Murder of the Bride

by C. S. Challinor

  “But he did work for the family at the time Tom Newcombe disappeared?”

  “He did, and he put the new landscaping in, what you see now.” The landlord went to attend to new customers, a couple of hikers in anoraks and muddy walking boots.

  Presently, Jessop returned with a colorful photo in a cheap wood frame, showing the Newcombe family and an unfamiliar young woman holding Polly by the hand. Rex scrutinized it with interest. Mother and child were instantly recognizable. Mrs. Newcombe, in a large-brimmed straw hat, smiled her superior smile. Polly, pink ribbons in her pigtails, grinned out of the picture, advertising a missing front tooth.

  Tom Newcombe proved a letdown, quite ordinary in every way, a man settling into the gray and slack-featured anonymity of middle age, the sort of person you passed on the street without registering any lasting impression.

  “Married ’im for his money,” Jessop said slyly, following Rex’s facial reactions.

  “Is this the au pair?” Rex pointed to the young blonde squinting at the camera.

  Jessop nodded and stuck his nose back in his ale. “Belter garden, in’t it?”

  Rex discerned a compliment was in order. “Verra nice,” he agreed, recognizing the herbaceous borders of crimson roses and lavender against a backdrop of delphiniums in dusky pink, purple and blue, still growing at Newcombe Court.

  “Warn’t before. It were a mess of tangled bushes and briars. We ’ad to dig it all up and put new grass down. The missus complained ’bout th’ mess, but she were pleased in th’ end. Even more pleased when her old man disappeared. Warn’t long before that solicitor—”

  “Jessop!” the landlord exploded. “That evil tongue will be the death of you.”

  The old man wheezed. “I knows wot I sees. If the police had asked me, I’d have told ’em to dig …”

  At this point the landlord flicked his bar rag over his shoulder, pushed back the flap in the counter, and squeezing through, lifted the old man—stool, pint and all—and deposited him outside the pub entrance while Rex watched through the window. Returning, he brusquely swiped his palms together. “He won’t be back before tomorrow with his idle chatter. This is a warning. Next time his head gets shoved down the well for slandering the good folk from round here.”

  Interesting slander, nonetheless. Rex requested the local phone book from the landlord and made a note of the doctors’ phone numbers from the clinic in case the aptly named Dr. Williamitis did not return from his house call in time.

  In the absence of further information regarding Tom Newcombe, he was left with Dr. Thorpe as a chief line of inquiry. Hopefully that would lead somewhere. An investigation comprised a confusion of false starts and dead ends, Rex often thought; but eventually, if one persevered, the right path led out of the maze.

  The Clinic

  Rex was hugely relieved to find a car parked outside the clinic and a stooped man carrying a doctor’s bag getting out of the driver side. A pro-life sticker on the bumper imparted an element of individuality to the otherwise nondescript compact vehicle.

  “Dr. Williamitis?” he called out, exiting his own car.

  The man turned around. Not past forty, Rex judged by his youthful face, though his hair appeared uniformly gray and he carried his taller than average height as though bearing the weight of the world on his lean shoulders.

  “Yes. Can I help you?”

  “I was here earlier and saw your note. I came back hoping to speak with you.”

  “Are you ill?”

  Just terminally curious, Rex said to himself. “I have some questions regarding Dr. Thorpe.”

  “Well, you had better come in out of the rain.” The doctor unlocked the front door to the clinic and switched on the light in the reception area. “Come on through.”

  He opened an interior door to an office and gestured to a plastic bucket seat. Rex arranged himself in it while the doctor took off his raincoat and hung it from a hook on the back of the door. He lowered himself into a swivel chair behind a desk piled six inches high with files stacked around an open laptop. “Excuse the mess, but I’ve been updating my records.”

  Rex pulled one of his business cards from his wallet and half rose from his chair to place it on the desk, taking one of the doctor’s as he did so. He informed Williamitis he had been aiding the Derbyshire Constabulary in the investigation of suspected murder at Newcombe Court.

