Death in the Family

by Jill McGown

  “I thought you’d gone to sleep up there,” said Liz as he safely negotiated his way down to the landing. “Oh, look, Tom! You’ve got dust all over your trousers.” She swatted at him as she spoke, handing him his jacket when she was satisfied that the dust was all gone. “The ring’s in the pocket—don’t lose it.”

  “You look terrific in that,” Tom said, shrugging on his jacket, belatedly realizing that Liz was no longer wearing the dressing gown in which he’d last seen her, on his way up to the loft. “Is that one of the outfits Judy gave you?”

  “It’s the outfit—the one she was going to be married in last time round. It’s got this clever buttoning arrangement so it fits you whatever size you are. Not that I’m that much smaller than she was in her last month. It’s brand-new—never been worn—but she wouldn’t take any money for it.”

  “Well, there you are,” said Tom, with a grin. “We’re quids in already. Who says they’re expensive?”

  The baby had turned out to be twins. Only after they had found out did Liz’s mother remember that one of her aunts had had a twin sister who had not survived, or they might have been prepared for the possibility. The babies were due in December, and now that he and Liz had got over the shock, they could hardly wait.

  Life was being good all round at the moment—on Friday, the LINKS project had been formally inaugurated and Tom had collected a cool hundred quid on his bet, thanks to Bob Sandwell, who had already transferred to Highgrove Street in Barton, where he was duty inspector, which suited him perfectly; his wife already worked in Barton, and they were buying a house there. Judy had indeed got the DCI post at Malworth, starting right after her honeymoon, and Lloyd was moaning that everyone he worked with had been scattered to the winds, but he had Stansfield CID to organize however he chose and today he was finally getting married, so he was happy, too.

  “Are we ready to go now?” said Liz. “We’re supposed to get there quarter of an hour before the ceremony, and we’re running very late.”

  Tom gasped. “Whose fault’s that?”

  “I thought it would take you a few seconds—you were up there for ages.” She looked into their son’s bedroom, but it was empty. “Bobby? Bobby! Are you back in the bathroom? Get him out of there, Tom.”

  Nine years old, and he spent hours making himself beautiful. Tom couldn’t believe it. When he was nine, it was only the Shirley Temple comments that forced him to get his hair cut at all, but Bobby always knew exactly how he wanted his hair, which was never the same two visits running; he had to keep up with whatever was in fashion, and making it look exactly as it should involved much gazing at himself in the bathroom mirror while he carefully applied hair gel. Tom had somehow sired a miniature cool dude, which mystified him. Bobby had inherited Liz’s dark, straight hair, for which he was truly thankful. Chloe, on the other hand, looked just like Tom and behaved just like her mother; at six, she had golden curls and much more common sense than Tom or Bobby ever would and regarded her older brother with something approaching disdain.

  The bathroom door opened as Tom was about to knock—one didn’t walk in on Bobby’s preparations—and he emerged, looking cool. “Wicked,” he said to his mother as he passed her on the landing, so Judy’s taste in pregnancy outfits had passed muster. Bobby was a man of few words; his reaction to the news that there was to be not one but two additions to the family had been a thoughtful nod and then “Cool.”

  “I’m getting into the car.” Liz started back downstairs. “I’m going, even if no one else is.”

  “Don’t you want it now I’ve got it?” asked Tom, holding out the garter.

  “Oh, yes!” She grabbed the frilly blue garter from him and put it in her shoulder bag.

  He smiled. “I gave you that for our wedding.”

  “It’s all right; she’s only borrowing it. That’s the whole point.”

  Judy didn’t know yet that she was borrowing it; she had steadfastly refused to pander to tradition in any way, vetoing a hen night, pooh-poohing the idea of her and Lloyd spending the night before the wedding apart, refusing to countenance wedding presents, insisting that between them she and Lloyd already had everything they needed and that anyone who would have bought them something should instead send the money to charity.

