The Marriage Hearse (25 page)

Perhaps she should have confided in the teacher, Felicity, who had driven her to Tradmouth. Instead, Berthe had told her that
she was meeting someone in one of Tradmouth’s many pubs. Now she regretted the lie. Felicity was nice. She would have understood.
She might even have been able to help, or at least give her some advice. But Berthe had let her go and now she was here alone.
And she felt vulnerable as she stood in the shadow of a hedgerow, listening to the sounds of the countryside mingled with
the hum of traffic from the A3122.

She was afraid for herself. And afraid for Françoise.

ACT 2 SCENE 5

SYLVIUS Sweet Maria, I entreat thee, admit me to thy bed awhile
.

MARIA Good sir, my lady needs me
.

SYLVIUS But tarry now, I would ask of thee a kindness
.

MARIA What kindness would you ask of me, my lord?

SYLVIUS Thy mistress keeps a likeness, a portrait smaller than her dainty hand, methinks
.

MARIA Aye, sir. What would you have with it?

SYLVIUS Take thou for me this picture. Purloin it by stealth.Do all in secret. My brother, thy lady’s husband, would a lifelike copy make of this, her treasure, and would surprise his
bride with this fair gift. Thou understandest, Maria, secrecy is all. Go now and fetch the thing straightway
.

(Exeunt Maria)

‘Do you know, Gerry, I keep thinking about that girl.’

Gerry Heffernan looked at his companion. They were walking close together, side by side, but he hadn’t yet found the courage
to take her hand. He used to do this sort of thing so much better when he was sixteen and walking a girl home from the old
Allerton Odeon in Liverpool. In those days he knew the signals, when to make the moves. But maturity had rendered him as shy
as a novice nun in a room full of rugby players.

‘What girl?’

‘The one who’s missing. The French girl who married that man who was killed. Poor little thing. You know, she looked so terrified.
She kept glancing towards the door as though she expected someone to burst in any moment.’

‘You think she was scared of the people behind the immigration scam? The Sawyers?’

Joyce shook her head. ‘I don’t know. It’s possible. But why should she be scared of them? She was doing what they wanted and
getting paid for it. Perhaps she was afraid that someone might have found out what she was doing.’

Without thinking, Gerry took hold of her shoulders and planted a kiss on her cheek.

Joyce blushed. ‘Is that helpful, what I’ve just said?’

‘Could be. Er … you don’t fancy coming back for a coffee, do you?’ He thought he’d get the question in before his courage
deserted him again. ‘It’s only a couple of minutes’ walk away and …’

Joyce looked at her watch. ‘Thanks but I’ve got to get back. Mother will be wondering where I am.’

‘Mother?’

She hesitated. ‘Didn’t I tell you my mother lives with me? She moved in when my divorce came through and … She’s not too well.
My neighbour’s sitting with her and …’

‘Some other time perhaps.’

They had reached Joyce’s car, parked next to the boat float. Joyce unlocked the car door before leaning forward and kissing
her companion lightly on the cheek. ‘I’ve really enjoyed tonight, Gerry. Thank you. Will you ring me?’

He nodded and watched as she drove away.

Berthe flung herself on to her bed and sobbed. Francoise had been there, she was sure of it.

After watching Den Liston’s house for twenty minutes and seeing no signs of life, apart from a busy pair of swifts swooping
in and out of their nest beneath the eaves, she had finally plucked up the courage to knock on the door.

There had been a pair of wires tied together with a dirty sticking plaster where a doorbell had once been so she had rapped
on the wood with her knuckles. As she’d knocked a flake of loose paint
fluttered to the ground. It looked a bad house. Dirty. Berthe, who had always been fastidious by nature, didn’t like dirt
and she didn’t like to think of Françoise being trapped in such a place.

The footsteps inside the house sounded loud, almost aggressive, as the bare boards inside the cottage magnified every sound.
The door had opened and Den Liston had stood, glowering down at her.

Aged about twenty-five, he was good looking in a dark, satanic sort of way. He wore his hair fairly long and the gold earring
he wore in his left ear added a touch of danger. He was attractive and Françoise had fallen for him. Berthe had counselled
against commitment but Françoise was innocent and needy. Liston had had her exactly where he wanted her and could pick her
up and drop her at will, like a capricious child with a toy.

