Bunburry--Sweet Revenge by Helena Marchmont

Author:Helena Marchmont [Helena Marchmont]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bastei Entertainment
Published: 2020-01-22T11:04:56+00:00

9. The Bunburry Parallels

“Poison is a woman’s weapon?” scoffed Emma. “Sexist nonsense.”

It sounded perfectly reasonable to Alfie. Administering poison didn’t require physical strength, but it did require planning and guile. He was surprised by Emma’s reaction. Surely a police officer should keep an open mind.

Emma picked up a pebble from the ground beside the bench, and hurled it into the river.

“Why not a man?” she said. “Don’t you find it peculiar that Greg wasn’t affected?”

“The groom?” said Alfie, startled. “Why would he want to sabotage his own wedding?”

“He wasn’t sabotaging the wedding. That was the cover. Collateral damage. He was targeting his grandfather.”

Alfie shifted his weight on the bench to get more comfortable. He normally loved coming here, Aunt Augusta’s favourite place, listening to the soothing ripples of the river as it flowed under Frank’s Bridge. A place of calm.

It was anything but calm today, given how restive Emma was.

“I can see that the poisoner might not want to get poisoned,” said Alfie. “But surely they would cover themselves by pretending to be affected? After all, if they were making a dash for the portaloos, nobody would know whether it was genuine or not. Doesn’t it show that the people who weren’t affected are the very ones who didn’t do it?”

“Or it could be a double bluff,” Emma retorted.

Alfie took a moment to puzzle this out. But he still didn’t have an answer to the key question.

“Why would he want to target his grandfather?”

“His inheritance,” said Emma. “Morgan Sutcliffe told Aunt Liz he was worried that Greg was too like him. That might not just mean his track record with women, it might mean his obsession with money.”

Alfie thought back to the text he had quoted to Edith: Love of money is the root of all evil. A sweeping generalization, but with more than a grain of truth in it. And attempting to murder your grandfather could certainly be classified as evil.

“Was Greg obsessed with money at school?” asked Alfie.

“He didn’t have to be. His parents showered him with the stuff. He always had the best of everything – he got a Harley-Davidson when he was seventeen.”

“And what about girls?”

“What about them? He was good looking and he had a motorbike. They all threw themselves at him.”

“Including you?”

“Not my type.”

Did she mean she didn’t like his looks, his personality or his bike? Or that she didn’t like him because he was a boy?

“Heather adored him right from the start, but she’ll never adore him as much as he adores himself. He finally started going out with her when he was in sixth form, and they’ve been together ever since – does that qualify them for the title of childhood sweethearts? Anyway, now she’s got him to the altar, and she’s welcome to him.”

Emma obviously wasn’t Greg Sutcliffe’s greatest fan.

“You really think he could have tried to kill his grandfather?” Alfie asked.

“I wouldn’t have said so back then when we were teenagers. But I don’t know what pressures he might be under now.

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