To be honest, she’d really fancied Luke when they were all at sixth-form college together, but it was Stuart who pushed himself forward and asked her out. They’d been joined at the hip ever since. Luke had been part of her life all this time, because he and Stuart remained close, but only as a sort of honorary brother. Still, he was someone she always had a lot of time for and couldn’t ever imagine not being around.
‘Darling Luke, what is the likelihood of persuading Stuart to wear a morning suit at the wedding?’
Silence reigned at the other end of the phone for a few moments.
‘Max, you said you wanted a favour, not a miracle.’
‘Well, at the weekend Stuart agreed that we could get married in church.’
‘Oh, er, did he?’ Luke replied awkwardly. He didn’t add that Stuart had already told him that in a phone call; nor did he add that Stuart had also said, ‘But that makes no difference to any of the other plans. Still ultra casual, still just a skeleton group of guests. Still no party, no cake, no official photographer, no arty-farty wedding bollocks.’
‘Please, Luke. Please try for me. I’ll love you for ever.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ smiled Luke, trying to sound more positive than he felt. He couldn’t say no to Max; no one could. And he felt for her, to be honest. Why shouldn’t a woman have the wedding of her dreams? Someone like Max wasn’t born to be married on the quiet, with no frills.
He had even said that to Stuart, but for once Stuart was digging his heels in. ‘I’m making a long overdue stand,’ Stuart had explained to him. ‘It’s always been Max’s way or no way, but not this time. This is the start of a new chapter – and I’m going to start as I mean to go on.’
On this issue Luke knew that Stuart wasn’t going to be his usual walk-over self.
Chapter 26
Bel knew she ought to try to rouse herself. It was now Wednesday lunchtime and she had done nothing but sleep since Sunday, give or take making herself the odd cup of Oxo mixed with hot water when she got really thirsty. She knew she was in the tightening grip of something dark; she was staggering at the lip of a great black abyss of depression that was calling to her to jump in. She hadn’t even had a shower, or changed her clothes. She had no appetite but knew she should eat something. Anything but a Pot Noodle, though; she’d throw up if she had one of those.
It took her a lot of self-encouragement to stand up, and her legs felt weak when she did, but she needed the loo pretty badly. She caught sight of herself in the mirror and it was Medusa crossed with a zombie; not a look that would ever catch on, even in the most bizarre of fashion circles. Considering her hair was so short, it was quite an achievement to get it so messy. She looked paler than Violet and her eyes were puffy with too much heavy sleep. Her lips were cracked and sore-looking too.
When she stripped off for the shower there was no doubt about it: she had a less than fragrant aroma about her. The trickle of water from the rubbish shower was, nevertheless, warm and soothing and the lemon shower gel helped to drag her a few steps away from throwing herself into the abyss. In fact, as she towelled herself dry, for the first time in days she felt a craving for something tasty. She had a tin of Ambrosia creamed rice pudding in her supply box. But – aarrgh – no tin opener. She needed that sodding tin opener.
But what if he’s DR DR, the escaped serial killer?
Bel was craving that rice pudding so much she would have taken on Jack the Ripper to get it. There was nothing for it but to go around to Emily and ask nicely.
She knocked on the door. There was no answer, so she knocked again. And again. She knew he was in there because a) his car was parked outside, and b) through the window she could see his outline as he sat at the table.
This man was standing between her and the tin of creamed rice. She knocked with her fist now and kicked at the door at the same time. Her persistence paid off. The door was snatched open and Mr Sociable stood there with a boiling expression on his face.
‘Could I please borrow the tin opener again?’
‘No,’ came the answer and the door was shut rudely.
Bel stood there for a few moments in shock, feeling as if he had just thrown a bucket of cold water over her. How bloody dare he, she thought. She stomped back inside Charlotte muttering to herself what a hideous man he was. She needed that rice pudding badly. She had just about gee-ed herself up to storm into Emily and demand that he hand over the family tin opener when she heard his car door slam shut, and seconds later, through Charlotte’s small front window, she saw him drive off. The tin opener was in her grasp.
If she acted fast, she could take it and return it without him noticing she’d been in Emily. She’d easily managed to sneak in for the phone charger. She knew he hadn’t suspected a thing or he would have been round to Charlotte, being caveman-like and rude and belligerent and obnoxious.
She grabbed the keys from the hook and hurried out of the back door of Charlotte and in through the back door of Emily, again nearly falling over that damned briefcase.
As luck would have it, the tin opener was on the draining board, so she seized it quickly, then stopped suddenly, noticing the words on a notepad at the side of it.
Bride arrives at a house. Dress torn. Obvious runaway. Preferred method of murder – strangulation? Stabbing?
A cold feeling slithered down her back and the words ‘serial killer’ side-winded across her brain. She looked around her for evidence of the man – the mad garrotting doctor – who the police were looking for. On the dining table was a book by an author called John North, The Strangling Man. Bel gulped. Somehow it wasn’t that ridiculous any more that she might be staying next to someone very dangerous. There was a long narrow scarf draped over the chair – innocent enough under other circumstances, but in this scenario it added to the suspicion, to the mounting list of clues.
