Murder of the Bride (12 page)

The Clinic

Rex was hugely relieved
to find a car parked outside the clinic and a stooped man carrying a doctor's bag getting out of the driver side. A pro-life sticker on the bumper imparted an element of individuality to the otherwise nondescript compact vehicle.

“Dr. Williamitis?” he called out, exiting his own car.

The man turned around. Not past forty, Rex judged by his youthful face, though his hair appeared uniformly gray and he carried his taller than average height as though bearing the weight of the world on his lean shoulders.

“Yes. Can I help you?”

“I was here earlier and saw your note. I came back hoping to speak with you.”

“Are you ill?”

Just terminally curious, Rex said to himself. “I have some questions regarding Dr. Thorpe.”

“Well, you had better come in out of the rain.” The doctor unlocked the front door to the clinic and switched on the light in the reception area. “Come on through.”

He opened an interior door to an office and gestured to a plastic bucket seat. Rex arranged himself in it while the doctor took off his raincoat and hung it from a hook on the back of the door. He lowered himself into a swivel chair behind a desk piled six inches high with files stacked around an open laptop. “Excuse the mess, but I've been updating my records.”

Rex pulled one of his business cards from his wallet and half rose from his chair to place it on the desk, taking one of the doctor's as he did so. He informed Williamitis he had been aiding the Derbyshire Constabulary in the investigation of suspected murder at Newcombe Court.

The doctor slid a pair of reading spectacles up his nose and read the card. “You're from Edinburgh, I see. Naturally I could tell by your accent,” he trailed off, regarding Rex quizzically above the tortoiseshell frames.

“I happened to be attending the wedding reception and alerted the police to the possibility of arsenic poisoning, having prosecuted such a case in court. The tox screen confirmed arsenic trioxide.”

The doctor nodded. “One of my colleagues called me from the hospital. Do you know who … No? Too soon, I suppose. Polly Newcombe was under Dr. Ewen's care. I hope you get to the bottom of it.”

“I heard the baby was safely, though prematurely, delivered.”

“By a month. Polly's due date was late June. Dr. Ewen did not elaborate on the condition of the baby or the mother.”

Rex spied a file labeled
Thorpe, D.
among the stacks on the doctor's desk. “Speaking in general terms, is it possible to determine how long someone has been subjected to arsenic poisoning?”

“You are talking about chronic poisoning?”

“Aye, over a period of weeks or months.”

“Arsenic builds up in the hair, skin, and nails. Exhumations have been performed to confirm the presence of arsenic in the body long after death.”

“You wouldn't happen to be Timothy Thorpe's GP, would you?”

“Ye-es,” the doctor said warily. “But I haven't seen him in months.”

“Apparently he's been having some gastric complaints these past weeks.”

“Probably just a case of wedding nerves. Oh, you're thinking it might be arsenic poisoning? Good Lord!”

“Are his brother and two children your patients also?”

Dr. Williamitis winced at the mention of Dudley Thorpe and his boys. He pulled off his glasses and wearily massaged the bridge of his nose.

“I take it you know them well,” Rex prodded.

“I see them practically every week. Sometimes
twice
a week.”

“Sickly kids?”

“The usual childhood ailments, and cuts and bruises you'd expect from two run-and-tumble boys of their age. But Donna Thorpe, no doubt encouraged by her mother-in-law, calls me about
the slightest thing.”

“Mabel Thorpe is a bit of a fussbody,” Rex allowed. “I've seen how she is with Timmy.”

“I was just over at Donna's. The boys have the flu and Donna complained the medicine wasn't working. Flu must run its course, I told her, but those two are hyperactive, and poor Donna looks all in. And her husband, Dudley, isn't much use. Studley,” the doctor said with a wicked grin that transformed his face into a semblance of handsomeness. “Sorry, but that's my nickname for him.”

Rex gave a pleased laugh. “It's a good one.”

“Look, I made some coffee before I was called out. Would you like some?”

