Текст книги "Vows of Silence "
Автор книги: Susan Hill
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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
“I can’t bear nothing. Just c nothing. Apart from anything else, it’s a rite of passage the children need to help them through. And a lot of people have been asking.”
“I think you do what you want c because it’s for you and the children now and I bet that’s why Chris left it open.”
She turned to him in surprise, with a look of something like joy. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. Do you really believe it?”
“Absolutely. Whatever your beliefs are, your funeral is for the ones still living. What do you really want?”
“Cathedral. Of course. Not a great fuss but a proper funeral.”
“Then that’s what you should do. Talk to them. What about Chris’s side?”
“They’ll get what they’re given,” Cat said. “Sorry.”
“I know.”
“There’s something else.”
“Say.”
“Dad. And Judith.”
“They’ll have to have what they’re given too, won’t they?”
“I didn’t mean that.”
He was silent. Ahead of them, Sam and Hannah were talking quietly, heads together.
“Don’t be difficult.”
“No.”
“I think they’ll probably marry before long. They’re more or less together now. Nobody has said anything, it’s just a hunch. And I want you to be prepared so you don’t go up in flames.”
“As if.”
“I mean it. Judith’s daughter is getting married next spring. She was talking about it yesterday. And weddings sort of breed.”
“Didn’t know she had a daughter.”
“Yes, Vivien—and a son too. Judith is going to a wedding fair. Tomorrow, I think it is. At the Riverside. It feels unreal. The world goes on, people are getting married and planning half-term and bonfire night, babies are being born, the supermarkets are full and the trains are running and Chris is dead. I can’t take it in. I’ve been with dying and death all my working life and I can’t take it in.”
Simon put his arm round her. She felt light, frail. Vulnerable.
“But I did the right thing, didn’t I?”
“With Sam? Yes. You know you did.”
“He doesn’t say anything.”
“He said something to me.”
“Oh, Simon, you didn’t tell me.”
“No, because he made me promise not to. But he’s fine. Truly and absolutely. I promise you that.”
What Sam had said, when Simon had arrived that night, had moved him to tears. “I’m glad I was with Daddy when he’d just died. It made me feel I’d grown up a lot.”
“Tell me one day,” Cat said.
“No. Never.”
Hannah came back to them. “Isn’t it time to have the picnic?”
It was a good afternoon. They ate the picnic, drank the tea, packed and then ran up and down the slopes and on into the wood where the leaves were piling up and the last of the after noon sunlight slanted down through the bare tops of the trees.
Simon had not let go of himself so much or relaxed so well for weeks and, watching his sister, he saw that this was the first time she had been able to let go too, not worrying about getting home, not wondering what was about to happen. It had happened. She was dealing with it but this afternoon even her grief seemed to be suspended for this brief hour or so. Her sad eyes were brighter.
Seventy
He finished just after two. It was still sunny, still warm. He cut himself four slices of good bread and made himself sandwiches, one corned beef, one cheese and tomato. He took a banana from the dish and a couple of custard creams. He made a mug of tea and took the whole lot outside. He had an old Formica table there, up against the wall, which faced south. An aluminium chair with a red canvas seat. He took a bite of sandwich, a bite of banana, a bite of biscuit, a swig of tea and then, mouth comfortably full, he sat with his face to the sun, and as he ate, he thought everything through again. He had to get this one right. He would, of course. He always had, always would. But he knew that he must never, ever get complacent, be cocky, make assumptions, fail to plan. That way lay the brick wall and the dead end.
So, he went over each step. He kept his eyes closed and he took himself through it, from the moment he woke, got up, dressed. The clothes were important. Every item of clothing he put on in his mind. He would be laying them out in order that night.
Dark jeans. Dark shirt. Navy sleeveless fleece. Navy woollen hat, fitting close to his head. The usual trainers with the thick polythene wedges attached to the soles.
He packed the gear. He took the bike. At the airfield he got out the new roll of plastic for the side of the van. He rode over to the lock-up on the business park. Got out the van. He fixed the panels. Left the bike. Locked up.
He had left himself two hours. He would need that. He wasn’t going to rush anything. Danger in rushing. Ahead there were half a dozen problems, things that might go wrong, however careful his planning. He needed time to sort them.
He would be there by half ten. Too early but better that. He’d timed it well.
He bit into the second sandwich. The sun was warm for November but the forecast for tomorrow was the same and it suited him. You needed clear, bright light to do the job properly at that distance and the sun wouldn’t be in his face—he had that one worked out long ago—the sun would be right where he needed it, on them.
