Free The Marriage Hearse by Kate Ellis Page A

‘I’m still getting signals. There’s definitely more.’
    But Margaret had other ideas. ‘And have them accuse us of interfering with a corpse and who knows what else. Use your brains,
     Brian. Cover her up again and leave her be.’ She lookedat Big Eddie. ‘And no coming back. We do things properly. Do you hear? I think we could all do with a nice cup of tea.’
    The two men followed her back to the farmhouse with their heads bowed. Brian Lightfoot had discovered quite early on in their
     twenty-eight years of marriage that Margaret was always right.
    Gerry Heffernan had headed straight back to the office after their visit to Marion Blunning. Wesley knew he should have tried
     to get off home early to appease Pam. But he wanted to see Kirsten Harbourn’s cottage in Lower Weekbury again. Or rather Kirsten
     and Peter’s cottage.
    He wondered if the bereaved bridegroom had been back there since the discovery of his fiancée’s body. If Wesley had been in
     the same position, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to face the place again.
    When he arrived in Lower Weekbury, he parked the car down a lane about fifty yards from the cottage and walked slowly up to
     the front door. He looked around, wondering how Steve Carstairs had got on with his door-to-door enquiries. It was only a
     hamlet – not many doors to enquire at – and he thought it likely that the other cottages belonged mostly to weekenders, preoccupied
     with their own affairs rather than their neighbours.
    The young constable guarding the front door looked worried, as if he had the cares of the world on his shoulders.
    Wesley smiled at him encouragingly. ‘All right, Dearden? Anything to report?’
    ‘Not really, sir. We’ve had a few journalists but apart from that …’ He said the word ‘journalists’ as Pam might have spoken
     of the presence of ants in her kitchen.
    Dearden opened the front door for him and he stepped inside the silent house. As he walked through the rooms he noted little
     details. A magazine with a picture of a beaming bride on the front cover lay on the coffee table in the small living room.
     Two toothbrushes in the bathroom – his and hers. The wedding dress hanging against the wardrobe like a giant white jellyfish
     in the room where Kirsten had died and the make-up lined up on the dressing table.The bed had been stripped by the forensic people and the bedside light taken away. Wesley bowed his head. This was a place
     of thwarted hope; of life cut short by violence. And he could hardly bear to be there.
    He returned to the living room and began to open the drawers of the Shaker-style beechwood sideboard. Perhaps there would
     be something that would give some hint about her life and why she died. But there was nothing there he didn’t expect to see.
     Photographs of happier days. Letters from the mortgage company. There were no personal letters – letter writing these days
     seemed to be a dying art – but there was always the chance that her e-mails might reveal something. A computer sat on a desk
     in the corner of the room. He’d ask someone to examine its contents and see if anything interesting came up.
    He was about to go when something caught his eye. A glossy brochure on top of a pile of women’s magazines. The Morbay Language
     College. He picked it up. It was in several languages, not all of which Wesley recognised, and showed pictures of happy, industrious
     students – mostly beautiful young women – working in a spacious classroom or relaxing in the extensive and well-kept gardens
     of a large, red-brick villa, presumably the college. This was where Kirsten had worked as a secretary. And first thing tomorrow
     he and Gerry Heffernan would go there and discover whether her work colleagues could throw any more light on the young bride’s
     life.
    He walked slowly to the window and looked out. A car was passing, slowing almost to a halt. A blue car but Wesley couldn’t
     see the make. The man