Read The Marriage Hearse Online
Authors: Kate Ellis
‘So you told her?’
A nod.
‘What did she say?’
Dr Creston looked away, as if the memory was painful.
Wesley repeated his question.
‘She laughed.’ He paused. ‘She treated the whole thing as a joke. She said it didn’t matter, that in some places it’s normal
to screw your sister. She stood there in her wedding dress … in this big white dress … and came out with the most foul-mouthed
… She didn’t care. It was nothing to her. All my worries and my moral qualms were just a joke to her. I tried to reason with
her. I said it was wrong but she kept saying nothing was wrong if it felt good … if it was a laugh. And she wanted the wedding.
She wanted to be the centre of attention and nothing was going to deprive her of that.’
‘And you lost control?’
‘Just for a moment. She was laughing at me. I had to make her stop. I saw this monster that I’d created and …’ He covered
his face with his hands for a few seconds then looked up. ‘I’d stuffed the cravat in my pocket. She told me to go – said she’d
see me at the church – and then she turned her back to me. I can’t remember how I came to put it round her neck but I remember
squeezing and squeezing until she was quiet. I just wanted her to be quiet. To stop tormenting me.’ A tear rolled down his
cheek.
Wesley glanced at Gerry Heffernan who was sitting at the other side of the bed, open mouthed. When their eyes met, the chief
inspector gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head.
‘Then you realised what you’d done.’
‘She was there at my feet, the dress all spread out around her like some monstrous dead swan. I had to do something … I had
to cover up what I’d done. You’ve no idea how hard it is to undress a dead body.’
‘You thought if you made it look like a sex crime, it would avert attention from you.’
‘Yes. I took the dress off and hung it up, as though someone had disturbed her while she was about to get changed. Then I
arranged her on the bed. I tried to make it look as if someone had attacked her and killed her with the lamp flex.’
‘Yes. We know what you did. And your wife? She gave you the petrol station alibi. She’d gone to get petrol for the Jaguar
but she said it had been you to give you an alibi. Only the petrol station kept security tapes.’
‘I had to tell Rowena. I’d done this terrible thing and I had to tell someone. She was marvellous. She told everyone what
to say. She organised everything.’
‘So did Lady Macbeth,’ Heffernan muttered, somewhat unhelpfully.
But Creston didn’t seem to have heard. ‘I knew that once you started asking about the petrol receipt, you were on the point
of guessing the truth and I couldn’t face the consequences. I couldn’t face Peter finding out. We’d all been so careful to
shield him. That’s why I …’
At that moment the door burst open. Rowena Creston rushed in and, ignoring the two detectives, made straight for her husband’s
bed. She sat down at his side, leaned over protectively and kissed his forehead, pushing back a strand of his hair, murmuring
words of comfort.
Clasping her hand in his, she turned her head to face Wesley. ‘It wasn’t his fault, you know. That bitch drove him to it.
He only wanted to do what was right but she couldn’t understand that. All she saw was that he was depriving her of her big
day and damn the consequences. My husband’s a good man, Inspector.’
Wesley had no words to say apart from the ones that echoed in his head. ‘To halt great sin, myself must sin apace,’ spoken
by the
Duke in
The Fair Wife of Padua
who had acted similarly in similar circumstances. He stood up. ‘We’ll leave you alone for a while. But you realise that we’ll
need a statement from you both.’
Rowena Creston nodded sadly. It was over.
‘I wasn’t happy about that,’ Wesley said as they walked down the corridor towards the hospital’s front entrance.
Heffernan snorted. ‘You think I was? Kirsten Harbourn pushed him over the edge. He was driven to it.’
‘Maybe. But he still murdered her. He killed his own daughter.’
‘He’ll get away with a plea of provocation. Manslaughter.’ Heffernan sounded very confident. Wesley wasn’t so sure. It would
depend on his barrister’s acting abilities and the mindset of the jury.
Wesley carried on walking, his eyes fixed ahead. The whole affair had left a nasty taste in his mouth.