He finished his tea. From next door came the sound of a vacuum cleaner. A cat came slinking over the fence that ran along the row of gardens. Looked at him, eyes half closed. Paused.
“Wise guy,” he said. The cat opened its eyes and hopped neatly down onto the soil. Came padding over the grass to where he sat and started to weave in and out of his legs. He bent down. Rubbed its ears. Stroked it. The cat went on weaving. Then settled down on the concrete slabs in the sun and closed its eyes.
He went over everything one last time. A to Z. Then, he put it out of his mind. He’d done. There was such a thing as overplanning.
He picked up the field sports magazine he had bought on the way home and began reading about the effect of climate change on the future of grouse shooting.
Seventy-one
It was almost midnight when Tom’s motorbike ran out of petrol in a side street near the centre of the town. He hauled it up against a wall. He wouldn’t need it now. Someone could find it. It was a decent bike.
The words that had been filling his head, coming in as thick and fast as snowflakes in a storm and packing in so that they had confused him, began to sort themselves into phrases that he could understand now and the phrases were familiar.
“ He will give his angels charge over you to guide you in all your ways.”
“ They will bear thee up in their hands lest thou shalt dash thy foot against a stone.”
It was odd. The Bible they read from and studied with the pastor was modern, it didn’t go in for thee and thou but the words that came to him seemed to be the old words. He wondered if it mattered.
It was quiet. He walked past the empty shops and there was no one else walking, across the square, past the cordoned-off site where the ghost train had fallen, down into the marketplace towards the new shopping mall and no one else walked there either. A couple of cars passed. That was all. He put his collar up.
“ He soared upon the wings of the wind and he went in flight through the air.”
The words had never struck him before but now they were here for him. He felt exhilarated. The feeling was one he had heard described, an ecstasy, the pastor had called it, an out-of-the-body ecstasy. People had experienced it in front of him during services, praying in tongues and throwing themselves to the ground, but before now Tom had always found it rather embarrassing. He didn’t know if they felt different or were just trying too hard.
Now he knew. He seemed to be walking above the ground.
He had left his mother and Phil Russell behind him. They would be saved or they wouldn’t. Like Lizzie. He couldn’t worry about it any more. He had to look after himself and he knew that he was making none of it up, not trying to do it, it was simply happening and all he had to do was go with it and with the words. The flying words.
He started to walk faster, and then to run, and then he turned as he ran. Someone watching him would think he was either very drunk or very mad. Or happy. He turned and danced down the street and across the road. At the end he saw it, like a heavenly castle. It was shimmering and beautiful and he could see figures here and there, pale figures beckoning to him. He ran towards them. The nearer he got the more figures he saw and when he arrived and began to climb up and up, round and round, they came with him, hovered about him, touched him, held out their arms to him.
A car at the far end shone its lights and began to move. He dodged behind one of the pillars and the figures shielded him from sight. The car drove away down the ramps, its noise echoing round the empty spaces and away, and then there was only him, with the figures wreathing and encircling him, protecting him.
“ Lest you dash your foot against a stone.”
Below him were sparkling, shining, glistening golden lights. He looked up. Above him, more lights, tiny little pinpricks of stars, thousands of stars.
He wondered briefly what they would make of it, how they would interpret what he knew would be the ecstatic expression on his face. The pastor would know of course, but how could his mother and Lizzie, because they had never seen the lights or known the glory, never had this overwhelming experience of beauty and heard the voices singing and singing to him like sirens and seen the beautiful faces, upturned to him, the arms outstretched to welcome him.
But perhaps when they saw him, it would be given to them. They would know. They would be enlightened. They would understand at last.
He spread out his arms.
“ They will soar on wings like eagles.”
He flew.
Seventy-two
Simon Serrailler took a left turn and drove into the country. Six miles out, he turned again, onto the high, winding single-track road that led up to Featherly Moor. A mile on the other side, the tiny village of Featherly clung to the slopes, cowering back from the wind that drove towards it for three-quarters of the year. But now, the autumn sun had returned. He parked beside the pub and went inside. The saloon bar was empty apart from a couple of walkers in the far corner, rucksacks and cagoules in a heap beside them.
“Hello, Gordon.”
“Well, blow me. Haven’t seen you here in a while. What’ll it be?”
“Lime and lemonade. Can I take it outside?”
“Put the garden tables up now after the rain the other night. Thought winter had come. Bench at the front.”
