Marriage is Murder

by Jean G. Goodhind

  ‘No. The matrimonial home was sold, the money divided and we both went our own way. I heard he had a flat in Bristol for a while before he bought the ex council house in Keynsham. Don’t know what brought that on I’m sure. Why would a single man want to buy a family house?’

  ‘No. I see your point.’

  Unless he had a family, thought Honey. Perhaps he had had for a time. It was worth looking into.

  ‘He didn’t make the acquaintance of Marietta or Mrs Flynn?’

  ‘Not that I know of, but there, who knows where Mrs Flynn’s claws were hooked? Though I do understand where you’re coming from, what with my husband’s obsession with weddings and all that. Bloody idiot.’

  Honey nodded in agreement. ‘Odd the pair of them being found wearing a wedding dress. One elderly woman and one much younger; two very different women.’

  ‘Odd indeed. Odd how they were found both dead and odd that they ever got close in the first place.’

  ‘Close?’ Honey’s ears pricked up at the prospect of the two dead women having anything in common besides being found dead and wearing a wedding dress.

  ‘As I’ve already told you, Mr Clinker allowed Mrs Flynn to pick flowers for the church. I was called to Belvedere House to take away a nest of hedgehogs. Mrs Flynn was sitting in the kitchen having a cup of tea with Marietta. I mentioned it to Gladys when we were changing the flowers. She asked me if there was any law against it. I said that no, of course there wasn’t. Anyway, she took umbrage and told us to clear off. She could finish changing the flowers herself. Hermione was ordered to stay. The rest of us cleared off and left them to it. Hermione was a dogsbody and did everything Gladys told her to do. I told her to sod off.’

  So Mrs Flynn and Marietta had shared morning cups of tea. Honey asked herself what they might have had in common. There was nothing she could think of – unless it had something to do with the wedding dresses – but what?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘Will you please note that my client is here of his own volition. He was dealing with business interests on the Costa del Sol when the news of his wife’s death came to him.’

  Harold Clinker coming into Manvers Street of his own volition had come as a complete surprise. It had also disappointed. Sure as eggs were eggs, this man had an ironclad alibi. A white linen jacket and open necked shirt accentuated his tan. He was also wearing, dark pink trousers and white loafers on tanned feet. No socks. Doherty tried not to let his gaze fall to Clinker’s chest where he guessed he would see a gold sovereign medallion glinting among a thatch of grey chest hairs.

  Four of them piled along to the interview room, Clinker and his lawyer, Mrs Hamilton-Jones, a slim woman in her late thirties with black hair and glossy red lips. She was wearing a red suit with a white blouse, a black tie loosely tied, and the top two buttons were undone.

  She glows, thought Doherty reflecting that most lawyers wore sombre dress and their skirts were never as tightly moulded to their bodies as hers was. Few of them wore such high heels either or smelled of expensive perfume.

  The Wizard was person number four. It would most likely have been a younger officer, but somebody had messed up the holiday rota so they were a bit short staffed. Even Wizard was off this weekend attending the wedding of his youngest daughter.

  ‘Are you going to tape this?’ Clinker snapped.

  Doherty told him he was not. ‘You’re not charged with anything. Just tell me the details of your alibi. Once it’s checked and I’m satisfied, then we will require you to make a statement – if I am satisfied.’

  ‘Before my client left Marbella, he had the hotel manager swear a statement in front of the Spanish police stating my client’s time of arrival and length of stay. My client also swore a statement. I have both here.’

  Long fingers tipped with bright red nail varnish passed a sheath of paperwork across the desk to Doherty who glanced through it, noting the stamp and the signature – all in Spanish.

  ‘We also have the boarding pass receipts from the airline he used. My client has one of the new passports which was scanned electronically, that is, both the passport and face identification. My client would like to get this over and done with. He would also like to know when his wife’s body will be released so he can make the necessary arrangements.’

  Doherty wasn’t exactly gutted that Harold Clinker had a cast iron alibi, but he was put out. The husband was always prime suspect. It would have been so much easier for him. Unfortunately it was not. The odds were in Clinker’s favour.

