The Marriage Hearse (27 page)

‘What is it?’ Wesley raised himself cautiously on to his pillows.

Neil produced a human skull from the box like a conjurer
producing a rabbit from a hat. One of the other patients in the ward let out a gasp. ‘It’s the girl from Cudleigh Farm. Thought
it might be good to see what she looked like. We think she was murdered by that Ralph Strong who wrote that play …
The Fair Wife of Padua
. He went off to London to escape justice. Well, that’s my theory anyway.’

Wesley lay back and closed his eyes. At least this was one murder he didn’t have to worry about.

Rachel hadn’t known whether she should visit Wesley in hospital. She was afraid she would find Pam there. And the very thought
of Pam, let alone her appearance, had always made her feel uneasy. She resolved to call in later that day, when she had seen
Theresa Harbourn. She would have the excuse then of reporting back, of keeping Wesley up to date with developments. If there
were any developments, that is.

Stuart Richter was sticking to his story that when he arrived at Kirsten Harbourn’s cottage she was already dead. But Rachel
didn’t believe a word of it.

Sean and Carla Sawyer had been charged with arranging bogus
marriages. And now it seemed that Sean might face fresh charges. Françoise Decaux had claimed that he had kept her against
her will at some deserted farm outbuilding near Neston to stop her from talking when she wanted to tell the police about her
involvement with Abdul Ahmed. He claimed that he thought she had killed Ahmed and was trying to save her from a certain prison
sentence. He was going to arrange for her to slip home to France, no questions asked. He was doing her a favour, he said.
She had misunderstood his motives.

But Gerry Heffernan didn’t believe a word. If he was trying to get her out of the country, it was to save his own skin. If
he’d killed Ahmed, it was natural that he’d want a vital witness out of the way.

Françoise was adamant that she had found Ahmed dead and she had no idea who had killed him. Bit by bit she told her story.
Ahmed had asked her for her mobile phone number in case of any problems with the divorce and, in her innocence, she had given
it to him. He had pocketed her passport somehow after the wedding and she hadn’t realised that it had been taken until he
called her and instructed her to come to the Loch Henry Lodge Guesthouse if she wanted it back.

When she’d arrived she had found him dead and she had taken the passport from his drawer, along with the marriage certificate
and any other documents she could lay her hands on. She’d agreed to the marriage because of the money. But afterwards she’d
regretted it and wanted to obliterate all trace. She’d burned the marriage certificate, along with her bridegroom’s identity
documents.

But Rachel was convinced that there was something Françoise wasn’t telling them. And the fact that her boyfriend had beaten
her up – as well as landing Wesley in hospital – raised more questions. But then he had an alibi. He had been in Dukesbridge
fifteen miles away around the time of Ahmed’s death. It had been checked out.

She decided to take Trish with her to visit Theresa Harbourn. The sympathetic female touch was needed with the bereaved mother.
She hoped that Richard Harbourn wouldn’t be there, driven
by a fresh flurry of conscience to comfort his ex-wife. If Kirsten had found letters of a sensitive nature, then Theresa
might be reluctant to talk about their contents in his presence. Who knows? She might be reluctant to talk about them anyway.
Embarrassment at a past indiscretion can often lead to silence.

Theresa actually looked pleased to see them. Her sister, she said, had had to return to Manchester and she was alone. Richard
popped in from time to time, she said with a faint smile. He’d been very good to her since it happened. There was no mention
of Petula.

Theresa insisted on making them a cup of tea, saying that she was glad of something to do. She was thinking of returning to
work, to take her mind off things. Rachel said that it might be for the best, glancing at Trish Walton who was watching the
woman nervously as though she was terrified she’d break down in tears at any moment.

Rachel decided to come straight to the point. She almost hated herself for having to be so intrusive. But Wesley wanted to
know. And she trusted Wesley’s judgement.

‘Look, I’m sorry to have to mention this but Kirsten’s friend, Marion, told us that Kirsten had come across some letters …
something that was worrying her. Have you any idea what they might have contained?’

Theresa stared at her for a few moments before she spoke. ‘Look, this is rather embarrassing.’ She hesitated. ‘I think she
might have discovered that Richard wasn’t her real father.’

Rachel and Trish looked at each other. ‘So who was her father?’ Rachel asked tentatively.

