MARRIAGE IS MURDER
A HONEY DRIVER MYSTERY
PROLOGUE
The bride wore gold-rimmed spectacles over flashing dark eyes. Her glossy black hair hung to her waist and her shocking pink outfit was teamed with blue suede shoes and a handbag big enough to hold a loaf of bread, a bag of potatoes and a pound of butter.
She wore her hat at a jaunty angle so that the wide brim covered her face. At first glance it appeared merely a fashion statement. If anyone had cared to lift the brim and look, they would see a large mole, roughly the shape of a banana running down the side of her cheek. Easily identifiable so best hidden.
The bridegroom was very tall and thin, his skin as glossy as a conker. He wore grey trousers with a dark blazer, the shoulders sprinkled with dandruff. His trouser legs barely reached his ankles and the colour didn’t match his shoes. He looked everything a nervous bridegroom should be, shuffling from one foot to another His face glistened with sweat and his black hair was shiny and thickly plastered to his head. Anyone in the least bit discerning would know they were far from a match made in heaven.
The Registrar was a bespectacled woman wearing the sort of blouse Margaret Thatcher used to wear, even of the same colour; conservative blue, big bow tied at the throat.
Couples of all shapes and sizes had come before her to make their vows. It never failed to amaze her how oddly matched some were. These two for instance; she had her doubts as to whether they were a genuine couple, but it wasn’t her job to ask questions. They’d followed the correct procedure and filled out the right forms. None of her business.
She intoned the words of the marriage service as required by law in a slow monotone, her gaze flickering between the confident bride and the nervous groom.
‘Now repeat after me,’ she said, her stern gaze unblinking, her voice carefully articulating each word as though they were children on their first day at school.
Despite her perfect articulation, the bridegroom had trouble repeating the words. She guessed it was because English was not his first language. The bride hugged his arm closer as though it might help aid his courage or at least prevent him from changing his mind and running away. He certainly looked nervous enough.
‘Come on, sweetheart. You can do it.’ He winced when she gave him a nudge with her elbow; her tight smile a mixture of warmth and warning, her voice as sticky as treacle.
He seemed to take courage from her words, looking down into her face, though it seemed more the look of fear than the look of love.
‘I do.’
‘I do.’
‘You may kiss the bride.’
The kiss was fleeting. The bridegroom looked relieved that both the ceremony – and perhaps even the kiss – was over and done with.
Finally both they and the two witnesses signed the register in attendance; a fat woman wearing a bright red coat that looked too warm for the pleasant weather they were having, and a thin black man wearing a bomber jacket and torn jeans. The woman clutched a black handbag against her belly. The black man looked thoroughly bored with the whole proceedings, continually looking over his shoulder towards the door as though he was expecting somebody.
Once outside the bridegroom jerked his head and said something to a scrawny looking girl of about thirteen with big eyes, her head covered Middle Eastern style with a black scarf. She looked pleadingly at the two women and said something they didn’t understand. The ‘bridegroom’ shook her. His tone was menacing, but whatever he said to her was lost on the two women through whom he had secured the prospect of a British passport.
If they’d noticed or cared, they would have seen the fear on the girl’s face as both the foreign bridegroom and his ‘bride’ followed the fat woman to a pub on the corner, the girl in the veil trailing behind. The man told her to stay outside whilst they went in.
‘I’ll have a brandy and Babycham,’ said the woman without preamble. The bride made her way to the bar where she purchased the drink for the woman and a white wine for herself. The bridegroom stated that he wasn’t thirsty. Standing close to the exit he took out his wallet and counted out five hundred pounds, the final payment for his wedding and the right to a British passport.
The black man who had stood as witness had already left once he’d been paid his fee for merely attending and signing the register as witness. He’d done it dozens of times.
Once the money was handed over, counted and found to be correct, the bridegroom left without a backwards glance at his ‘bride’ or a thank you to the woman who had arranged everything.
‘So,’ said the bride once the drinks were set down between her and the woman in the red coat along with two packets of salted peanuts. ‘Who’s next? Got any prospects in the offing?’
The woman in the red coat downed the drink in one; licking the excess liquid from her generous lips with a long, pink tongue. She left the peanuts untouched.
‘There is no next. I’m retiring from the business, though I’ve no objection if you want to take over the running of it.’
‘What you saying? I am the business.’ The younger woman splayed her hand across her chest as though to keep her heart in place. Her eyes were radiant, and the mole on the side of her face pulsated as though reeling from a more vigorous incursion of blood supply.
The woman in the red coat was adamant, pulling in her chin and looking down her nose. ‘Says who? You?’
‘I’m the bride.’
‘Yeah, but you ain’t the brains.’
The bride was not amused. ‘Just you watch me. I’ve got the looks and I’ve got plans of my own. I reckon I can do better than what I’ve been doing, getting wed without the bed and without the brass. There’s other ways.’
The fat woman raised her thickly painted eyebrows. ‘You thinking of getting wed for real?’
‘I’m thinking of carving out my own business in the marriage game.’
‘I’m not going to ask how. That’s your business, but if you want my scene I’m not about to stop you. It’s time I spoilt my grandchildren – that should annoy my daughter’s partner – not that I care. He’s a shit. You dead set on this?’