  The doctor slid a pair of reading spectacles up his nose and read the card. “You’re from Edinburgh, I see. Naturally I could tell by your accent,” he trailed off, regarding Rex quizzically above the tortoiseshell frames.

  “I happened to be attending the wedding reception and alerted the police to the possibility of arsenic poisoning, having prosecuted such a case in court. The tox screen confirmed arsenic trioxide.”

  The doctor nodded. “One of my colleagues called me from the hospital. Do you know who … No? Too soon, I suppose. Polly Newcombe was under Dr. Ewen’s care. I hope you get to the bottom of it.”

  “I heard the baby was safely, though prematurely, delivered.”

  “By a month. Polly’s due date was late June. Dr. Ewen did not elaborate on the condition of the baby or the mother.”

  Rex spied a file labeled Thorpe, D. among the stacks on the doctor’s desk. “Speaking in general terms, is it possible to determine how long someone has been subjected to arsenic poisoning?”

  “You are talking about chronic poisoning?”

  “Aye, over a period of weeks or months.”

  “Arsenic builds up in the hair, skin, and nails. Exhumations have been performed to confirm the presence of arsenic in the body long after death.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to be Timothy Thorpe’s GP, would you?”

  “Ye-es,” the doctor said warily. “But I haven’t seen him in months.”

  “Apparently he’s been having some gastric complaints these past weeks.”

  “Probably just a case of wedding nerves. Oh, you’re thinking it might be arsenic poisoning? Good Lord!”

  “Are his brother and two children your patients also?”

  Dr. Williamitis winced at the mention of Dudley Thorpe and his boys. He pulled off his glasses and wearily massaged the bridge of his nose.

  “I take it you know them well,” Rex prodded.

  “I see them practically every week. Sometimes twice a week.”

  “Sickly kids?”

  “The usual childhood ailments, and cuts and bruises you’d expect from two run-and-tumble boys of their age. But Donna Thorpe, no doubt encouraged by her mother-in-law, calls me about the slightest thing.”

  “Mabel Thorpe is a bit of a fussbody,” Rex allowed. “I’ve seen how she is with Timmy.”

  “I was just over at Donna’s. The boys have the flu and Donna complained the medicine wasn’t working. Flu must run its course, I told her, but those two are hyperactive, and poor Donna looks all in. And her husband, Dudley, isn’t much use. Studley,” the doctor said with a wicked grin that transformed his face into a semblance of handsomeness. “Sorry, but that’s my nickname for him.”

  Rex gave a pleased laugh. “It’s a good one.”

  “Look, I made some coffee before I was called out. Would you like some?”

  “Please,” Rex said, taking in the small confines of the office with his peripheral vision and encountering no coffee machine, which meant the doctor would have to leave him unobserved for a few minutes. When Williamitis stepped outside the door, Rex visually scanned the bindings of the files while listening out for signs of the doctor’s whereabouts in the small building.

  “Milk, sugar?” Williamitis suddenly called out from a muffled distance.

  Rex poked his head round the door. The doctor was occupied behind the glass partition of the reception desk. “Both, thanks,” he called back. Then, pulling out the Thorpe file, he consigned the home address and emergency contact information to memory.

  The file belonged to Dudley, Jr., judging by the birth date of the patient. T
he handwritten pages recording prescriptions and doctor’s comments were almost illegible, but Rex was able to decipher the date when the first measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine was administered, along with a notation, “risk of complications from mumps, viz. TPT.” He just had time to read a scribbled recommendation for Ritalin at the appropriate age before he heard steps approaching down the short corridor.

  Hurriedly, he replaced the file and assumed a relaxed pose in his uncomfortable chair.

  “There you go,” the doctor said handing him a mug of steaming coffee. “The National Health doesn’t run to providing a good coffee machine, but the village committee pitched in and donated one. Aston-on-Trent is very community spirited. We have an annual Well Dressing Festival coming up, which draws hundreds of visitors.”

  Was this the well the landlord was threatening to duck Jessop into? Rex wondered. Dr. Williamitis shuffled papers on his desk while describing some of the themes of past tableaux, including the World Cup. He wore no wedding ring. Perhaps that explained why he was working on a Saturday and was happy to sit in his office and chat.

