The Wedding

by Cathy Cole

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Suspense

Synopsis

There's no good time to discover a dead body. But in the middle of your wedding day has to be the worst time ever.

Jenny had never intended to return to the windy cliffside town of Innisard. But when her fiancé Richard suggests they marry in the Irish town she grew up in, the town where her parents were buried, she knows it's time to face the past so she can move on with her future.

Then they find a dead body on the cliffs. A murder victim. Who looks identical to her husband.

Faced with the prospect of her husband having a secret twin, Jenny feels the threads of her future begin to unravel, along with her wedding. How can she trust this man, for better or worse, when he's clearly hiding secrets? Why is his brother here in Innisard? And was the murderer intending to kill his twin, or Richard himself?

But as Jenny battles with the vows she has made, other wedding guests start to disappear, and it becomes clear that there's someone here intent on destroying Jenny's big day... and her life.

With the killer closing in and time running out, there is only one thing that Jenny can be certain of - her husband is not who he says he is.

Release date: January 15, 2026

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 352

Sample

There wasn’t really a good time to discover a body, but slap bang in the middle of your wedding day had to be the absolute worst time ever.

Was it an omen? Jenny, the new Mrs Richard Durkin, wondered, trying to swallow back a scream of hysteria. She was a grown-ass woman – a married grown-ass woman – and midwife to boot. She didn’t do hysteria. Especially not today.

The strange thing was that for a hastily arranged, last-minute wedding, everything had gone surprisingly to plan. She hadn’t even baulked at Richard insisting they return to her hometown of Innisard to tie the knot. An orphan like her, Richard figured one of them should have family present, and seeing as she was the only one with any extended family, whom, he pointed out, she’d never introduced him to, he’d decided now was as good a time as ever to remedy that.

Part of her was happy to go back, especially when she’d heard from Aunt Gert that Maggie’s Point – the old lighthouse she’d spent many a happy day playing in and around – had been newly restored and was available to rent as an upmarket B&B. What better place for a wedding reception than her childhood tower of solace?

And the lighthouse hadn’t disappointed. Fresh white paint coated the exterior, a stunning contrast to the post-box red railing circling the top deck, which had once housed the immense light that had steered innumerable ships to safety. Inside, Jenny was delighted to find the lighthouse held true to its original shape, with deeply recessed windows – so wide and thick you could put a cushion in them and sit and stare out to sea in comfort for as long as you wanted – and a black iron spiral staircase that wound upward to the bedroom and top deck above.

It was so much more than she remembered; light and airy inside, with its fresh, bleached-wood furniture and blue/white decor, very shakerish in appearance. A palate that was immediately soothing and calming. Like coming home.

Unlike the response when she told the aunts that she and Richard intended to stay there together the night before the wedding.

‘Scandalous!’ Aunt Evil had told Jenny in a phone call the day before, the word ending in a sound only audible to cats or dogs.

Evil wasn’t her real name, of course. It was Evie. Jenny and her cousins had named her that when they were little. Evie becoming Evil – changing that one letter – made the name feel much more fitting, because the woman was a total harridan. The bane of their childhood.

‘The groom shouldn’t see the bride before the wedding,’ Evil had continued. ‘It’s bad luck.’

‘I’ll make sure to blindfold him before he goes to sleep,’ Jenny had joked, but Evil wasn’t appeased.

‘You’d think with your history you’d give more credence to tradition, missy.’

A sharp, painful flashback to a dark night, eighteen years ago. ‘You say tradition, I say superstition,’ Jenny had countered, trying to quash the memory.

‘Be that as it may, but we all know what happens when we think we’re above such things, don’t we?’

Jenny had refused to rise to the bait, or give in to the narrow-minded opinions of the village she had grown up in and left at the first chance she got. It was Richard who had convinced her that spending the night before the wedding apart was a good idea. ‘Surely it’s a small price to pay,’ he’d told her. ‘They’re hosting our wedding, and if it makes them happy …? Plus,’ his eyes had twinkled, ‘we will have the rest of our lives to spend together, what’s a couple of days?’

Jenny could refuse him nothing when he smiled at her like that, blue eyes sparkling, sexy dimple dimpling. Which was why her groom had spent the night before their wedding in a B&B with his best man Sean, and she had spent hers attempting to stop her best friend Ita from trying to get them both wasted. Jenny wanted to be fresh for her wedding day. In the end, Ita was content to drink alone. She remembered Ita’s hungover expression when she’d called her that morning for breakfast, the elegant dark brows pulled together, a fragile frown on her smooth brown skin.

