Week 17 - Anyone Seen the Bride?

The two policemen repeatedly referred to it as mysterious and apparently Becky’s family had not heard from her since our sham wedding day. I tried to answer their questions but I hadn’t got a clue where she could be. It was quite a shock when the plumper of the two policemen asked if I suspected ‘foul play’. Why would there be ‘foul play’, I mean it seemed clear that Becky had decided that she could not marry this council worker and had gone in search of more excitement. Or was I been a little slow here and had I accepted things too quickly? I told the officers about the texts I had received in the early morning of the wedding. This just resulted in one of the officers quickly getting on his walkie-talkie as if relaying some vital new information. The other policeman then asked to see the phone and the message. Of course I had long since deleted the message as it wasn’t exactly a good memento of the day. The wording of the message was very clearly itched in my brain as it wasn’t exactly an everyday text. Although as I rarely used the phone I could probably remember most of the messages I had received. The attitudes of the officers to me appeared to change and it became apparent that they believed I was hiding something about Becky. Trying to make them less suspicious I showed them the unused wedding dress. This didn’t exactly help my case as they thought it was strange that it was unworn and said they would have to take it away for finger prints. I protested that it would be mainly full of my fingerprints and the plumb one just made more notes in his notebook.

Finally the policemen left me in peace, but made it clear that they would be continuing their enquiries in the morning.

Sleeping that night was almost impossible with my head full of thoughts of the horrible fate that might have befell my beloved Becky, thoughts of Heather’s call and more scary thoughts of date with Shirley. Finally at around six on the Sunday morning I fell asleep and was rather startled a couple of hours later with the sound of the phone ringing. In the hope it was Heather and not the police I ran to the phone and picked up the receiver. The female voice seemed vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place it at first. After a few seconds the caller who seemed quite distressed revealed she was Carol, Becky’s best friend. She explained that she really had to talk to me as something terrible had happened. I was thinking that after I had been jilted and had to endure a date with Shirley surely things couldn’t get much more terrible. Carol made it quite clear that she had to see me and she had to see me today. So I gave her directions and told her to come around to the flat and we could talk about it.


Carol was a friend of Becky’s I only saw from a distance and never really got to know her. She always smiled nicely and I know she was some kind of social worker. She had met Becky when they attended some conference together. It was just after mid-day when Carol finally arrived and she was almost shaking. I wasn’t quite sure how to welcome her so I just smiled and pointed into the lounge. Carol seemed thinner and maybe taller than I had recalled but surely she hadn’t grown. All she seemed to be saying was that she had made a really big mistake. To try and calm her down I offered her sweet tea or something stronger. She opted for the sweet tea which was a problem as I had run out of sugar over a month ago. I looked in the kitchen cupboard for something sweet and noticed some golden syrup. Ok it was past its use by date, but I thought a dollop in the tea might make it sweet. It didn’t seem very keen to dissolve, but when I returned to the lounge it was the least of my worries. Carol was now sobbing uncontrollably. She just kept telling me she was sorry. So very very sorry.

I had the horrible feeling I was about to find out something nasty. My mind was working at triple it’s normal speed. The theories going through my mind could have come straight out of Miss Marple’s head. Had Carol killed Becky or maybe she was having a lesbian affair with her. I must stop watching those late night films on Channel Four.

Eventually Carol composed herself just enough to tell me she had no idea where Becky was and was really worried. Well, that was a great help. She had not seen her since the night before the wedding. Well, the day that was supposed to be our wedding. Since then she had not seen or heard from Becky. She then cried even more and her nose began to stream as well. It was at this point I remembered that I was out of tissues as well as sugar. I handed Carol two sheets of Paddington Bear kitchen roll, but even with it being super absorbent it was struggling to keep up with the stream of tears and snot.

So what would Miss Marble or Hetty Wainthorpp do now? The only new information it seemed Carol could provide was what happened the night before the murder, sorry jilting. I tried to look intimidating as I asked Carol what exactly Becky had said to her the night before. Carol just kept apologising and then gave me the news that I really hadn’t been expecting. She said that Becky had been so broken hearted because she knew she couldn’t possibly marry me. The reason was that she had slept with another man just two weeks before our wedding day. I was stunned by this news, but who was he and perhaps more importantly where was Becky now.

Next Week : The guilty party revealed