Death of a Perfect Wife by MC Beaton Page B

Thomas could be harsh with her husband for his own good. The fact that Paul did not want to go to the dentist in Inverness and the fact that Trixie was determined he should go was all over Lochdubh by lunchtime as the couple’s row on the subject had taken place in their front garden.
    ‘Afraid o’ the dentist like a wee wean,’ jeered Archie Maclean who had had all his teeth pulled out at the age of twenty-one and had never had to worry about a dentist since.
    Paul was eventually seen driving off in the van. At one o’clock, Mrs Kennedy, the boarder, returned to The Laurels with her sticky children to see if she could coax Trixie into making them all some sandwiches. The rain was falling steadily and the children were fractious and bored. But there was no sign of Trixie and her bedroom door was locked.
    Angela Brodie turned up at two. Mrs Kennedy was cheerfully raiding the pantry. ‘Mrs Thomas must be having a wee lie down,’ she said. ‘I cannae get a reply.’
    Angela ran up the stairs and knocked on Trixie’s door. Trixie had a separate room from her husband, an odd luxury in a couple who claimed they needed to rent out every available space to boarders. Angela hesitated. Then she knocked louder and called and waited. Silence.
    It was a big, rambling Victorian villa. A large fly buzzed monotonously against the stained glass window on the landing. From below came the wails of the Kennedy children demanding ‘mair jelly pieces’ by which they meant more jam sandwiches.
    Angela knew Paul had gone to Inverness to the dentist. Everyone knew that.
    The silence from behind Trixie’s door was uncanny.
    Suddenly alarmed, Angela began to hammer at the door and shout.
    Again she waited. Again that silence. The Kennedy family had fallen silent now. The fly buzzed against the glass and the rain drummed on the roof.
    Angela decided to go for help. She would look a fool if they burst into that bedroom and found Trixie fast asleep. But she remembered stories in the papers of people who had not interfered for fear of looking foolish and because of that fear, someone had died.
    She thought Hamish would laugh at her, but he put on his peaked cap and followed her to The Laurels. His face was set and grim. He tried to tell himself his feeling of foreboding was the weather. The midges danced through the raindrops, stinging his face and he automatically fished in his pocket for his stick of repellent.
    He walked up the stairs past the Kennedy family who were gathered at the foot. The children were strangely silent, their jam-covered faces turned upwards.
    He went up to Trixie’s room and hammered on the door. Then he tilted his head on one side and listened to the quality of the silence.
    ‘Stand back,’ he said curtly to Angela.
    He kicked at the lock with all his might and there came a splintering sound and the door burst open.
    Trixie Thomas lay half across the bed, her hair spilled over her face. He gently put back her hair and looked down at her contorted face and then he felt her pulse.
    ‘Get your husband here,’ he said over his shoulder.
    ‘Is she …?’ Angela put her hands up to her mouth.
    ‘Yes. But get him anyway.’
    Angela ran down the stairs and along the waterfront towards the surgery. Rain water poured down her face like the tears she could not yet shed.
    The receptionist called something as she ran past and burst into the consulting room.
    ‘Come quickly,’ Angela called.
    Dr Brodie was examining Mrs Wellington’s bared bosom with a stethoscope. Angela reflected wildly that she had never seen such enormous breasts before.
    ‘Mrs Brodie!’ screeched the outraged minis-ter’s wife, seizing a brassiere the size of a hammock.
    ‘It’s Trixie. She’s dead,’ said Angela, and then the tears came and great suffocating sobs.
    ‘Dear me. Dear me,’ said Mrs Wellington, encasing her girth rapidly in underwear and Harris tweed.
    Dr Brodie seized his bag and ran out of the surgery to his car. Hamish was