“The Darling Buds of May”

Not a very auspicious day for a wedding, Rex thought as he looked out Helen’s bedroom window. A drizzly gray day beckoned feebly, and windy gusts rapped the branches of the willow tree against the panes of double glazing. Evidently, May in Derbyshire was no more predictable than May back home in Scotland, and Rex felt sorry for the bride and groom who would be setting out on a new life together this very day.

Wrapped in his flannel dressing gown, Helen entered the room with a tray and placed it between them on the bed before burrowing her feet under the covers. “You must have brought the cold weather down from Edinburgh,” she said. “I had to put the central heating back on.”

“It was fine weather in Scotland when I left yesterday afternoon. Helen, you should have let me make breakfast.”

“I felt like spoiling you. I tried to make your eggs the way you like them—soft-boiled, but not too runny. And the marmalade is homemade, courtesy of Roger Litton, the Home Ec teacher at my school.”

She proceeded to pour tea into two blue mugs. “I hope the rain will clear up for the wedding today.”

“And for our hiking trip.” A keen walker and nature-lover, Rex was looking forward to their excursion into the Peak District the following day.

“I do feel sorry for Polly and Timothy,” his fiancée remarked. “But I think it’s an indoor reception. Anyway, it may still turn out sunny.”

“You are the eternal optimist, Helen.” Rex took a more pragmatic view of British weather: be prepared and always take a brolly. He cracked the shell of his egg with the back of his spoon, sprinkled on some salt and pepper, and dipped a buttered strip of toast into the thick warm yolk.

“Perfect,” he complimented Helen on the consistency of the egg and, noticing she was not eating anything, asked, “Not hungry?”

“I have to fit into my suit,” she explained.

“Och, it’s not like you’re the bride. All eyes will be on Polly.”

“Including yours?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know. You’re just trying to be helpful.” She deposited a conciliatory peck on his cheek. “I can’t believe Polly is getting married,” she went on dreamily. “But Timmy ended up doing all right for himself, considering he was such a sickly child and missed a lot of school.”

“You said he was an accountant?”

“Yes, at quite a prestigious firm.” Helen shook her head in disbelief. “Seems like just yesterday Polly was in my office crying and carrying on. That girl had so many problems.”

“Were they childhood sweethearts?”

“Oh, no,” Helen said, refilling their mugs. “Timmy was bullied
mercilessly at school. Polly, on the other hand … well, let’s just say she was very popular with the boys. While Timmy was being picked on in the playground, she was kissing all and sundry behind the bicycle shed. After she dropped out, we heard she was going with an undesirable character from Aston. So when we got the invitation to the wedding, we at the school were all rather surprised—and touched. And her mother is ecstatic.”

“Have you met Mrs. Newcombe?”

“Yes, and she’s perfectly dreadful.”

Rex shot Helen a look, his spoon suspended midway to his mouth. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you speak an unkind word aboot anybody,” he said, his Scottish accent betrayed in the “aboot.”

“I know, it’s totally uncharitable of me, but you’ll find out for yourself. They live in a Victorian Folly—one of those whimsical places built by people with more money than sense. Anyway, the headmaster used to call Mrs. Newcombe in to his office most weeks to discuss Polly’s behaviour—her smoking on school grounds, the truancy, and so on, so I got to know her quite well. No dad in the picture, you see. He disappeared, quite mysteriously, while Polly was still very young.”

“An only child?”

“Yes, and only an aunt in the family.”

“It must be gratifying to know you had a positive influence on Polly’s life.” Rex checked his watch. “What time do we have to get going?”

“By ten.”

An hour later, they were getting ready to leave the house. Standing in front of the hallway mirror, Rex spruced up his ginger whiskers with a brush of his fingers. The silk tie Helen had surprised him with was the same cornflower blue as her tailored suit, and the exact shade of her eyes. He leaned toward the glass. Did the tie clash with his hair? No, of course not; Helen had perfect taste in all things.

“You look amazing,” he told her reflection behind him.

Her ears beneath the blond chignon revealed the swan earrings he had bought for her when they first met, that Christmas at Swanmere Manor, the location of his first private murder case.

“You don’t look half bad yourself.” She adjusted the pink silk carnation in the buttonhole of his charcoal gray jacket.

The boutonniere had been sent with the invitation. The card, a pink affair with scalloped edges and embossed in gold script, currently reposed against the clock on the living room mantelpiece. Rex had an inkling a leitmotif of pink would run through the day’s proceedings. He just hoped there would be a lavish banquet. He already felt peckish, in spite of the breakfast he had consumed. “How many people will be there?” he inquired.

“Polly said it would be a small reception for family and close friends, and a few teachers from the school, including Clive.”

“As in Clive, your old boyfriend?” Hmm … Rex didn’t quite know how he felt about Helen’s ex-beau attending the wedding. Emotions tended to run high at such occasions, especially when everybody had too much to drink. Still, it might be interesting to finally meet the mathematics teacher and see if he was as boring as Rex imagined him to be.

“Yes, Clive will be there,” Helen said lightly, “as will the Littons. Roger was Polly’s Home Ec teacher and sort of took her under his wing. Diana teaches history.”

Rex speculated anew about the tie. Undoubtedly, Helen was keen to present him in the best possible light to her friends—and to Clive, whose attendance she had flagrantly omitted to mention when she invited him to her protégée’s nuptials two months ago.

He watched as she checked the locks on the windows and the bolt on the back door. “I didn’t know you were so security conscious,” he remarked.

“I’m not, usually, but there’s been a spate of burglaries in the county. Not that I have a lot in the way of valuables, as you know. Mostly, it’s big places in outlying areas that have been targeted.”

Rex carried the gift for the bride and groom outside, a cut-glass fruit bowl that Helen had purchased. He couldn’t understand why a young couple would require a gargantuan fruit bowl, and privately considered a toaster a more practical present for two people setting up house for the first time together.

He held his black umbrella over Helen’s head as they started down the path to the driveway, at the same time attempting to keep droplets of rain off the gift’s white and silver wrapping. Juggling gift and brolly, he opened the driver’s door of her old blue Renault, which was marginally roomier than his Mini Cooper. Environmental concerns aside, he would not have opted for such a compact car had he anticipated frequent trips from Edinburgh to Derby. Next time he would take the train and save himself the leg-cramping 250 mile drive.

Installed in the passenger seat, gift perched on his knees, he pulled a map from the door pocket and located Aston-on-Trent on the outskirts of Derby, neighboring the canal village of Shardlow. Helen set the windshield wipers in motion and reversed into Barley Close, a cul-de-sac lined with 1930s semi-detached red brick homes, the sodden front lawns and early summer flowerbeds as forlorn as a lover stood up in the rain.

Definitely not an auspicious day for a wedding.