  The garter had been a last-minute inspiration, and Liz, a believer in tradition and more than a tad superstitious, intended putting Judy in a position where she couldn’t refuse to wear it without being impolite, and had reasoned that since her bridal outfit was bound to be new, the garter would at a stroke fulfill the rest of the rhyme’s conditions.

  “. . . take you, Theresa Anne Black, to be my wedded wife.”

  Phil hadn’t looked at Theresa once during the actual ceremony; some things still made him feel shy. They had known each other for months, really, but they had spent just over six weeks in each other’s company, and he was still afraid of disappointing her. He had wanted to learn by heart the vows they had chosen to make, but he hadn’t been able to do it. The registrar had said he could repeat them after her instead and he had felt that he had let Theresa down a little, but she had just laughed at him when he said that.

  He still couldn’t quite believe that she was doing this for him; he had thought that the mention of adoption would put paid to any chance he had with her, instead of which she had spent the night with him. After her subsequent offer to marry him, he had told her exactly how difficult Kayleigh was, but it hadn’t put her off, and now, here she was, going through with it.

  During all those weeks when all he had done was speak to her on the phone, he had daydreamed about meeting her and had often thought of asking her up to London to see a show or whatever but had been too bashful to suggest it. Somehow, meeting her under the dreadful circumstances of Lesley’s death had made it easier, made him bolder, made him brave enough to grasp the daydream, because he had fallen for Theresa Anne Black before he’d ever met her. And now the wildest part of his daydream was coming true; she was in the process of becoming his wife.

  Kayleigh had been sent to foster parents in Malworth—he and Theresa had met them informally, and they seemed like pleasant, capable people. And Kayleigh seemed to enjoy being with them, especially since Andrea had forgiven her and was best friends with her again.

  Kayleigh and Andrea were Theresa’s bridesmaids, if that was the appropriate term when everyone was in civvies, rather than gowns and morning suits, and had been looking forward to today for the last three weeks—once the decision had been made, they had given notice of their intention to marry at the earliest possible date in order to get the adoption procedure under way. Almost the earliest possible date—they had picked the Saturday so that Theresa’s brother could make it back from holiday.

  Lesley had left Phil a bit of money, with which he would be able to set up on his own once the will went through probate, but it was a risky enterprise in a town where he had no reputation and at the moment he was still jobless, so he wasn’t spending what he had left on anything other than necessities. The wedding was a low-key affair: a handful of guests, and a small party in the flat to celebrate.

  The witnesses were Theresa’s brother and his Aunt Jean, and the guests were those of Theresa’s friends able to come at such short notice. His on-the-road existence with Lesley meant that he had lost touch with everyone with whom he might have become friends, but he and Ian had been for a drink together a couple of times and got on pretty well, despite the way they had met.

  Phil could see why Lesley had picked Ian; he was someone who did as he was told, basically. But he was a nice guy, and Phil couldn’t see the point in not becoming friends with him. Both he and Theresa had wanted Ian to come to the wedding, and he had got out of the hospital just in time. He was sitting at the end of a row, his plastered leg sticking out, his crutches on the floor.

  Theresa’s brother had thought it very strange, inviting Ian to the wedding—stranger, if anything, than he had found Theresa’s decision to marry Phil in the fi
rst place and being prepared to adopt Kayleigh—but Phil knew that Theresa wouldn’t have dreamed of not inviting him; Ian was her friend and always had been. And, he thought, if Theresa could accept Kayleigh as part of the package, then he could surely accept Ian.

  “Now you, Theresa. I, Theresa Anne Black . . .”

  Kayleigh was really glad about Phil and Theresa; she seemed much more likely to make him happy than her mother ever had, even if it was all very sudden. Not that Phil and her mother had been unhappy, but they had had rows all the time, because of her, and she hadn’t liked that.

  “. . . to be my wedded husband.”

  Phil kissed Theresa now that they were man and wife, a little peck on the lips. He had always been shy of showing his feelings in public, and Kayleigh smiled as she saw his face grow pink. He was all right once everyone started signing the register and he had stopped being the center of attention.

