by David Carter
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Karen’s enquiries bore little fruit. The four spurned Lay Preachers admitted to having been mighty miffed at Colin’s promotion, especially as they were all senior to him, but they were surprised and shocked he had died, killed on the highway, and more than that, each possessed a cast iron alibi, for they had been sleeping with their partners at home, two men and two women, though not in the combinations Karen had anticipated.
‘Take a more detailed look at Marian,’ ordered Walter. ‘Dig up everything you can. Something isn’t right. Something stinks.’
Chapter Three
Harry Wilkinson had worked for the Chester Parks and Gardens department for forty-five years, almost exactly the same amount of time he had been married to Bethan Jones. Through the years Harry gained steady promotions until he landed the position he coveted, that of headman looking after all the publicly owned bowling and putting greens within the city boundaries.
After he retired many a creaking sportsman would comment, ‘Ah, the greens are not the same,’ and in due course those lounge carpet surfaces would become known as Harry’s Greens.
Harry met Bethan Jones when they were both twenty in the Dringo Tearooms at Penmaenmawr while he enjoyed a hiking, rambling, easy climbing holiday, which was strangely apt, as Dringo was Welsh for climbing. Bethan was kitted out in a cute black and white uniform as she served Welsh cream teas, something that Harry feasted on during the week. He couldn’t keep away from the place and was soon bewitched by her porcelain white Welsh skin, her sparkling blue eyes and easy smile, while for her part, Bethan was entranced by his huge bear-like paws. She had never seen hands the like of them before, and his neat English haircut.
She had taken the summer holiday job at Dringo to earn a little money and to get out from under her domineering mother, Phyllis’s, feet, and if a nice young man happened to come along, well, that would be a summer bonus to remember. He had.
The Jones family lived in the hills above Mostyn where they could glare down on the English across the water on their flat Wirral peninsula, conspiring to subjugate Wales, or so they imagined. The Jones’s had been long-time supporters of the Welsh National Party, Plaid Cymru, long before it was trendy and hip to be so, and even more fervent supporters of the Welsh Language Society, insisting that only Welsh was ever spoken in the Jones’ household. Bethan was fully six before she mastered the masters’ tongue. Fact was, that over the years the extended Jones family did a fair bit of glaring over the estuary whenever there was any anti English sentiment in the media, or round the hilltop villages where they lived, and they would laugh derisorily at anyone mentioning the Investiture of the English Prince of Wales.
‘You can’t marry ’im, ee’s English,’ said Phyllis in her sing song voice, forgetting herself and slipping into English, meaning Harry of course, the phrase spilling out almost as if it were one long word, youcan’tmarryimeesenglish, as if it were a Welsh place name belonging on some narrow gauge mountain railway.
Bethan would marry who the heck she darn well pleased, and she did.
Harry was high Church of England, Bethan Welsh Chapel, where all the hymns and sermons were conducted in Europe’s most ancient language. Seventy-eight people attended the service in the grey stone chapel, and not all of them could find a seat. On that one solemn occasion the chapel hierarchy made an exception and allowed a modicum of English to be uttered, but just the once, though not too much, and not too loudly.
Three weeks before the wedding to his intense relief, Harry landed the job with the Chester Parks and Gardens department, and Bethan bit her tongue, swallowed her pride, and agreed to move across the border, to England.
They acquired a rambling and crumbling redbrick terraced house at a discount price in Alfred Street beside the Chester City Walls, a house that the estate agent described as needing work, a property Harry and Bethan could only afford because Harry’s father, a bank clerk, put up most of the deposit, and arranged the mortgage on preferential terms.
Before they moved in, Harry and Bethan enjoyed a spectacular honeymoon in the Llaethlyd Lleuad Guesthouse, roughly translated as the Milky Moon, on the coast at Aberystwyth. Harry would always enquire as to the meaning of Welsh words. He was determined to learn the lingo, as he described it, but after three months of trying, gave up completely. It was too difficult for an Englishman to master, he said, and he wasn’t the first to utter the phrase.