“Please,” Rex said, taking in the small confines of the office with his peripheral vision and encountering no coffee machine, which meant the doctor would have to leave him unobserved for a few minutes. When Williamitis stepped outside the door, Rex visually scanned the bindings of the files while listening out for signs of the doctor's whereabouts in the small building.

“Milk, sugar?” Williamitis suddenly called out from a muffled distance.

Rex poked his head round the door. The doctor was occupied behind the glass partition of the reception desk. “Both, thanks,” he called back. Then, pulling out the Thorpe file, he consigned the home address and emergency contact information to memory.

The file belonged to Dudley, Jr., judging by the birth date of the patient. The handwritten pages recording prescriptions and doctor's comments were almost illegible, but Rex was able to decipher the date when the first measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine was administered, along with a notation, “
risk of complications from mumps, viz. TPT
.
” He just had time to read a scribbled recommendation for Ritalin at the appropriate age before he heard steps approaching down the short corridor.

Hurriedly, he replaced the file and assumed a relaxed pose in his uncomfortable chair.

“There you go,” the doctor said handing him a mug of steaming coffee. “The National Health doesn't run to providing a good coffee machine, but the village committee pitched in and donated one. Aston-on-Trent is very community spirited. We have an annual Well Dressing Festival coming up, which draws hundreds of visitors.”

Was this the well the landlord was threatening to duck Jessop into? Rex wondered. Dr. Williamitis shuffled papers on his desk while describing some of the themes of past tableaux, including the World Cup. He wore no wedding ring. Perhaps that explained why he was working on a Saturday and was happy to sit in his office and chat.

“This is a sizeable community,” Rex acknowledged. “And yet it still feels like a village. Everybody seems to know everybody else.”

“Well, the longer established residents do. There are close to two
thousand residents now and, proportionally, more doctors. You asked
about Dr. Thorpe.”

“Aye. Did you know him?” Rex casually sipped his coffee, hoping for some valuable nugget out of the conversation. Such luck that he had stumbled upon the Thorpe family doctor, he reflected.

“We overlapped briefly. Sadly, he died of leukemia. He worked as long as he could in spite of the fatigue. His wife helped file his medical records, which, I must say, he kept up meticulously right to the end. We're in the process of going over to a computerized system. No help to me, unfortunately, as I find I can write faster than I can type.”

No lay person could possibly transcribe the doctor's all but encrypted hieroglyphics with any degree of accuracy, Rex thought. No wonder he was entering the data himself.

“Did Dr. Thorpe treat his own family?”

“Yes, and I inherited the lot—and the hypochondria that goes with it. Not that it was all phantom diseases. His son Timmy had a severe bout of mumps when he was an adolescent. Then he developed chronic cystic acne. Poor boy had no luck, and now this. He finally finds a girl and—” The doctor trailed off into a mumble.

“Loses her?”

“I pray not.”

“You and me both. Especially as she is the mother of his child.”

“Yes.” The doctor frowned in puzzlement at the files on his desk and murmured, “Hm.”

Rex, after waiting a moment in vain for further comment, found a space on the desk and set down his empty mug. “Well, doctor, I appreciate your time and the coffee.” He didn't want to outstay his welcome and he had another place to be while he still had the opportunity.

“Sorry I couldn't be of more help,” Dr. Williamitis said. “Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that.”

Rex thought he had been extremely helpful, but didn't want to cause the doctor any professional misgivings by saying so. They cordially shook hands, Williamitis wishing him the best with his case. “Rather a tricky proposition finding out whodunit at a wedding,” he remarked, showing Rex out of the building. “Loads of suspects and strong family feeling, good and bad. I'll be following the story with keen interest, as will all of Aston, no doubt.”

Rex regained his car and from the clinic retraced the road to a side street he remembered passing on the way. Blessed with a near-photographic memory, he had memorized the address in the file. Perhaps Donna could provide more details about the Thorpe and Newcombe families that might assist in the case, and the ideal time would be when Dudley was not there.

