Stranger at the Wedding

by Jack G. Hills

  “And can you tell me how you know that man, Donald?”

  “I met him at the hotel in Cromarty, where Martha was working. I’d gone there to see her and he’d just landed in his helicop…” Although hypnotised, he closed his eyes, as if he was trying to concentrate his mind and picture the scene more closely.

  “What is it Donald? What do you remember about the helicopter?” Dr Atkinson’s attention perked up at the small hiatus in Donald’s session.

  “I thought it looked very black and shiny… and I think I fell out of it.” He covered his face with his hands and rubbed his temples in a gentle soothing circular motion.

  “Is that how you got your injuries Donald? The ones on your head… were they caused when you fell out of the helicopter?” Donald placed his hands where the cuts and skull fractures had occurred and felt for any signs and scars but time and his hair had covered them all, leaving nothing to guide him but his memory.

  “No I don’t think so, but I did fall onto the ground. It was very quiet except for the birds singing… I remember the birds and walking along the grass and into the house and seeing Martha. She looked so surprised to see me and then the room started to spin and go dark.”

  “Donald let’s go back to the helicopter, what happened to make you fall out?”

  “I woke up and didn’t know where I was, then I was laying on the ground looking up at the blades, which bounced up and down in the breeze. I don’t know if the man shouted at me for touching his helicopter then or… no that was after. Before waking up I don’t know what happened.”

  Dr Atkinson brought Donald out of his hypnotic trance.

  “You told me that you fell out of the helicopter but you were equally sure that the fall didn’t cause your injuries, do you remember that?”

  It was a strange sensation that he couldn’t quite fathom out… it was almost as if his subconscious-self had been at the hypnotic confessional, and anything that it had said, had to remain secret form his conscious-self, because it was this part of psyche that was open to the world’s scrutiny and influence.

  “No I can’t say that I do. The only time I’ve seen a helicopter was at the Black Isle Hotel. I’d gone looking for Martha and came across the helicopter. I only wanted to touch it, as it was so black and shiny like a horse’s coat. But I’d not fallen out of it. I’d just walked across the field, as it landed.”