‘She’s not here,’ he’d said when she asked if she could see Françoise. ‘I’ve not seen her.’ Then he had closed the door in
her face.

She hadn’t believed him. Françoise had told her in her frantic, garbled phone call from some remote, rural phone box that
she was heading for Den’s. She had sounded distressed and had said something about being held prisoner. Berthe was worried
about her. Worried sick. What if she’d gone to Den’s and he’d turned her away and she was wandering the countryside in distress.

As she’d walked back to the park and ride, she’d looked around at the rolling landscape. Compared to her native, flat Holland
this was wild country. There were copses of dark trees, scattered farm buildings and shady barns, and each narrow lane was
hidden from view by high hedgerows. The earth here undulated, forming smooth hills and low valleys like some vast unmade bed.
It was land to get lost in. And she was so afraid that Françoise was lost for ever.

She had sat on the park and ride bus as it hurtled down the hill into the centre of Tradmouth with tears streaming down her
face. Children had stared at her but their parents, in a fine display of English embarrassment, had made a determined show
of pretending she didn’t exist.

Now she was safely back at the college, she lay on her bed, staring up at the high, cracked ceiling. There was nothing she
could have done, short of barging past Liston and searching the place. But that hadn’t been an option.

First thing tomorrow she would ring the police. Now they knew about the weddings, she had nothing left to lose. Unlike Françoise
who, for all she knew, had already lost her life.

Wesley looked at his watch. Eleven fifteen. Pam had said she’d be back by ten thirty. She was late. But it was far too early
to start worrying yet.

The children were asleep. He had crept into their room and watched them sleeping, Michael hugging his battered toy rabbit
and Amelia sucking her tiny thumb. As he watched them he felt an overwhelming surge of love enveloping him like a tidal wave.
He would do anything for them, anything to defend them. He supposed all parents felt like that. It was how the human race
survived.

He tiptoed out, careful not to wake them and incur Pam’s wrath when she returned, and headed downstairs towards the computer
in the dining room. There was something he wanted to look up.

Once he was connected to the Internet, he typed in the name Jeffrey Creston and waited. It seemed there was a Jeffrey Creston
in the USA who featured on a lot of sites by virtue of the fact he played baseball. Then there was another one who’d published
learned papers on robotics at some northern red-brick university. In fact it took Wesley some time to find the Jeffrey Creston
he wanted.

Dr Jeffrey Creston. Peter Creston’s father.

There wasn’t much about him, apart from the bare fact that Dr Creston was a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Trad-mouth
Hospital who saw private patients in his Exeter consulting rooms on one afternoon a week.

When Pam came in at a quarter to midnight, she looked flushed and radiant, as though she’d had a really good evening. It was
a long time since Wesley had seen her like that.

In fact he felt almost jealous of her girls’ night out.

DC Trish Walton took the call from Berthe Van Enk first thing the next morning. The girl was gabbling, sometimes getting her
English phrases wrong and Trish had to ask her to repeat the salient points. But eventually she managed to glean the whole
story. Françoise Decaux had called her from an isolated phone box and had told her that she had been held prisoner but had
managed to escape. She had said she was heading for her boyfriend Den Liston’s house. When Berthe had confronted Liston he
claimed that he hadn’t seen Françoise. Berthe hadn’t believed him. Den Liston was a liar, she added.

Berthe was instructed to keep calm. They would send an officer round to see her and someone would call on Den Liston to interview
him about his relationship with the missing girl. Berthe wasn’t to worry. The police would do all they could to ensure Françoise’s
safety, she said convincingly, knowing this was rather optimistic. If someone had wanted to silence Françoise for any reason,
they were hardly in a position to stop them if they didn’t even know where she was.

Trish knew that, early as it was, Inspector Peterson would want to be kept informed so she rang his home number. His wife
answered. She sounded half asleep but she put her husband on. Wesley asked if Rachel was there yet and when Trish told him
she was, he said he would meet her at Liston’s house. Trish was to go to Morbay and make sure Berthe was all right. Why, she
thought, did she get all the boring jobs?

Pam Peterson stared at her reflection in the mirror. She looked good, if a little tired. And for the first time in many months,
she felt desirable again.

