Marriage is Murder

by Jean G. Goodhind

  ‘Ah. Mrs Driver. You’re early. I thought we said next Tuesday evening at seven. That’s if you’ve come on personal business. Or is this professional?’

  Her expression wavered between happiness and serious concern.

  Honey shivered at the difference in temperature between the day outside and the coolness of the church.

  An arched window of predominantly blue glass depicting St Michael and his Angels overlooked the altar, the crucifix and a pair of handsome candlesticks.

  ‘Actually I was looking for Ms Glencannon. I have a problem. Somebody left a dog tethered to a chair leg at the Green River Hotel. I’m trying to find the owner, but in the meantime I thought Ms Glencannon could help me out?’ Honey looked pointedly at Janet. ‘I went to Bobby’s Bottom, and your kennel maid said I would find you here.’

  At the mention of a hound in need, Janet Glencannon dropped her surly expression, her face instantly wreathed in smiles.

  ‘Bloody people. Shouldn’t have animals,’ she grumbled. ‘Ought to be horse whipped. Ought to have collars put around their necks and drag them around. You could have taken him to vet to see if he’s micro chipped. You do know that, don’t you?’

  ‘So I understand, but...well...you were the first person I thought of. I mean, I do have a hotel to run. Though he’s a lovely little chap, I can’t keep a dog on the premises. The Environmental Health Department would have a head fit.’

  ‘More fool them! Where is this poor creature? Lead me on.’

  Honey apologised to the vicar and the other ladies before following the marching Janet Glencannon outside.

  Unlike Bonnie, the terrier Honey had once looked after for a friend of her mother’s, this little doggy did not do doo doos over the back seat of her car, or pee on carpets or the hem of expensive curtains. It seemed to know what it had to do and where it had to do it. So far so good.

  ‘There he is,’ exclaimed Honey on opening the back door of her car.

  To her amazement, the dog immediately leapt out of the back door and into the arms of an extremely amazed Janet Glencannon.

  Up until this moment, Janet’s shaggy brows had been lowered over her eyes and the corners of her mouth had been downturned. Honey wondered if she had ever, even back in her youth, been a beauty. It was hard to tell. Those downturned corners were like a challenge, daring somebody to make her look happy. Honey guessed she didn’t often look that way. Now suddenly her face had lifted.

  ‘He seems to like you,’ exclaimed Honey encouragingly as the dog whined and howled and wagged with pleasure, pink tongue licking Ms Glencannon’s pink face.

  Honey was surprised when her comment failed to elicit a reasonable response, such as, ‘dogs know who like them and who don’t.’

  Janet’s black eyes glittered with anger. Her stormy white hair, as curly and fluffy as the dog she held in her arms, seemed to stand on end.

  ‘Is this some kind of joke?’

  At first Honey didn’t have a clue what she was referring to. And then it came to her. The white hair – both Janet’s and the dog. The black eyes. Was it Ahmed who had said something that in turn had reminded her of the phrase about people looking like their dogs? Nigel had mentioned his wife owning a Labrador, in fact preferring the dog to him.

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what you mean. I found him...’

  ‘You stole him!’

  ‘Are you saying this is your dog?’

  ‘Of course he is! Can’t you tell?’

  It was plain to see all right. The dog was going ballistic. Janet Glencannon had to be its owner.

  Honey stepped back. This was such a surprise. She had brought the dog out here purely as an excuse to speak to Ms Glencannon about her ex husband, Nigel Brooks.

  ‘I can assure you...and I have witnesses to prove it. Look, Ms Glencannon. I think we need to have a talk about this,’ she said at the same time indicating by her stance and tone that she wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  ‘I have nothing to say.’

  Honey hardened her stance. There was no way she was retreating now. What was the connection between wedding dresses and this village? And how were those wedding dresses connected to Nigel, Janet, Marietta and Mrs Flynn?

  ‘Oh, but I think we do, Ms Glencannon – or should that be Mrs Brooks? Mrs Nigel Brooks,’ she said, making it sound as though she really was somebody official, somebody who had a right to ask questions.

