Stranger at the Wedding

by Jack G. Hills

  With his sweaty hand clasped tightly around the door’s brass knob, he slowly turned the handle and held his breath. The handle twisted more easily than he remembered, but then they’d so rarely used the room that he couldn’t really remember if it squeaked or turned with the smoothness of a well-oiled lock.

  With the handle turned as far as possible and his heart pounding furiously against his chest, he took a deep breath, laid his shoulder against the door and sprang into the front parlour, like a demented cat.

  “Hello Donald or should I call you Tom. To tell you the truth I’ve been as confused as anyone about the whole name and identity thing.” Tammy said, as Donald could only stand frozen and mute.

  Sat on two dining chairs in front of the fireplace were Martha and her father, both had been gagged and both had been tightly bound to the backs of the chairs with a rope that looked strong and thick enough to secure a boat. Donald’s surprise lasted a brief moment before his love of Martha and his own survival instincts took control of the situation. Releasing his grip on the door knob he pulled himself upright and took a stride into the lion’s den.

  “Hello Samantha.” Donald replied with a false confidence. “Or maybe I should call you Tabatha? I guess even your mother had trouble telling you apart didn’t she?” Donald added smugly, hoping his revelation would put her off guard.

  “She never could.” Tabatha shot back a cold piercing look that sent a chill right down Donald’s spine. “Right from the start, it was always dad who knew which one of us he was dealing with. I guess he had a sort of sixth sense… that’s the reason he had to go.”

  “On the night of the storm, on the night Samantha and your father died? What did you do push them in?” Donald saw in Tabatha’s eye a glint of devilment, possibly evil, that he’d never noticed during their time together at Ambleside.

  “Didn’t need to. It must have been fate really. Samantha had fallen in trying to rescue some mutt of a dog that she’d seen thrashing about in the water and when dad arrived I was just stood there watching her drown. The look he gave me, as he took off his jacket just before he dived in, told me that if he ever climbed back out again, it would be the end of everything. I knew he’d already talked to the doctor about having me locked away, so I decided to change places, to become the good sister and see what it felt like to have everyone love you instead of hate you. Anyway, how did you guess?” Tabatha didn’t like being outfoxed and outwitted… control was everything to her.

  “I visited Alnmouth. Ironically, I was going to visit your mother to ask how you were, as I felt guilty about leaving you in Ambleside.” Tabatha scoffed dismissively at the admission. “Anyway I got talking to someone and they told me about you and your sister and how Samantha had been born diabetic… she couldn’t eat anything sweet by all accounts. It didn’t fully register at first… well you know what my memory like it is, and then just now, when I saw you standing there, it all came flooding back and I remembered the hotel in Ambleside and the cream cakes.

  It’s obvious now of course… the diamonds you stole from the shop in Ambleside, Samantha would never have committed such a crime… unless it was maybe to protect her twin sister.”

  Donald looked at Martha and gave her a reassuring nod. But he could see the fear in her eyes and the resentment in her father’s… Donald knew that he blamed him for what had happened and he was right, it was all his fault.

  “Ah yes, the diamond studs.” Tabatha lifted her shoulder length hair and revealed the matching ear stud. “I couldn’t believe you’d given it to that sex rampant bitch. They were for you and me, to seal our love.” She placed her lips next to Martha’s ear. “Did Donald tell you about how he couldn’t keep his hands off me… every time we found ourselves alone he’d rip my clothes off and while he was fucking me, we’d laugh at you for being such a frigid virgin…” Donald could stand the lies no longer and lunged forward at his tormentor.

  “You’re lying! You bitch…”

  Tabatha pulled the knife from nowhere. One moment her hands were stroking Martha’s hair and the next they were holding the shiny knife to her throat. Thinking only of Martha, Donald calmly raised his arms in meek submission. He knew that he needed a distraction… something to distract Tabatha’s attention and allow him to make his move.

  “So your sister and father drowned in the river and you just walked back into the pub and told everyone that you were Samantha, didn’t you?” Donald asked calmly, he wanted to rattle Tabatha, to put her on edge but not enough to drive her totally berserk.