In truth, Bethan wasn’t overly disappointed, because she could still curse him in her native tongue whenever they fell out, knowing that he wouldn’t have a clue what she was chuntering about, something that happened occasionally, but never for long, and anyway, the making up after an anghytuno’n chwyrn, a disagreement bordering on the violent, was always the best bit.
During the honeymoon beside the seaside the sun shone relentlessly, and the balmy onshore summer breeze blanched their locks. Bethan turned rapidly red and burned; Harry an attractive dark brown, for this was long before Factor Eight or Factor anything else had been invented.
Afterwards, they would spend all of Harry’s working life in that rambling house where he, in his spare time, would slowly turn it into a desirable residence, adding bathrooms, a spectacular kitchen, and a large nursery that would soon be full to overflowing.
Four big boys grew up in 17 Alfred Street, and in time duly fledged the nest and scattered across the globe to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Tegucigalpa, wherever the heck that was. Glyn had always been the odd one out, the rebellious child who naturally opted for the most difficult decision, or the weirdest choice available.
Bethan and Harry enjoyed ten grandchildren they seldom saw.
The day after he collected his gold watch Harry drove Bethan along the North Wales coast. They were bungalow hunting. He thought that as she had allowed herself to be taken to England for so long, the least he could do in return was to repatriate her to Wales, and spend their retirement in her beloved Cymru. Bethan was coming home and her heart sang at the prospect.
They found a beautiful but ancient, grey stone bungalow, with its original Welsh slate roof still intact, set high in the hills, not five minutes drive from where she grew up, and yes, she would still occasionally glare across the Dee estuary far below at the Saeson, the English, on the far side.
Despite her forty-five years living amongst them she still retained some hostility toward them for what they had done, though perhaps they weren’t quite as bad as she had previously imagined. Three of her sons were confirmed Saeson, and that remained a deep regret for Bethan, though thankfully dearest Glyn had remained stubbornly Welsh, and the only one who had mastered his mother’s tongue.
Harry and Bethan shed a tear when Jones & Sons, Removals and Storage, a distant cousin of Bethan’s, loaded up the blue and white pantechnicon, slammed the rear doors on their possessions, fired up the smelly diesel engine, and rolled away from Alfred Street for the final time.
The bungalow was heavenly. The fresh air bracing, the sound of the lambs somehow comforting, the large sloping lawn soon trimmed and lined and weeded to Harry’s exacting standards.
Eighteen days after they moved to Wales, Bethan announced that she would that night go to bed early, not only that, but she would sleep alone in the spare room, something that she hadn’t done since nursing the boys all those years before.
Harry put it down to the slight cold she possessed. He’d also noticed that she had taken two glasses of Spanish red wine with her dinner, or tea, as she still preferred to call it, when one at most, was all she would normally take. She had been a little irritable too, he’d noted that, and that was so unlike her, but he imagined she would be better in the morning.
She wasn’t.
Harry found her lying on her back, like Sleeping Beauty, the covers pulled down and straight across her waist, her porcelain white Welsh skin still almost unlined, and as beautiful as the day he first set eyes on her in the Dringo tearooms. Her eyes were closed and her hands were clasp
ed together before her, with no hint of pain on her death mask. She reminded him of some of the life-size marble memorials in the cathedral.
Eighteen days at home, eighteen precious days.
Bethan had always been a private lady. She often kept her feelings and innermost thoughts to herself; something that Harry had occasionally cause to chastise her over. There were some things she insisted she did in private, and dying was most certainly one of them. She had never wanted any fuss. She would do it in her own way, alone, and bravely, and that was what she did.
She had returned home to die.
Harry understood that now, as he kissed her dry lips and knelt down beside the bed in the spare room, wearing only his blue and white striped pyjamas, as he spoke aloud a prayer for his beloved Bethan, ending with one of the few Welsh phrases he could ever recall, rwy’n dy garu di, Bethan Jones. I love you Bethan Jones, and after that, he cried, and after that still, he went to the telephone and rang the Right Reverend James Kingston.
