For Death Comes Softly (24 page)

I thought he had a bloody cheek and I had absolutely no intention of letting his meddling spoil my happiness. I muttered a few mild obscenities to myself, picked up the file he had left on my desk and dumped it straight in my too-difficult drawer, so sure was I that I would have no use for it.

It was arranged that I would take a week's leave for my wedding and a brief honeymoon in the South of France. Chief Superintendent Titmuss decided to take over as SIO of the Stephen Jeffries' case himself while I was away, which I found highly disconcerting, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Titmuss uttered the mandatory good wishes when I left the office on the eve of my wedding, and, to his credit I grudgingly admitted to myself, if he shared Todd Mallett's misgivings about the man I was marrying, he gave no sign of it.

That night I endured the traditional hen party. The girls were mainly colleagues in The Job and, of course, sister Clem and my dear old mate Julia. I was aware of the mixed feelings of many of them. I was marrying a man I had only been with for just over nine months and whose former fiancée had died in mysterious circumstances not long before. But Robin had a high profile in more ways than one. I was moving into another world. I was marrying into the kind of old family of which I had previously had little or no experience. I was leaving my independence behind. There was no question about that. I didn't know whether it would be possible for me to continue my police career – in spite of Robin's apparent concern that I did so. The truly crazy thing was that I didn't even care. As long as I became Mrs Robin Davey the next day I didn't care about anything.

And, of course, as we drank vast quantities of pretend champagne in a thoroughly disreputable night club into which I was quite sure no police officer should ever venture, nobody mentioned any question mark which might still hang over my intended. The files on the death of Natasha Felks lay hidden in the depths of the Devon and Cornwell Constabulary's computer system – and at that moment I had no doubt at all that was where they would stay.

Fourteen

My wedding day, Saturday, April 7th, dawned warm, and almost sultry. It was going to be unseasonably hot, I reckoned, just as it had been when I had made my first fateful visit to Abri.

Robin called from the island very early in the morning. He was already there waiting for me, as were many of the guests.

I was to arrive by helicopter just before the ceremony was due to begin, already clad in the white organza wedding dress designed by James' celebrated friend, which had cost getting on for three months' salary as a DCI. Obscene really. Both the cost, and, in my case, the colour. But like I said, I was running with the flow. And the whole thing was just so romantic. I was about to literally drop from the sky to marry the man of my dreams. I thought I was in heaven. I knew I was in heaven. I might have known dreams like this one didn't come true for the likes of me, but for the time being no warning bells were ringing. And Robin was in high humour.

‘The weather's perfect,' he began excitedly. ‘The mist will have cleared by midday, and you're not going to believe it, but there's hardly any wind today. Abri is showing off, I tell you. So hurry up, darling. I'm missing you. I love you.'

I had only just woken up and I took his call while still in bed sleepily savouring the day ahead.

I told him I loved him too. And by God, I did. I loved him so much that when I was apart from him I felt like only half a human being. I loved him so much that if he died I knew I would kill myself. Life without him could have no point. I loved him so much that I suspected that all my friends and colleagues thought I had taken leave of my senses. And they were probably right.

‘A new day dawns in a new century and a wonderful new beginning for both of us,' Robin said. His voice was like a warm stream. He kept saying these extraordinary things, which from anyone else would have made me laugh and from him made me want to cry with joy. It was all quite ridiculous. Everything about Robin exceeded my wildest imaginings of what a lover should be.

Just as I was hanging up the bedside phone, my sister Clem wandered into the bedroom. She and my niece had, with the help of extra duvets and lots of pillows, somehow managed to spend the night in the living room. I had politely, if not particularly enthusiastically, offered my bed. Clem said brides didn't sleep on sofas. She was somewhat dishevelled and looked as if the sleeping arrangements had been as uncomfortable as I had suspected they would be. She was wearing an old dressing gown of mine, and her hair was all over the place. Her eyes were bright and shining. I thought she might be almost as excited as me.

