Stranger at the Wedding

by Jack G. Hills

  After another cup of bland mushroom soup and a drink of something that tasted more of chicory than instant coffee, she decided to leave the farm at a time that would see her reach the house just after the postman had delivered his daily bundle of irrelevant letters and mindless circulars.

  So it was that at a little before midday, with the sun at its highest and most powerful, she broke free from the shadowy cover of the wood and approached the Fitzgerald’s house from the same direction as she had the previous day.

  Her approach was greeted with the welcoming sound of shotguns booming out their deathly growls somewhere off in the distance. The first broadside caused her to freeze mid-stride and turning her head like an owl searching for its next victim, she tried to pinpoint the direction and distance of the deadly barrage. But the lay of the land and the sound of the shots echoing off the surrounding hills disguised the rough shoot’s position and progress across the surrounding farmland. That thought brought a smile to Rachel’s face, as it underscored the very essence of her plan… that any extraneous gunfire would be impossible to discern above the rumbling thunder of the shoot’s shotguns and even if it was, the direction of the fatal gunshots would be impossible to ascertain.

  She found the spot, from where she’d watched the house the previous day and dropped the bag down onto the flattened grass. Lifting the glasses to her eyes, she was pleased to see that Helen was relentless in her quest for the perfectly tanned body and had taken up the same position as yesterday by the pool. The cheeks of her bottom rose from her back like Ayres Rock and Rachel unexpectedly felt a frisson of excitement run through her body, until she could hold back no longer and the involuntary shiver sent her into a spasm of twitching. She closed her eyes and shook all such orgasmic thoughts from her mind.

  After a moment of blind panic during which she couldn’t find Henri, she finally located his wheelchair underneath one of the large sun parasols. The dirty plates on the adjacent tables together with the empty glasses and wine bottle told her that they’d lunched early and with any luck would be ready for a snooze to help fend off the somnolent effects of eating and drinking before noon.

  Without warning her body was gripped by a pang of conscious and regret, for after Tom she’d thought Henri would be the one for her. He’d been kind, thoughtful and was a great lover… gentle, slow and eager to please, but in the end he’d turned out to be more like Tom than Tom was. Men, they were all the same and she was under no illusion that Patrick was probably worse than any of them.

  Her foray into uncertainty though was short lived, and rather than making her turn around and pull back from the brink, it only spurred her forward. Her new mantra was now, do it quickly then move on.

  Approaching the house, the pool-house and bar provided her with the perfect cover from which to catch the pair unawares.

  “Christ Rachel!” Henri jumped nervously in his wheelchair, as his wife appeared from nowhere and stood suddenly in front of him. The plaster casts on his legs made any real movement difficult but suspicion and guilt made him try nonetheless.

  “What the hell are you doing here? I thought you and Patrick…” He struggled to find the right words or at least the words that made sense.

  “What? Gone to Scotland? No, I’m sorry to disappoint you but I had to cancel the trip at the last minute. So I thought I’d come over and see how you two lovebirds were getting on.” Rachel looked across the pool to where Helen was still lying face down on the revolving sunbed. The two glasses of midday wine had made her drift off into her own paradise island of dreams.

  “What do you mean lovebirds?” Taken slightly aback by the snide reference and like a naughty adolescent caught with his fingers in the female honeypot, Henri forgot about his injuries and shuffled uncomfortably in his wheelchair, as he sought out the brake and a way out. The full casts on his arms had been replaced by smaller ones to his forearms, which meant that he now had more control over his wheelchair and so when necessary he could push himself around.

  “Oh please Henri, don’t take me for a fool. I’ve known about you and that bronzed bitch for a while now.” Rachel spat out her condemnation, as she walked around Henri, like a lioness circling a bleating helpless calf.

  “But… but you’re wrong and anyway Helen loves Patrick. Please you have to believe me when I say we’re nothing more than good friends… like you and Patrick.” Henri tried to ameliorate his predicament by spreading the net of suspicion.