“Hell Hath No Fury”

Donna Thorpe lived on
a street of modest detached brick homes, several of which had their curtains drawn tight against the evening gloom. As Rex looked for the right house number, he tried but failed to come up with a plausible excuse to give Dudley's wife as to why he was there.

He located the number and parked the car. Lights pouring from the downstairs window revealed tricycles and Tonka dump trucks strewn across the fenced-in square of lawn. He hoped against hope he wouldn't be interrupting the children's bath time or supper, in which case he was bound to get short shrift from the harried mother. Still, it was now or never.

Smoothing his jacket, he followed the concrete driveway to a single-car garage built three-quarters into the home, the right angle accommodating a sloping black shingle porch over a white front door with a plain glass sidelight and cheap brass letterbox. The bell resounded with a tinny ring, competing inside with a duo of shrill voices and the blare of a television. The door flew open and a young woman confronted him. She stood about five-foot-nine in her socks and on her hips carried a few pounds of excess weight that a loose-fitting sweatshirt failed to completely disguise.

“What do you want?” she demanded, the premature lines on her forehead marring an otherwise attractive face bare of makeup beneath blond-streaked hair scrunched up in a topknot.

“I take it this is not a good time, Mrs. Thorpe,” Rex apologized, poised to leave.

“Depends,” she said. “You been to the wedding?” She eyed his carnation and suit. “Is Dud still at Newcombe Court?”

“Aye.” Looking studley and dapper in his dove gray three-piece.

As though reading his thoughts, she asked, “Chasing skirt, is he?”

Rex was spared an answer when two miniature skinheads in
camouflage pajamas sprang from a door in the hall and conducted an assault on their mother's black leggings, each tugging at a limb. “Lady Madonna,” sang the Beatles in his head. The boys grinned up at him, milk teeth protruding from gums surrounded by purple-smeared lips, both flushed with fever or else rabid excitement. The youngest, Rex noted, was in dire need of a nose wipe.

His heart went out to the stern-faced young mother. “Did your husband not call you that he might be late?”

“Why would he? He hardly ever calls even when he's on the road.”

“Something happened at Newcombe Court. A few things, actually.”

“And you are?”

“A friend of a friend of the family.”

Donna shooed the boys back into the room whence the TV emitted a cacophony of American cartoon voices. “Come in,” she said. Standing to one side so Rex could pass into the narrow hall, she mechanically asked if her husband was okay. A smell of toast, baked beans and soured talcum powder wafted in the warm air circulating from the central heating.

“He's fine,” Rex told her, “but I'm sorry to say that Victoria Newcombe died from arsenic poisoning today.”

Donna stared at him in incredulity as, slowly, her hands went to her face. She wore a flashy engagement ring, vastly at odds with her attire and the black nail polish half worn away above the cuticles. “She's dead?”

“I'm afraid so. Polly was poisoned too. They delivered her child by emergency C-section this afternoon.”

“Arsenic.” Donna turned and clasped the white-painted banister leading up the steep stairs. The finish on the walls, of the same flat white, like primer, contributed to the flimsy look of the house.

“Do you know the Newcombes well?” he inquired gently.

“I haven't seen Polly in ages. How's Timmy?”

“Seems okay. However, I've just come from the clinic, and Timmy has not been in to see Dr. Williamitis in months, which is odd considering he's been feeling a bit off lately, by all accounts.”

“His mum likes to tell him what's good for him. And anyway, Timmy avoids waiting rooms like the plague, afraid he'll pick up germs, and rarely comes to our house in case he catches something off the kids. So, the baby's okay?”

“Hopefully. Were you surprised when you found out aboot Timmy's and Polly's baby?”

“What do you mean? What's it got to do with me?”

“I heard it happened a bit fast, you know with the engagement and everything.”

“The same thing happened with us. I fell pregnant, we got married, and before we knew it, another was on the way. Dud wasn't keen for me to go to his brother's wedding. My mom could've taken care of the boys. I had a dress picked out and everything, but he wasn't having any of it.”

“Has your husband ever mentioned Bobby Carter?”