  Theresa had said that if they could, she and Phil would adopt her, and then she would be able to live with them instead of with her foster parents. They were all right, but it would be much better to be at home with her dad again, and now that he and Theresa were married, it might happen.

  Kayleigh hoped it would.

  Judy hadn’t felt anything like as nervous as this the first time round; she had married Michael without any of the jitters she’d been subject to over the last few weeks as the date approached. And the silly thing was that she had known that she and Michael were all wrong for each other, whereas she and Lloyd were and always would be right together. Perhaps, she thought, it was because this time really mattered.

  “We’re going to be far too early,” Lloyd said. “It’s only half past ten now.”

  “I know. But I’d rather be there than sitting waiting at home.”

  Home was still her flat, with her mother sleeping in a single bed in the nursery, but if their offer was accepted, it would soon be a stone-built detached house—with a garden in which Lloyd could pretend he would grow strawberries—in the old village of Stansfield, just a couple of streets away from where Lloyd had had his flat.

  Judy hadn’t been able to believe her luck when she had been scanning, with no great enthusiasm, the property supplement in the local paper and had found it up for sale. She really liked the old village; she never knew whether it was the village itself or her association of it with the moment when she and Lloyd finally consummated the love affair they had begun when she was twenty years old, but a house becoming available there made the thought of moving so much easier than it might have been.

  They were having to get a much bigger mortgage than they had meant to, even with the sale of their respective flats, and it didn’t yet have the self-contained living accommodation that Lloyd had promised her mother, but it did mean she would have her own room, and a loft conversion was being planned, on the in-for-a-penny principle.

  Her mother had been dressing Charlotte as they left, glad, Judy was sure, to see the back of her nerve-racked daughter and to be left to her own devices with her granddaughter. Charlotte now had two bottom teeth, of which Lloyd had to have taken two thousand photographs, and these days the conversations were two-way affairs, with the odd lisped sibilant; Charlotte still spoke gobbledygook, but she did it in sentences now, if not paragraphs, and got cross if Judy didn’t seem to be listening. Judy had a dreadful feeling that Charlotte was going to be just like Lloyd as soon as she did get the hang of the language.

  “Have you actually been struck dumb, or are you just having second thoughts?”

  She smiled at him. “Neither. I was just thinking how we’ve turned into a family. And I like it.”

  Theresa posed with Phil on the steps of the Civic Centre and laughed as the confetti swirled in the breeze that was playing havoc with the hair that had been so carefully styled that morning.

  Ian knew that it hadn’t been her choice; Theresa had told him that her hairdresser had said that she must have something special for her wedding day and had proceeded to build her hair into a style that made her look like someone else. The wind was turning her back into Theresa; a good thing, in Ian’s opinion.

  He and Theresa had never discussed marriage; he supposed if they had, they would have done it. And then Lesley would never have happened. He didn’t know why a piece of paper would have made a difference, but he knew that it would have. It had never occurred to him to ask Theresa to marry him because he and Theresa had always really just been friends, not lovers, and while he would have liked to return to the status quo, he knew it was never going to happen. So he was glad she had found someone she was happy with.

  It had been very sudden; they seemed just to have met when they were announcing their intention to marry. But then, he had felt like that about Lesley, so he understood. His brief interlude with Lesley seemed almost unreal now; there were moments, memories, that could give him a stab of pain, but mostly he felt a little as though someone he had known in passing had died, not someone with whom he had intended spending his life.

  “Ian, can you manage a camera with your leg?”

  Ian smiled at Kayleigh. “Not with my leg, no, but I can probably manage it with my hands.”

  “Oh, funny man.”

  He laid the crutches down on the low wall and stood with his legs slightly apart, his weight on his good leg. He could achieve relative stability that way. His leg had suffered a clean fracture and was healing quickly; it was the foot that had given him all the problems, all the pain. They had thought for a while that they might have to amputate it, but they had operated instead. And they thought now that he might not need any more operations, so things weren’t as bad as they might have been. He would have a limp, but it could all have been a great deal worse.