  The dog still licking at Janet Glencannon’s neck and whining with pleasure, the woman who had been married to Nigel Brooks stopped glowering and instead eyed her suspiciously.

  ‘Nigel! He should be locked up. That’s what should happen to him. I should never have married him. I should have known he wasn’t all there.’

  Her voice sounded hollow. The little dog seemed to sense her change of tone and her sudden tension, curling up in the crook of her arm.

  ‘Surely you must have known that when you married him?’

  The other two women on the flower arranging committee chose that moment to exit the church, glancing their way before disappearing off down the lane that led back into the high street.

  The vicar was the next to exit the church, closing the door behind her and locking it before jogging off around through the tall grass where Mr Clinker had been found naked, bound and gagged.

  ‘You obviously know that Mrs Clinker – Marietta Hopkins – was found dead in the back of a stolen car. The owner kept it in a garage in a parking lot at the back of the row of houses where your husband lives. Did you know that?’

  At first it looked to Honey as though Janet was about to deny having any idea it was kept there. No way. She wasn’t going to let her get away with it. A little nudge was in order.

  ‘The guy who owns the Rolls Royce was there having tea with your husband one day. He saw you.’

  She didn’t add that Ahmed hadn’t formally identified her, as being Nigel’s ex wife, but that no longer mattered. Nigel had broadcast the fact in Wainswicke village for everyone to hear.

  Janet’s face registered defeat. Shoulders that had been square with tension suddenly turned sloping and relaxed. Honey knew she had broken through.

  ‘OK. I admit it. I did see the car there when I went round to tell him to stop hassling me. The stupid prat even introduced me to the man. An Asian man. Ahmed I think he was called. But so what? I didn’t steal the bloody car.’

  ‘And you didn’t kill the woman?’

  ‘Hmph! I had no reason to. A murderer has to have a motive to murder, don’t they? And I didn’t have one. I didn’t have one then, and I don’t have one now.’

  ‘How about Mrs Flynn,’ growled Honey, warming to the task. ‘Did you like Mrs Flynn?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Did you have a motive for murdering her?’

  There was a slight hesitation, barely perceptible, but she was sure she had seen something.

  ‘That bitch deserved to be put down. If she was still alive, I might have said Marietta had killed her. She liked to cause trouble did that one. It was her, no doubt, who told Marietta that her husband was ‘entertaining’ another woman. She had something on him too. That was why he let her into his garden to pick bunches of flowers for the church. She used to sit with him on the back porch drinking tea with him. Gin too if I know Mrs Flynn. They cackled together like witches, them two.’

  ‘Mr Clinker and Mrs Flynn?’

  ‘Yes. Thick as thieves.’

  ‘So Mrs Flynn was not very popular?’

  Janet laughed. ‘About as popular as snow in summertime. Nobody liked her, and with good reason. She was a stirrer and a bully. Ask Hermione Thompson.’

  Honey recalled the slender woman with mousey brown hair and wearing the silk dress who had just left the church.

  ‘She bullied her?’

  ‘Ask.’

  ‘Can I ask you something first?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Do you think Nigel took your dog...’?

  ‘Pascal...His name�
��s Pascal.’

  Honey misunderstood, presuming she was referring to a human being named Pascal who had taken the dog until she realised Pascal was the name of the furry canine.

  ‘Had he visited you lately?’

  ‘He doesn’t visit. He sneaks in and sneaks out again. I don’t know how he does it, but he does. I have complained to the police, but nothing has been done. It’s a cross I have to bear. A far bigger and heavier one than her in there,’ she added, nodding at the church. ‘Though you’d think she’s been through hell if you listen to her praying and sobbing in front of that altar. Mysterious past and all that according to Mrs Flynn that is. Always something to say about everybody,’ she said with a cruel twist of her mouth. ‘That was our Mrs Flynn.’

  She was here to ask questions about Nigel Brooks and the more she found out about him, the more it worried her. He might not have committed the murders, but he did behave strangely.

  ‘Why would he steal the dog and leave it tied up beneath a hotel table?’