The aunts had pulled out all the stops – hairdressers, beauticians, cars. They’d even laid on a bus to take the guests to and from the reception at Maggie’s Point. Aunt Gert had been exceptionally clever in assigning roles so no one was left out. Jenny had felt slightly overwhelmed by the volume of cousins, cousins’ children and all the other sundry relatives who had appeared from the woodwork. Luckily, apart from Ita and Richard’s best man Sean, there had been no other outsiders at the wedding ceremony itself, with Jenny’s sickly pale cousin Dermot the main usher, directing proceedings with his usual cavalier attitude of ‘sit wherever you want, man’.

It had been pitiful to see so few people stand behind Richard in the groom’s pews, but she’d loved him even more as he’d squared his shoulders, turned to embrace her as she walked up the aisle, and in doing so embraced her whole wonky family at the same time. It was only standing in that packed chapel that Jenny truly realised how alone Richard must feel, having no other family at all. And a wave of love for him had flowed over her. How was it even possible to love him even more than she did already?

They had said their vows without a hint of hesitation, their voices ringing to the rafters in her old childhood church. They’d left the chapel amid applause, grinning, smiling faces lining their departure.

Perfect. Everything, and more importantly everyone, in their place.

Except for the dead body.

AN HOUR EARLIER:

The wedding car, driven by one of Jenny’s uncles, took them the short distance to the graveyard nestled on a small hill close to the seafront. It wasn’t a huge graveyard, but it was meticulously tended. Innisarders took excellent care of their dead. On a good day, like today, you could sit on one of the benches dotted around the area and bask in the warmth of the sun while enjoying the stunning vista of sea and sand. A beautiful spot to rest for all eternity. A strange place to visit on your wedding day, some might think, but Jenny wanted to share the happiest day of her life with the two people she wished with all her heart could have been there to share it with her. Her parents. She approached the grave with an odd mixture of guilt and trepidation.

‘Thanks for doing this,’ she told Richard. ‘I know it’s silly, but …’

‘It’s not silly at all.’ Richard took her hand.

‘I just want to lay my bouquet here so they can be … I don’t know, involved somehow.’

‘It’s a beautiful thought. I really wish I could have met them.’

‘Me, too.’ Jenny looked at the simple headstone inscribed with her parents’ names and date of death. Eighteen long years ago. Guilt was an aged, yet still ravenous beast that she’d spent far too long feeding.

If only I hadn’t gone out that night, did what I did, they’d still be here. They’d still be alive.

It was hard to believe she was now the same age her mother was when she died. Thirty-two. No age at all, and yet she’d been parent to a stroppy, out-of-control fourteen-year-old at that point. Teenage years. Not a good time to lose your parents, but then again, was any time good?

‘We know they’re with us today. Maybe our parents are having a right old party in heaven, just for us.’ Richard smiled, and she squeezed his hand, feeling her new wedding band pinch as it met her engagement ring and fought for its place.

That’s what Jenny loved about Richard – or one of the many things she loved about him. He understood. He knew what it felt like to be alone in the world.

But they were no longer alone. They had each other. Love swelled in her heart, filling her with warmth.

‘You ready?’ Richard asked.

Jenny nodded. ‘Yes.’ She took one last look at the grave. ‘Let’s not take the car,’ she said, a spur-of-the-moment decision as they left the graveyard. ‘We can go back to the lighthouse that way.’ She pointed to the beach.

‘Are you mad?’ Richard looked nervously at the thundering sea.

‘The tide will be in soon, never mind all those steps. You remember the steps? All one hundred and five tiny, cracked and broken steps. They suit their name: the Devil’s Teeth.’ He shuddered. ‘I swear you’re out to torment me, making me, an acrophobic, honeymoon in a lighthouse on top of a cliff.’

Jenny laughed, knowing he didn’t mean it. Richard’s fear of heights was legendary – even going up a flight of stairs could trigger it – but, being a psychiatrist, he refused to give into it, constantly pushing himself to overcome what he saw as a weakness. ‘Just think of it as extra exposure therapy,’ she told him. ‘Now, come on, don’t be a wuss. If we hurry, we can make Smugglers Cove before it floods.’

Smugglers Cove lay just beyond the beach, gained by a narrow strip of sand that was only accessible at low tide.

When Richard hesitated, Jenny grabbed his hand. ‘I promise if we reach the cliff base and the tide is too far in, we’ll come right back.’