There was also an open laptop on the table. The screensaver showed various book covers by the same John North. Obviously a fan, then. The name was familiar. It must have been her dad who read books by him because Richard never read books, only pink newspapers. He thought reading was ‘a waste of time’. Especially women’s fiction.
‘Why would you want to read a book when you know what the ending is likely to be?’ he’d scoff, picking up one of her lovely Midnight Moon romances and throwing it back down with a disdainful laugh.
‘Because it’s escapism.’
‘What do you need to escape from?’
It’s a good job he wasn’t here to ask the same question now. She wanted to escape from everything. If she could have crawled into a book and lived out a happy ending, she would have.
She picked up the John North and read the blurb: When a woman is found garrotted in a busy restaurant, how is it possible that no one saw who did it?
She stopped reading. Not the sort of escapism she fancied today.
Then she froze. There was a car coming up the lane and it could only be his because the postman had been already. She’d dawdled and left it too late to use the tin opener and then return it again. She should put it back and leave it, but the thought of a bowl of creamy rice pudding made her stomach growl and her grip tighten on the precious implement.
She quickly slipped out of Emily’s back door and crossed her fingers that he’d go out again soon so she could return it. Annoying man. How dare he come back early and stop her snooping?
Chapter 27
Violet couldn’t help staring at Pav as he worked. He had finished the brief outline of the horses and had just put the first loaded paintbrush of light grey paint on the wall. The first horse was going to be dapple, it seemed.
He turned, as if sensing her eyes on him.
‘I’m sorry,’ Violet immediately apologized. ‘I’m just fascinated. I can’t draw anything.’
Pav grinned. ‘I can’t cook ice cream,’ he said.
‘Oh, anyone can make ice cream,’ smiled Violet. She knew she should go back to the kitchen but she was mesmerized by how he s
moothed the paint on to the wall.
‘I’m used to people watching me work,’ said Pav. ‘I don’t mind.’
‘Can I get you a coffee or a tea?’
‘A coffee would be really nice,’ he replied.
‘No probs,’ said Violet, taking herself off to the kitchen before he noticed she was flustered.
She stood waiting for the kettle to boil and tried to imagine what Carousel would look like when it was finished. It was such a pretty conical building made from old refurbished stone, with a lounge and private shower room upstairs under the pitched roof. In the past couple of months, she’d had a sofa put up there and a table, a couple of chairs, a thick rug, and an old portable TV. It was somewhere to come and do her books and get away from Glyn’s poky depressing flat. She spent more time than she needed to in that room above her ice-cream parlour, just to be on her own and away from looming wedding plans. And now she had Postbox Cottage too.
She took the coffee to Pav and as his long fingers closed around the mug, she imagined them weaving in her hair, pulling back her head to allow those soft generous lips, which were now smiling a thank you to her, to have access to her throat. She imagined he would be a very nice kisser. The thought of kissing Pawel Nowak brought a warmth to her cheeks and her whole insides and she retreated into the kitchen to work before she grew a blush that could be seen from Mars.
In her office, Max studied the box of San Maurice products. She hadn’t ever used any of the fake tans herself but she knew that Jess really liked them and used them regularly.
‘This is the one you want,’ said Jess, pulling out a bronzing mist. ‘It’s a new one. Look, I’ve been sampling it. Juanita sprayed me. This is the result of three coats.’ She pulled down her skirt at the waistband so that Max could see the slight difference where Juanita, the product development manager, had been testing it on her skin. ‘You can see where I had the paper knickers on, and yet I look nice and naturally sun-kissed, don’t I? Not orange, like some of these women go.’
Jess did look a very healthy shade. It was too subtle for a gypsy bride, though. Currently, San Maurice did Sun Mist in light/medium only so Max reckoned she’d need at least ten coats. But she might as well use her own products and advertise them. The press were bound to be interested in how to prepare for a local big fat gypsy Yorkshire wedding.
‘And the best thing is that it doesn’t come off on white clothes,’ added Jess.
‘Are we paying you for sampling it?’ asked Max, spraying a little of the Sun Mist on her hand and waving it dry.
‘Yep,’ nodded Jess. ‘I’d have done it for free because it’s fab stuff, but I’m not turning down the cash. By the way, the medium/dark is coming in soon. I’m sampling that as well, but I think it might be a bit extreme for me.’
‘Make sure I get to see it as soon as it arrives, Jess,’ asked Max, ticking another box on her wedding chart. She liked that word ‘extreme’ very much.
Chapter 28
There was a knock so forceful it was a wonder the door didn’t come off its hinges. Bel stayed silent but he wasn’t fooled.
‘I know you’re in there. Will you please give me back what you took from me before I come in and get it.’
‘I haven’t got anything of yours,’ replied Bel, trying to sound cocky and super-confident. She didn’t want him to smell the fear. Psychos got off on that – she’d seen a programme on the Crime Channel on the telly about some nasty American nutter who kept his victims alive so he could torture them and keep himself on the edge of ecstasy for hours as he listened to their screams. She batted that thought away quickly because it was scaring the living daylights out of her, not that she wanted him to know that.