  “Now, I can’t tell if you’re just being plain stupid or very clever.” Rachel said, as she stopped and placed a hand on each the wheelchair’s arms, so that her face was nose to nose with Henri’s. In the game of deadly bluff, Henri’s will wobbled first and he blinked repeatedly under the Rachel’s firm gaze.

  “I… I don’t understand?” He blurted out.

  “Oh for crying out loud Henri, you’ve been so busy shagging Helen, that you’ve missed the main event… Me and Patrick! Think back, every time you two have been alone, so have we. The only difference is that we knew you two were at it like rabbits.”

  Henri stunned at the admission and lost in a world where he was trying desperately to remember each and every occasion, failed to realise that Rachel had released the brake from his chair and now was pushing him across the pool terrace towards the spot where Helen was silently sunning herself.

  “She makes a beautiful sight don’t you agree.” Rachel whispered into Henri’s ear as they approached Helen. “Her skin looks so perfect and smooth. There doesn’t appear to be a single blemish on any part of her body.” As she spoke, Rachel gently taunted Henri by nibbling his earlobe. “God it must have driven you wild being so close to that and having yourself trussed up like a turkey. But it’s like Tom used to say… ‘in this world you get what you pay for’ and I guess I just didn’t pay the driver of that car enough… otherwise he might have turned around and finished what I paid him for.”

  Without another word she kissed his head and applied the brake. It took Henri another few seconds to replay over again the night of his accident, until finally the penny dropped and he understood… now it all made sense… that particular restaurant, the meal, the bag, the nightcap, the hit and run!

  “What! You can’t be serious… are you trying to tell me that you paid someone to do this to me?” Henri’s voice raised to a crescendo, causing Helen to stir from her alcohol fuelled slumbering.

  “What? Henri is that you? What’s the matter?” She dribbled out the words, as she pushed herself up from the sunbed, until finally sat on the edge of the lounger, she stared bewilderedly at Rachel, who ignored her for the moment and finished her confession.

  “No Henri… I paid someone to kill you! Not break a few bones.” Before either of them could speak further, Rachel pulled out one of the Heckler and Koch’s and pointed it directly at her husband.

  “But you know what they say Henri… if you want something doing right, do it yourself.”

  The bullet caught Henri full square in the chest, throwing him back against the chair’s restraint and as his bewildered eyes struggled vainly to stay in their sockets, his head dropped limply onto his bloody chest, whilst his two arms drooped lifeless down the side of the wheelchair.

  Helen, too shocked to scream or move, fell backwards in a complete faint.

  “Oh for crying out loud, that’s all I need… Helen come on wake up.” Rachel said quietly and considerately, as she gently stroked her face to revive her flagging consciousness.

  “What? What happened? Rachel? …I just had the most awful nightmare.” She said, as her eyes flickered. “Where’s Henri?” There was now a greater urgency to her voice, as she struggled to understand what was happening and if it could all have been some awful nightmare. Suddenly she felt alone, naked and very scared.

  “He’s over there in his wheelchair… but he’s quite dead.” Rachel replied coldly. “You see, that’s what happens when you screw around with another woman’s husband. There are repercussions.”

&nb
sp; The bullet from the second automatic caught Helen just as she’d finally comprehended that her day and possibly her life were going to get a whole lot worse… so much worse in fact that twenty tonnes of putrid excrement and a wind tunnel didn’t quite describe the trouble that was stood in front of her.

  She wanted to scream… she tried to scream but her feeble attempts to summon help had hardly managed to well up inside her before they were muted forever and replaced by one final desperate gasp for the very essence of life.

  There’d been no real pain… all she’d felt was the dull blow to her chest and the explosion of air as her lungs collapsed. She’d thought of Patrick and wished that she’d gone away with him, perhaps she’d get the chance to explain why she’d done what she had… but to do that she’d need the chance of life and try as she might, she was unable to draw another breath, until in the end the night came quicker than she’d expected, and the blue sky turned black… then everything stopped.

  Without the support of a wheelchair, her body had been thrown violently backwards by the force of the lead slug and with a crash of sunbeds and tables, Helen landed face down on the tiled terrace.