‘But the car will be gone by then, and—’

‘I’ll make it worth your while.’ Jenny wriggled her eyebrows suggestively.

‘Witch.’ Richard brushed a strand of fiery red hair out of her eyes. ‘How can I say no to that? To you?’

‘You can’t.’

‘No,’ he said softly, ‘I can’t. Not even when I should.’

‘We’re going to walk to the reception, Cap,’ Jenny shouted to her uncle, waving for him to go ahead without them.

‘Cap?’ Richard asked. ‘I thought his name was Mick?’

‘It is. Cap is a nickname – Captain Mick – he sails a lot,’ she said as if it should be obvious.

‘Oh.’

‘We call his wife, my aunt Sheila, Scuttlebutt.’

‘Scuttlebutt?’

Jenny giggled. ‘You’ll understand when you meet her.’

Cap, huge belly straining in his too-tight suit, wasn’t laughing. He appeared flustered that they weren’t returning in his beautiful car, angry even. He muttered something they couldn’t hear.

‘I fear we may have upset him?’ Richard said.

‘He’ll get over it.’

‘Then let’s go, wife.’

Wife. Jenny liked the sound of that.

She used Richard’s shoulder to steady herself as she took off her high heels and laced the straps through her fingers, before linking arms with her new husband.

The beach was deserted. Understandable. When the tide was on the turn, it could be dangerous, sweeping in so fast it was easy to get cut off. Many an unwary tourist had met a watery end, so much so that huge signs now dotted the shoreline warning of the danger. Plus, given the chill September day and forecasted storm for Sunday – reported as going to be the worst storm Ireland had seen in over forty years – it was no wonder they had the beach to themselves. Jenny was half disappointed that they were going to miss it. Riding out a storm in Maggie’s Point sounded right up her street – the angry sea, the howling wind and driving rain … all experienced from the safety of the lighthouse atop the high cliff. Bliss.

But Richard had been adamant they weren’t going to delay their honeymoon, scheduling their flight for early tomorrow afternoon, well before the storm was due to strike.

‘Come on.’ Richard tugged her hand.

‘There’s no hurry.’ Jenny was enjoying the feeling of cold sand between her toes and the sound of the waves as they thundered to shore; being, just for a moment, alone and accountable to no one. The second they hit the reception they would be on call to numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, old friends – people she hadn’t seen in an eternity. She wanted to hold on to these few minutes, just her and Richard, for as long as she could. ‘No hurry,’ she said again.

‘Oh, I think there is.’ Richard swung her around and pulled her tight to his chest. ‘The sooner I get you there, the sooner we get this over and done with and I finally get you alone.’

‘“Get this over and done with?” You mean our wedding reception?’ Jenny tried to sound angry, but she was too happy, and it showed.

‘Exactly, Mrs Durkin.’ Richard lifted a curl of red hair from her face, wound it around his finger. ‘As gorgeous as that dress is – and it is gorgeous – I’d sooner see you out of it.’

Jenny’s knees weakened at the sight of his sexy dimple. He’d only one, at the right-hand side of his mouth, but it was enough. She touched it now, trailed a finger over his lips, before tugging his shirt free from his trousers, slipping her hands inside, running them up and down his back, fingers finding the scar in the dip of his spine, tickling, teasing.

‘Good, because there’s method in my madness.’ She nodded to the beach. ‘This way gets us there ten minutes sooner than if we’d taken the car back. Ten minutes when no one is expecting us. And,’ she said with a flutter of eyelashes, ‘we have to pass Maggie’s Point to get to the reception. No one will know if we duck inside the lighthouse and put those ten minutes to good use.’

Richard threw back his head, laughed. ‘I like your thinking, although I must admit to a slight outrage that you think ten minutes will be enough. It takes at least five minutes to get up that bloody spiral staircase.’

‘That’s because you do it almost on your hands and knees – with your eyes closed – but who said I was talking about the bedroom?’ Jenny grinned impishly. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’

Hand in hand, they raced up the beach, around the small sliver of sand that was still visible at the cliff edge, and were soon out of sight of the village and alone in the small, pretty inlet of Smugglers Cove. It was a lovers’ paradise, pure white sand, towering cliffs either side, stunning blue waves with white-tipped peaks as far as the eye could see.

‘Much too cold,’ Jenny said, catching the lustful glint in Richard’s eyes and feeling an answering echo. She kissed him roughly, grabbing his bottom lip with her teeth. ‘And no time before the tide comes in.’

