Kate's Wedding (29 page)

Melanie turned her laptop on again. She clicked through to the website of Cowells Accountancy ACA. She could email him directly through that website. But then a secretary might read it. Melanie went back to Facebook and trawled through seven more wrong Keith Harrises before she found her man again. She opened a message window and started to write.

On the other side of town, someone else was writing a very important letter indeed.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

The day after the royal wedding dawned like a midsummer day. By the time Diana Ashcroft awoke, the sun was already streaming in through the curtains of her childhood bedroom to stripe the duvet cover she had chosen for her eighteenth birthday (along with a car). Anyway, it seemed right that Diana should sleep beneath the brightly striped covers. They looked deeply unsophisticated to her now, but they were symbolic of Diana’s childhood. That night, her last night as an unmarried woman, had officially signalled the end of it, and just before she turned thirty. Praise the Lord.

Diana jumped up from bed and slipped into her pristine white dressing gown with the pink-princess coronet on the back. When she got to the top of the stairs, she saw her mother at the bottom by the front door, gathering up a pile of junk mail.

‘They don’t take any notice whatsoever of my “No junk mail” sign,’ Susie complained as she stuffed the pile of pizza menus and unsolicited estate-agent offers straight into a recycling bag. ‘Look at this – all of it’s rubbish.’

‘I don’t care about junk mail,’ said Diana. ‘It’s my wedding day! What time is Gran getting here?’

‘She said she’d be here by nine.’

‘Good. Nicole’s already texted to say she’s on her way.’

‘Are you sure she’s going to be able to manage on her own at Bride on Time?’

‘Melanie said that one of her assistants will lay the dress out in the back of Nicole’s car. You know, I still can’t believe that Melanie turned down the invitation to my reception.’

‘She must get invited to a lot of weddings,’ said Susie. ‘She probably gets a bit bored of them.’

‘I know, but my wedding is going to be seriously amazing. There are plenty of people who would kill to be invited. If she wants to be a miserable bag about it . . . I just hope you can remember how to loop up the skirt.’

‘Have you spoken to Ben this morning?’ Susie asked.

‘No,’ said Diana. ‘I called him to say goodnight when I went to bed and then I told him that I didn’t want to speak to him again until we’re standing at the altar. It’s bad luck otherwise.’

Susie nodded.

‘I’ve made you your favourite breakfast,’ she told her daughter. ‘Do you want to have it now, just you and your old mum, before all the bridesmaids arrive?’

‘Oh, Mum,’ said Diana, ‘you’re not that old, and you’d look amazing if you’d just have some Botox between your brows. I’m going to have it regularly from now on.’

Diana examined her face in the hall mirror. ‘I think I was right to get it done for the wedding, don’t you?’ She attempted to frown but only succeeded in producing ‘bunny lines’ radiating out from the sides of her nose instead. ‘I mean, it’s not as though I need to frown in my wedding photographs.’

Susie led the way into the kitchen where Diana’s favourite breakfast was all ready to go. She’d cooked Belgian waffles and smothered them with fresh strawberries and thick whipped cream. There was orange juice and a bottle of champagne on the table.

‘Your father sent the champagne over,’ Susie explained.

‘It’s not vintage,’ Diana complained. ‘Still, we’re having vintage at the reception, I suppose. What time is he coming over? I’m glad he’s not bringing that slag with him. I mean, I know they’re married now and everything, but I told him that today is my day and she still isn’t related to me.’

‘Quite right,’ said Susie.

Nicole’s red Mini, a present from her father on her thirtieth birthday, pulled onto the driveway. Susie dashed out to help her bring the dress inside. Even though Nicole had taken a king-size duvet cover to the bridal salon, the dress could barely be contained. Susie tucked the escaping frills back in before she and Nicole carried it to the front door between them as reverently as if it were the ancient relic of a saint.

‘Careful!’ Diana yelled as Nicole tripped over the front step and dropped her end of the precious cargo. ‘For heaven’s sake, is it all right?’

‘I think I might have broken my toe,’ said Nicole.

‘Put some ice on it,’ said Diana as she checked the dress for any damage.

The hairdresser arrived at the same time and unloaded enough hair products to dress the entire cast of
Glee
. The make-up artist was ten minutes late, having got stuck in traffic. Fortunately, Diana had built quite a margin of error into the proceedings.

‘Have you spoken to the groom this morning?’ the make-up artist asked as she mixed up a light tangerine foundation that would match Diana’s face to the rest of her body.

‘No. I told him last night I wouldn’t speak to him again until we got to the cathedral. Everybody knows it’s bad luck to talk to the groom before the ceremony.’

‘Oh, I thought it was just bad luck for him to see you in the dress. I didn’t know it extended to talking before the ceremony too. I couldn’t stop ringing my husband on the day of our wedding. I drove him mad. I think I just couldn’t believe that he was actually going to turn up.’

‘I’m not worried about that,’ said Diana. ‘Ben knows what’s good for him. If he doesn’t turn up, I’ll have his balls on a barbecue.’

‘Ben will be there,’ Nicole concurred. ‘He totally loves her. You’ve never seen a man so in love.’