  ‘Nigel is not a predictable man. He has behaviour problems.’

  ‘But you still married him.’

  Janet answered the unasked question. ‘Nobody knows anyone, not properly, until they actually begin living together.’

  Honey had to agree that what she said was true, but on the other hand they hardly looked the ideal couple. They just didn’t match. Nigel, for all his odd behaviour, wasn’t that bad looking and OK, he was a bit over the top about his wedding day. Many a disappointed wife would state that the majority of men didn’t even remember their wedding anniversary. How unique that Nigel Brooks recalled and preserved every detail of his wedding day. There was no doubt in her mind that he also remembered the date.

  Bearing Janet’s comment about the vicar in mind, Honey wondered what else she knew about her neighbours. Had Mrs Flynn been the only gossip in the village?

  Janet informed her she’d lived in the village for seven years and in that time had learned plenty.

  Just what I was hoping for, thought Honey.

  ‘What about you? Did Mrs Flynn bully you?’

  ‘She wouldn’t dare,’ Janet growled. Funny how her doggy expression now looked less like a Bichon Frise and more like a pit-bull.

  ‘You stood up to her?’ She pretended to be greatly impressed. In a way she was, but only to the extent that it was necessary in order to gain Janet’s trust.

  ‘You bet I did.’

  ‘So what did you have on her that she left you alone but had a go at everyone else?’

  There was something about Janet’s expression that gave the game away. Janet had warned her not to mess with her.

  ‘I told her I had something on her, so not to mess me around.’

  ‘Did you have something on her?’

  For a moment Janet’s pale eyes held hers. ‘I’m not sure.’

  Honey held her ground, convinced there was more. ‘I think you are.’

  Janet looked away, burying her face in the dog’s silky body as she considered whether to say anything more. She didn’t have to of course, but Honey was counting on her presuming she worked with the police professionally and was not just an amateur. Fingers crossed it would work.

  ‘It’s nothing much. Not by today’s standards. She called herself Mrs Flynn, but she wasn’t married. I only discovered this after I was perusing the old parish register for an article I was doing for the parish magazine. Although she told everyone she got married in St Michaels, her name wasn’t mentioned. It wasn’t until I found some old newspapers in the loft of my house that I discovered what had happened. Mrs Flynn was jilted at the altar, stood there in her wedding gown. Brian Flynn had joined the army, but come back after the war specifically to marry her. Only he changed his mind. There was even a letter with the newspaper from him to her. Mrs Flynn, Gladys, went away shortly after. Everyone knew the reason why. She was pregnant of course and back then being a single parent wasn’t what it is today. A bastard was a bastard. If you weren’t married you were a fallen woman. Even after all these years, her generation can’t cope with that.

  It was said that all is fair in love and war and as far as Honey was concerned, the same rule applied to asking sneaky questions. The end justified the means and all that. With this in mind, she adopted a fixed smile and said, ‘Look. Is there anywhere we can have a coffee? Perhaps we could put our heads together and work out what’s going on here.’

  It hurt to smile in such a fixed, false manner, but Honey was determined.

  Janet’s slack lips shifted from side to side as she debated the suggestion.

  Honey watched the moving lips debating whether when they moved to the right that meant yes, and to the left was a no. Or was it the other way round?

  The dog chose that moment to snuffle up under her chin, pink tongue flicking all the while. It then looked across at Honey and wagged.

  Janet nodded. ‘OK.’

  ‘That place looks nice,’ said Honey, nodding to the pretty frontage of a small cafe across the way. It was called The Bath Bun according to the sage green sign embellished along the frontage between the ground and first floor.

  ‘They don’t let dogs in. Uncivilised out of towners! The Angel does.’

  Janet had a gruff way of speaking, though Honey had noticed a passable improvement in her tone since their first meeting thanks to Pascal the dog.

  ‘Am I right in thinking he’s a Bichon Frise?’ Honey asked her as they made their way to the pub.

  Janet turned her head sharply, her expression brighter, her manner less defensive. ‘You know about dogs?’

  ‘Not really. I just happen to know the difference between a poodle and a Bichon Frise.’

