Chapter Seven #2
Wendy Wrigley arrived within fifteen minutes.
She and Kim were the only two customers.
The new arrival moved quickly, catching Kim’s eye, discreetly nodding, then ordering mint tea at the counter, voice hesitant, as if she was worried about being recognized.
Wendy came back from the counter with a milkless tea, bag still in.
‘You must live close, Wendy.’
‘Yes.’ She brought out a small mirror. ‘Oh dear. I’m afraid I find myself crying a bit in the morning.’
The honesty almost took Kim’s breath away.
‘It’s so nice to be with someone who wants to be with me,’ Wendy went on.
‘I have had somewhat of a … a fall from grace. I feel I must be repellent in some way. Sidmouth was where my husband grew up and we had many happy years here,’ Wendy went on, ‘so I thought I could start again here. I can feel it going wrong already. People suspicious of me. In Sidmouth I feel closer to Jonathan, if you know what I—’
‘Oh, I do,’ said Kim, amazed at her openness.
‘You said three questions, but you can ask as many as you want. The police must have asked me a thousand. And I was grieving, but also trying to contain my grief, and I think perhaps it made me look, I don’t know—’
‘Unsympathetic?’
‘To them, yes.’
‘They thought you did it.’
‘They still do. It’s the bane of my life,’ she said bitterly. ‘To lose the man you love and then be accused of …’
She had narrow features, with piercing eyes, and tears welled in them again.
The skin on her face was taut and free of make-up.
It was chilly outside, and the widow wore an army green gilet which, as she unzipped it, showed a slender physique with firm contours.
If she were not cut to ribbons by her grief, Kim thought, she would look sharp of dress and mind.
Kim suddenly said, ‘I think we’ve met before.’
Wendy replied, ‘No, no.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘You probably saw my picture in the papers. And – to my extreme embarrassment – I was onscreen a little as a teenager, in a soap.’
‘Oh! Which one?’
‘Gibba’s Farm.’
‘Yes!’ said Kim, warming to the woman hugely.
‘Nothing stranger than being a little recognizable from twenty years ago.’
‘You didn’t go on to acting?’
‘I was so rubbish at it. The whole of my life I’ve been told I’m just too honest for my own good.
I would come on set happy, they would tell me to play upset, and I would just look slightly less joyful.
I made my life with dear Jonathan, and we had two perfect children, now grown-up, and it was all so wonderful, and then it was destroyed.
I’ve tried to be strong for them.’ Wendy sipped her mint tea. ‘Like I say, ask me anything.’
Kim wondered what Edward’s three questions would have been, but she knew hers could be better.
‘Your husband died as a result of being shot by someone with a crossbow—’
‘Not me.’
‘I know, I’ve seen all the reports,’ said Kim. ‘You were at a cinema watching Thor.’
‘To be precise – Thor: Love and Thunder.’
‘Had you ever seen a Marvel film before?’
‘First question, and it’s a good one. No, I had not.’
‘Is that suspicious?’ asked Kim. ‘You were in a cinema watching a film you weren’t interested in, which meant you couldn’t be on the scene?’
‘My husband bought me the ticket. He loved Marvel films. Wanted me to share the joy.’
‘Do you mind if I write that down?’
‘Kim, do you promise you aren’t police? Ordinary people don’t write stuff down.’
‘I have to tell Edward, that’s all.’
‘The sleuth.’
Kim prickled. ‘There are three of us, and we only solved one crime, but I think he’d like to help you. He’s very … sympathetic.’
‘Good for a radio presenter.’
Kim reached into her top and pulled out her smartphone.
‘That’s a good place to keep it,’ said Wendy.
Kim said, ‘The first time it buzzed in there I thought I was having a heart attack.’ She opened a Notes file and typed.
‘So you got to the cinema in Barnstaple, and while you are in there, your husband is – is sadly killed—’
‘You can just say “killed”, Kim.’
‘—with your crossbow. Why did you have a crossbow?’
‘I honestly think the crossbow we owned is just a distraction. Okay, he was killed with one. And yes, we had one, and it was missing. But crossbow bolts are not like bullets. They don’t have barrel-marks that trace them back to the weapon.’