  “And there’s nothing else you can tell me about it?” Dr Atkinson’s moment of optimism hovered on the edge of nothingness before she dragged it away from the abyss. Her next thought was a long shot but maybe it could prove to be the missing link.

  ~~~~~

  As the helicopter lifted off the helipad outside the Atlantic View Hotel, the two porters who’d carried Patrick’s and Rachel’s bags to the aircraft, stood resolute against the noisy downdraft and watched the sleek black aircraft as it disappeared over the horizon.

  Patrick had over-laboured the point of his trip with his deputy manager, in the hope that ten minutes after his departure, the details and reason for his journey would be common knowledge amongst the staff and guests alike.

  “Market research my arse.” The more senior porter said to his colleague, as they turned away and walked back into the hotel. “You mark my words… if they’re not shagging each other, I’ll give up looking through keyholes and listening at doors.”

  “Well Doreen reckons that Mrs Fitzgerald is looking after Mrs Bouchet’s husband out at the farm, whilst the two of them are off on their shagging spree.”

  “Its bloody incest that’s what it is… Christ it’s like that programme on the telly… you know…”

  “What Emmerdale?”

  “Nah you bloody moron… ‘Dynasty’.”

  Thirty minutes after leaving the hotel Patrick dropped Rachel at the deserted farm. He’d flown the short distance in an arc away from the town and then approached the deserted set of buildings from the opposite direction to avoid being spotted by any possible nosey parkers.

  Pulling the two holdalls out of the aircraft, Rachel bent low and dragged the heavy bags onto the muddy cobbles of the farm’s yard. Standing a safe distance from the whirling rotor blades, she waved her farewells before the helicopter slowly lifted into the sky and continued its journey north, towards Cromarty and the Black Isle Hotel. Shielding her eyes from the downdraft and the maelstrom of debris thrown up by the upward motion of the aircraft, by the time she’d cleared her eyes and looked skywards, the helicopter was skimming over a copse of trees and disappearing from view.

  If all went according to plan, Rachel knew she’d see Patrick again in a few days’ time, at which point they’d fly back to the hotel at Padstow, as if they’d never been apart.

  “But Rachel, the people at the Black Isle aren’t stupid. If they don’t see you, how am I to convince them that you came with me?” Patrick had implored, when Rachel had gone over the next part of her plan with him… Yes Helen was cheating on him and yes he wanted her out of his life but… Patrick hadn’t been sure he could pull it off.

  “But nothing Patrick, Christ do I have to think and do everything for the two of us. Invent a story… you dropped me off at Inverness and I’ll arrive later… I’m staying with friends… I’m not well and I’ll take my meals in my room but under no circumstances am I to be disturbed!” Rachel had screamed so loud that even the cat scurried away through the back door of the restaurant. The noisy altercation had been the final straw and anyway its regular nightly feast had deteriorated since Henri’s enforced absence, so it had already decided to take its affection elsewhere and seek out a quieter place to curl up and sleep.

  “How about I pay an escort for the four days and she can pretend to be you?” He’d shouted back trying to be sarcastic and a little hurtful. But if his outburst had meant to silence Rachel, it failed miserably at the first fence.

  “Brilliant! Now you’re actually thinking straight… that’s more like it. I’m assuming you know where you can pick one up. I mean it’s like an agency thing, isn’t it? You simply ring up and book one, like a taxi?”

  The girl had cost two thousand pounds plus expenses for the four days. All she had to do was smile, nod her head when anyone called her Mrs Bouchet and wave goodbye when they left. No one would know who Rachel was and neither would they care. All that anyone would be bothered about was making the right impression and ensuring that nothing went wrong. But best of all it would give Rachel the perfect alibi.

  Rachel made her first recce to the house later that same day. She’d not given the pitfalls of sleeping rough and alone for two nights any thought prior to the point that the helicopter had disappeared into the distance over the surrounding fields. But as she stood alone and the silence returned to the farm, a feeling of utter desolation hit her and resonated around the empty dilapidated buildings like a jackpot strike in a pinball machine. Feeling anxious and not wishing to dwell on what might be to come, she dumped her bags in the farm’s old kitchen and set out down the muddy track in the general direction of Fitzgerald’s new house.

  She’d been glad to leave the claustrophobic farmhouse and get out into the open air and feel the sun on her back and the wind in her face. Lost in the pleasure of being alive on such a glorious day, she’d walked about four miles before the seriousness of the task she faced suddenly returned to prey on her nerves and stopped her in her tracks.

  Looking round to check that she wasn’t being followed along the partially overgrown footpath, she shuffled the knapsack onto her other shoulder, clambered over the crumbling stonewall that separated the path from the adjacent wood and then disappeared into the dark interior, where the cover was more dense and the chances of being seen and recognised were negligible.