Chapter Four
The Right Reverend James Kingston had been seconded to Chester Cathedral from Lichfield. He regarded it as promotion and both he and his accountant wife, Sybil, were delighted to discover the fine red sandstone house close by the cathedral that came with the appointment.
Tradition demanded that the new Right Reverend should hold his house-warming meeting and greeting party within one month of taking office, a busy affair where most of the people who helped and ran the cathedral would be invited. That included Harry and Bethan Wilkinson who soon became close friends of the Kingstons. Harry was a regular worshipper in the cathedral and would donate his spare time to overseeing and personally cutting the fine lawns and grounds surrounding Saint Werberghs, as the cathedral was sometimes known.
The party began at noon and ran until four o’clock in the afternoon, during which time legions of helpers would pop in and out, some quite briefly, and shake the hand of the upright fellow who had recently joined them. Some, though by no means all, took advantage of the chilled white wine Sybil had personally chosen from Waitrose’s extensive catalogue. James enjoyed a glass or two, though paced himself, knowing it would be a long day. Even their only son, Michael, had put in an appearance, a tall and handsome twenty-something who was studying tropical medicine up at Liverpool University, a young man who proceeded to charm all the ladies, young and old alike.
At close of play two elderly sisters, Amy and Harriet Bull, who provided many of the cathedral flowers, had become stranded. The arrangement had been that their even older brother, Robert, would collect them in his Jaguar. Robert had fallen in the garden that afternoon while pruning roses, and had broken two fingers, and would be unable to oblige.
The Right Reverend James, eager to please on his public debut, jumped into the conversation and volunteered to run them back the seven miles to Parkgate on the west Wirral coast.
‘You’ve had a few drinks,’ warned Sybil.
‘No! Don’t worry, darling. Only a couple spread over the whole of the afternoon, and I’ve had plenty to eat. I’ll be fine.’
‘Well, if you’re sure.’
‘Course I am. I wouldn’t take a risk on something like that.’
The Bull sisters eased into the back seat of the Right Reverend’s four year old blue BMW and zipped along the Chester High Road, northward to Parkgate, and home for the now tiring and yawning ladies.
‘Thank you so much,’ they said at the house, ‘Are you sure you won’t come in for a coffee?’
‘Thank you but no, perhaps another time, it’s been so nice to meet you, give my love and best wishes to Robert, and tell him I shall meet him another day,’ and with that minutes later James was heading south again, and home... too quickly.
The police shot out of a quiet turnoff and were on him like an angry hornet on a wasp.
The first policeman stepped from the blue light-flashing car and headed toward the Beemer.
‘Do you know what speed you were travelling at, sir?’
‘Just on seventy,’ mumbled James.
The policeman shook his head and revealed the handheld device that displayed 82mph.
‘Really?’ said James. ‘That much? It must be this car. I am so sorry.’ And then he added, ‘I am the new vicar attached to the cathedral; I am on my way back there now.’
The policeman had already clocked the white collar and that was, to the best of his knowledge, a first in itself, a speeding priest... with humming breath.
‘Have you been drinking, sir?’
‘No-ooo, well yes, just the one, it was my inauguration party today, and I had to take a couple of elderly ladies home.’
‘Would you mind blowing into this device?’
James appeared crestfallen. He’d already guessed the result, and he was right.
The new Right Reverend at Chester Cathedral was duly prosecuted for driving whilst under the influence of drink, was found guilty, one and a half times over the legal limit, and was fined four hundred and fifty pounds, no exceptions for anyone I am afraid, and especially for someone like you, said the magistrate. You should have known better, and worse still, James lost his driving licence for eighteen months.
The press had a field day.
The London redtops ran along the lines of CANNED VICAR BANNED, and RIGHT REVEREND WRONG, while the more conservative Chester Chronicle contented itself with: New Right Reverend Will Not Be Giving Lifts.