‘I need that tin opener. And will you please stop snooping around my house?’
‘It isn’t your house, it’s my dad’s,’ snarled Bel, half shaking, half unable to stem her annoyance, despite the fact that it might inflame him further and result in her imminent death.
There was a sinister silence, which totally freaked Bel out. She had visions of him looking around for a big rock to throw through her window. Or an axe.
‘I’ll do a slow count to ten, then I’m going to kick the door in.’
Bel’s head began to whirr. If she slipped out of the back door, she could sneak to her car and drive off. It would totally ruin her flat-tyred wheel, but a knackered wheel was better than a crushed throat.
‘Ooone . . . twooo . . .’
She unlocked the back door, wincing as it opened with an agonized creak. She could hear Psycho-man counting, but only just, because her heart was thumping so loudly it was as if Keith Moon was pounding on her chest with his drumsticks.
She dropped her keys and swore under her breath. She couldn’t hear any more counting. As she straightened up, she found out why that was. Because Psycho-man was standing in front of her. And then he ran towards her and pushed her hard against the outside wall, crying out something unintelligible, like Braveheart did while charging the English.
Chapter 29
Bel didn’t pass out, but she was a) winded by having been rugby-tackled by Mr Psycho-killer, and b) seeing stars because she had been hit over the head. Her eyebrow was wet, and when her fingers travelled to it she smelled the iron tang of blood before she felt it drip on to her cheek, warm and sticky-wet.
It wasn’t much good shouting for help, seeing as the only people around were her and Peter bloody Sutcliffe. Plus, her vocal cords had all fused together.
Strangely, Mr Psycho wasn’t finishing off the job;he was holding her up and asking if she was okay.
Yes, she was fine. Her fiancé had been shagging her cousin, she had just wasted twelve squillion quid on a sham of a wedding, run away to a cottage so well equipped that she’d had to resort to stealing a tin opener from the maniac next door, and now that man had her at his mercy after bashing her over the head. Oh yes, she was bloody marvellous.
‘We need to get you to hospital,’ he was saying to her.
Bel was lucid enough to think that he must be one of those nutters who suffered from Munchausen’s. He had battered her over the head and now got off on rescuing her with a mercy mission. He was pressing something against her scalp and then lifting up her hand so that she kept the pressure on it as he straightened her up.
She was distinctly woozy as he half carried her into his car and strapped her into the passenger seat. Blood was still dripping from her head and she had the foresight to make sure some of the drops landed on the car upholstery for evidence.
‘The nearest hospital is the Bronte, isn’t it?’ Harold Shipman next to her was saying as he started up the car. ‘I vaguely remember how to get there.’
Bel stayed silent. She was trying to think of the best way to play this. Should she initiate conversation to form a social connection between them and address him by his name – even though she hadn’t got a buggering clue what it was? He obviously enjoyed being in a medical role so referring to him as ‘Doctor’ might be a wise idea. Or would that infuriate him – make him realize that he wasn’t really a doctor even though at school he aspired to be one, but managed only a GSCE in woodwork? Should she just stay meek and mild? But then, sadists loved that too. She’d always imagined that people in this situation would try to jump out of the car or leap on the driver and force him to crash, but she was frozen to the seat. Watching out of the window as the car drove at speed down a dual carriageway, she had a real fear that, at any moment, he might take the slip road which led up on to the moors.
Instead he stuck to the busy main roads, eventually taking a left into the Bronte Hospital car park. He swerved the car expertly into a parking space a few steps from the Accident and Emergency entrance, then he snapped off his seat belt and threw himself out of the car to come round to the passenger side and pull open the door. Gently he reached over and unfastened Bel’s seat belt for her and helped her out of the car and into the building.
There was a tired-looking receptionist manning the
desk as they approached it.
‘Name?’ she asked curtly.
‘Belinda Candy,’ said Bel, although really she was Belinda Bishop, she supposed. Not that she would ever call herself that. The receptionist seemed to be taking an age to stab the letters into the computer. Bel’s head was still bleeding and blood was dribbling down her face.
‘And what seems to be the trouble?’ said the receptionist.
‘I’ve stubbed my big toe,’ Bel said impatiently while thinking: how thick can a person be?
Psycho-killer followed up with a more sensible answer.
‘She needs an X-ray and stitches. And immediately.’
‘Well, we’ll see what the doctor has to say about that,’ said the receptionist.
‘I am a doctor,’ Psycho-killer said in the same impatient and ever-so-slightly belligerent tone which the desk Hitler was using towards him. ‘Dr Dan Regent. And this lady needs to be assessed now. Can you get someone quickly, please?’
The receptionist’s whole demeanour changed then. Her regard for the general public, who gave her so much daily hassle, was inversely proportionate to the esteem in which she held anyone with a medical degree. She jumped to her feet and scuttled off.
Bel slumped on to a chair.
‘Are you really a doctor?’ she asked. ‘Or did you just say that?’
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