Stranger at the Wedding

by Jack G. Hills

  “Langford, what news on the two weapons?” McGovern who was still smarting from the reply to his email asked rudely, as the inspector answered his call.

  “Don’t tell me, they confirmed that Mrs Bouchet was up in Scotland. Well it gives me no real pleasure to say I told you so… but I told you so… and you know full well that I can’t give you any specific information pertinent to the case. But… and this is just between the two of us, we’ve linked one of the weapons to the murder of a petty criminal twelve months ago. The man was an associate of one Clarence Dickens.” Langford was always hopeful that McGovern could provide the missing piece to his jigsaw puzzle, working as he did on the fringes of the legal system and knowing more criminals than the average detective inspector.

  “Dickens? Christ I thought he was locked away in some secure mental unit?”

  “He was but he broke out a while back, killed a nurse I think and set fire to the place.” Langford added thoughtfully.

  “Sounds like something Clarence would do, what were they doing… sending him to knitting classes?” McGovern quipped sarcastically. If there was one thing he hated more than social services, it was do-gooders who thought they could make Satan repent by sending him to bible classes. “So where is he now?”

  “That’s just the problem John, word on the street is that Clarence Dickens seems to have disappeared.”

  ~~~~~

  After his wife’s funeral, Patrick Fitzgerald finally breathed a huge sigh of relief. He no longer had the dangerous spectre of Clarence Dickens hanging over him and now everything… the money, the businesses, the lifestyle… were his and his alone.

  Feeling released and free from the shackles that had once bound him, he had no intentions of chaining himself to another dead weight.

  Unfortunately for Patrick, Rachel Bouchet didn’t share the joy of his new found liberation. Apart from attending the funerals of their spouses, the pair hadn’t spent five minutes alone since returning from their duplicitous trip to Scotland. Every time she’d called round to the hotel or phoned Patrick’s mobile, she was greeted with the same stony silence, recorded message or empty helipad.

  “Patrick, it’s Rachel… again.” She sounded annoyed mainly because she’d just come back from the hotel and although she’d been surprised to see the helicopter, she’d been less than surprised when the young receptionist had told her that Mr Fitzgerald was out and no, she didn’t know when he’d be back.

  “Please call me, I need to see you.” She paused and thought for a moment longer. She’d left many similar messages and none of them had been returned, so why should this one provoke a response… unless.

  “That policeman… Inspector Langford, he’s been coming round to the restaurant asking me about you and whether you knew Clarence Dickens. Obviously I haven’t told him anything about your business arrangements but I’m not sure how long I can go on lying and putting him off… he knows something, I’m sure he does…” Rachel hung up midsentence and hoped her lie sounded convincing enough to force Patrick to call.

  “Rachel, its Patrick.” Rachel looked at her watch and raised an eyebrow… not bad she thought, I’ve been trying for so long to get hold of him and now five minutes after mentioning Clarence Dickens, the bastard calls me.

  “What’s all this about Langford coming to see you?” Patrick sat up in bed and held his index finger to his lips. The woman next to him… the other Rachel Bouchet, jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. As she ran, Patrick watched with mounting excitement, as her bottom bounced seductively with each step she took.

  The two nights they’d spent together in Scotland had only been a foretaste of what she was capable of and the positions she could put her body into. It had been a stroke of genius to call her like he had after Helen’s funeral and the house had been the perfect place to entertain her. After the police had finished their investigations and the firm of industrial cleaners had scoured the terracing and cleaned the inside from top to bottom, he hadn’t had a single visitor.

  It was as if Helen’s ghost was patrolling the gates and warding off anyone who dared approach.

  Rachel tried to think of what to say next. She’d made the call more out of anger than reason and certainly hadn’t thought about what she would say if he did speak to her. Leaving the message and dropping Dickens’s name into it seemed like a great way to relieve her anger and get one back on him but that had been as far as her strategy had stretched.

  “The guns… they’d been used before and Langford suspects that Dickens might be involved in the killings. Obviously he called me because of the two of us, I’m the least likely to be involved in anything shady.” Rachel winced as she lied… it sounded so pathetic that she couldn’t believe even Patrick was dumb enough to fall for it.