“That's the solicitor, isn't it? Dud swears he and Mrs. Newcombe have been having it off for years. Well, she's dead now, you said. Why—”

Just then, an earsplitting shriek erupted from the living room. Rex wondered about the wisdom of leaving two little thugs to their own devices. “Maaaa,” bawled one.

“Should I check on the lads? Sounds like Armageddon has broken out.”

“The room is child-proofed,” Donna said in a monotone, but she went in anyway and yelled at them to settle down. The threat of early bedtime successfully meeting with instantaneous silence, she closed the door on them.

“A handful?”

“Brendan is two and Duddie three. What do you expect?”

“I have a lad of my own.”

“Still living at home?”

“No, he's away at university in Florida.”

“Florida?” Donna's face assumed a wistful look. “I used to dream about going to America. I did some modeling in my teens. I know; hard to believe, looking at me now.” She glanced despairingly at the multi-stained yellow sweatshirt bagging over her black leggings. She gave the impression of a wasp, though Rex felt sure it wasn't intentional. “I didn't even have time to shower this morning. God, I must look a sight.”

“It'll get easier.”

“When?” she pleaded, gazing up into his face before slumping onto the bottom step of the stairs, decked in a garish green print continuing the wall-to-wall carpeting in the hall.

Hysterical giggles escaped from the front room. Seconds later, the door creaked open and two cheeky smirks appeared in the aperture.

Rex went in and, scooping one squirming tot in each arm, lifted them over the backrest of the sofa and plunked them down on the black faux leather in front of the flat screen TV. Looming over them, he pointed a finger at each sticky and terror-stricken face. “Now, do
not
move until I tell you.”

Exiting the room, he left the door ajar and returned to the exhausted mother. “Want to tell me aboot it, lass?” Something was troubling her. Was it just the fact of being stuck at home with two rambunctious kids? Somehow, he felt something more was afoot.

Donna, forehead reposing in her lap, clasped her knees and rocked back and forth on the stairs. “I feel like a prisoner,” she moaned. “I daren't go out of the house. Everything's in hock. The telly will be next. They've started calling the house!”

“Who is calling the house?”

“The people Dud owes money to. Listen to this.” She jumped to her feet and lifted the phone bodily from the hall table, unraveling the line as she returned to the stairs. She set it on her knees and lifted the handset. “I saved this message,” she told Rex, pressing a button.

He sat beside her on the step, their thighs touching in the confined space.

“We know where to find you, Mr. Dudley,” a male voice intoned from the receiver.
Click
.

“That's it?” Rex asked.

“I didn't save the others. What d'you think?”

“It sounds a wee bit sinister. Have you called the police?”

Donna shook her head, causing her topknot to slip from its yellow
band. “Dud won't hear of it. He's waiting on his commissions from the sale of his hot tubs. He says he can pay these scum off.”

“Who are they? And why did the man on the phone call him Mr. Dudley and not Mr. Thorpe?”

Donna shrugged. “You see, Dud bets on the horses.”

“Ah.”

“He promised he'd stop. But he won't, not until they break his knee caps. That's what they threatened on the last message.” She looked at Rex. “When you rang the bell, I thought at first you might be one of them. But you sounded different, and you seem like a gentleman. Even if you had been one of Dud's creditors, I wouldn't have cared. It's almost worse not knowing what's going to happen, what they'll repossess next. My car's gone. I know how Dud's going to get out of this mess. I only hope he did it to protect me and the boys, and not just to save his own precious skin.”

“Are you suggesting he perpetrated a crime to pay off his debts?”
Rex asked, mindful of her reaction to Victoria Newcombe's death.

“He poisoned Mrs. Newcombe and her daughter, didn't he? That's
what you came to tell me. So Timmy would inherit Newcombe Court. Dud could always twist Timmy around his little finger and get money off him.”

“Mrs. Thorpe, Dudley has not been charged with anything. Suspicion is more likely to attach to someone who was at Newcombe Court early this morning.”