  Slowly but inexorably, the pool of warm blood started to form under her body and ran in a rivulets across the terrace until it dripped, drop by red drop, into the clear, sterile water of the swimming pool.

  “Well that went well, I think you’ll agree.” Rachel said as the sound of gunfire boomed out in the distance, like a salute on the Queen’s birthday. “Now this is your gun Henri and this one is yours’ Helen.” She said in a maniacal trance-like voice. With her victim’s hands clasped tightly around the grips of the automatics, Rachel helped the pair fire off a second round into the wide blue yonder. The bullets would never be found but that wasn’t the purpose of the extra shots… the powder marks left by the firing of the guns would contaminate their hands and convince the police that this was indeed some weird crime of passion.

  “It’s like a Shakespearean tragedy played out by the pool under a glorious blue sky…” Rachel mused wistfully, as she carefully retraced her footsteps in the direction of the wood. Like any artist keen to view their work, when she was a reasonable distance from her canvas, she stopped and pictured the scene for a moment, framing it between her fingers like the viewfinder of a camera.

  “Two lovers… both with the same idea of vengeful retribution. It’s so beautiful and yet I know their spouses will be devastated by their loss and all whilst they’re hundreds of miles away. Rachel you’re a genius.”

  Once she was safely back at the farm, Rachel removed the gloves and every stitch of her clothing, placed it all carefully in the paper bags that she’d brought along specifically for the purpose and then changed into her new clean clothes.