There was something of a public outcry, especially amongst the teetotalling temperance mob who had been campaigning for drink to be banned from all areas of the city centre for years, and to think that our new Vicar has behaved like this!
Harry and Bethan, who weren’t above a glass or two themselves, supported James through and through, and that strengthened their burgeoning friendship. Despite that, feelings ran high. There was a weighty faction demanding that the new man and his simpering wife be packed off to Lichfield on the first available train. It was rumoured the final decision went up to the Bishop himself, who in the spirit of forgiveness, came down on the side of James and Sybil Kingston. James would take his punishment like a man, carry on with his new duties, and be required to publicly apologise as part of his next public address.
Come the day in question the paparazzi camped on the green outside the cathedral, watching, listening and hoping for more juicy Church gossip.
Furthermore, the Bishop intimated that James Kingston would be expected to never again be seen with an alcoholic drink in his hand, a stipulation that though bothersome, mattered little when put into context of the wonderful house they now enjoyed. He could do what he liked behind closed doors, and did.
The telephone rang at half past nine in the morning.
Sybil answered. She was working at home that day.
‘It’s Harry Wilkinson,’ she hissed to James, ‘and he sounds awfully upset.’
An hour later James found himself on the stopping train loping along the North Wales coast, heading for Mostyn station where Harry would collect him in the car. James would much have preferred to have driven there, but didn’t dare.
He spent a good chunk of the day in the ancient bungalow praying with, and comforting his friend, before Harry drove him back down the hill to the station before the trains grew busy.
––––––––
The driver had planned the day with great care. A quiet railway station where expresses rushed through. A small or non-existent staff. A lack of CCTV. A trial run that had uncovered no unforeseen problems. Today would be the day. Mostyn would be the place.
Chapter Five
James Kingston was still thinking of Harry and poor Bethan, as he crossed the railway bridge and strolled on to the platform that would take him eastward back toward Chester, the line that followed the soft muddy, sandy coast. Harry had volunteered to stay with him until the unreliable stopping train arrived, but James sent Harry on his way with, ‘You have so much to think about and arrange, you get on home,’ and anyway there was an express d
ue through, and James came from an age when all little boys were hypnotised by railway trains. He was looking forward to it, and reprimanded himself for not bringing his digital camera.
The driver sat in the car watching. There was now one person on the platform, but you only need one. One cold soul, peering up the track, seeking out trains, hoping one would arrive soon.
The driver stepped from the car. Headed for the platform entrance, specially chosen padded trainers enabling silent movement. The man on the platform still stared along the track. A vague rumbling, then the lines began to sing, an audible hum, the sound of bogies on steel rail, crossing the junction, over the points, louder now, approaching, exciting, exhilarating.
Most people step back from the platform edge when a train comes through, especially when it’s an express that isn’t going to slow or stop. James was keener for a better look. He stepped forward. The diesel loco pulling ten carriages was now in the station, hurtling toward him, acceleration, the Llandudno Junction to London Euston Express, stopping at Chester and Crewe and nowhere else. Yellow and red, raw power. How impressive a beast she was.
The car driver stepped forward too. No one about. Why would there be? This was a quiet unmanned station, the rush hour had yet to begin, and this train wasn’t stopping.
Hand up. Palm open. Small of the back. The gentlest of prods. Falling forward, over the edge, into the abyss. Disappeared. Dispatched. A split second look of panic and terror on the engine driver’s face as the train flashed by. The cold soul had disappeared. Mangled beneath hundreds of tonnes of thrashing iron and steel. No one could hope to survive that. What had been his final thoughts? Pondered the pusher. Maybe he uttered a prayer. Who knows? Who cares?
100 Ways to Kill People.
Push them under a train.
The driver grinned and turned about and headed back toward the car. It had been more enjoyable than before, and that was a surprise. Perhaps it was because last time it was a spur of the moment thing. This time it had been meticulously planned, preordained.