Diana smiled at her reflection in the mirror as if to say, ‘And why wouldn’t he be?’

‘Nicole, will you tell Mum to make me a cup of tea?’

Nicole scuttled away.

‘My mum is so excited,’ Diana told the make-up artist. ‘She’s been driving me crazy all morning. All this is for her, really. All this fuss. I would have had something simple, but through me I wanted Mum to be able to have the wedding she never had.’

‘That’s very kind of you.’ The make-up artist brushed blue powder onto Diana’s eyelids.

‘Isn’t it?’

The doorbell rang again.

‘Photographer’s arrived.’

Chapter Fifty-One

Kate’s father went to wake her with a cup of tea, made exactly how she’d always liked it: weak as water with a splash of milk. Alongside the tea was a boiled egg with five Marmite soldiers and a handful of ‘Congratulations’ cards that had arrived in the post that morning. John knocked quietly on the spare bedroom door.

No answer.

He knocked again.

Still nothing.

Elaine was eager to see her daughter at the start of this momentous day.

‘We’ll have to wake her up. The hairdresser’s going to be here in forty-five minutes.’

This time, Elaine knocked and pushed the door open simultaneously. What she saw surprised her. The bed was made. Kate was nowhere to be seen.

‘Is she already up?’ John asked.

‘I haven’t seen her.’

There was nowhere for Kate to hide in the bijou retirement house they’d downsized to.

‘She can’t be in the house,’ said John. ‘She must have gone out.’

‘But where’s she gone? She’s getting married at lunchtime.’

‘Maybe she went for a walk.’

‘Wake up, John. She’s done a runner,’ said Elaine. ‘That’s what’s happened. She must have climbed through the window. The blind’s all wonky – look.’

‘But why would she do that?’

‘Tess said she was acting strangely when we went on that spa day, and she didn’t seem right when she came back from the dress fitting on Thursday afternoon. She looked like she’d been crying. I should have said something. I didn’t dare. I didn’t want to start her off. Oh, I thought it was just wedding jitters.’ Elaine started to tear up. ‘Everybody gets wedding jitters.’

‘Did you get wedding jitters?’ John asked his wife.

‘Of course I did.’

‘Then maybe there’s no need to panic just yet. It’s only nine in the morning. The wedding is three hours away. There’s plenty of time for Kate to come home and put her dress on.’

‘But she could be on a plane out of Southampton Airport by now! Oh, John, what are we supposed to do?’

Tess was ringing the doorbell. Lily sprang into the hallway ahead of her.

‘Where’s Auntie Kate? I want to put my dress on.’

Elaine’s expression said it all. Tess cottoned on at once.

‘She’s gone, hasn’t she? I knew it! Didn’t I tell you the other night?’

‘I should have asked her! Oh, I don’t believe it. She must have been in such a state. You don’t think she’s done something stupid?’

John invited his granddaughter to share a boiled egg and Marmite soldiers in the kitchen before his wife and younger daughter could reach hysteria pitch in the hall. Too late. They were already there.

‘I’m going to call the police,’ said Elaine.

‘Not yet,’ said John. ‘Let me go and look for her first. I’m sure she won’t have gone far.’

‘But she might have done something stupid.’

‘I don’t think there’s anything stupid about deciding not to marry if you don’t want to,’ said John.

‘Oh, you idiot!’ Elaine swatted him with a tea towel. ‘You know I’m not talking about that. Go out and bloody well look for her, and the minute you find her, you tell her that whatever she wants to do is perfectly OK with me. I just want her to know that we love her no matter what, and I want her to come home.’

‘I’ll tell her,’ said John, shrugging on his coat.

Tess had been listening from behind the half-open kitchen door, desperate to keep track of the drama unfolding while at the same time making sure Lily was kept in the dark about her aunt’s disappearance until the last possible moment. Now she had to speak up.

‘Tell her the same from me, Dad. Tell her that if she’s not going to go through with it, I am a hundred per cent behind her. Tell her that Mike, Lily and I love her too, whatever she does.’

John nodded.

‘Oh, sod this,’ said Tess. ‘I’ll tell her myself. Mum, you keep an eye on Lily. I’m going out with Dad.’

‘I should come too,’ said Elaine, her voice close to cracking.

John and Tess shared a look that they had shared many times before. It was shorthand for ‘We have to keep her out of this.’

‘No, Mum. You stay here with Lily. We’ve got to make sure that there’s someone in the house in case Kate decides to come back here before we find her.’

‘OK,’ Elaine conceded. ‘Should I call Ian?’

‘Don’t call Ian,’ John and Tess said at once.

‘Grandma!’ Lily called from the kitchen. ‘I want to make a cake.’

Elaine squeezed her husband and her younger daughter. ‘Coming, Lily. I’ll see what we’ve got in the cupboard.’

Outside the house, Tess called Mike to ask him to get down to her parents’ place as quickly as possible. Then she and John divided up the terrain. At the top of the road, Tess would turn to the left, while John and Snowy, Tess’s dog, turned to the right. The plentiful walking that had made it such a pleasure for Tess’s parents to move down to the coast was now presenting a real problem. Would Kate have chosen to go towards the common, or would she have gone down to the sea?