  “This is a sizeable community,” Rex acknowledged. “And yet it still feels like a village. Everybody seems to know everybody else.”

  “Well, the longer established residents do. There are close to two thousand residents now and, proportionally, more doctors. You asked about Dr. Thorpe.”

  “Aye. Did you know him?” Rex casually sipped his coffee, hoping for some valuable nugget out of the conversation. Such luck that he had stumbled upon the Thorpe family doctor, he reflected.

  “We overlapped briefly. Sadly, he died of leukemia. He worked as long as he could in spite of the fatigue. His wife helped file his medical records, which, I must say, he kept up meticulously right to the end. We’re in the process of going over to a computerized system. No help to me, unfortunately, as I find I can write faster than I can type.”

  No lay person could possibly transcribe the doctor’s all but encrypted hieroglyphics with any degree of accuracy, Rex thought. No wonder he was entering the data himself.

  “Did Dr. Thorpe treat his own family?”

  “Yes, and I inherited the lot—and the hypochondria that goes with it. Not that it was all phantom diseases. His son Timmy had a severe bout of mumps when he was an adolescent. Then he developed chronic cystic acne. Poor boy had no luck, and now this. He finally finds a girl and—” The doctor trailed off into a mumble.

  “Loses her?”

  “I pray not.”

  “You and me both. Especially as she is the mother of his child.”

  “Yes.” The doctor frowned in puzzlement at the files on his desk and murmured, “Hm.”

  Rex, after waiting a moment in vain for further comment, found a space on the desk and set down his empty mug. “Well, doctor, I appreciate your time and the coffee.” He didn’t want to outstay his welcome and he had another place to be while he still had the opportunity.

  “Sorry I couldn’t be of more help,” Dr. Williamitis said. “Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that.”

  Rex thought he had been extremely helpful, but didn’t want to cause the doctor any professional misgivings by saying so. They cordially shook hands, Williamitis wishing him the best with his case. “Rather a tricky proposition finding out whodunit at a wedding,” he remarked, showing Rex out of the building. “Loads of suspects and strong family feeling, good and bad. I’ll be following the story with keen interest, as will all of Aston, no doubt.”

  Rex regained his car and from the clinic retraced the road to a side street he remembered passing on the way. Blessed with a near-photographic memory, he had memorized the address in the file. Perhaps Donna could provide more details about the Thorpe and Newcombe families that might assist in the case, and the ideal time would be when Dudley was not there.

  “Hell Hath No Fury”

  Donna Thorpe lived on a street of modest detached brick homes, several of which had their curtains drawn tight against the evening gloom. As Rex looked for the right house number, he tried but failed to come up with a plausible excuse to give Dudley’s wife as to why he was there.

  He located the number and parked the car. Lights pouring from the downstairs window revealed tricycles and Tonka dump trucks strewn across the fenced-in square of lawn. He hoped against hope he wouldn’t be interrupting the children’s bath time or supper, in which case he was bound to get short shrift from the harried mother. Still, it was now or never.

  Smoothing his jacket, he followed the concrete driveway to a single-car garage built three-quarters into the home, the right angle accommodating a sloping black shingle porch over a white front door with a plain glass sidelight and cheap brass letterbox. The bell resounded with a tinny ring, competing inside with a duo of shrill voices and the blare of a television. The door flew open and a young woman confronted him. She stood about five-foot-nine in her socks and on her hips carried a few pounds of excess weight that a loose-fitting sweatshirt failed to completely disguise.

  “What do you want?” she demanded, the premature lines on her forehead marring an otherwise attractive face bare of makeup beneath blond-streaked hair scrunched up in a topknot.

  “I take it this is not a good time, Mrs. Thorpe,” Rex apologized, poised to leave.

  “Depends,” she said. “You been to the wedding?” She eyed his carnation and suit. “Is Dud still at Newcombe Court?”

  “Aye.” Looking studley and dapper in his dove gray three-piece.

  As though reading his thoughts, she asked, “Chasing skirt, is he?”