The walkers were making to leave.
“I’ll go over here.”
The pub fell silent. In the summer and at the weekend it was always full with hikers and climbers. During the week, it was generally empty, and although Gordon served food, the Arms had never tried to compete with the gastropubs around Lafferton, preferring to stick to ham and eggs and plough man’s lunches.
Simon took his drink into a corner. Gordon retired into the back. After a moment Simon heard pattering feet. A cold nose was pressed against his hand. Byron, the pub’s Labrador, settled at his feet. He was grateful to the landlord for not hanging around to ask him the usual questions about the gunman, tell him how bad it was for trade, make his own pronouncement about what should be done and how. A quiet half-hour away from the station, the phone, the ever-present media pack outside, was something Simon believed in and quite often took. His time was sometimes best spent not doing, but thinking.
Just as he was leaving the station, Graham Whiteside had run after him. “Sir, don’t you want me to come along?”
Simon remembered his previous sergeant. Nathan was constantly at his side and had often been present at his thinking sessions. But Simon’s relationship with Graham was different. Indeed, he had no relationship. Graham’s personality jarred and irritated.
“Sir, it’s about that tramp. The one in the hangar c”
But Simon had pretended not to hear and had accelerated away.
Now his peace was shattered as a party of walkers came piling into the bar, filling the room with chatter and the clump of boots on the wooden floor. Simon groaned and finished his drink. As he made his way out, a woman to his left was saying, “Makes you think twice about getting married, doesn’t it?”
He stopped dead. It had happened before, a chance remark or something glimpsed letting light into a dark place. He left his car and walked on up the lane into the village street. Flowers were still blooming in front gardens, apples and plums were heaped under trees here and there. There was no one about. This was another dormitory village for Lafferton. There was no shop or school, though the church was handsome, set up on a high bank and dominating the village. He opened the gate and walked up between the leaning headstones. A rabbit bounced away out of sight, a woodpecker yaffled from a fir tree. The church was locked.
A wedding. Why fire at a wedding party? Serrailler did not believe in random. There was always something.
Makes you think twice about getting married, doesn’t it?
He groaned. He’d missed it. How could he have missed it when it was there in front of him?
He ran down the path and back to the car to put in a call.
He pushed the Audi up to seventy on a clear road, thinking, thinking, clicking things into place.
Seventy-three
The ball banged down the wooden slope and the skittles crashed, raising a cheer.
“Ours,” Duncan Houlish said.
Clive Rowley clenched his jaw. He hadn’t been to a bowling alley for what, five or six years? Longer? He had not wanted to come tonight, but now he was here, he revelled in it. Roll, bang, smash. Roll, bang, smash.
“Useless,” Ian Dean said.
The whole lot of them had come. It was almost like a ritual of some sort before the big day.
Roll, bang.
“Yesssss!”
Further up, a gang of shrieking girls threw the balls down the aisle and through the gaps or into the skittles, equally hysterical no matter what the result.
“Jeez.”
“Looks like a hen party.”
“Sounds like a parrot house. Why do women shriek?”
“Not all women shriek.”
“Oh yes they do. My sister shrieks, my missus and her girl friends shriek, my mam shrieks, the girls across the road c”
Another lot of shrieking.
They finished a session and went up to the bar at the same time as the girls.
“Must be a thousand of them,” Clive Rowley said.
“Oi, what was that?” one of them said.
“I said happy days.”
“Can I buy you ladies a drink?”
“There are seventeen of us, and no thanks, we’ll get our own.”
“That’s a relief.”
Ian and Clive came slowly across with three pints each, weaving between the tables and the chairs and the girls. They set the glasses down.
“Look at that. Didn’t lose a drop.”
“Great stuff. Cheers. You all right, Clive?”
“What? Yeah.”
“Right. Where are you tomorrow?”
“Top of the tower with Ian.”
“You OK with heights?”
“Love “em. You reckon it’s someone’s twenty-first?”
“That lot? They’re way over twenty-one.”
“What did you say?”
“Listeners never hear good. Stop earwigging.”
Shrieks. They had five tables pulled together.
Dale groaned. “Pink feathers coming out,” he said. “And the handcuffs.”
“I was right. Bloody hen night, innit?”
Louise Kelly, the only woman among the policemen, stuck her head down into her glass. She was married and separated.
“You have a hen night, Lou?”
“Sort of. Mam said they were bad luck so a few of us just went for a pizza. Sort of compromise. Bad luck was, he and his mates walked into the same pizza place.”