  After trudging through the dense woodland for another thirty minutes, where each step was fraught with traps of broken branches, deserted badger sets and hidden fox holes, she’d finally broken her cover and caught her first sight of the house.

  The distance from the far
m, whilst not excessive had proven more difficult than she’d expected and although she’d been used to walking miles around the coastal paths for pleasure, the impromptu route march had caused her heart to beat so fast that when she’d stopped, she thought the noise of her heart pounding against her chest might give her position away. Her fingers, which had been cold when she’d set off, now tingled with the fresh warm blood that had been pumped more rapidly into her extremities under the strain of her forced march.

  Subconsciously she made a mental note to allow her herself more time to cover the distance, whilst momentarily wondering if what she was planning was worth all the stress and risk. But her doubts didn’t linger. Her trust and love had already been betrayed once and she wasn’t about to stand idly by whilst Henri put her through the same heartache.

  Where the wood finished, a double wall of poplar trees had been judiciously planted to protect the farmland from the relentless south westerly winds, which regularly blew in from the Atlantic. Over the years their gnarled trunks had been bowed, so they now stood like so many wizened old knights bent in homage to their liege. But the judicious planting had unwittingly provided the new house with the bonus of a perfect suntrap around the azure pool. A suntrap, which like a spider’s web, Rachel’s intended prey had unwittingly crawled into.

  Using the Zeiss high-powered binoculars, she swept across the newly laid out gardens and the back of the house until Helen’s naked body, which was sprawled face down on one of the many sunbeds, filled her field of view. Patrick had been correct in his view that she would take every opportunity to top up her tan… a rich dark tan, which Rachel could see had no telltale white bikini lines.

  Slowly and methodically, like a twitcher searching for some rare migratory bird, she moved the glasses around the pool terrace looking for her own endangered lovebird and just at the point where she thought her luck might have run out, she spotted the solitary figure of Henri sat in his wheelchair next to the pool’s bar.

  That she thought, as she lowered the binoculars and scanned the surrounding area with her naked eyes, was the problem with only being married such a sort time… she’d already forgotten that Henri didn’t like the direct sun. Even on their honeymoon, he’d elected to sit in the shade and read, rather than soak up the blistering heat of the sun’s rays. His skin, normally so white like his chef’s apparel, blistered easily under the relentless UV rays, unless it was painted with a good covering of high factor sun cream… sometimes she’d wondered if she’d not have been better applying the emulsion with a paint roller rather than her hands.

  From the safety of her lair, she watched the pair for the next hour. Helen, like a joint of meat on a spit, occasionally rolled onto her front and then over again onto her back so that the bronzing effect of the sun would be equal on all parts of her body. Never having sunbathed nude before, Rachel had been fascinated to see the trouble to which Helen was prepared to go to in order to maintain the seamless tan. Each time she moved, but especially when she was sprawled on her back, she spread her legs wide to allow the sun’s rays to seek out even her most private nook and crannies.

  But if Helen’s relentless quest for a perfect appearance amused Rachel, the automatic sunbed upon which she was sprawled took her breath away. Gone was the arduous task of constantly having to realign your body with the direction of the sun, as the gigantic source of ultra-violet radiation moved ponderously in an arc across the blue sky… her sunbed automatically followed the yellow ball and like the hour hand on a clock, slowly rotated the bed so that it always was optimally aligned to make best use of the burning rays.

  “Well I trust Henri appreciates all your efforts.” Rachel said to herself with just a hint of jealousy. She’d not really taken that much notice of Helen before but as she sprawled out naked before her, Rachel could see that every bronzed part of Helen’s body was perfectly proportioned. There wasn’t an ounce of fat or cellulite to spoil the perfection… and for that reason if no other, she decided there and then that the bitch deserved everything that was coming to her, and as that thought lingered a moment, Rachel felt for the spot under the webbing of her trousers where she’d tucked the automatic.

  They’d taken three from Clarence Dickens’s associates… the two Heckler and Kochs she’d use tomorrow, whilst the driver’s weapon, a neater and slightly smaller Walther, she was keeping for herself… just in case any of Dickens’s men came looking for their missing boss and a simple denial of his whereabouts wasn’t sufficient for them.