  The clatter of crockery being collected and the smell of warm meals greeted them at the Angel Inn. The barman took one look at Janet and her dog and nodded at a spot over in the corner.

  Honey went up to the bar to order coffee.

  ‘And biscuits,’ Janet called after her. ‘Chocolate digestives.’

  The barman, a thin man with round glasses and thinning hair glared in Janet’s direction. ‘Only if you don’t leave crumbs all over the place.’

  Janet tossed her head.

  Honey paid for the coffees and took them and the biscuits back to the table.

  ‘Look Pascal. We have chocolate biscuits,’ Janet cooed to the perfectly behaved canine who seemed to be totally at home in the pub. She broke one in half then in half again. The dog wolfed down the first piece.

  Janet handed him another piece then dipped a piece of her own into her coffee.

  ‘Plain chocolate. Yummy,’ she said as she sucked off the chocolate before swallowing the biscuit. ‘He prefers milk chocolate. I prefer plain.’

  Honey declined a biscuit. Normally she might have mentioned a need to lose weight but she reckoned Janet wasn’t the sort to be interested in a trim figure or fashion. That’s how people got once dogs or cats ruled their world.

  ‘So!’ said Honey when enough time had gone by without Janet opening her mouth except to gobble down another shared biscuit. ‘Why would Nigel leave a dog tied under a table at the Green River Hotel.’

  Janet frowned as though she were chewing it over – she was chewing another biscuit.

  ‘Where is this hotel?’

  ‘In Bath.’

  ‘Strikes me he wouldn’t go there unless he knew someone staying or working there. Do we know who the manager is or the owner – anything like that?’

  She sounded very off hand as though she didn’t really care, but Honey cared. She hadn’t wanted to tell her that she was the owner. Up until now she had only visited this village with Doherty. People presumed she was police and it didn’t hurt for the belief to continue.

  ‘I spend a lot of time at the Green River.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Janet, her eyes as round as that of her dog. ‘That explains it. You went along to ask him questions. That in itself might not have been enough to get him going mind you. Not Nigel. One certain subject. Th
at’s all he thinks of. So there you are. It must have been something you said.’

  Clear as mud. Now it was Honey with the deep frown. ‘What kind of thing?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Janet who was now holding a biscuit between her teeth and offering it to Pascal who neatly bit off the end.

  ‘Mention anything about weddings did you?’ Janet asked after licking excess crumbs from her lips.

  This cannot be happening, Honey thought to herself. Weddings. The man was obsessed with weddings and I mentioned I was getting married.’

  She couldn’t bring herself to admit it. ‘I don’t recall.’ It was a necessary lie. Necessary to her if she was going to get Janet to admit talk about the village.

  Janet shrugged her substantial shoulders. ‘No matter. You obviously inspired his interest in brides in some way.’

  The more Janet mentioned her ex husband and his chilling interest in brides, the more Honey wanted to pick up her phone and tell Doherty to go and arrest him.

  ‘Have you found Harold Clinker yet?’

  The question was sudden and for a moment Honey couldn’t quite recall what had happened on that front.

  ‘No. I don’t think so. We are making further enquiries.’

  ‘I see. They do say it’s always the husband don’t they? That’s what I gather from some of these crime novels I read. The husband is always the prime suspect.’

  Honey had to agree verbally whilst mentally swapping Harold Clinker for Nigel Brooks, Janet’s ex husband.

  ‘Was Nigel ever violent towards you?’

  Wrong thing to say. Bichon Frise lookalike face turned rapidly to pit bull.

  ‘I would have made a purse out of his assets if he’d ever done anything like that.’

  Honey winced. ‘Ok. I’m with you on that one. How long has he known where you lived?’

  ‘Not long after we parted. He was a problem at first, the telephone calls, and the visits, the hanging about at the end of the lane. Then it fell off and I heard nothing from him.’ She shrugged. ‘No idea why he suddenly began plaguing me again reappearing as though there’d been no gap at all.’

  Honey frowned. ‘You don’t know where he was during that time he didn’t bother you?’