“Your mum had a point then.”
“What do you reckon about tomorrow?”
“Keep your voices down.” Duncan. Bronze Command. Conscious they had just the one chance to get the thing right. Or very wrong.
“Be fine,” Louise said. “I’m going to enjoy it. I’m over on the left where the cars come up. Got a grandstand view. It’s uniform I always feel sorry for. Don’t get a look, faces to the bloody crowd.”
“I was surprised they’re bringing in mounted.”
“They’re bringing in the bloody works. Surprised there aren’t tanks.”
“Be glad when it’s this time tomorrow, me.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Clive said. He sneezed.
“Oi, watch it. I don’t want your snot in my beer, thank you.”
“Told you I was heady.”
The hen party got up and started the conga round the room, police helmets, pink feathers, handcuffs, maids’ aprons, fishnet tights. Shrieking.
“Come on, lads, get on the back.”
A couple of them joined on. The rest cheered.
“Last pint,” Ian said. “That’s your lot. This time tomorrow we can all get bladdered.”
The shrieks went up a few decibels and Clive Rowley sneezed again.
Seventy-four
“I’m sorry but you can’t stay here, you’ll have to go right back.”
“Where to?”
The special constable indicated the cordons. “Behind there.”
The women groaned. “But we won’t see anything.”
“Course you will.”
“Well, we haven’t brought binoculars.”
“Brought your chairs though.”
“Can’t stand for hours and hours.”
They folded the camp stools they had brought and went slowly in the direction of the pointing hand. The area behind the cordons was filling up.
Tactical Team Bronze Command Duncan Houlish looked up to the tower. Two officers up there and it should have been three. He had two men down, Bannister whose father had died the previous night and Clive Rowley who had rung in with a cold.
“I’ll bloody cold him. He was perfectly all right last night.”
“Bannister said he could come in, but he won’t be focused. Not fair anyway.”
“Look, your dad dying is one thing and a snuffly nose is another. I’ll bollock him on Monday.”
“If he’s in.”
“Thinks because he was some sort of five-minute hero he can take the piss.”
“Talking of that, you know the woman he rescued?”
“What about her?”
“They found her son’s body last night. Bottom of the multi-storey.” His walkie-talkie crackled.
Behind the cordon the women settled down.
“I feel sorry for these,” one said, nodding to the constable facing them. “They never get a look at what’s going on, just at our ugly mugs.”
“Place is bristling with them today.”
“Do you wonder?”
“They still won’t confirm whether Charles and Camilla are coming or not. I’ve asked three of them but they’re staying shtum.”
“They’ll be here. There wouldn’t be all of this c helicopter buzzing and everything.”
“I hope so. I like a big wedding but I wouldn’t be sitting out here in this cold just for that.”
“Lovely day though, even if it’s cold. Just right.”
“I got married on a day like this.”
“Did you? Mine was pouring down.”
*
Two miles away, Serrailler was arguing down the telephone.
“I know it’s a hunch, ma’am, but I have to trust it. It’s got everything he needs and no risk. I do urge you to go with me on this.”
“Simon, I can’t conjure up an ARV out of thin air.”
“Then take one of the armed vehicles from around the cathedral.”
The Chief sighed. “And if things kick off at this wedding? I couldn’t live with myself.”
“I couldn’t live with myself if I’m right and we do nothing.”
There was a long pause. Serrailler tapped his finger on the phone. His adrenaline was pumping. He knew. He just knew. Always follow your gut instincts, his first DI had said. Always go with your hunches.
“I’m sorry, Simon. It’s too risky. We’ve got to keep the cathedral covered.”
He hung up. Waited a moment in thought. Then picked up the phone again.
The helicopter dropped several feet and hovered like a gnat over the tower. The draught hit the two marksmen in the face. They did not take their eyes from the direction of their rifles, resting in the spaces between ancient stones.
“ETA three minutes, twenty seconds,” the small black box said.
The marksmen focused. The space in which the royal car would halt was bang on target.
“Two fifty.”
The helicopter swung to the west.
“Bloody racket,” Duncan Houlish muttered.
In the reserve AR vehicle in Cathedral Lane the driver’s box also crackled into life.
Houlish listened.
“Confirm please.”
The voice confirmed.
“On our way.” He turned to the boys in the back. “Change of venue.”
“What’s going on?”
“Serrailler says we can leave this lot to the others. We’re needed elsewhere.”
“Thirty seconds.”
“Roger.”