‘I’d tell you if I could but, to be honest, I don’t know.’

Rachel was lost for words, torn between puritan disapproval and
a soupcon of envy. Then she was struck by the thought that Kirsten might have been the result of an unreported rape and her
disapproval melted to sympathy. ‘Er … what do you mean exactly?’

‘What I said. I can’t tell you her father’s name because I don’t know it. I never met him.’

‘You never …’

‘Richard couldn’t have children. Kirsten’s father was a sperm donor.’

Rachel nodded, cursing herself for letting her lurid imagination run away with her. ‘Did Kirsten know?’

Theresa shook her head. ‘I should have told her, I know that now. But she found out the hard way. She found a box full of
old papers. There were some letters. I didn’t have to tell her, she guessed.’

‘How did she react?’

‘She was upset. She said me and Richard had betrayed her. I said it didn’t matter. Richard had always thought of her as his
own.’ A cloud of pain passed across her face. ‘She said that I’d driven Richard away by having another man’s child. She said
that’s why he’d left me. It’s not true, of course. If it hadn’t been for that calculating bitch Petula, he’d still be here
with me. But she was upset. There was no reasoning with her.’

‘Did she want to find her real father?’

‘Yes. I told her that donors are anonymous and that there was no way she could get that information but she was determined.’

‘Can I see the letters?’

‘I burned them.’

‘I presume she told her fiancé, Peter, about all this.’

Theresa shook her head. ‘She wanted to keep it from Peter until she knew her father’s identity. I think she wanted to see
what he was like first. If he turned out to be some old tramp, she’d probably have let the matter drop. Kirsten always knew
which side her bread was buttered, if you see what I mean.’

This fitted with the fact that Marion Blunning knew nothing of the matter. Kirsten had kept her secret to herself until she
knew the facts. Then she would decide whether to make her true parentage public. Rachel had always felt that there was something
calculating about Kirsten Harbourn and this only served to confirm her suspicions.

‘I don’t see what this has to do with my daughter’s murder,’ said Theresa.

‘Probably nothing. Can you give me the name of the clinic?’

‘Why? You’ve just said this can have nothing to do with …’

‘Just routine.’

She wrote something down on a scrap of paper and handed it to Rachel. Then she opened her mouth as if she was about to add
something but she decided against it. ‘Look, you’ve got the man who killed her. Can’t you let it rest?’ Tears began to fill
her eyes. ‘I’ve got to face burying my little girl. Why have you got to make it worse?’

Rachel slipped out of her seat and put her arm around the woman’s shoulders. ‘I’m sorry.’ She tore a tissue out of the box
on the coffee table and handed it to Theresa. ‘Why don’t I make us another cup of tea, eh?’

It seemed that her enquiries about Sister Williams would have to wait until another day.

Françoise Decaux brought out all Gerry Heffernan’s fatherly instincts. She looked so delicate and vulnerable sitting on the
plastic chair in the interview room, her large brown eyes pleading to be set free. He would have loved to be able to say to
her ‘Off you go, love, and don’t do it again.’ But murder is a serious matter.

He made sure she was kept supplied with coffee as she seemed to have an aversion to tea. And when he and Paul Johnson sat
at the table opposite her with the tape machine switched on he did his best to keep his voice sympathetic and to say nothing
that would upset her. It never occurred to him that she might be tougher than she looked.

‘Now, love, can you tell us about Abdul Ahmed? Take your time.’

She blew her nose discreetly on a clean tissue and looked up at Heffernan with frightened eyes. Her face was a mess, thanks
to Den Liston, and every so often she touched the darkening bruises and winced with pain.

‘I meet him only at wedding. I never meet him before. When we leave I find out he has taken my passport. He call me and say
that I must come to hotel to get it back.’

‘He wanted you to visit him?’

Françoise blushed beneath her bruises. ‘He look at me like … like he …’

‘Fancied you,’ Paul Johnson chipped in, trying to be helpful.

Françoise nodded. ‘Perhaps that is why he take my passport.
I did not like him.’ She clapped her hand to her mouth as if she had just realised she had said something incriminating.

‘So what happened when you went to the hotel?’