  “Not quite. Oh Samantha drowned alright, she was so weak I was amazed that she had the courage to jump into the torrent of water in the first place but dad, he was different. He was a strong swimmer and so I followed his rescue efforts down the bank until he lost sight of Samantha and swam to the shore. When he crawled out exhausted, I was waiting for him with the rock. I simply caved his skull in and dropped the stone back into the river, then I pushed him back until the current took hold of him and dragged him away.”

  “You killed him?” Donald asked incredulously, somehow patricide seemed more horrific than pushing Ingrid under the train. “Was he your first? I mean I know he wasn’t your last.”

  “Oh I’m not sure I could claim all the credit, I mean I may have killed him with the blow or merely knocked him unconscious but the result was the same and yes… in that respect he was my first but as you so adroitly have surmised he wasn’t… won’t be the last.”

  The smile started in one corner of her mouth and then like an evil plague creeping across the face of the land, it moved until her mouth erupted into a broad grin.

  “Do you miss her …Ingrid?” She looked at Martha, as she asked the insidious question and ran her fingers through her hair. “Oh don’t worry yourself, your darling Donald hasn’t been unfaithful. Ingrid was just his little friend in Oxford.” Tabatha turned her attention back to Donald… “Actually, you know you were supposed to be my last victim but that stupid mad bitch at the wedding got in the way. God I was so angry with you for running out on me in Ambleside and after Clarence, I swore that no one would do that again and live… but now I’m glad I missed you, it would have been such a waste.”

  “You! You were the person at the window… the one that shot Rachel? You’re insane, you must be, there’s no other explanation.” Donald fought to control his anger and his rage but he knew that Tabatha must be psychotic, there couldn’t be any other explanation for her wrath and murderous nature.

  “What about love? Anyway, I thought the red coat added a touch of the macabre. Did you ever watch the film ‘Don’t Look Now’? … No, well you should. It’s one of my all-time favourites.” Tabatha smiled sweetly, as she ran her finger over the edge of the knife, causing the blade to slice cleanly through her delicate white skin. Immune to the pain and oblivious to the dripping blood, Tabatha stroked Martha’s cheek, before turning her attention back to object of her hatred.

  “You know I thought you’d recognised me back at the hotel, but then when you have a mind that’s as delicately balanced as yours’ I guess even you don’t always believe what you see. The Botanic Gardens in Oxford… ring any bells Donald?” Tabatha taunted. But Donald had more on his mind than his own stupidity.

  Until his impromptu visit to Alnmouth, he’d thought that Samantha’s mind had been unhinged by her husband’s desire to leave her for another woman, but now he knew that Tabatha had always been so disturbed that she would have never tolerated abandonment by anyone… before she’d let that happen, she’d kill everyone concerned and think no more about it than if she were swatting an annoying fly.

  With Tabatha standing silently waiting for a reaction to her taunts, Donald tried to keep his mind focused on the present, but the past kept tormenting him with the realisation that he’d actually felt sorry for leaving Samantha at the Ambleside Clinic to face the music and the police alone. Then just as his compassion started to smother the loathing he knew he should feel for Tabatha, the thought
of Ingrid’s smashed and mutilated body forced him to face the stark reality of their situation… if he didn’t stop her, she would certainly murder them all and then disappear back into obscurity until another unwitting soul touched her life and fatally attracted her attention.

  Like a pair of Crested Grebes performing some macabre mating ritual, Donald and Tabatha moved in perfect synchronicity, as they tried to cautiously outmanoeuvre each other. Reminiscing about their time at Ambleside and the good times they had shared, Donald worked his way around the room until Tabatha, distracted by her own disturbed ego and Donald’s sympathetic flattery, was stood with her back to the hall doorway.

  Feeling Martha’s closeness, Donald wanted desperately to reassure her that everything would end well. His body yearned to turn its back on Tabatha and look into Martha’s eyes… to tell her not to worry, but he knew that any such demonstration of affection might tip Tabatha over whatever mad precipice she was teetering on.