‘Just out of curiosity, Wes, what put you on to Creston?’
‘You saw the play.’
‘What that gory thing Rach was in? I don’t see …’
‘Remember the Duke reminisced about his mistress and Clara, his son Paolo’s wife, had her mother’s portrait stolen by Paolo’s
evil brother, Silvius?’
Heffernan nodded.
‘Well, Clara’s mother turned out to be the mistress – Clara was the Duke’s natural daughter as well as his daughter-in-law.’
Heffernan scratched his head. ‘So that’s what was going on. I did wonder.’
Wesley grinned. ‘You probably had other things on your mind. Anyway, the Duke found out his son’s wife was really his daughter
so he killed her. See the connection?’
‘Yeah but …’
‘And Neil told me the play was based on fact. The playwright, Ralph Strong, lived over in Upper Cudleigh until he was nineteen.
He’d fallen in love with a neighbour’s daughter – a girl called Clara Merison – but Ralph’s father Bartholomew had once had
an affair with Clara’s mother and he knew she was really his daughter. When Bartholomew told Clara, she didn’t believe him
and refused to give Ralph up. Her mother was dead by then and couldn’t
confirm his story. She refused to believe that her mother was capable of infidelity and thought that Bartholomew had some
other reason for preventing the marriage. Anyway, she wouldn’t listen and he ended up strangling her and burying her in the
meadow where Big Eddie found her. Neil’s friend Annabel found a copy of a letter from Bartholomew to Ralph in London confessing
all. It looks as if Ralph thought she’d gone away to relatives in London … that’s why he went there and worked in the theatre,
not realising she was dead all the time.
‘Bartholomew sent him the letter about the time the play was written and shortly after that Ralph was killed in a fight. It
makes you wonder whether there was some connection. Perhaps finding out the truth made him careless for his own safety, I
don’t know.’
Heffernan sighed. ‘I sometimes wonder why I’m in this job. All this misery. Maybe I should have chosen something cheerful
… like being an undertaker.’
‘Or organising weddings.’
At that moment the bells of St Margaret’s Church broke into joyous music. Someone was getting married.
My son
I beg thee to return now to Devonshire. Do not seek after that which thou canst never possess. I have a great and grave confession
to make unto thee. I beg thy forgiveness and if it is thy will to punish thy loving father, then so be it. But I must tell
thee for it hath lain heavy upon my heart these many years. Thy sweetheart Clara did not, as I did say, go unto her kin in
London. Rather she whom thou didst love is dead. And thou shalt know the truth of it
.I once did love this Clara’s mother and we lay together some nine months before her birth. So you see, my son, she was thy
sister and I could not allow the union which thou both didst so desire. T’was shame that kept me silent unto thee but I did
tell Clara and was not believed. My temper mixed with my great shame, I killed the wench and buried her, the jewel and ring
thou gavest her in her humble and unconsecrated grave
.And now thy mother is dead, I can confess at last, though your brother knows nought of this and I would keep it so. If thou
canst find forgiveness in thy heart, heaven will bless thee. If not, I beg thee come hither and take the life of him who gave
thee breath
.Thy most loving and repentant father
Bartholomew Strong
Dated this fifteenth day of July 1590
The church was packed. Friends, relatives and parishioners filled the pews in the church of St Alphage, Belsham, polished
to a shine and decked with flowers for the occasion. The church had
once been allowed to sink into shabby neglect, but the new incumbent and his soon-to-be-wife, had corrected the situation.
And the eight old bells, now rehung on a new steel frame thanks to the generosity of an anonymous benefactor, were ringing
out over the countryside, much to the delight of the large contingent of bride’s aunties from Trinidad who could hardly contain
their excitement.
Pam Peterson sat next to Neil Watson, Michael cuddling by her side, sucking his thumb while Amelia perched on her knee. Wesley
was at the front by the bridegroom, having been asked to stand in as best man at the last minute. He kept turning and smiling,
sometimes at her and sometimes at his mother and his relatives from Trinidad whom he hadn’t met for so many years. Pam hadn’t
seen her husband so happy, so alive, in a long while. It was almost as if the Wesley she had first met had returned. The Wesley
she had known before he’d decided to join the police.