‘It was not nice hotel. There was man with … tattoos. He tell me which room. I go up. I find him dead. I get my passport and
other papers and I run away. I tell Mrs Sawyer and her husband, he take me and lock me in horrible place. I get away and call
Berthe then I go to Den.’ She looked down, a smile playing on her lips. ‘He is my boyfriend. I love him.’

‘Even after what he did to you?’

‘He has temper. I make him angry. When we are married he will change. He has promised.’

‘He put my colleague in hospital.’ Heffernan was aware that his exasperation at the girl’s naivety had made him raise his
voice. ‘Look, could he have killed Abdul Ahmed?’

‘Den could not kill anyone. And he did not know about what I did. He did not know about the weddings. I never tell him.’

‘I’ve spoken to the registrar who married you.’ Gerry Heffernan felt himself blushing. ‘And she says you seemed scared of
something and that you kept looking at the door as if you expected someone to come in. Was that someone Den Liston? Were you
afraid he’d found out about your wedding?’

Françoise shook her head. ‘He did not know. I was nervous. I knew it was wrong what I was doing but …’

‘Perhaps Abdul Ahmed tried to attack you. Perhaps he tried to rape you and you defended yourself. A jury would be quite sympathetic
in a case like that. Did you kill him?’

‘No. I tell you already. He was dead when I find him.’

She was sticking to her story. Heffernan had given her a way out, an opportunity to claim that she killed him in self-defence.
But she hadn’t taken it.

Perhaps he was barking up the wrong tree altogether. Perhaps Ahmed had been killed by Sean Sawyer or someone else involved
in the immigration scam. Or maybe he was involved in a feud with one of his fellow immigrants.

If Françoise Decaux was indeed innocent, it looked as if it could be back to square one.

Wesley wondered how it was that grapes had become the fruit of choice for hospital visitors. Rachel Tracey had brought a bunch
of seedless red ones nestling in Huntings supermarket’s distinctive plastic packaging.

‘Thanks. But next time I’d like them fermented and bottled.’

She managed a weak smile. ‘You look better. Still sore?’

‘On the mend. Thanks for coming. It gets pretty boring in here.’

‘Hasn’t your wife been in?’ she asked awkwardly.

‘She’s got the kids. It’s not easy.’

‘Oh.’

‘They’re letting me home later today. I think they need the bed.’

‘Good.’

Wesley tried to raise himself up on the pillow. His body still hurt but the painkillers he had been prescribed had started
working. ‘Have you seen Theresa Harbourn?’

‘Yes. And I asked her about the letters Marion Blunning mentioned. The answer was a bit disappointing really. I can’t see
how it can be relevant to her murder.’

‘Well, don’t keep me in suspense. What did she say?’

‘Richard Harbourn couldn’t father children. Kirsten’s biological father
was a sperm donor. Anonymous of course. I thought she might have uncovered some clandestine affair in Theresa’s past, confronted
her real dad with the truth and drove one of his family to murder. But no such luck. It was all above board. Dead end.’

‘Yeah. Thanks for trying anyway.’ He thought for a moment. ‘It’s probably irrelevant but maybe you should follow it up. Perhaps
she met someone while she was trying to trace her father. Another lover perhaps – from what we know of her, she didn’t seem
too particular.’

‘You’re being very judgemental today, Wesley.’ She smiled and touched his cheek. A gossamer touch, tickling his flesh.

‘So would you be if Den Liston had mistaken your ribs for a football. You’re probably right about the clinic lead but follow
it up anyway, just to eliminate that possibility.’

‘I think it’d be a waste of time. I think Stuart Richter killed her.’

‘Explain the wedding dress. Why had she taken it off
again and hung it up in a hurry? Would she have taken it off for Stuart Richter, do you think?’

‘We don’t know that she did take it off.’

‘Either she took it off of her own accord because she was having a last-minute fling with a lover or someone took it off her
hoping that’s what we would assume. Neither theory fits Stuart Richter in my opinion.’

‘Did you find out the name of the clinic Theresa Harbourn went to?’

‘Yes. Hang on.’ She took her notebook out of her handbag. ‘The Novavita.’

‘It’s a long shot I know, but why don’t you pop round there and see if there’s any record of a Sister Williams working there?
Find out whether Kirsten had been round asking questions and, if so, who she saw.’