  Unsure what he should do next, but sure that doing nothing wasn’t an option, Donald said the first thing that sprang into his head.

  “But why Ingrid? You didn’t even know her.” He asked feebly. But Ingrid was the last person Tabatha wanted to talk about.

  “You’re not listening Donald, are you deaf as well as blind? LOVE! …that’s why, because the bitch wanted you… and this has always been about US! Not Ingrid nor little Miss Perfect there… the person everyone loves. Just like Samantha, she can do nothing wrong, well it’s about time everyone loved me… I want to be loved!” Tabatha sobbed out the words, as the tears ran down her cheeks.

  Donald flinched when he heard her talk about Martha in the same breath as Ingrid… she was dead, whilst Martha was still very much alive.

  “I understand, I really do. Look, why don’t we just go away together? You don’t have to hurt them… I’ll have plenty of money soon, we can go anywhere you want… just let them go… please.” Donald wondered if the ‘please’ might be a word too many and it was.

  The smile that had started to creep across Tabatha’s face, vanished in an instant, to be replaced by a look of loathing.

  “If there’s one word that really pisses me off Donald, it’s please. It’s a sign of a weak mind and a feeble body and I hate both. Samantha used the word please and thank you all the time and everyone loved her for it… but not me, it used to drive me mad. Now, if you’ve finished your pathetic pleading…” Tabatha took a step forward. “It could have all been so different, but if I can’t have you then nobody…”

  Donald had turned his back on Tabatha in an effort to reassure and protect Martha when he heard the sickening crunch that instantly reminded him of a Greenpeace documentary about the Canadian seal culls.

  The film had been shown by a group of Cromarty activists who were trying to gain support amongst the fishing community for the protection the local seal population and it had graphically shown Canadian hunters using clubs against seal pups. Each time they brought their clubs down onto the skull of another small defenceless head, the same dull crunching sound of bone and tissue being pulped under the force of the blow could be heard.

  It was a sound that had a resonance with his own injuries and it was that memory, which stopped him turning to face his assailant… that and just an inkling of a memory about a group of angry fishermen beating a nature activist to within an inch of his life.

  “I tell’t her I’d be keeping mah beady eye oan her 'n' blooming weel dain ah did, if ye ask me.” The old familiar voice boomed out through the quiet of the house. Donald gradually opened his eyes and turned round.

  “Mrs Henderson! You’re an absolute wonder.” Donald said gazing upon the stern figure of the old housekeeper, who was stood in the doorway with the bloodied, ash rolling pin clutched firmly in her hand. Draped over her head and completing the spectre of death, was an old black shawl.

  “Just save yer wurds fur they they’ll nae wirk on me.” Mrs Henderson stated quite categorically with an icy stare, as she slammed the bloodied rolling pin down into Donald’s outstretched loving hands.