The thrill she had once felt at the prospect of a teenage date, that frisson of excitement that makes the heart beat faster,
had returned last night. So unexpected, like a flash of brilliant colour in her grey life of work, children and duty. For
a few brief hours she had been transported to Jonathan’s world of parties, flash cars and smart London restaurants. Jonathan,
Mark’s oldest friend, worked in the music industry – something vague yet incredibly well paid. He had taken her out to dinner
at the best restaurant in Tradmouth and had treated her like a princess.

She had lied to Wesley. She had claimed that she had been out
with her work colleagues, celebrating the end of term, thinking it best to avoid awkward questions. After all, it was only
a bit of fun.

Jonathan was due to pick her up at any moment to take her to a restaurant in Dukesbridge for lunch – a place newly taken over
by a well-known celebrity chef and way beyond the wallet of a humble detective inspector. She hadn’t mentioned it to Wesley
– he would be far too preoccupied with his work to take any notice of what she was up to, she told herself, trying her best
to ignore the tiny, almost inaudible, inner voice that whispered that her lies and evasions were wrong.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the doorbell. Jonathan was early. Her heart racing, she made a final examination of her appearance
and squirted the perfume she had received for Christmas on to her neck and wrists before making her way downstairs, taking
deep breaths, head held high.

But when she opened the door, a smile of greeting fixed on her face, she saw Neil Watson standing there and she felt a wave
of disappointment.

Neil shifted from foot to foot, eager to share his recent discovery. He had already rung Margaret Lightfoot to say the words
engraved on the skeleton’s locket actually came from Ralph Strong’s play and she had seemed to share his excitement. Annabel
had departed early for the weekend doing whatever people in her exalted social circles did with their spare time. He longed
for Monday when he could break the news to her. But in the meantime Pam would do.

As he looked her up and down he caught a whiff of perfume drifting towards him on the warm summer air.

‘Hope I’m not disturbing something,’ he said with a nervous grin. ‘If you and Wes are otherwise engaged I’ll come back another
time.’

Pam blushed behind her make-up. ‘Er … Wes is at work. Was it important?’

‘You’re looking nice.’ Neil was uncomfortably aware that the compliment was clumsy. But then he’d never really been good at
that sort of thing. ‘You off somewhere?’

Pam didn’t answer the question. Instead, she hovered on the
threshold holding the door as if she was anxious to get rid of some doorstep salesman. Usually, by this stage, Neil had been
invited inside. But he sensed that today was different.

‘Kids OK?’

‘They’re at my mother’s. Er … look, Neil, I’m a bit busy right now and …’

‘Fine.’ He made a show of looking at his watch. ‘I’d better go. I only came to …’ He hesitated. Pam was up to something and
he was curious. ‘Remember that locket we found on that skeleton at Cudleigh Farm?’ He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Well, the
inscription inside is a quote from that play they’re doing at Tradington Hall. I watched a rehearsal and they just came out
with it.’ He was aware he was gabbling, reluctant to leave.

Pam said nothing except that she’d better go. She’d see him soon.

Neil drove away in his battered Mini wondering whether to mention his visit to Wesley. There was sure to be some good reason
why Pam was dressed up to the nines in her husband’s absence.

Wesley thought Rachel Tracey looked tired. But her only mention of how she had spent the previous evening was to say that
after the rehearsal she had helped her mother sort the laundry produced by the holiday apartments … the sheets and towels
that had had to be changed on Saturday, the change-over day for the holidaymakers. No hint of a lively party or an intimate
dinner. Only drudgery.

‘I feel as if I’m doing two jobs,’ she’d complained as they’d driven out of town. She didn’t sound particularly happy now
that family commitments had put her search for a flat of her own on hold. ‘Three if you count the play. Mind you, that’s the
only thing that gets me out of the house these days,’ she’d added bitterly.

‘Maybe when the holiday season’s over you can start looking for a place of your own again.’

She’d given him a sad smile. ‘I’ve always been used to a farmhouse full of brothers and animals – sometimes it was difficult
to tell which was which. Don’t know if I could stand the silence.’

‘Have you thought of sharing? Trish still lives at home: she might be interested.’

Rachel hadn’t replied.

When they reached Den Liston’s cottage he brought the car to a halt fifty yards down the lane, where the single track road
widened to allow two cars to pass. They walked back slowly and, when they reached the cottage, Wesley stood there for a few
moments gazing up at the building.