  Rex was spared an answer when two miniature skinheads in camouflage pajamas sprang from a door in the hall and conducted an assault on their mother’s black leggings, each tugging at a limb. “Lady Madonna,” sang the Beatles in his head. The boys grinned up at him, milk teeth protruding from gums surrounded by purple-smeared lips, both flushed with fever or else rabid excitement. The youngest, Rex noted, was in dire need of a nose wipe.

  His heart went out to the stern-faced young mother. “Did your husband not call you that he might be late?”

  “Why would he? He hardly ever calls even when he’s on the road.”

  “Something happened at Newcombe Court. A few things, actually.”

  “And you are?”

  “A friend of a friend of the family.”

  Donna shooed the boys back into the room whence the TV emitted a cacophony of American cartoon voices. “Come in,” she said. Standing to one side so Rex could pass into the narrow hall, she mechanically asked if her husband was okay. A smell of toast, baked beans and soured talcum powder wafted in the warm air circulating from the central heating.

  “He’s fine,” Rex told her, “but I’m sorry to say that Victoria Newcombe died from arsenic poisoning today.”

  Donna stared at him in incredulity as, slowly, her hands went to her face. She wore a flashy engagement ring, vastly at odds with her attire and the black nail polish half worn away above the cuticles. “She’s dead?”

  “I’m afraid so. Polly was poisoned too. They delivered her child by emergency C-section this afternoon.”

  “Arsenic.” Donna turned and clasped the white-painted banister leading up the steep stairs. The finish on the walls, of the same flat white, like primer, contributed to the flimsy look of the house.

  “Do you know the Newcombes well?” he inquired gently.

  “I haven’t seen Polly in ages. How’s Timmy?”

  “Seems okay. However, I’ve just come from the clinic, and Timmy has not been in to see Dr. Williamitis in months, which is odd considering he’s been feeling a bit off lately, by all accounts.”

  “His mum likes to tell him what’s good for him. And anyway, Timmy avoids waiting rooms like the plague, afraid he’ll pick up germs, and rarely comes to our house in case he catches something off the kids. So, the baby’s okay?”

  “Hopefully. Were you surprised when you found out aboot Timmy’s and Polly’s baby?”

  “What do
you mean? What’s it got to do with me?”

  “I heard it happened a bit fast, you know with the engagement and everything.”

  “The same thing happened with us. I fell pregnant, we got married, and before we knew it, another was on the way. Dud wasn’t keen for me to go to his brother’s wedding. My mom could’ve taken care of the boys. I had a dress picked out and everything, but he wasn’t having any of it.”

  “Has your husband ever mentioned Bobby Carter?”

  “That’s the solicitor, isn’t it? Dud swears he and Mrs. Newcombe have been having it off for years. Well, she’s dead now, you said. Why—”

  Just then, an earsplitting shriek erupted from the living room. Rex wondered about the wisdom of leaving two little thugs to their own devices. “Maaaa,” bawled one.

  “Should I check on the lads? Sounds like Armageddon has broken out.”

  “The room is child-proofed,” Donna said in a monotone, but she went in anyway and yelled at them to settle down. The threat of early bedtime successfully meeting with instantaneous silence, she closed the door on them.

  “A handful?”

  “Brendan is two and Duddie three. What do you expect?”

  “I have a lad of my own.”

  “Still living at home?”

  “No, he’s away at university in Florida.”

  “Florida?” Donna’s face assumed a wistful look. “I used to dream about going to America. I did some modeling in my teens. I know; hard to believe, looking at me now.” She glanced despairingly at the multi-stained yellow sweatshirt bagging over her black leggings. She gave the impression of a wasp, though Rex felt sure it wasn’t intentional. “I didn’t even have time to shower this morning. God, I must look a sight.”

  “It’ll get easier.”

  “When?” she pleaded, gazing up into his face before slumping onto the bottom step of the stairs, decked in a garish green print continuing the wall-to-wall carpeting in the hall.

  Hysterical giggles escaped from the front room. Seconds later, the door creaked open and two cheeky smirks appeared in the aperture.