  “He said that? He thinks I was involved in some shady dealings with Dickens?” Patrick had already jumped out of bed and was putting his dressing gown on when his occasional escort ran giggling from the bathroom with the large pink vibrator buzzing furiously in her hand.

  In the quietness of the deserted restaurant, with only her imagination and paranoia for company, Rachel heard the faint drone of the dildo, occasionally interspersed with the sound of girlish laughter. Not only had the bastard not been returning her calls she thought, he’d also been entertaining other women.

  “I guess. He wanted to know how else Helen and Henri would have access to such weapons. But I just told him I didn’t even know they were having an affair, let alone knowing anything about this Dickens character… I did the right thing didn’t I? I mean if I have to go to the station to make a statement, it’s only then that I’ll have to tell the inspector about your association with the man… isn’t it?” Rachel’s little act of a woman bemused by the shenanigans of those around her, worked perfectly and right on cue Patrick fell into line.

  “Right don’t speak to the police again… you’re not obliged to say anything at this stage. Did he caution you or was this just one of their little chats that they seem so fond of…”

  Whilst the woman pleasured herself on the bed, Patrick, enchanted as he was by the sight, now had something far more urgent to focus on. With a final sigh, he reluctantly closed the bedroom door and walked along the landing to his upstairs study… his lair where no woman was allowed, not even the cleaner. Locking the door he sat down at the large partner’s desk, which looked out over the rear of the house and the pool area where Helen’s body had been found.

  If only he’d not been introduced to Dickens at that charity function and seduced by his money… maybe his conscious would be clear and Helen would still be alive.

  “Patrick are you still there? If you’ve hung up on me I swear to God I’ll…I’ll…” Rachel was unsure what she’d do next but the implied threat of something drastic was enough to rouse Fitzgerald from his nostalgic musings.

  “You’ll what? Tell the police that you murdered Henri and Helen, whilst I was hundreds of miles away? That you murdered Clarence Dickens and his associates? That since the funerals you’ve been harassing… almost stalking me, trying to get me to return your calls?” Patrick said coldly with a calculating tone that Rachel hadn’t heard before.

  “But you covered up for me…said I was in Scotland with you.” Rachel didn’t need a lawyer to tell her how it would all look. How the police would twist it.

  “No Rachel. I was in Scotland with another woman. I lied to cover up the fact that I was having an affair… it’s what men do and Christ if that was illegal half the men in the country would be banged up behind bars.” Patrick hammered home his point. The peace of his study and his warped view that if it hadn’t been for other people, Helen might still be downstairs waiting for him, had given Patrick all the time and reason he needed to consider his next step. He’d been wrong to think he could just dump Rachel and carry on as if nothing had happened between them… she knew too much about him.

  “But you were there when Clarence was killed… you disposed of the bodies Patrick.�
�� As Rachel spoke the truth slowly started to dawn on her.

  “I was nowhere near the restaurant at the time, Rachel. I was at home with Helen. Unfortunately she can’t confirm that of course because you murdered her.” Patrick twisted the knife. It was all working out quite well really and none of it was his doing. Suddenly he began to relax and enjoy his new found power.

  “But… but you disposed of their bodies.” Rachel tried to think quickly. This wasn’t how it was all supposed to end, not like this. They were in it together like a marriage, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health… till death do us part…

  “Prove it. Where are the bodies?” Patrick knew he’d covered his tracks well enough. Even with sonar and a mini-sub it would take the police months, possibly years to find the container and he knew they didn’t have the resources to authorise such an operation, especially for lowlifes like Dickens.

  “Out there in the sea…” Rachel knew she was beaten. Apart from sounding far-fetched the Atlantic was huge and if she was honest, she had no idea where or how far Patrick had flown that night and without the bodies there was nothing to implicate him. She’d done such a good job of planning the murders that she’d overlooked the one salient point that was now hounding her… unlike with Henri, she’d not taken out any insurance on Patrick Fitzgerald.

  “Look Rachel I can tell you’re fraught and is it any wonder, why don’t I come and pick you up and we can spend some time together out here at the house, away from prying eyes, nosey policemen and irritating investigators. Just pack a bag and I’ll be there in an hour…” The knock on his study’s door drew his eyes away from the pool area whilst the vibrating hum refocused his mind.

  “Tell you what, let’s make that two hours…something’s just come up and I have a package to drop off at the station.”