“Keep your eyes peeled then,” the constable said and moved an inch or two to give the women the best view.
“I knew it, I knew they’d come.”
“Charles isn’t one to be put off.”
“Not by some lunatic, he isn’t.”
The car doors opened. The security men leapt out, eyes scanning the crowd.
“I’ll say this for her, she’s done wonders for the older woman has Camilla.”
“Oh, look at that!”
“Not sure about the colour.”
“Oh, I like that pale sea green.”
“I love those feathery head things—she’s made them her signature.”
“I love a man in a morning suit.”
“Look, his tie matches, same sort of green.”
“They’re looking over here, they’re looking.”
“Wave, Janet, wave!”
“Now then,” Bronze Command muttered, “show your face if you dare.” Tactical Team officers were high voltage.
The Prince and the Duchess walked, calm and smiling, up the path to the east door beside the Dean.
Ten minutes later, the bridesmaids glided into sight.
“Oh. Four big ones.”
“White velvet!”
“I like little bridesmaids, I hope she has some littles.”
Two more cars. Six small girls. Six small pageboys. Velvet. Satin. White flowers. White ribbons.
All around them, unseen rifles were trained and eyes scanned the crowd and every inch of the building. Small children walked self-consciously up the long path.
The duty armed response vehicle with full complement pulled out of Cathedral Lane as the bride, glorious in white and silver, tulle and diamonds and a fifteen-foot train strewn with white roses, was helped with extreme care out of her car.
“Pray now,” Houlish muttered into his mike.
Seventy-five
One of the papers had had a long piece about people like him with a profile by an expert, a professor no less. He had read it with great care and growing amusement.
“Inside the mind of the Lafferton Gunman.” He read it to find out about himself because this woman apparently knew him better than anyone. She knew what made him tick, what his thoughts and feelings were, why he did what he did, what his child hood was like, his father, his mother, how he had grown up. Most important of all, she knew about the women he had had relationships with. Everything, every detail. He read it a dozen times.
She was right. She was hopelessly wrong.
He had a father and a mother. Yes, ma’am. He’d had an unhappy and lonely childhood. No.
An only son. Yes.
No sisters either. That was wrong.
He had a fascination with guns, loved gun movies, westerns, reading books about men who had gone on the rampage with a gun at schools and colleges. To a point. But she was wrong about the books.
He had served in the armed forces and seen armed combat, in the Gulf probably. Wrong again, ma’am.
He was probably unmarried, after a painful divorce. Wrong.
He hated women. Wrong.
He had been let down by a woman. Correct.
He had never been able to have a full sexual relationship with any woman.
He had started to laugh.
He lived in a meticulously clean and tidy house and planned every detail of his life as well as his crimes with extreme care. Spot on.
He bore a grudge. True.
He loved killing. The more he killed the happier he found he became.
He had set the paper down at this point because he was troubled by what he was reading. She had sent the thinnest but sharpest of needles through to the right place, this woman expert, this profiler who had got so much wrong and then, bingo. He sat in a chair by the window looking out at nothing—darkness, the neighbour’s outside light—nothing of any interest to him because what was of interest was in his head.
“He loves killing,” she wrote. “This man started with one and it escalated and maybe now he is worried that he has an addiction to killing. No one who becomes addicted to anything—alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, beating up their partners—no one actually enjoys it after a while. Maybe it was good at the beginning but not now. Now it is a strain and a burden, something he cannot stop, cannot get away from, but in his heart of hearts he hates it and hates himself even more. He doesn’t want to go on doing this. Every time, he says to himself that this is the last one, the very last, that he’s giving it up, has done with it. It has served whatever purpose it had—though he can’t remember clearly what that was. What was its purpose? Why is he taking out his hurt feelings and his desire for revenge on all these people who have had nothing to do with it, are innocent and blameless and deserve none of it? He doesn’t know.”
She ended by talking to him.
“Jim,” she wrote (she called him “Jim” for no reason, it was just a name), “if you are reading this, and I am sure you are, then you know I’m right. It doesn’t make sense any more, if it ever did. And a lot of people have suffered who you didn’t really want to suffer. So stop. You can do it still. You still have the will and the strength to stop right now. And when you have, give yourself up. Until you do that you will go on carrying this dreadful knowledge, the burden of this addiction. Until you stop and give yourself up, put an end to it all, you will go on hating and loathing yourself. Just listen to me, Jim. Think about what I have said to you. Then do it. Do it now.”