She was right. Already the tide was racing towards them, beginning to fill the small sandy beach.

‘Hurry.’ Jenny scrambled up the first of the Devil’s Teeth – the flight of uneven stone steps cut into the cliff side that led to the lighthouse – Richard right behind her. Waves thundered after them. Jenny grabbed Richard’s hand, dragging him with her up the next few steps and around a tight bend to the next one. They were out of breath by this time. Jenny panting through her smile. ‘I told you we would make i—’ Her voice broke off. ‘What’s that?’ She pointed ahead to something on the third step of the Devil’s Teeth. ‘Oh my God, it’s … it’s—’

Richard leaned past her, saw the prone figure and immediately tried to shield her.

Jenny didn’t need shielding. As a nurse, she’d seen her fair share of dead bodies and she knew immediately that’s what this was.

The bloodied, jeans-clad body lay face down, immobile, the amount of congealed blood pooled around it enough to tell anyone with half a brain, never mind someone with a nursing degree, that there was nothing to be done. Still, Jenny bent and checked for a pulse. Nothing. It looked like the man – and she was sure it was a man by the build and clothes – had been beaten and stabbed multiple times, judging by the jagged slashes in his clothing. Only then did she wonder who the body might be. Her thoughts immediately shot to her male cousins. Could it be one of them?

Richard was obviously thinking along the same lines; his first thought for his friend and best man. ‘Is it … is it Sean?’

Sean, slightly shorter than Richard, stood about 5’10”. ‘Body’s too tall,’ Jenny said. ‘I don’t think it’s Sean.’

‘Thank God.’

No relief for Jenny as she still didn’t know whether it was someone she knew. Forgetting her training, she reached out to turn the body to make sure.

‘Don’t!’ Richard grabbed her hand. ‘We shouldn’t touch him until the gardaí get here. They’ll ID him.’

‘You’re right. Of course, you’re right, but what if it’s someone we—’

‘Don’t torture yourself.’ Richard pulled her to him, held her tight. ‘It’s going to be OK. I promise it’s going to be OK,’ he breathed into her hair.

Jenny loved him for trying, but it wasn’t going to be OK. This was their wedding day and a dead body wasn’t exactly top of her wedding gift list.

In the end, they had to move the body.

‘We have to,’ Jenny told Richard.

‘We shouldn’t touch anything; we could be destroying evidence.’ As a psychiatrist, Richard might have left the blood and guts of the ER a long time ago, but he obviously remembered protocol.

‘There won’t be any evidence to destroy in a few minutes.’ Jenny pointed to where waves were quickly rising towards the step they were standing on. Finding a dead body was bad enough but the thought of it being carried off was too horrific to contemplate. ‘We have to move the body before it’s washed out to sea.’

‘Damn it. OK, I’ll do it, but first we need to phone the gardaí.’

‘Agreed. Give me your phone.’ Jenny held out her hand.

‘Damn it,’ Richard said again.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Sean has my phone. We didn’t want it going off during the ceremony. He was going to give it back to me at the reception. I don’t suppose you—’

‘Seriously?’ Jenny gestured to her slim-fitting wedding dress. ‘Where would I put it?’

‘OK. You go, find someone. There’s bound to be plenty of people milling around, ask one of them to phone.’

Jenny stared up the narrow steps, not liking the idea of going up the rest of the Devil’s Teeth alone. What if whoever had killed this person was waiting up there for her? What if—?

Richard seemed to sense her fear. ‘I know, love. I don’t want you going up there alone either, but I’m sure whoever did this is long gone. The blood has been dried for hours.’

Of course! Jenny felt silly. The blood on the steps wasn’t fresh. It was caked, hardened. Still …

‘This has nothing to do with any of that other nonsense, Jenny. That’s all over and done with.’

He knew her so well; knew her mind would automatically go there. ‘You sure?’ Jenny hated to think their troubles had followed them from Dublin.

Richard’s face softened. ‘As sure as I can be. What I am sure about,’ he told her, ‘is that our reception is up there.’ He nodded to the steps. ‘People. Lots and lots of people. You’ll be safe. The marquee is close to the lighthouse. Go there first, find someone to call this in.’

Still Jenny hesitated, strangely reluctant to leave him.

‘One of us has to stay here and move the body, and one of us has to contact the gardaí. I’m stronger, so it stands to reason I should be the one to drag the body up these blasted steps, but I’m happy for you to disagree?’ he added, almost hopefully.