  ‘So where were you on the night of Mrs Gladys Flynn’s death?’

  A flush of anger lit up the cheeks of the lawyer. Both her and her client exchanged surprised looks before Mrs Hamilton-Jones bounced back.

  ‘As it was pointed out on our arrival, my client came here of his own volition purely regarding the death of his wife and not in connection to the earlier death.’

  ‘If you would recall, I was indisposed that night, inspector. Attacked, bound and gagged. And in the buff! Wonder I didn’t bloody freeze to death. I was in no fit state to murder Mrs Flynn and I had no reason to bump her off. There’s plenty in the village ready and willing to do that. I could give you a list,’ he added, narrowing his eyes with what could only be described as malicious intent. ‘If I had a mind to.’

  ‘I do recall. You accused your wife of doing it.’

  ‘I smelled her perfume.’

  ‘Did she admit doing it?’

  ‘Not as such. We just agreed to forgive and forget.’

  ‘And that included you dropping charges against her and your wife dropping charges against you of violence against her person.’

  Clinker tugged at his trousers before crossing one leg over the other. ‘That’s about the size of it.’

  It was a warm day and the room was getting warmer.

  Doherty lay back in his chair, hands in pockets, muscles flexing fit to burst the sleeves of his tee shirt. He disliked men who wore gold medallions. Putting that particular prejudice aside, he continued his line of enquiry.

  ‘Setting your comment about writing us a list aside, do you have any thoughts on who might have killed Mrs Flynn?’

  ‘Humph!’ Clinker exclaimed. ‘Damned near everyone I should think. She liked to stir things up in the village.’

  ‘Really?’ Doherty raised his eyebrows. ‘Did she say anything to stir you up Mr Clinker? Anything that might have stirred you to murdering her...’

  Mrs Hamilton-Jones jumped in. ‘Now just a minute...! My client does not need to answer that...’

  Clinker raised a restraining hand. ‘It’s all right, Ruth. I don’t mind answering. I’ve got nothing to hide. As commander in chief of the flower arranging fraternity, she was grateful I invited her to pick flowers from our garden. She liked to use fresh flowers for the church displays and told me she couldn’t provide much from her own garden, and they were expensive to buy. So I let her in to pick some of ours. We’ve got plenty.’ His mouth curled in a triumphant sneer. At the same time his eyes seemed to recede further into their pits, chips of bitter blue glittering like molten silver.

  ‘So there you are, inspector,’ exclaimed Ruth Hamilton-Jones her smile as triumphant as her client’s sneer. ‘My client has been cooperative over his wife’s death and is being so over that of Mrs Flynn, a woman he allowed to pick flowers from his garden.’

  There was the sound of the stocking of one leg making a rasping sound as it crossed over the other.

  Talk about the cat that got the cream, thought Doherty. Feline woman. Provocative with it. But he wasn’t finished yet.

  ‘Did you ever have a conversation with Mrs Flynn?’

  ‘Sometimes. Nothing much more than passing the time of day.’

  ‘Did she ever confide in you?’

  Clinker laughed; a deep throaty laugh that made his chest heave.

  ‘That depends what you mean by confide, inspector. Mrs Flynn asked questions.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘She li
ked to poke her nose into other peoples’ business. I was not having any of that, I can tell you. One hint of scandal and it would be all around the village.’

  ‘You mean with regard to your open marriage?’

  Clinker half rose from his chair, only restrained by the exquisitely manicured hand of his lawyer. ‘There’s no law against it. Not that I let on to Mrs Flynn. It was none of her business. None of yours either,’ he shouted.

  ‘No need to shout, Mr Clinker. I’m just trying to get some background on Mrs Flynn. I thought you could help.’

  Ruffled by her client’s outburst, Ruth Hamilton-Jones attempted to calm him down.

  ‘Now, now. Harold. It doesn’t hurt to be helpful. We all want to catch the perpetrator, don’t we? Are we cool with that, Harold?’

  Harold was hardly the type of man the word cool applied to with his quick temper and arrogant attitude. His clothes didn’t help either. He only thought he was cool. He was too old and too fat for that look, though Doherty whilst running his palm over his own firm stomach muscles.