  “Oh, good, thanks. I want one of Dad and Theresa, the witnesses, and the bridesmaids.”

  He watched as she and Andrea shepherded Phil’s aunt and Theresa’s brother a step up from the bride and groom, one to either side, then took up their own flanking positions on the step up from them.

  She hadn’t said much about Lesley when she’d visited him in the hospital; Ian couldn’t tell how badly or otherwise it had hit her. She seemed just to have accepted it, but so much more went on in Kayleigh’s mind than anyone ever suspected that it was difficult to tell.

  “Move in a bit closer,” he said, looking into the viewfinder. “Lovely. Now, smile!”

  They all smiled just as a gust of wind lifted up the bride’s dress and the carefully posed tableau fell into laughing disarray. Ian took the photograph anyway; it would be better than the posed one.

  Lloyd glanced at Judy as he stopped at the zebra crossing just before the registry office, put there so that people getting off at the bus stop didn’t get mown down as soon as they tried to cross the road. She had said that if Lloyd wanted to get married, that was all right by her. If he wanted to spend a fortune on a reception, fine. But, she had said, she was not going to behave like a virgin bride—he was not going to stay somewhere else the night before, because of some ridiculous superstition. They would drive to the registry office together, or they wouldn’t go there at all.

  “I had no intention of spending the night anywhere else,” he had said. “How would I know you would turn up?”

  He had, of course, had every intention of sticking to tradition; he had been going to stay with the Finches. But it didn’t bother him; he didn’t think it could ever be bad luck to see Judy. This morning she was very nervous, slightly flushed, and she looked wonderful. She was, he had told her that morning, the second most beautiful woman in his life. The first most beautiful was being brought by Judy’s mother at something more like the time of the ceremony.

  He pulled into the car park and backed into a space without having to search for one; no bad luck yet, he thought. They were much earlier than they needed to be, and he watched, smiling, as Judy anxiously took the makeup mirror from her bag and made minute adjustments.

  “Stop staring at me.”

  “Sorry.”
He amused himself instead by looking at the people posing for photographs in the stiff breeze that had got up. After a few moments, they ceased to be an anonymous wedding party and resolved themselves into people that he knew. He wound down the window to get a better look at them.

  “Well, well, well,” he said. “Fancy that.”

  He got no reaction, so he tried again.

  “Who would have thought it?”

  Still nothing.

  “They were quick off the mark. I feel a bit like Cupid, since I was the one who brought them together, as it were. If I hadn’t taken him to Barton General, they might never have met. I was there when he made their first date.”

  She was, of course, ignoring him on purpose, so he began all over again.

  “Well, well, well. Fancy that. Who would have—?”

  “Well, well, well, what?” she asked, a mite crossly for his bride-to-be. “What are you going on about? Stop being mysterious.”

  “Romance would appear to have blossomed. That bride and groom—do you know who they are?”

  Judy looked across, shaking her head.

  “Theresa Black and Phil Roddam. And the man with the crutches and the two young women is Ian Waring, ex-partner of the bride and ex–fancy man of the groom’s deceased wife.”

  Judy looked at him, her brown eyes suspicious. “Are you making this up?”

  He laughed. “No, honestly. The entire wedding party is composed of my murder investigation. It’s a wonder Dean Fletcher hasn’t been given compassionate release to attend.”

  Judy was clearly still not convinced that he was telling the truth; she went back to plucking invisible hairs from her eyebrows as Lloyd watched his onetime suspects arrange themselves in various groups until they had been photographed in every conceivable combination. The thought crossed his mind that Phil Roddam had been left some money by Lesley, but it was hardly an amount worth murdering for, even if it hadn’t been conclusively proved that neither he nor his new bride could have murdered her. Lloyd’s eyes widened as he realized who one of the young women was, and he sighed, still unhappy about the outcome of his murder inquiry.