace
of apple cores. He donned rubber gloves before cleaning out the bin with disinfectant and boiling water but before his task
was finished, his doorbell buzzed like an angry wasp.

He hadn’t expected the police to turn up so soon. But he said nothing as he stood aside to let Wesley Peterson and Gerry Heffernan
into the hall.

Heffernan wrinkled his nose. ‘Stinks in here. You been burying bodies under the floorboards?’

Jephson hesitated, uncertain how to reply. Perhaps the big man was being serious. Perhaps he was about to summon back-up any
moment to take the place apart. ‘I left some things in the bin when I went to stay with Julia. I was in the middle of cleaning
it out when …’

‘Don’t let us stop you. And I’d open some windows if I were you.’

Jephson obeyed without a word and the two detectives followed him into the kitchen and watched him while he worked. Heffernan
himself, ever helpful, threw open the windows.

While Jephson was giving the bin its final rinse, Heffernan spoke. ‘My colleague here, Inspector Peterson, wants to ask you
a few more questions about Kirsten Harbourn. I told him it was a waste of time now we’ve got the man who killed her behind
bars but he always has to complicate things.’

Jephson looked up at Wesley and gave a nervous half smile. ‘Ask anything you want. I’ve got nothing to hide.’

Wesley waited until they were settled in the living room, a Spartan room with white walls, two battered black leather sofas
and very little else. ‘You said Julia Creston didn’t like Kirsten. Why was that?’

Jephson studied his fingernails. They were ragged, bitten. He was a nervous man. ‘She just didn’t like her. Said Kirsten was
using her brother. Said she was after what she could get.’

‘Is that all?’

‘She also thought Kirsten was thick. Julia can be a bit of a snob at times.’

‘Does Julia know about the Nottingham incident?’

He looked indignant. ‘I told her I was innocent.’

Wesley nodded. ‘Of course.’ There was a pause. Wesley noticed that Jephson had started to chew his fingers. ‘Look, you obviously
knew Kirsten well. You called on her at the cottage.’

‘So?’

‘Did she have any other visitors that you know of? We have reports that someone in running gear used to visit.’

Jephson thought for a few seconds. ‘That could be James Creston, Peter and Julia’s brother. He’s a fitness fanatic … trains
for marathons. He works at a health club in Neston.’

‘You think there was something going on between them?’ Jephson smiled. ‘Doubt it. James is gay. He lives with his boyfriend
in Neston.’

Wesley shifted in his seat. The sofa was hard and uncomfortable with a low back, hardly conducive to thought. But he felt
that he was getting to know the dead woman a little better … even though he didn’t particularly like the picture that was
slowly swimming into focus. Kirsten Harbourn had been greedy and selfish and had had little consideration for people’s feelings.
She had tormented Stuart Richter, betrayed her devoted fiancé with Mike Dellingpole and attempted to wreak revenge on her
errant father by bleeding him of cash. She hadn’t been popular and the only two people, apart from her mother and Peter Creston,
who appeared to have any loyalty to her were Marion Blunning and Simon Jephson, who were, in their own way, both outsiders.

‘Kirsten’s wedding dress was hung up with the straps twisted.’ Wesley watched his face for a reaction. ’My wife reckoned she
might have taken it off in a moment of passion, shall we say, and hung it up in a hurry. Might she have been entertaining
a lover on the morning of her wedding?’

Simon Jephson sighed. ‘It’s possible.’ He looked up. ‘By the way, I don’t suppose you’ve found out what the Sawyers are up
to?’ He leaned forward as if he were about to share a confidence. ‘The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced it’s
prostitution and if Kirsten …’

After a few moments’ thought Wesley decided that it would do no harm to tell him the bare facts about the bogus marriages.

When he’d finished, Jephson nodded solemnly. ‘I suppose that explains a lot,’ he said.

‘Could Kirsten have been blackmailing the Sawyers about the marriage scam?’

‘Surely she didn’t know any more than I did.’

‘She may have discovered the truth and decided to keep it to herself.’