  The soothing words of his fetching legal companion seemed to do the trick.

  ‘So the only interaction you had with Mrs Flynn was when she came to pick flowers.’

  ‘Interaction! What sort of word is that? Bloody hell, you make it sound like the next best thing to intercourse. Not with that old bat, I can tell you.’

  Again Mrs Hamilton-Jones interrupted. ‘Harold! Please.’

  ‘OK,’ Clinker growled in response. ‘We didn’t have any in-ter-act-shun then,’ he said, emphasising each syllable as though Doherty had never heard of the word. ‘I told you. All she did was come in and pick flowers.’

  ‘Did you see anything of Mrs Flynn that night?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did your wife know Mrs Flynn very well?’

  ‘Hardly,’ Clinker responded sneeringly. ‘Let’s be fair, inspector, they had bugger all in common.’

  Doherty knew the two women had taken coffee together, but Harold might not know that.

  Mrs Hamilton-Jones squirmed in response to his outburst of bad language.

  ‘Did Miss Sherise ever meet Mrs Flynn?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Do you know a man named Nigel Brooks?’

  Clinker blinked. ‘No. Should I have?’

  ‘He lives close to the garage where the Rolls Royce in which we found your wife was kept. In a lock up garage in Keynsham.’

  ‘Don’t know the man and I don’t frequent Keynsham. Wrong side of town for my tastes.’ He said it as though he were a cultured pearl. Doherty doubted he could even spell the word!

  ‘But you do know your wife was found dead in the back of a Rolls Royce. A white Rolls Royce used for weddings. That’s where it was kept.’

  ‘Nothing to do with me.’

  ‘You don’t know the owner of the Rolls Royce?’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘Ahmed Clifford. He’s got a repair workshop down along the railway arches. Ever taken your car there?’

  ‘Are you kidding? Do I look like the sort of man who takes a top of the range Mercedes along to an Asian bloke working out of a dump beneath the arches?’

  ‘Who said he was Asian?’

  ‘His name. Didn’t you say his name was Ahmed? Hardly an English name now is it?’

  Clinker’s voice was getting louder despite his lawyer’s constant warning.

  Sensing this was going to become a sparring match, Doherty closed the interview.

  ‘Thank you for coming in, Mr Clinker. It was much appreciated.’

  Clinker shifted the chair away from him with a backward movement of his leg.

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Then I’m out of here, but bear this in mind, Mr Copper. I came in here in all good faith to straighten things out. I didn’t want you lot blaming me for something I didn’t do. Strange as it may seem, I loved my wife, Inspector.’

  ‘Yep,’ said Doherty, firmly shutting his mouth against referring back to Mrs Clinker’s bruised face. ‘I’m sure you did.’

  Clinker left first, Mrs Ruth Hamilton-Jones followed. She paused at the door, the fingernails of one hand blinking like jewels, the other hand firmly clasped around the handle of her briefcase. The smile on her glossy lips was full of sexual promise and that was definitely a glint of triumph he could see in her eyes.

  ‘Should you need any further clarification of my client’s movements, or his further assistance, perhaps you would like to contact me?’

  She handed him her card, the tip of her fingers touching his as she passed it to him.

  Doherty knew a come on when he saw it, but didn’t want to know. This woman was too controlling for his taste.

  ‘I see no reason not to go direct to your client if I need to.’

  She flinched at that, but wasn’t quite down and out.

  ‘I see no particular reason why you should need to speak to him again at all, inspector. His alibi is quite firm. The firmest thing about him in fact.’ A smile twitched at her lips.

  Doherty knew what was implied. ‘And you would know?’

  ‘On hearing of his wife’s death and bearing in mind past disturbances between them, he phoned me right away. It was me who advised him to have a witness swear a statement and to swear one himself. So my client is definitely off of your radar. He could not have killed his wife.’

  Eyelashes too thick to be anything but false fluttered over her violet eyes. Yes, she was enticing him, but in a mocking way, an emasculating way.

  She’s taking the piss, he thought. Taunting and enticing all at the same time.