Jenny smiled sadly, cupping his face with her hand. ‘You’re right, I know you are, but I don’t have to like it.’

‘You and me both, love.’

‘I’ll be back as quickly as I can,’ she promised.

‘I’ll hold you to that.’ Richard kissed her, hard, deep. ‘Now, go.’

Jenny turned and, hitching her long dress to her knees, raced up the wickedly sharp steps in her bare feet, uncaring of how they cut into her skin.

Usually, she counted the steps as she went, made a game of it, but she was too focused on finding help and getting back to Richard to do so this time. She had to hurry. She had to—

Jenny almost screamed as a figure appeared. She spied the long legs first in the too-short dress trousers, the thin, sloping shoulders and long greasy hair. Dermot, who she’d last seen ushering their guests into their seats. One cousin accounted for. Only then did Jenny realise that panic had stolen her senses. No way Dermot could have been the body on the steps, he was much too thin. And tall.

‘Hey, Cuz.’ Dermot stared down at her.

Jenny was still getting used to this new Dermot. He was only two years older than her, but looked a lot more. Once tubby, he now appeared emaciated, the bones on his face and wrists sharp and obvious. Dark shadows lined his eyes and not even his goatee and adolescent-looking moustache could hide the shrunken shape of his face. She could hazard a guess as to what ailed him, but hadn’t had the courage to ask him about it.

‘Dermot. I’m … so happy to see you,’ she panted.

‘Not your usual greeting, Cuz,’ Dermot drawled. ‘Not anyone’s usual greeting lately,’ he added softly. ‘What’s up?’ he asked casually, as if the fact that his cousin was racing up the Devil’s Teeth, in her wedding dress, barefoot and clearly distraught were an everyday occurrence.

‘I need … help. Phone … gardaí,’ Jenny said, trying to catch her breath.

‘The garda?’ At that, Dermot seemed to perk up, looking strangely anxious. ‘You want me to call the garda?’

‘Yes. Hurry, there’s a body down there.’ She pointed back the way she’d come.

‘A … body?’ Dermot peered past her. ‘I don’t see no body.’

God give me strength. Luckily, before Jenny could strangle her cousin, another figure emerged; Dermot’s sister Dana. Heavily pregnant, she lumbered into view in her diamanté-strewn ice-blue smock and sensible heels. ‘Dana, thank God. I need you to phone the gardaí.’ Jenny was getting her breath back and with it her urgency to get back to Richard.

‘The gardaí?’ Dana shot a look at her brother. ‘Whatever for?’

‘There’s a body, down the steps.’

‘A body?’ Dana held one hand to her mouth, the other to the swollen mound of her stomach. ‘Who?’ Her gaze turned to Dermot again and there was something in the look that caught Jenny’s attention.

‘Are you OK, Dana?’ Her cousin looked like she’d been crying and Jenny recalled someone telling her that Dana had fainted in the chapel earlier, before she had arrived to get married. ‘Is it the baby? Do you have any pain, tightness in your abdomen?’

‘I’m fine.’ The words were brusque. ‘I’m just … shocked, that’s all.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure.’ Dana smiled, but her pale eyes remained hard, cold. ‘Don’t be listening to Aunt Gert. I’m no weeping widow; I’m a lot stronger than I look.’

‘I know you are.’ Jenny moved up a step, took Dana’s hand, knowing now wasn’t the time to commiserate on the loss of her husband, but wanting to say something. ‘But if you ever—’

‘I said I’m fine.’ Dana pulled her hand free.

She didn’t look it. She looked upset, angry. ‘Dana, if you—’

‘You don’t know who …?’ Dana stepped back, nodding down the Devil’s Teeth.

Jenny got the message, allowing her cousin to change the subject. ‘No. Richard is with the body, but I need to get back to him. Will you—?’

‘Of course.’ Dana seemed to pull herself together. ‘You go back to your … husband. Dermot and I will inform the authorities.’

‘Yeah, Cuz, you can count on us.’ Dermot winked, but Jenny ignored him, racing back down the way she’d come.

She found Richard not far from where she’d left him. He was panting, leaning over the corpse. Dragging a dead body uphill, over sharp steps, was obviously as hard as it looked.

‘Jenny.’ Richard seemed surprised to see her back so quickly. ‘What are you …? Did you call the gardaí?’

‘The double Ds are doing that.’

‘The double … Ah, your cousins Dermot and Dana?’ He pawed the air. ‘The usher and … really pregnant reader at our wedding? Yes?’

‘Yes. I met them on the way. . .