‘Dead set.’
‘Then I wish you luck. Now I have to be off. I’ve got a train to catch.’
The woman in the red coat bought her accomplice another drink before leaving and said she was welcome to both packets of peanuts.
‘How about my bonus, you know, my share of the profits? You said you’d give me twenty-five per cent of the take at the end of the year plus my share of the nest egg. We still have the nest egg, don’t we?’
‘Of course we do! Don’t you trust me?’
‘I hope I can. I told you I wasn’t good where money was concerned. I’m looking forward to spending it – and not on a bloody wedding dress! I’ve had enough of them.’
‘The money is safe and you’ll get what’s coming to you,’ said the woman in red, her plump hand pushing on the table so she could better get to her feet. ‘I’ll just pop into the ladies before we go to the bank. It’s all safely salted away. All we have to do is make a withdrawal. It couldn’t be simpler.’
The bride sighed with pleasure, opened both packets of peanuts and began shoving them into her mouth between sips of white wine.
Fifteen minutes went by and still no sign of her ‘business’ partner. A feeling of unease began to churn around in her stomach. Peanuts and drink gone, there was still no sign of her accomplice.
Her eyes searched the far end of the bar area to the where the sign saying toilets glowed a dull green at the end of a meandering path through tables and chairs above a door to the right of the dartboard.
Panic set in when she saw a green exit sign next to the one for toilets.
; ‘Shit!’
Realising she’d been shafted, the woman who had played at being a bride about twenty times leapt to her feet and flew to where the woman in red had vanished.
The ladies cloakroom, a place of scented air and piped music, was empty. All the cubicle doors were open. There was nowhere to hide.
She banged her head against a doorframe, an action of sheer despair. Why the bloody hell hadn’t she been more careful, taken steps to protect herself, insisted on knowing everything there was to know about the bank account and other paperwork?
Revenge! That’s what she wanted from that bloody bitch! Get her! She’d bloody well get her!
The first pieces of a plan filtered into her head. It wouldn’t be easy to track things down. She only knew the woman as Mrs Fitz. They’d always been careful to keep things as low key as possible. Knowing too much, including peoples’ names was a hiding to nothing.
Mrs Fitz, she now realised, knew far more than she did, in fact she knew everything. So how to track her down? She had a mobile number for her, but even before she rang it, she knew it would be disconnected.
‘You bloody fool,’ she exclaimed, loudly enough to turn heads.
Yes, she had been a fool though at least she had been paid for today. But she would never see the thousands she was owed in bonus. The agreement had been that when they gave up the game, the money in the bank would be divided. It hadn’t happened. The bonus was gone.
‘I’ll bloody kill her,’ she vowed. ‘I’ll bloody kill her!’
CHAPTER ONE
Humming a tune that only a trained ear might recognise as the wedding march, Detective Inspector Steve Doherty sat himself down at his desk and shrugged off his coat so that it fell inside out over the back without him having to handle it.
As was his habit, he perused his emails before turning his attention to paperwork. Not too much of it. Not like there used to be. His chest heaved with thanks for electronic mail; it had certainly put a dent in the stuff that landed on his desk nowadays. What was even better about electronic was that he could lie about an email not arriving and nobody argued. Most of his colleagues were around his age, some older. They’d done the courses but still didn’t trust their fingers to hit the right keys and didn’t have a clue about what could and couldn’t be done.
In amongst the standard stuff that was delivered by a human being with a sack over his shoulder, there were three envelopes. One was confirmation of an email supposedly sent and delivered via the internal post; someone was taking no chances with excuses about lost email. His eyes swivelled upwards through the glass partitioning to the general office which was in full swing, heads bobbing around at desks, uniformed figures moving between desks, making for the coffee machine and back again.
He spotted the culprit. Mackenzie was at one with her computer, head bowed over it, the flickering screen playing over her sallow complexion. A clever female constable determined to show she was a few notches above her male colleagues and not afraid to stir the mud if it meant she got to the top.
‘Heaven help us,’ he muttered. She’d have the whole police force electronically tagged if she had her way.
The second envelope he opened was from some woman complaining about porn pictures being sent through the post to her. She had already complained by email.
‘I WANT ACTION!’
He noted the capitals. He knew that in the world of electronic mail she was shouting at him.
The other was marked private and confidential. It was a proper note, placed inside an envelope posted via Royal Mail and delivered in the old fashioned way.
He noticed the paper had a rough edge at the top. No big deal. Just a standard sheet torn from a writing pad, the kind purchased in any stationers. The handwriting was elegant, all scrolls and flamboyant tails. The message was not.
Doherty read it again.
Marry that middle-aged Trollope and you die!
It was unsigned of course.
‘Who the bloody hell...?’
He rubbed a finger over one frowning eyebrow. The frown persisted. Getting threatening letters was all part of the job; nobody loved a copper except perhaps a long suffering wife or a dog. Dogs gave their undying loyalty. Wives, well, he’d seen plenty of marriages fall by the wayside including his own. But he’d been young then. The plan to marry Honey Driver was founded on a firm foundation; he was older now. They both were.