  ~~~~~

  Ingrid’s funeral had been a quiet affair. Her body or what was left of it, had been released after the police had concluded their investigation into her death and Donald’s unsubstantiated claims that she’d been murdered by a mysterious woman wearing a red coat. Unfortunately the station’s CCTV system was inoperative that morning, owing to a cut wire… so not only was it impossible to verify Donald’s claims, it was also impossible to say exactly what had happened to Ingrid. As for the train’s driver, he’d been off work ever since the accident suffering from what his doctor and union representative had called post-traumatic stress. In the end the coroner had little option in the absence of further evidence and eye-witnesses but to rule that Ingrid’s death was a suicide.

  With no relations to claim her body and make the necessary arrangements, Dr Atkinson had authorised the clinic to organise and pay for the modest funeral service and cremation.

  The service had been a sad and lonely affair, with only Donald and five members of staff in attendance, although as Donald had mused to himself, if all of Ingrid’s conquests had been in attendance the service would have been more well attended than Lady Diana’s funeral. Sadly though few men and even fewer woman wanted to be tainted with the whiff of scandal or the threat of divorce and separation by admitting any association with the deceased. As it was, out of the six people stood silently by the solitary wreath in the long covered walkway after the ceremony, Donald knew that five, including himself had had the glorious pleasure of Ingrid’s body… As for Dr Atkinson, well he’d given her the benefit of the doubt but in his heart of hearts he wouldn’t have been surprised had she and Ingrid not been head to toe with each other.

  “We’ll wait in the car Donald, take as much time as you need.” Dr Atkinson’s voice broke the spell that had bound Donald’s eyes to the wreath of white roses that now lay by itself next to those of the previous cremations… all of which numbered many more than Ingrid’s but which somehow made hers’ all the more poignant.

  “Thank you doctor. I’ll only be a few moments. It’s just that I can’t get the thought out of my head that I let her down… that all this is my fault somehow.” Donald sounded as low as Dr Atkinson had ever heard him sound since first arriving at the clinic. Perversely she had hoped that the shock of Ingrid’s death might finally have unlocked his trapped memory… but it hadn’t. All it had achieved was to fill his head with more anxieties and troubles. She’d even talked to the police about the death but they’d been adamant that Ingrid must have jumped under the train, as a result of being depressed or more likely of being mentally unstable.

  Donald sat on the cold stone seat that ran the full length of the remembrance walkway and thought of Ingrid, as he lovingly played with the diamond stud that still adorned his ear lobe. The police had surmised that the other half of the matching pair had been ripped from Ingrid’s ear during the violent accident, and tossed somewhere into the surrounding undergrowth, as there was no sign of the diamond stud on what remained of her ear. That bloody thought and the pitiful waste of her beautiful life forced Donald to stare out across the rose garden and the surrounding grounds, which stretched away into the distance.

  The crematorium was an island set within a vastness of green woodland and serene grounds that had been created for the sole use of the bereaved to try and come to terms the loss of their loved ones. Sometimes, a contemplative walk in the solitude of the countryside, did far more to alleviate the pain of loss than any bottle of scotch or prescription for Valium could ever hope to achieve.

  Now with Ingrid finally being laid to rest, Donald had decided that the time was right to make his move down to Cornwall. If he was going to find any answers about his past and how he’d lost his memory then he was sure that the Atlantic View Hotel would hold the key.