  She sat back against the trunk of the nearest tree and thought about what she had to do. Ideally she’d have preferred just to walk down to the house right there and then and surprise the pair just as Henri was clumsily trying to rub some sunblock into Helen’s naked body… the plaster casts on his legs and lower arms preventing all but the most-simple massaging technique. Yes, that would have made the thought of the night ahead bearable but Patrick had been adamant that the rough shoot on the surrounding land would take place tomorrow and since it would last most of the day, the constant sound and echoes of gunfire would provide the perfect cover for anything that Rachel had in mind.

  She studied the automatic with all the skill of a professional assassin. Carefully, she popped out the clip, checked its contents and then pushed the full magazine back into the weapon.

  In fact, Rachel’s only experience of handling the automatic had been virtual, via the internet, where she’d found any number of YouTube videos to watch and study. As to actually pulling a trigger, only time and her plan would tell if she were capable of such an act of violence.

  Averting her attention back to the house, in the distance she saw what appeared to be an approaching trail of dust. Focusing the field-glasses she followed the small red van that was bumping and bouncing down the farm track. Patrick had told her that the postman was a stickler for punctuality and as she checked her watch, much against her own low expectation, the Royal Mail was bang on time. Eleven forty-five.

  The man, a bald squat fellow almost fell out of his van in his haste to deliver the mail. He had a tight schedule to keep and a large rural patch to cover and if that wasn’t enough, his wife had left him a reminder that he’d better not be late home, as he had the weekly supermarket run to do, before he sat down to his egg, chips and beans.

  Quickly, without checking the contents, he dropped the bundle of letters into the ornate red box that was fixed to the pair of electric gates, turned tail and shot off the way he’d come without another moment’s thought to the house or its occupants.

  Rachel waited and watched the house until Helen climbed from her sunbed and walked naked across the terrace to where Henri was sat. Opening a bottle of wine that had been chilling on the bar, she poured herself a glass and then returned to her spot by the pool. Rachel, burning with an insatiable desire to run down to the pool and smash the bottle into her perfect face, decided that she’d seen enough. The forecast for tomorrow was for sun again and with her and Patrick supposedly away until the day after, she hoped that Helen would take the opportunity to top up her tan once more… having the pair out in the open like a pair of rabbits, would make her own rough shoot much simpler.

  Any insecurities she felt about her own capabilities were pushed to the back of her mind by Helen’s slim, bronzed form and the wiggle of her perfect hips, as she’d flaunted herself in front of Henri and but especially by her husband’s response, as he’d run his hand awkwardly over her oil drenched body.

  She’d telephoned Henri that first night from the farmhouse to play the dotting, simpering wife but as a cold wind whistled through the broken windows of the dilapidated kitchen where she’d set up her temporary camp, she’d begun to think that she must be simple, stupid or both to have contemplated such an undertaking for Patrick. But as the blue and orange flames of the small primus stove flickered in the wind and offered her outstretched hands a moment of hope, she steadied herself and her nerves by repeating the encouraging mantra that all men were superfluous… the wh
ole endeavour was for her benefit and her future security.

  Then as the cold crept up her spine from the stone floor, paranoia wrestled with her mounting doubts and started to play games with her mind. It was like watching a video, as the lurid images sprang into her head … Henri and Helen comfortable together in their nice warm love nest and Patrick sat in the hotel’s dining room with his new young, beautiful escort, scheming to get the poor girl into his bed and fuck her senseless. Without warning her mind played a version of a Tom and Jerry cartoon, where the mice were all singing and dancing in the warm indoors, whilst Tom was outside in the wind and the rain, stuck up a tree with Butch the dog salivating and howling for his blood below…

  BANG! She was pulled from her accursed reverie by the broken rear door slamming against the decayed frame, as the wind caught it like a sail and as if to add a more sombre note, the glass in the kitchen window rattled in its wooden rebate… its putty long since lost to the ravages of both time and the unrelenting weather.

  Plotting her devilish revenge, Rachel nestled further into the sleeping bag and took a sip of the lukewarm Cup a Soup… whilst somewhere in the other room, she heard Jerry and his friends preparing for another party and she knew right then that the night would prove to be long and wearisome.

  For once the forecasters had been correct in their prediction of a blue cloudless sky filled with a bright yellow sun. Rachel for her part had spent a slightly better night than she’d expected to in the deserted farmhouse… better that is with the exception of the annoying hooting and screeching of a tawny owl, which obviously found rich pickings at the farm each night and must have objected to the presence, albeit one that didn’t find mice that appealing, of another possible predator.