  In the barn, using the old dry wood from the animal stalls, she methodically set fire to the bags and like a witch around her boiling cauldron, watched with glee as the evidence of her crime was consumed by the flames. Each time the fire looked as though it might die down and become mere embers, Rachel heaped more fuel onto dying flames. For the first time in two days she actually felt warm and relaxed… it was as though the flames were cathartic and freeing her of the burden of everything that had gone before. First Tom, then Dickens, Helen and now Henri. All of them had been purged from her system and as she stood in front of the bonfire rubbing her hands, any onlooker would have been forgiven for thinking her actions were as a result of her attempt at keeping herself warm, whereas in reality it was all down to the euphoria of bloody retribution.

  ~~~~~

  “Hello, Black Isle Hotel. Lorraine speaking. How may I help?” The girl’s accent wasn’t too strong but clearly Scottish.

  “Hello, my name is Dr Atkinson and I’m calling from the Wolvercote Clinic in Oxford. I was wondering if I could speak to the hotel’s manager please.”

  Dr Atkinson had decided after Donald had left her office that she’d call the Black Isle Hotel and make one last effort to find out about the day he’d turned up in their reception and whether by any chance Mr Fitzgerald’s helicopter had landed in the grounds that same day... after all it was only a call and it just might answer the nagging doubt she had.

  “May I ask what it’s regarding?” Lorraine asked, as ‘Mrs Bouchet’ looked on and doodled on the pad in front of her. Lorraine had begun to wonder why the woman, who she’d never met before, had bothered to come if she wasn’t going to take more interest in the work they did.

  From the moment she’d set foot in the hotel, all she’d wanted to do was sit in the bar watching Vicente, their new Argentinian barman… and how did taking all those photographs of the barman help the business… or what possible reason was there for giving Vicente her telephone number? Well she’d show her. Without waiting for Dr Atkinson’s reply, Lorraine connected the caller to the reception’s desk telephone.

  Startled out of her boredom and wishing the bar would open so she could go back and reassess Vicente’s particulars, ‘Mrs Bouchet’ looked up at Lorraine with eyes that screamed…help! Lorraine looked away with as much disgust as she could manage and took the next call.

  “Hello Black Isle Hotel. Lorraine speaking. How may I help?”

  “Well it’s regarding a patient of mine who’s currently undergoing treatment for amnesia after a head trauma.” Dr Atkinson began to explain. “In fact, you may remember the gentleman because he walked into your hotel before collapsing…” It wasn’t really a question but the doctor thought it a good point at which to stop and wait for the telephonist’s response.

  Patrick Fitzgerald’s escort for the trip… the dumbstruck ‘Mrs Bouchet’ sat and stared across the room. Whoever the caller thought she wanted to speak with, ‘Mrs Bouchet’ knew it wasn’t her. Desperately she looked around for Patrick and when she saw he was nowhere to be found, she thought about crawling into the nearest dark hole and hiding.

  When there was no response, Dr Atkinson who was now annoyed at her glib treatment decided it was time to take a firmer line.

  “Hello? Look can I speak with the hotel manager please?” Dr Atkinson asked with as much self-control as possible. Perhaps Donald was right she thought… perhaps he would never know the truth and if everyone was as useful as the woman on the other end of the line, perhaps he’d be right.

  Just as ‘Mrs Bouchet’ was about to hang up and run upstairs to her room for a lie down, Patrick put his head round the door and was stopped in his tracks at the sight of Rachel’s stand-in answering the telephone. It only needed one wrong word spoken out of turn or someone who recognised the real Rachel Bouchet to call or… the thought was unthinkable. The smile that suddenly erupted from her face, as she saw her saviour, put a hold on Patrick’s bubbling anger and when she offered the phone to him with a pleading stare, he gently took the offending piece of technology and with a simple nod put her immediately at ease.

  “This is Patrick Fitzgerald, I’m the owner… perhaps I can help.” He said in a reassured and confident manner.

  “Well it’s an interesting story Dr Atkinson but I’m not sure how I can help, especially as I don’t know this man… oh I remember the incident because I was here at the time, but by the time I was aware of the kerfuffle that his dramatic entrance had caused, he’d been whisked off to the hospital in Inverness.” Patrick explained.

  “Can I ask Mr Fitzgerald, had you just arrived at the hotel when the man collapsed in the hotel’s reception?”

  “Well I’d arrived that morning yes and then went straight into my first meeting of the day but I can assure you I didn’t see the man. In fact I travelled alone that day, as I was only here for the briefest of meetings and I got back to Padstow around eight or nine o’clock that evening.”

  Dr Atkinson’s interest suddenly perked up.

  “And did you fly from Padstow that morning?” She asked hopefully.

  “Yes of course… that’s why I have the helicopter, it helps me get around all our hotels from my base in Padstow. Now doctor, as interesting
as this conversation has been I’m only here for a few days and have so much to do… so if that’s all, you must excuse me.” Patrick was just about to put phone down when his slight and polite hesitation gave Dr Atkinson just the opportunity she needed.

  “Just one more question Mr Fitzgerald… are you aware of anyone disappearing from the Padstow area around the time that you made that trip up to Scotland?” Patrick thought it was a strange question… that was the second time he’d been asked about people disappearing from Padstow and whilst this caller couldn’t have been referring to Clarence Dickens’s sudden vanishing act, anyone ferreting around for information on Tom Cox might nonetheless screw up their plans and put them both in danger of discovery.

  “No. None.” He stated categorically. “Of that I’m quite certain. Now I’m sorry Dr Atkinson but I really must go, I have another meeting to go to.”

  Dr Atkinson waited for the click, which told her that Patrick Fitzgerald had hung up. Such adamant denials, in her experience, usually meant that there was something which the person wanted to hide. Nobody she thought, would remember such a fact so clearly with such rapidity. A more normal response would have been somewhat considered… ‘I don’t think so’ or ‘I don’t recall there being anything like that’ or ‘I personally don’t remember but I could ask around’ but Fitzgerald hadn’t considered his answer for a millisecond… it had been ‘No. None’. She scribbled a note for Donald, checked her watch and suddenly realised that she was late for her next patient.

  Back in the privacy of her room, Patrick’s escort was keen to explain.

  “I’m sorry Mr Fitzgerald but that cow on your reception put the call through to me on purpose… I couldn’t get out of talking to the woman but I promise you I didn’t tell her anything. In fact I’m sure that if you ask her she’ll tell you that I probably sounded quite stupid. But I didn’t…” Before she could say another word, Patrick wrapped his lips around hers.