‘The bolt went through his heart.’
‘It did. It really did. Every day I wonder who could have done that, and then I imagine him flat out on the forest floor, knowing he was dying.’
‘Do you mind me asking why you had a crossbow?’ Kim tried again.
‘It wasn’t mine. I bought it for Jonathan.
He was wondering out loud about getting one because we had rabbits by the dozen on our land.
But he was getting a lot of fatigue, working so hard.
Long story short, crossbow for Christmas and then it mostly stays in its box.
The police called it mine because it was my purchase. ’
‘So where did it go?’
‘You didn’t hear? Some magnet fishers pulled it out of a river halfway between our house and where the body was found.
Months later, this was. We lived in a little village called Zeal Monachorum.
Jon’s dead body was found fifteen miles from Zeal, next to the private airfield.
’ She added, thoughtfully: ‘I was amazed Edward didn’t know of me. ’
‘He was dealing with a personal tragedy when your husband died.’
‘Oh, how sad.’ Said with real feeling. ‘I understand. How could I not?’
Kim noted the found crossbow in her Notes, and Wendy spoke again before she could ask her next question.
‘The police have been absolute bastards,’ said Wendy, as if wanting Kim to take every word down.
‘They’ve been over every phone, every computer, been through every drawer, even turned out a drawer of socks, looked at every website I’ve ever visited, I guess just wanting to find out that I’d googled HOW TO KILL A HUSBAND, or texted a contract killer or had a secret lover.
If I had got someone else to do it, they would have found messages, surely?
Or deletions? In the end I almost wanted them to.
But there was nothing! Nothing! I was in the cinema! ’
Kim looked up from her phone to see the face opposite her crumpled with sadness. She had noted some of the words, but not the emotion. ‘Edward had three questions, but he didn’t get as far as telling me them – oh, wait.’ She saw an unread text.
Just ask if she can take me to where doc died
Kim showed Wendy the screen.
‘Of course I can. I want that. But I haven’t been there. He will need to find the exact spot. And it will be hard for me, so I may cry.’
‘Are you sure you can do it?’
‘I’ll do it if he can clear my name.’
‘Did your husband have any enemies?’
‘None I can think of. He’d got a bit unfocused at work and made a couple of mistakes, and he was thinking of winding down or stopping.
It being a rural surgery, he would end up doing a bit of stitching and sewing, you know, and take bloods, and he even did some vet work as a favour.
But he told me he wasn’t so good at it lately.
He lost interest in his hobbies – he loved making fireworks, for example. ’
‘How unusual!’
‘He would always be explaining his “recipes”. You get the different ingredients and mix them all together and bang.’
‘Literally.’
‘It wasn’t my thing. But like I say, he was losing interest. I figured, he was hitting his fifties, that’s all.’
‘That’s not old. Did your husband have mates?’
‘Oh, a couple of great friends here in Sidmouth from university days. Twin guys who were both medics, the Hursts. Also a vicar called Zircher, pronounced like “Circus”. Jon was quite close to the lady who did the admin at the surgery, Jocelyn. Just tremendously good, kind people who have made so many sacrifices for patients and parishioners. There were a few others. A tight friendship group, you might say. The murder just destroyed them all.’
‘And definitely no enemies?’
‘Look, doctors sometimes misdiagnose. They might miss a cancer, call it a stomach ache, get blamed. There are probably some of those on his books.’
‘Gosh. Could Edward meet his friends?’
‘The Hursts? The others? Anything that might move this on. I need you to help me. Hey, do you mind if I head on now? Talking about it wipes me out. And I think those ladies have recognized me.’
Sure enough, while Kim and Wendy had been talking, the café had opened.
A pair of elderly ladies had stopped with their teas, whispered urgently to each other, and then took two seats on the same side of an empty table diagonally opposite Wendy and Kim.
The only reason for taking a position where they both faced the inside of the café, not each other, was surely so they could keep an eye on Sidmouth’s most suspicious widow.
They stared through thick spectacles, eyes unblinking and magnified by the lenses, like owls fixed on prey.