She plonked a steaming mug of tea on the bedside table and gave me a playful poke beneath the bedclothes.

‘Well this is it then, the big day,' she remarked needlessly, followed quickly by: ‘And for goodness' sake get up. If you've got a hangover it serves you damn well right, but you'd better shake it off smartish. The hairdresser will be here in half an hour and then the flowers are arriving, and the car is coming for us at ten . . .'

I grinned at her and obediently began to hoist myself upright. I seemed to be surrounded by people who wanted to organise me, and Clem was another born organiser. She also thoroughly enjoyed a bit of a panic – although there was very little for her to panic about nor to organise in an operation managed by the Daveys. Still it was typical of her to do her best to find something.

In spite of, more than because of, her ministerings, I was washed, brushed, coiffured, fully clad in my ceremonial glory and all ready to go by 9.45. While Clem indulged in some last minute fussing over her own and my long-suffering niece's bridesmaid dresses – simply cut in dark blue satin and very stylish – I quietly closed my bedroom door and took a last long hard look at myself in the full-length wardrobe mirror.

I had done my best not to make the classic mistake of getting married looking like someone else. Certainly my hair was its usual curly fluffball – if just a little bit sleeker and more controlled than usual thanks to the efforts of allegedly the best hairdresser in town – and one thing I had insisted on as the Davey machine had taken over my life was that I did my own make-up. I hadn't wanted to resemble a Barbie doll any more than my police colleagues already considered me to be. Yet I did not entirely recognise the person looking intently back at me. If a frame had been put around me I could have been hung on the wall of a stately home. It was a strange feeling. Detective Chief Inspector Rose Piper was not a woman to wear a flowing designer wedding dress gleaming with embroidery and pearls. The future Mrs Robin Davey, however, was, it appeared. I was entering another world. His world. My life, I knew, would never be the same again.

My moment of solitary reflection lasted about a minute before Clem burst through the bedroom door.

‘Do you think I should ring the car company?' she asked anxiously.

I glanced at my watch. Cartier. A gift from Robin.

‘It's only ten to,' I said. ‘They're sure to be here.'

Thankfully the car arrived five minutes early or Clem may have blown a fuse. We were all to travel to Abri together on the helicopter, and the journey to the heliport we were using would take a maximum of 30 minutes at that time of morning. We were early there too. Ahead of schedule all the way. With the Daveys and my sister masterminding things there had never been much doubt about that.

Maude and Roger Croft-Maple were also travelling with us and were driving from Exmoor in their Range Rover to meet us at the heliport. We, unsurprisingly in view of all the unnecessary hurry, were there first which sent Clem into another paroxysm of panic which momentarily evaporated when she caught sight of the pilot, whom of course she had never previously met. The splendid Eddie Brown was wearing a dazzling white uniform decorated with gold braid. He looked drop dead gorgeous if a little bizarre. He took off his peaked cap with a flourish and bent forward in an exaggerated bow.

Clem spluttered. I expressed my admiration.

‘If I wasn't spoken for I'd run away with you,' I said.

‘You sure about that?' he asked. ‘At the base they reckoned I looked like the president of an African banana republic and wanted to know where my toggle stick was.' He flashed a grin every bit as radiant as his clothes.

‘Racist lot of bastards,' I responded. I really liked Eddie and it was typical of him to enter into the spirit of things. The whole wedding was way over the top really, and his white suit was perfect for the occasion.

‘Where did you get the crazy outfit anyway?' I asked.

‘Heard of Bermans?' he asked.

I had of course. They were world-famous theatrical costumiers.

I began to giggle. The day really was getting off to a great start.

My sister was fussing again. ‘Where on earth is Robin's mother?' she asked for about the third time.