‘You think one of them might have killed her?’ Jephson sounded as though he didn’t find the idea altogether ridiculous. ‘All
I can say is that if she had found out what was going on she never told me.’

‘Did you know that she consulted a clairvoyant?’

He shook his head, puzzled. ‘I didn’t know she was into that kind of thing.’

‘The clairvoyant told us that Kirsten was concerned about something at work.’

‘There you are then. She was worried about the Sawyers’ little scam.’He hesitated. ‘I’m surprised she didn’t mention the other
thing.’

Wesley and Heffernan looked at each other. ‘What other thing. Stuart Richter?’

‘No. She came into work a couple of weeks ago and I could tell she was a bit upset. I asked her what was wrong and she said
she’d just had a shock.’

‘What kind of shock?’

‘I don’t know. She mumbled something about her father but I couldn’t really get any sense out of her. I think it might have
been something she found out about him.’

Wesley and Heffernan looked at each other.

‘She was pretty shaken about whatever it was. Then after a while she seemed more angry … even more determined to screw him
for every penny he had. Almost like he’d betrayed her somehow.’

‘Did she say how she found out?’

Jephson shrugged. ‘No.’

‘Maybe we should ask her mum what it was all about,’ mumbled Heffernan, breaking his silence.

‘Perhaps whatever it was is linked to why Richard Harbourn sought solace with Petula.’

Heffernan raised his eyebrows. ‘I always had Harbourn down as just another victim of a mid-life crisis. Did Kirsten say anything
else?’

‘No. And she only mentioned it that once. She never spoke of it again so it can’t have been bothering her that much, can it?’

Wesley stood up. ‘Well, thank you, Mr Jephson. We’ll be in touch.’

He hurried out, hardly saying a word to Heffernan. He wanted to think.

Berthe Van Enk didn’t know what to do. Françoise still hadn’t called and she was worried sick. She’d said she was going to
make for Tradmouth, going to look for him, and Berthe didn’t know how anyone could be so stupid. But then Françoise had always
been naive, unworldly.

Perhaps she should tell the police. The two policewomen she had spoken to – Rachel and Trish … she couldn’t recall their ranks
or surnames – had seemed sympathetic. Maybe if she told them what she feared they would be able to do something about it.
Something to save Françoise.

But her involvement in the Sawyers’ illegal scheme made her reluctant to have any contact with the police. Policemen and women
could make you stand up in court and give evidence. They could lock you up in prison. They could tell your family exactly
what you’ve been up to and break your parents’ hearts. It was best if they weren’t involved. She would deal with it herself.

As she opened the telephone directory that she’d taken from Mrs Sawyer’s empty office and made a frantic search for the right
page, she heard the urgent sound of police car sirens. She rushed over to the window to see what was going on and as the three
police cars screeched to a halt outside, she bobbed down out of sight.

If they had come for her they wouldn’t find her. Now she had the address, she would look for Françoise herself.

When Margaret Lightfoot answered the front door, she expected to see the vet standing there. Brian had called him out to see
to one of the cows, regardless of expense … she was after all, one of their best milkers.

But instead of the vet she found Neil Watson on her doorstep. She hoped he’d brought the pendant and the ring back with him.
Normally she’d be reluctant to part with them, but money was tight and she suspected they’d fetch a tidy sum. She stood aside
to let the archaeologist in. He looked hungry as usual … too thin. She led him to the kitchen and put the kettle on the Aga
to boil.

‘Sorry I haven’t managed to get over sooner,’ he said as Margaret began to butter some scones. ‘I’ve been busy with the dig
at Tradington Hall. Just thought you’d like to know the latest on your skeleton.’

This was what Margaret had been waiting for. News of the young girl she had begun to think of with almost maternal concern.
‘What have you managed to find out then?’

Neil proceeded to tell her what he’d discovered about the Strong family, about Bartholomew and his sons, Bartholomew Junior
and Ralph.

‘I know a family called Strong owned this farm right up to the end of the nineteenth century. But going back to the sixteenth
century … just think of it.’ She looked like a child contemplating a birthday treat. ‘So what else have you found out?’