Once all the formal stuff was over, the musicians struck up again and Graham and I skipped back down the aisle to open the chapel door for the happy couple. It should have been an easy enough task, but when I turned the iron handle and pushed, it wouldn’t budge.
The chapel was tiny and Bill and Josie were approaching rapidly. Again I turned the handle, put my shoulder to the door and shoved. Nothing doing.
“Hurry up!” hissed Graham.
“It won’t move!” I complained. “You have a go.”
Graham grabbed the handle. It turned smoothly enough, but when he pushed, it was as though there was some kind of obstruction on the other side. Graham looked at me and I looked at Graham. Suddenly I had visions of Angelica barring the door. What if she was about to hurl a petrol bomb through? We’d be burned alive!
Bill and Josie were only a couple of metres away now, and Tessa was sending us one of her furious glares from the front of the chapel. If we didn’t get the door open – and fast – we’d be dead meat. Hurling ourselves at it, we both pushed with all our might. It budged just a few centimetres, but it was enough to see what – or rather who – was causing the obstruction.
Through the slit we could see Bill’s mother lying on the ground. Her eyes were staring unblinkingly back at us and she was strangely twisted, as though she’d been wracked by violent spasms. The contents of her handbag were strewn across the ground like she’d been searching increasingly frantically for her tablets.
And hurtling down the path – running away from the chapel as if her life depended on it – was Angelica.
For the second time in less than twenty-four hours Bill carried an unconscious woman into the villa – only this time she wasn’t apparently lifeless, she was actually dead.
Ruby had succumbed to a massive heart attack. While Bill had been exchanging vows with Josie, his mother had been exchanging life for death.
According to Doctor Psychondakis, it was an unfortunate accident. The old woman had absent-mindedly left her medication in her bedroom. If she’d had her tablets with her, she’d still be alive. It was sad, but there was no one to blame: she had died of natural causes.
The doctor’s verdict was passed from guest to guest within seconds. Everyone agreed that Ruby’s death was a bit of a downer, but nobody seemed unduly bothered about it – after all, it wasn’t like any of them had known her well. The only people who’d been remotely close to the old lady were Bill, Angelica and Josie – and even Josie hadn’t known her long. Bill was now sitting, distraught, in his mother’s room, keeping her corpse company. Josie was pacing up and down fretfully on the terrace. Angelica had disappeared.
Meanwhile, the Z-list celebrities laid into Sally’s beautifully prepared wedding feast like a flock of seagulls. Every possible taste was catered for and every international cuisine was represented: there were tables laden with everything from roast beef and Yorkshire puddings to chicken tikka masala, sweet and sour pork, green curry and pizza. But in the blazing heat neither Graham nor I felt particularly hungry. We took a small plate each and helped ourselves to a couple of chargrilled sardines and a bit of Greek salad. Then we headed for a quiet corner where we could talk.
“Do you reckon the doctor was right?” I asked Graham quietly.
He frowned. “He’s a medical practitioner. He ought to know what he’s doing.”
“It doesn’t feel quite right, though, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
We’d come across so many suspicious deaths lately that we’d developed a fine instinct for anything dodgy.
“I reckon someone might have stolen those tablets,” I said.
“What makes you think that?”
I remembered Ruby’s expression as she’d rummaged in her bag. “Well, it didn’t even occur to her that she might have left them back at the villa – that’s why she kept on fereting around in her bag. She knew she’d put them in there: maybe she even remembered doing it.”
“Old people’s memories can sometimes be defective,” Graham pointed out. “Young people’s too, for that matter.”
“Yes, I know – but she wasn’t exactly the daft-old-dear type, was she? She seemed pretty sharp to me. Suppose someone took them out of her handbag before she left the villa? Someone who knew she had a medical condition…”
“And that climbing up to the chapel would put a big strain on her heart,” Graham added. “And if she failed to take her medication, death would be the inevitable result…”
“So it might be murder?”
Graham nodded. “I agree, the whole thing does seem suspicious. Although I can’t begin to imagine who would want an old lady dead. Or why.”