He thought about what she was asking him. He’d been thinking about it for some time. But if he agreed it would mean his plans for today would go up in smoke and he had been looking forward to today. It had been a long, careful time in the planning.
It seemed a waste just to abandon everything now.
Maybe after today.
Yes. That was it. He stood up, leaving the paper on the table. Today. Then he would do what she told him. Stop. Not give himself up. Why would he do that? What would be the point of one more body in prison? But he would have today, which he had been working up to and planning, today would be his parting shot. Then stop.
Just stop.
He felt pleased with himself. He had strength of mind and character, he was not the weak addict she supposed. He could and would stop and when he had stopped he would be clean and clear of it all and able to get on with his normal life. He was looking forward to that.
Seventy-six
As they walked through the hotel foyer and into the ballroom and dining room leaflets came at them from all sides.
“Are you a bride-to-be? Are you a bride-to-be?”
“Yes,” Georgina said, “yes, yes, yes. Bring it on.”
Chocolate fountains, confetti, marquee hire, jewellery, wedding dresses, hats, favours, bridesmaids’ gifts, photographers, wedding planners, hairdressers c
“I don’t know where to start,” Georgina’s mother said.
“Dress and caterers. Get the big stuff sorted.”
“And they say people don’t bother to get married any more.”
The stalls filled both rooms and carried on out of the open side of the dining room into the gardens. Florists. Beauticians. Fireworks. Pig roasts. Balloons. Honeymoons.
“Are you a bride-to-be? Are you c”
“Good job we’ve got all afternoon.”
“Real flower petals and those little paper cones. Love it.”
The hotel car park overflowed into a field next door.
He had been set up on the other side of the river since early that morning. The time of year meant that the trees were almost bare but the shrubs and undergrowth along the bank were still thick. He had sussed out the exact spot two or three times and it was perfect. He was well concealed.
First he’d parked the van at his getaway point. “JOY’S FLORISTS.” Then he’d strolled across the bridge from the other direction, carrying fishing gear.
The place was busy from the moment he got there. Stands. Tents. Setting up. Buzzing about. He watched. His rod was angled carefully into the water, fishing umbrella carefully placed. Camp stool. He ostentatiously unwrapped his sandwiches. He waited. Watched.
This was it. The last time. His promise. And there was only to be the one. No more children. That haunted him. That had never been part of any plan.
He would watch and when he saw the right one he would know. She had to be pretty. Dark hair. Not tall. There would be one like that. One. Then out of here. Leave the rod. Move. He’d be back in the van, hitting the road. At the airfield in twenty. Not breaking any speed limits.
JOY’S FLORISTS.
It was deserted on this side. The occasional voice floated over. “Back up to me.”
“How many more tables?” A sudden cheer.
He sat quietly. The float bobbed on the water. The sun was bright. He wondered if fishing was something he might take up. After this. When it was over. It was nearly over.
Outside the cathedral the crowd heard the occasional few notes from the organ, and the ebb and flow of the hymns. The armed officers did not relax but the music was pleasant, what little they could make out. A breeze ruffled the trees up the long path to the east door and sent some late leaves spinning down. A squirrel jumped from branch to branch.
“How much do you think it would cost,” one of the women asked, “a wedding dress like that?”
“Designer.”
“Oh yes. Well, thousands. Ten thousand?”
“Easily. And the rest.”
“You could do an entire wedding for ten K.”
Someone passed round a bag of Mintoes. Offered one to the police constable who looked tempted. Shook her head. Smiled.
“You’ll be glad when they’ve all gone.”
She nodded.
Just the one.
He had said it to himself, and he’d keep his word.
He watched carefully. A lot of people were still inside but as the time went on they drifted to the outside stalls on the lawn that led down to the river, a few here, half a dozen there. You could tell the brides easily enough, and the mothers and mothers-in-law and sisters. Almost no men apart from the stallholders. Not a man’s thing, a wedding fair, which made it easier.
Which one he picked out depended on the exact timing, the perfect position. Luck. Or bad luck, depending on your point of view.
And then, as the lawn began to fill up, he saw her.
She wore a pair of cream jeans and a skimpy top and her hair was pinned up and he went sick. Georgina. He looked for Alison but Georgina was on her own.
Then their mother, her mother and Alison’s, came out to join her.
Georgie getting married? Who to, when, where? The words jumbled in his head and he cleared them out of the way because he didn’t need questions, he needed to focus and he couldn’t. He felt different. Always, before this time, he had felt icy calm. Icy. Calm. Focused.