‘Darling, we are not actually due to leave for another twenty minutes and this is a private charter, not Gatwick Airport,' I said, just as I spotted Maude and Roger walking into the terminal. He was in full morning dress and looked as if he was born to wear the stuff. She had on a deep purple silk suit with an almost ankle-length skirt, and a big wide-brimmed chocolate brown hat with a full veil. She teetered on what must have been five-or six-inch-heeled brown suede shoes – something of an achievement for any woman in her late seventies, and even more impressive for one who stood over six foot tall in her stockinged feet. With those shoes on Maude would tower over everyone at the wedding, including Robin, which had doubtless been her intention. I gaped up at her in open-mouthed admiration. Around her shoulders was draped a fox fur, complete with head. There was nothing politically correct about Maude Croft-Maple. I thought I had never seen anything quite so dramatic. She looked absolutely sensational and I told her so.

‘Nonsense,' she said. The vowels even flatter than ever, I thought. ‘There's only going to be one sensation today, and that's you, Rose Piper.'

‘Just don't stand in front of me for the photographs, that's all,' I ordered.

Maude beamed. I was pretty sure by now that she liked me, and I was glad of that because I had become immensely fond of her in a very short time.

I introduced her to my sister who looked even more flummoxed than she had before, for which, I suppose you couldn't blame her. Maude was one flummoxing woman.

‘Very nice to meet you, I'm sure,' said Clem, sounding a bit like our mother trying to be posh, and then carried on busily: ‘Now, shouldn't we be off?'

I laughed at her. I was in such high humour. I had never felt better. This was going to be a day in a million, I reckoned, and I was certainly right about that.

‘I think we can safely leave our departure to Eddie,' I admonished gently.

‘Well, of course,' she wittered on, her face slightly flushed now. ‘I was only just thinking, you know, I don't know how long exactly it takes, but the timing is so important isn't it, and we wouldn't want, would we . . .'

‘Clem, shut up,' I interrupted her eventually, softening the rebuke by continuing with: ‘Incidentally you look bloody marvellous as well.'

She did too. Quite radiant. Flustered, yes, but her slight flush seemed to make her look all the more attractive. You'd have half-thought it was her wedding day. She beamed at me. If Clem had ever had any doubts at all about my impending nuptials she had never shown them, and she was possibly the only one of my friends and relatives about whom that could be said – except my mother, of course. Clem and I shared a standing joke that if there was one person who was even more ecstatic than her and me about the whole thing it was my bloody mother. The Hyacinth Bucket of Weston-super-Mare had reached the pinnacle of her social-climbing summit. Her younger daughter marrying the uncrowned King of Abri. Wow!

We took off smoothly into a perfect blue sky and headed west along the Bristol Channel. All of us fell silent during the short flight – even Clem. Everything was just so beautiful. The sun glinted on the dark mass of the sea highlighting the white crests of the waves. Seagulls wheeled lazily around us.

After a bit Clem could keep silent no longer and she grasped my hand and told me for the umpteenth time how happy she was for me. Then, as the island of Abri appeared on the horizon, Maude suddenly shouted: ‘Three cheers for the bride, hip hip hooray.'

They all joined in and I wasn't even embarrassed. It was going to be that kind of a day.

Abri looked as dramatically wonderful as always, looming up from nowhere, with the distinctive phallic shape of the Pencil – to which I gave only a passing glance – to its left.

As we flew closer I could see the huge crowd already gathered for the ceremony. Abri was abuzz, jam-packed with wedding guests. But I was no longer daunted by this. Instead I was by that time completely carried away by excitement. My adrenaline flow was in overdrive.

Above the engine noise you couldn't hear the cheering of the people standing in the churchyard as we began to drop down out of the sky but you could see their excitement. Many of them were waving. I pushed my face to the cabin window and waved back. Abri was a glorious sight. The whole island had been decked out for the party. There were streamers and flags flying, white-clothed tables covered the lawn outside The Tavern and bow-tied waiters were already scurrying about. The whole thing was quite breath-taking, wonderfully festive, wonderfully romantic.

The crowd surged out of the churchyard to the helicopter landing pad just beyond. It was extraordinary to think that all those people were there to greet me, that they were anxious for the first glimpse of me. Not DCI Piper, but Robin Davey's bride.