Ingrid Sonja Blenkinsop was the beauty of the village of Pentlesham.
Many rural villages have a famed local beauty, but Pentlesham’s surpassed most.
Despite her name, Ingrid had no Scandinavian connections at all, other than her father’s penchant for Swedish films.
Ingrid was very tall, blonde (with a little help), and blue-eyed, with a statuesque figure that meant she had the choice of all the men from the village (and far beyond).
And her choice was professional and, she hoped, potentially rich men.
She had already dated the local doctor, the nearest dentist, a solicitor, and two university lecturers, but these had either dropped her when they found her conversation insufficiently stimulating, or she had dumped them when she found someone she felt was more likely to bring her closer to the luxurious lifestyle she felt the world owed her. But mainly the latter.
However, she had apparently now decided no longer to beat about the bush, and to go for someone already financially established.
Such as Harry Willis, a used-car dealer and entrepreneur.
Ingrid and Harry were getting married that Saturday.
All seemed to be going well until, sitting at the top table in the marquee in Harry’s (and now Ingrid’s) extensive grounds, she stood up and lurched forward, clutching her stomach.
Doctor Davies had probably been waiting all his life to be able to say “Let me though - I’m a doctor.”
Poor Ingrid was dead even before he reached the table.
---
It was a well-known fact in Aleford Police Station that Burbidge hated taking witness statements, or indeed doing anything that looked as if it might involve a lot of writing or extra work of any sort.
But this time even Detective Inspector John Pratt was worried at the thought of interviewing so many people.
Harry and Ingrid seemed to have invited everybody they had ever met, including those encountered briefly on holidays when they were much younger, and people Ingrid hardly knew, but whom she felt would be awed by her new palatial home.
Pratt and Burbidge took up residence in a side tent, and started interviewing as many people as they thought both necessary and practicable.
Luckily, everybody seemed in agreement about the events of the afternoon.
After the wedding at the Cathedral, everybody had returned to Harry’s country estate. The original tasteful Georgian building had been “accidentally” demolished when Harry’s builders had tried unsuccessfully to build a nuclear-proof basement. The new building was clearly only mock-Georgian, but mock in the sense of ‘to ridicule,’ not ‘false.’
Everybody had got to the party around 1.00 p.m. There had been a splendid banquet laid on by the best catering company Harry could find in London.
At 4.00 p.m., or thereabouts, Ingrid began to wander around, talking to guests, but mainly showing off her house to friends she didn’t like.
At 6.00 p.m., she returned to the top table, tapped the microphone to check it was working, and was clearly about to announce that the band they’d hired was now playing in the converted barn nearby, not that everybody hadn’t already realised by the noise blasting forth from the building. It was not the original band they’d hired, but another band which had had a newer number one.
That was then that she’d slumped forward onto the table.
---
“Don’t worry. I’m good at techie stuff,” beamed Burbidge.
Back in Aleford Police Station, Pratt had obtained a copy of each of the DVD recordings that had been professionally made of the wedding (Harry had made sure that at least one of the crew had won an Oscar).
Having realised that most of the recordings were of people just milling aimlessly around drinking, Pratt was pleased when thy finally got to the one that was the most important.
It showed the top table and everything that occurred near it for the whole afternoon.
They fast forwarded through much of it, and finally got towards six o’clock. Then, Ingrid appeared at the far end of the table, walking steadily. She took a champagne flute off a tray being held by a liveried servant standing there, and then wandered to her seat. She tapped the microphone, and was clearly about to make an announcement. She stood up, but suddenly lurched forward, clutching her stomach.
The general hubbub in the marquee suddenly evaporated. The doctor rushed towards Ingrid, put his glass down on the table, and then examined her. He looked shocked, then turned and informed the crowd that Ingrid was dead. He asked the best man to keep nosey onlookers away from the table. Then he moved out of view, as he had told Pratt, to get his jacket to make the necessary phone calls.
Burbidge pressed the pause button. “Her champagne had been laced with some easily-obtainable, but rather tasteless shop-bought poison. It wasn’t something only someone like the doctor would have been able to get his hands on. It was quick-acting too. Up to ten or fifteen minutes, and that’s all.”
Pratt nodded. “But how could she have taken the only contaminated glass on the tray? We checked all the others – obviously everybody stopped drinking when they saw what had happened – and all the other glasses were OK.”
“I know there’s some way a magician can force a card on someone during a magic trick, so maybe that servant forced a particular glass on poor Ingrid. It didn’t look like it in the video though.”
“Have we traced the servant?” he asked.
Burbidge looked a little uncomfortable. “Well, we contacted the catering company, but apparently someone had fallen ill that very morning, and this guy was, more or less, just passing. He said he had experience, so he was quickly hired. It was all so convenient and suspiciously coincidental. And now we can’t find him. He seemed foreign was all the company could say.”
“Hmmm,” said Pratt, “So he may be our murderer then. Get onto Scotland Yard, circulate a photograph, that sort of thing.”
He sat back in his chair and thought.
He watched the video of the top table again.
It certainly didn’t look as if the glass were ‘forced’ on Ingrid.
But there was the same poison in her glass as in her stomach.
Something was wrong.
---
The next day, they still hadn’t found the servant.
For Burbidge, this was a clear indication that an international assassin or hitman had been hired.
Pratt watched the video yet again.
And again.
Finally, he paused the video, and turned to Burbidge. “Get the techie guys to have a look at the end of the video, will you? I’d like a close-up there,” he said, pointing towards the screen. “The recording’s of a very high quality, so they should be able to get a really good clear image.”
---
“The thing is,” Pratt explained, ”If the glass that Ingrid carried to the top table was just an ordinary glass of champagne, then whoever poisoned her must have done so just before she took the glass from that servant.”
“But that could have been anyone,” spluttered Burbidge, worried that he might have to re-interview everyone again.
Pratt, as usual, ignored him, “That someone could have met Ingrid, preferably in secret, and given her the poisoned champagne to drink. Then he or she could have taken the glass off her, and suggested to her that she should go back to the top table to announce that the band was going to start playing. Anyway, everyone could hear them tuning up, or whatever they do these days. And that someone might suggest she’d need a full glass of champagne.”
“I suspect that our untraceable servant standing in full view of the camera and her taking the glass off his tray may very well have been just a happy coincidence for our murderer. But it would have worked if she’d taken the glass from anywhere, as long as someone noticed that she did so. And who doesn’t remember what the bride does on her special day?”
“But it was the fact that the servant was not above board that really confused things from our
point of view.”
“Either way, the problem was that, if the glass that Ingrid carried to the table wasn’t poisoned, how come the one we found beside her body was?”
“So, who switched the glasses?”
“Everybody had been kept away from the table, so we have only one suspect …”
Even Burbidge caught on. “Doctor Davies,” he said.
Pratt nodded.
“I just made a few phone calls to the local gossips around here.”
“Doctor Davies was one of the professional gentlemen that Ingrid dated before she dumped him. Apparently, the splitting up was quite public and ignominious. He must have really resented that, enough to want to kill on her special day.”
“Anyway, in the video, Davies had his back to the camera a few times, so he could easily have switched the glasses.”
“And now I’ve had a look at the close-up of the recording. It clearly shows the glass Doctor Davies was carrying when he walked away from poor Ingrid’s body.”
“And it had lipstick on it …”
By the same Author:
The Trial of Inspector Pirat
(published February 2017)
Pirat’s Early Cases
(published April 2016)
The Return of Inspector Pirat: His First Book
(published 2015)
And, for younger readers …
Joan Malone Alone
(published 2016)
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