  “Ah will gang 'n' pat th' kettle oan, mah mouth's as freuch as a Scotsman's sporran.” The old lady declared, as she waddled off to the kitchen, without so much as a second glance at the bloodied corpse.

  ~~~~~

  “You know father wants to give Mrs Henderson her old job back, don’t you?” Martha stated matter-of-factly, as they sat and watched a group of seabirds performing aerial gymnastics before diving into the Firth to feed on a shoal of fish which had foolishly strayed too close to the surface. “He told me it was the least we could do.”

  Donald looked sideways at her and amused himself with the knowledge that Dr Monroe had already asked him if he minded. Of course he’d readily agreed… not because the old battle axe had saved their lives but because Martha’s father had bothered to ask and had dropped the word ‘son’ into his conversation, as if it was the most natural word to use…

  “Yer sure ye don’t mind son?” He’d asked with a tenderness Donald hadn’t witnessed before.

  “Anyway, I agreed… you’re not angry are you?” Martha pleaded, as she took hold of Donald’s hand and gently squeezed it for reassurance.

  “Of course I’m not angry, what makes you think I would be?” He picked up another pebble and lobbed it into the calming waters where the fish had been caught napping. He knew he should tell Martha about the conversation that he’d had with her father but keeping it between the men of the family made it even more special… it wasn’t a secret, just a sort of private male ritual… like a funny Masonic handshake.

  “You know she likes you, don’t you?” Martha told him in a way that sounded more like a fact cast in stone, than any sort of polite question. “The only slight drawback is that you hark from south of the Great Glen, you don’t like haggis, you’ve no idea what Robbie Burns is talking about, you’ve never worn a kilt and she says you sound like the chef from the Muppets… need I go on?” Martha teased.

  “Well I look at it like this… this is your father’s house and he wants Mrs Henderson back both here and at the surgery, so who am I to stand in his way. On the other hand if she comes back as housekeeper, where will that leave you? You both can’t run the Monroe house.”

  Martha turned her head and glared at Donald for being so abrupt.

  “Look, I was going to save this until the morning, but now seems as good a time as any.” Donald said apologetically. “I had a call last night from the administrator, she says that they need a manager up at the Black Isle Hotel and since I was up in this neck of the woods and I may actually own the place once all the legal jiggery-pokery’s done, she wondered if I would care to suggest someone or even run it myself.”

  “And what did you say?” Martha asked hesitantly, as she bent down to inspect another piece of driftwood that was sticking out of the sand. She’d been expecting Donald to tell her he was moving away at some point to manage the hotel chain, but she’d not expected the estate to be sorted out this quickly.

  “I told her I knew someone who would make the perfect candidate…” Donald looked pleased with himself, as he skimmed another stone across the water, but his smirk slowly disappeared, as the stranger appeared further down the beach and began walking along shoreline in their direction. The man who was wearing a dark grey suit, looked like the proverbial fish out of water, as he tripped and slipped his way across the wet seaweed, sand and pebbles.

  Martha, whose attention had been fully engaged with the piece of driftwood she’d found, wondered why Donald had stopped talking. Looking up from the sand and the gnarled branch that was still locked in the sand’s tight grip, see caught sight of the approaching stranger for herself…

  “When do you start?” She asked, without taking her eyes from the man.

  “Me?” Donald was startled by the suggestion. “I wasn’t thinking of doing the job myself… I thought you might take up the position or at least consider it. We could live here and allow Mrs Henderson a free
reign.”

  Martha finally pulled the branch of driftwood free from the sand and turned to face Donald.

  “I’m sorry Donald, but I’m not going to look after father, the house or the hotel… I’m going to work in my studio and sell my work to the tourists… it might not be highbrow but I’ve found something that I love doing and which I seem to have an eye for.”

  “Hello there.” The man said abruptly. “I’m looking for someone going by the name of Tom Cox.” He added with a knowingly smile that was instantly wiped from his face, as the sea washed over his once pristine leather shoes. With a look of utter contempt and disgust for his surroundings, the man shook the water from his footwear and retreated up the beach.

  “Who did you say… Tom Cox?” Martha and Donald said in unison, as they followed the man and shook their heads in muted denial.

  “Well that’s strange because some bloke down in the town told me that you could be him.” The man said accusingly.

  “My name is Donald… Donald Monroe and this is my fiancé Martha.” After all he’d been through the last thing Donald wanted was another newspaper reporter trying to rake up a story. The last one had worked for the Scotsman and the article he’d written, with Mrs Henderson’s help, had been so full of errors and lies that they’d decided no more… no more interviews and no more articles.

  “Well Donald, I’m reliably informed that this Tom Cox is about to inherit an absolute fortune… by all accounts his wife Rachel had married well and divorced with even more skill.” The stranger’s over-familiar use of Rachel Cox’s name shocked Donald. Suddenly it put a whole new complexion on the stranger’s inquiry.

  “Whether that’s true or not… what business is it of yours?” Donald demanded. He’d heard enough from the mysterious smug man, now all he wanted was himself and Martha to be left in peace.