“Murder by ‘natural’ causes,” I said. “Very clever. Who could have done it, though? Josie? Angelica? They must have known about the tablets.”
“Both women certainly had the means and the opportunity,” Graham agreed. “But what about the motive? Why would either of them want to kill Bill’s mother?’
I thought back to the scene we’d witnessed when we arrived. “Angelica wanted Ruby to talk to Bill. Do you remember? Maybe she’d pinned her hopes on Bill’s mum talking him out of getting married, and then when it didn’t work she was angry enough to want Ruby dead. She seems pretty unbalanced. And we saw her running away – that makes her look guilty.”
“Guilty –or afraid. She may have simply found the body. Most people find death somewhat unsettling.”
The terrace we were standing on overlooked the villa’s swimming pool. At that moment Josie came into view. She’d ditched her Greek-goddess outfit and was clad in a gold bikini and matching sandals with killer heels. She seemed to be having some difficulty walking in them, as if she wasn’t used to it, and looked a bit like a kid who’d raided her mother’s wardrobe. She’d clearly decided to go ahead with the planned post-wedding photo shoot despite Bill’s absence, because the man from Hi! magazine was trotting along behind her like a faithful hound. Josie settled herself on a sun lounger and the photographer circled her, snapping from every angle. Maybe she felt obliged to carry on with it. There was probably some sort of contract. Or maybe she was just heartless.
“That’s not her usual look,” I said thoughtfully.
“Isn’t it?” asked Graham. “Is that significant?”
“Could be. She looks kind of casual in most of the photos I’ve seen. Wears jeans nearly all the time. Yet that outfit’s downright trashy. The question is, which image is really her?”
Graham frowned. “Are you suggesting that Josie’s manner of wide-eyed innocence might be assumed?”
“Yes, perhaps it’s an act. It certainly worked on Bill, didn’t it? And now that she’s married him, she’s rich. Maybe those catty things they wrote about her in the papers were true: maybe she really is a money-grabbing little gold-digger. And suppose she had it in for Ruby for some reason?”
“But why would she? Bill’s mother clearly had no control over him.”
“Ruby seemed quite sympathetic to Angelica, though, didn’t she? That might be enough to make Josie angry.”
We weren’t getting anywhere. Nothing made much sense but I couldn’t shake off the gut feeling that those pills had been removed deliberately. My suspicions as to who might be responsible were evenly divided between Josie and Angelica.
“I wish we knew more about Angelica,” I said, frustrated. “I mean, why has she gone so completely bonkers?” I remembered Becca, a friend of my mum’s, who’d gone pretty weird after her husband had walked out on her. Mum had sat up with her night after night having long, anguished discussions around the kitchen table. Becca had been desperate, but nothing like as bad as Angelica. She hadn’t completely fallen apart. “Do you think Angelica was always a bit loopy? Maybe she was like it when they were married. If she’s always been difficult, it might explain why Bill fell for Josie. I wish I knew how to find out.”
There was silence for a while as we both considered the matter. Down below us came the happy sounds of minor celebrities splashing around in the pool. I noticed that Josie didn’t go in the water – she was posing by the edge but seemed reluctant to take the plunge. Perhaps she didn’t want to ruin her perfectly arranged hair.
“Sizal!” I exclaimed suddenly.
“What about him?”
“He used to do Angelica’s hair when she was with Bill. Women talk to their hairdressers, Graham! I bet he can tell us loads about her. Come on!”
I was off, with Graham at my heels like a Hi! photographer, as we ran in search of Sizal Bouffant.
He wasn’t stuffing his face along with Lucia and Hazel and the rest of the make-up and costume crew. He wasn’t splashing in the pool or sipping a drink on the lower terrace. We found Sizal Bouffant in the room where he had adjusted our wigs earlier that day.
And there was a large wasp banging against the glass. Banging and banging, trying to get out.
Sizal wasn’t hysterically begging and pleading for someone to get rid of it. He was lying, perfectly still and perfectly silent, across the chaise longue. His face was red and swollen. Five angry bumps on his cheek and neck had come up where he’d obviously been stung.
Next to him, hanging onto his lifeless arm like a drowning woman clinging to a log, was Angelica.