“Dud wasn't with me all morning. He went out to see a man about some business, or so he said.”

“How long was he gone?”

“An hour, hour and a half. When he got back, he took a shower, got all dressed up, and left me here with the kids, waiting for the doctor.”

“The police will want to confirm everyone's alibis in due course.”

“Did Dud send you to explain why he was held up?”

Rex wished he could answer in the affirmative. “No, I came under my own steam. The detective in charge is letting me follow an independent line of investigation, providing I demonstrate the utmost discretion.” At least, Lucas hadn't told him not to.

“Why would he let you do that?”

“I undertake private cases on occasion.”

“You're from Edinburgh, aren't you? I always liked a refined Scots burr.”

“My name is Rex Graves.” He rummaged in his wallet for a business card. “I should have introduced myself sooner.”

She smiled weakly and stared in deep thought at the phone. Since she made no attempt to take the card, he left it on the stairs. Bumping and squelching sounds from the leather sofa in the other room punctuated a round of animated character voices on the TV.

“I can get my mum to watch the kids for a bit,” Donna decided, picking up the receiver. “I want to go round to Mabel's, do a bit of digging into Dud's finances. He keeps all that stuff there. I'd feel safer if you came with me. Can you?”

Tugging back his cuff, Rex glanced at his watch: 7:30. “I don't know if Mabel will be back home yet. She and Timmy went to the hospital and are supposed to return to Newcombe Court.”

“There's a spare key she keeps on the window ledge. Dud sometimes uses it. I just need the recent bank statements, to see how much is in the account. All his private papers and financial documents are at his old home. Timmy helps with his taxes.”

“What would Mabel say if you went in her house when she wasn't home?”

“What could she say? If Dud is hiding stuff from me, I've a right to know.”

“Might be better if you waited until she got back.”

“She won't let me look in his old room. She always takes his side. It's not like I'm going to take anything—I just want to look. I'll say I forgot Duddie's toy gun and he was screaming for it.” She started dialing. “But in case someone's after Dud and I'm followed, I need you to come with me.”

Rex hesitated, loath to become embroiled in the domestic dispute.

“It won't take long. It's less than a kilometer away.”

Seeing the despair in her eyes, he nodded in confirmation. He could not let her go alone and, in any event, he welcomed the excuse to see the Thorpe family home. He rose from the stairs and, returning to the front room, found Duddie in the process of smothering his younger brother with a sofa cushion. When he saw Rex, he shot back into a sitting position. Brendan, curled into a ball, pummeled the cushion with his feet. When he, too, caught sight of Rex, he froze and stared up at him with masochistic delight.

Rex pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and, bending down, wiped the boy's nose for him, removing what he could of the encrusted gunk surrounding it with deft swoops of the linen. A sippy cup containing what looked like Ribena had come unscrewed and was leaking black currant juice onto the cream rug. He attempted to mop that up too, but it soaked into his handkerchief, forcing him to abandon it on the floor rather than risk staining the lining of his pocket. He rose wearily to his feet.

“Your gran might be coming to watch you both for a while,” he informed the boys. “Your mum's mum,” he specified so they knew which one.

“Nan, Nan, Nan,” the eldest started chanting, enthusiastically joined by his brother in a piping falsetto as he bounced up and down on the sofa.

Donna appeared and admonished the kids. “Their nan lives around the corner,” she told Rex. “I'll get my shoes. Can we go in your car?”

“No problem.” He followed her back into the hall, still a tad hesitant about what he was getting into.

“I tried Dud on his mobile but he's not answering, so I called Timmy. The baby is in intensive care and Polly is still out of it. He's heading back to Newcombe with his mum.”

At that moment, an older and thicker Donna let herself in the front door, her surprised glance roving over the strange man in her daughter's hallway. With one hand, she unknotted her head-scarf beaded with raindrops and, pulling it off, draped it over the wooden coat tree in the corner. She wore an array of Zircon studs in her left ear beneath an upsweep of bleached blond hair cut short at the back.