  ‘You’re quite right,’ he said to her, his smile sardonic and he was itching to wipe his thumb across her mouth, smearing that lipstick all over her face.

  ‘So glad you agree.’

  ‘Unless he paid somebody to do it.’

  The smile vanished, her eyes flashed and Doherty knew sex was no longer on the menu.

  Her finely chiselled features turned to stone. ‘You have no proof.’

  Doherty closed in until his face was only inches from hers, their eyes in direct line.

  ‘Not yet. I’ll be in touch with you when I have.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Honey was in the kitchen helping Smudger. A new toy had arrived; a neat device for making fruit shaped marzipan petit fours. The great thing about it was that there were bits left over once the shapes were squeezed out of the plastic mould. Honey ate them as she went. If there was one thing she truly loved it was marzipan. Chocolate didn’t come anywhere near it.

  Finally there were no little bits left to pop into her mouth. Lemon, apple, plum, orange and banana shaped petit fours lay gleaming up at her. They looked good, too enticing. Her fingers hovered over the rows counting to see if there were equal numbers of each. If there did happen to be thirteen on one row instead of twelve, it wouldn’t be missed.

  There were fourteen bananas! Fourteen! How brilliant was that.

  Then Smudger, her head chef spotted what she was doing. His voice rang out loud and clear.

  ‘No! Desist! Do not eat.’

  ‘Just one!’ She popped it into her mouth. Smudger dived in to rescue the rest grumbling that people should control their urges which was a damned nerve coming from him, a man who brandished a meat cleaver when diners dared criticise his food.

  Her mobile phone rang scuppering any chance of grabbing another marzipan fruit before Smudger shut them away.

  ‘Mum. I think you need to see this.’

  The phone went dead.

  ‘Remind me to have a word with my daughter about ringing me on the mobile when I’m only yards away,’ she grumbled as she left the kitchen and headed for reception.

  Members of staff, plus the hotel’s one and only long time resident, Mary Jane, were gathered around Lindsey who was seated at the computer. Comments were muffled though sounded complimentary.

  Honey just about managed to break though. T
he scene on the computer screen glowed with sunshine and made her jaw drop.

  The normal screen display was all to do with the hotel reservations system, emails or pictures on the website.

  This was nothing to do with Bath and the Green River Hotel. The sky was blue, the sea turquoise and two people were smiling out at her from the deck of a Saga cruise ship. One of them was her mother. The other was a man she did not recognise. Underneath the picture it said, ‘Just Married.’

  Honey was stunned. Lindsey was stunned. So was Mary Jane who remarked on how happy they looked, and hey, what was the big deal about getting married for the fifth time in later life. Life was for living, right?

  Honey had difficulty finding her voice. Her mother had gone on a cruise without telling her. Her mother had got married without telling her. It was downright thoughtless. It was a shock. If the intention had been to avert interest from Honey’s intended wedding, then her mother had certainly done that.

  ‘My God! She’s got married. She didn’t tell me. She never even mentioned she was going on a cruise. Did any of you know about this?’

  Everybody shrugged or shook their heads.

  ‘He’s quite a dish,’ Lindsey remarked.

  Both Mary Jane and Honey closed in on the screen.

  Honey narrowed her eyes so she could focus better. Mary Jane had a gold cord hanging around her neck attached to her spectacles. She felt for them, found them and put them onto her nose. The glasses had been regularly lost before she’d acquired the gold cord.

  The light from the computer screen was reflected in Mary Jane’s spectacles.

  ‘Wow,’ said Mary Jane once she’d had a good look. ‘She’s got herself a younger man.’

  Honey pushed her way up front and central. Mary Jane was right. The man snuggled up to her mother’s side had fair hair, an open face and a broad waistline. Not young, but definitely younger than her mother. Honey put him at fifty-five.

  The email accompanying the photograph stated that his name was Stewart White and he was a bookie from Whitechapel, London.

  Her mother went on to say that she hadn’t mentioned him because Honey and Lindsey had strong objections to gambling. ‘He’s made a fortune from gambling. He owns a chain of betting shops. Will celebrate and take questions when I get back. In the meantime we have the bridal suite and are having fun.’