As far as Pam knew, only she and Neil were aware of the real reason for Wesley’s substitution – the official explanation being
that Jonathan had been called away to attend a family funeral. And she wanted to keep it that way. She glanced up and saw
that Neil was watching her, his face expressionless. She regretted the loss of Neil’s friendship and trust almost as much
as she regretted betraying her husband. More, perhaps. Wesley had never found out.
The bells stopped ringing and when the organ began to play The Prince of Denmark’s March, the congregation stood. Pam felt
tears prick her eyes as a radiant Maritia walked slowly down the aisle on her proud father’s arm. The music stopped and the
bishop greeted them. But Pam was hardly aware of the service. Her head was swimming and her surroundings had become vague
shapes seen through a veil of tears. But, as crying at weddings is considered the normal thing to do, nobody took much notice.
Once the register had been signed and Mark and Maritia had swept out of the church to Widor’s Toccata and the oohs and aahs
of the aunties, Pam gathered her thoughts and shuffled her way outside, going with the flow of the crowd, relieved now of
the children by a couple of the aunties who seemed to have a wonderful way with the young.
Neil fell in by her side. ‘Everything OK?’ he asked.
‘Why shouldn’t it be?’
‘Good,’ he said before disappearing off, mumbling that he had some paperwork to do.
As Wesley watched Mark and Maritia kissing for the camera while his father beamed proudly and his mother laughed with her
sisters, shouting over the cheerful clamour of the church bells, he felt he wanted to capture the moment for ever.
Then he saw her and his heart lurched.
Theresa Harbourn was hovering at the edge of the churchyard, her eyes wide and dark as she stared at the scene she had no
part in. What was she doing there, he wondered. Why had she come, this spectre on the fringes of the feast?
Slowly he separated from the happy group and made his way towards her, stepping gingerly over the graves as though trying
not to disturb the sleepers beneath. She watched him approach, her eyes sad and impassive.
‘How are you?’ was the only thing he could think of to say when he arrived by her side.
She didn’t answer the question. Instead she said, ‘Who’s getting married?’
‘It’s my sister. She’s marrying the vicar,’ he answered, watching her face.
‘She looks lovely. My Kirsten would have looked lovely.’
‘Yes,’ he said softly, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. ‘I’m sure
she …’
‘I come to watch all the weddings around here now, you know. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel close to her somehow.’
‘Yes.’
‘He had no need to do it, you know.’
‘Sorry?’ He was watching the wedding party. One of the aunties had spotted him and was beckoning him over. He hoped she wouldn’t
bounce over and drag him off for a photograph.
‘He’d no need to kill her. I don’t know if …’
‘If what?’
Theresa blinked, as though she’d suddenly woken up. She turned
to face Wesley, her face close to his. ‘He wasn’t necessarily Kirsten’s father, you know. I was … I was having a bit of a
fling at the time with someone from work. I had to carry on with the treatment or Richard would have suspected. So you see
it was only a fifty-fifty chance that he was … He’d no need to kill her.’ Tears were filming her eyes now. ‘She was so sweet,
so lovely. Why did he have to go and do that?’
Wesley put out a comforting hand and touched her elbow, a gesture of support. ‘Are you all right for getting home? Would you
like me to …?’
Theresa sniffed. ‘You’re very kind but I’ve got my car.’ She looked into his eyes and gave him a weak smile. ‘There’s another
wedding over at Whitely at two o’clock.’ She searched in her handbag for a tissue and blew her nose.
‘Don’t you think you’re torturing yourself going to all these weddings when …’
‘Oh no, Inspector. It’s the only pleasure I have left.’
Wesley watched her as she disappeared down the path between the tall grave stones, just as a cheer went up. The confetti had
been thrown.