  As the many different thoughts about his future and his past drifted in and out of his head, he stared aimlessly across the gardens… lost in his own world of desolation. Suddenly, the sense of movement, off to his right, attracted his attention and tried to draw his inquisitive eyes away from the green, peaceful scenery.

  Feeling embarrassed, but more out of respect for other mourners, Donald fought the urge to stare rudely across the gardens and intrude upon someone else’s grief… someone who had come into the place of rest, to perhaps reflect upon a life so recently consumed by the crematorium’s flames or to remember a moment of love that was lost forever.

  Instead, feeling awkward and unsure what the protocol was for talking to strangers in the gardens of remembrance, he looked down at the ground and kicked the gravel away from his feet. But his natural curiosity and his need to share his own emotions, even at a distance, overrode his strong feelings of propriety and finally forced him to look up and seek out the source of the movement.

  The young woman, with an uncanny sixth sense, looked up towards the walkway almost at the same moment that Donald’s eyes broke free from their gravelled shackles and looked out across the gardens. Hardly believing the veracity of his own eyes, he shot up from the cold stone seat and crept cautiously, using one of the columns as cover, towards the other side of the walkway, where straining around the stone support, Donald tried to make some sense of what he thought he’d seen.

  His head understood that the girl couldn’t be his dead friend but his heart yearned for his eyes to prove him wrong. However the sight of her strikingly blond, plaited hair did little to resolve the emotional turmoil that was making his head spin and just at the point that he’d decided it must all be some figment of his disturbed imagination, the sun’s rays bounced off the small stud and like a heliograph sent a terrifying message to his already overloaded brain.

  Standing paralysed by the sight, Donald watched helplessly as the girl waved and beckoned him to join her in the gardens. Frozen by the unknown and fearful of what it might all mean, Donald’s mind raced back to the meadow behind the Botanic Gardens and that last trip to Oxford… It was as if he was an anonymous bystander watching a pair of lovers walking happily along the path, holding hands and chatting avidly about their next adventure together. Suddenly the girl, who looked just like Ingrid, ran off across the partially mowed f
ield to watch a group of naked male students who were larking around in their punts. Standing on the river bank, the girl jumped excitedly up and down and waved wildly back and urged him to join her but he’d steadfastly refused and instead found the first bench to sit upon and wait for her…

  The similarities were uncanny, her hair, the diamond stud, the way the girl looked, the way she waved her arms and implored him to come to her. Donald knew the girl in the garden had to be Ingrid… there was no other explanation.

  Looking around, for a way down into the rose garden, Donald eyes alighted on the set of stone steps off to his right and spurning common sense and reality, he turned tail and ran as fast as he could towards them. He knew there was only one way to satisfy the internal conflict that was causing his emotional giddiness and it wasn’t by running away.

  Taking the shallow steps two at a time, as he hit the perfectly manicured lawn that ran between the neat beds of red roses, he stopped and checked the whereabouts of the ghostly apparition. But whatever or whoever had waved at him had disappeared.

  Slowly, deliberately and with more than a modicum of disbelief, he walked through the rose garden towards the spot where he’d last seen Ingrid, and as if proof be needed about his own sanity, there on the grass were the small indentations left in the ground by the girl’s shoes. Studiously, like a latter day Sherlock Holmes, Donald bent down and touched the marks… his eyes had played too many tricks with his mind, perhaps now his touch would finally convince himself that she’d been real.

  Crouched low and feeling vulnerable, like a young antelope hiding in the short savannah grass, Donald looked up. The walkway was now above his eye-line and partly hidden from his sight by the glare of the sun that had once more broken through the fleeting clouds, as they raced across the sky like herds of white horses. With the suns’ glare partially blinding his eyes, he couldn’t be sure but it appeared as if someone was now hiding behind the stone column… the same stone column where moments earlier he’d been stood.