So somebody didn’t want him to marry Honey? It wasn’t widely known that they were kind of engaged; not officially of course, it was just that the idea had occurred to him and he’d asked her. They’d had a long chat and decided to look into the idea together quite seriously. Seriously meant discussing where the ceremony would take place and the probability of going on honeymoon.
So why would somebody object to their marriage? His ex wife wouldn’t; their parting had been acrimonious but improved drastically once they were properly divorced and not within shouting distance of each other. He didn’t even get a phone call from her. Come to that he didn’t see much of his daughter either. She was doing her own thing, needed her own space. Sometimes she sent him a text, usually for his birthday, Father’s Day or Christmas.
Seeing as Honey’s ex husband was dead there were no objections from that direction and her daughter was all in favour of them getting spliced. Her mother was a different matter. Gloria Cross didn’t think much of his cv. being a policeman was bad enough, though she might have waivered if he’d been Chief Constable. Not maintaining a secret bank account in Switzerland was another black mark against his suitability, that and the fact that he didn’t like shaving. Designer stubble just didn’t do it for her. Honey, on the other hand, loved it.
Hearing the rasp of whiskers as he passed his hand over his chin made him smile. And to think he’d been against meeting her when the Chief Constable’s had told him of his brilliant idea.
Steve Doherty had been picked to be Honey’s police liaison officer contact since she’d first taken on the job of Crime Liaison Officer on behalf of Bath Hotels Association. He was slick, hard and as good looking without his clothes on as he was in them. He favoured casual dress; jeans (expensive), black tee shirt, black leather coat; shoes with soft soles, the sort suitable for swift movement when running down a felon.
His eyes were cobalt blue and tended to turn a darker shade when thinking deeply. They also darkened when Honey was in his thoughts; secret thoughts that when voiced out loud were for her ears only. She liked running her fingers through his over long hair especially around the nape of his neck. He dressed casually even when on the day job, and didn’t go anywhere without his favourite leather jacket that was years old but suited both his physique and his streetwise manner.
Initially he’d been opposed to the idea of liaising with any member of the Hotel Association, picturing some mincing hotel manager with a politically correct agenda. He needn’t have worried. Honey Driver was middle aged and had a traditional figure, i.e. well covered hourglass. She also had a sense of humour.
Before they’d met he’d shaken his head and scratched his stubble. He’d told the Chief Constable exactly how he felt.
‘I don’t dig middle aged amateurs,’ he’d stated. That was some time before he’d asked her to marry him.
She was sexy in a comfortable way, had an agile mind and was average on the fitness front. She looked good in clothes and, like him, good out of them.
She wasn’t one to wear tiny ‘g’ strings or live on lettuce sandwiches and he knew she sometimes wore undergarments that sculptured the figure, though only when wearing something tight. She looked good in something tight.
First he’d got to know her, then like her, and then sleep with her. They both had history; daughters of around the same age, not that he saw much of his. Last he’d heard of her she was backpacking across Europe. Marriage seemed the logical next step. No problem. Until now.
He refolded the piece of paper, flicking it against his fingers as he considered its content.
The speaker was nicknamed the Wizard. His real name was Harold Potter and up until J K Rowling had done her stuff, everyone had called him Harry or Potter. Since the Boy Wizard had hit the bookstands and the cinema, he’d become the Wizard.
At the age of fifty one with more than years under his belt thanks to frequenting the cafeteria and indulging in too many of their very excellent Cornish pasties, he more closely resembled Humpty Dumpty than Harry Potter, but the boys in blue had made their choice. Wizard it was.
Wizard was suggesting the paper was stuck to his fingers, though in reality he was prying, tentatively suggesting that Doherty might wish to share the contents of the letter – purely as a friendly gesture.
Doherty did not wish to share it. This was personal.
‘Is there a cup of tea going?’
Of course there was. Wizard always had a kettle on the go alongside a tin of chocolate digestive biscuits.
‘Still not taking sugar,’ asked Wizard?
‘I’ve got my figure to think of.’
Wizard accepted the terse response with a smile.
‘Can’t think what you’re saving yourself for,’ he added as he slid sideways out of the door with no more than six inches to spare.
Alone again, Doherty studied the envelope the letter had arrived in. He could just about make out the postmark. Edinburgh. He pursed his lips. Edinburgh was not a city he had ever visited and he couldn’t recall knowing anyone from there. Still, old friends and foes moved on to pastures new and somebody might have moved up there. Even old friends not contacted become strangers over the years.
The plain brown envelope was totally nondescript and cheap, possibly bought in a bundle from somewhere like Poundland.
It was addressed direct to him and concerned him alone – and Honey of course – so he would not enter its arrival in the incident book. He’d tell no one.
The envelope followed the letter into his pocket before the Wizard came back with the tea.
Doherty thanked him for the tea and the two chocolate digestives sitting on a yellow spotted saucer. It used to be four chocolate digestives, but Wizard was putting his own needs before anyone else’s. His appetite had increased with his girth, or perhaps his girth had increased with his appetite.
Marriage is Murder Page 1