‘I told her not to bother you with that,’ said Celeste. ‘It’s probably just some stupid prank.’
But, of course, Meghan wouldn’t leave it alone. ‘This is more than a teenage crush, Celeste,’ she lectured. ‘He’s behaving as if he’s seriously mentally disturbed. He could be dangerous. He goes to the same class as you at college. Other than that, you know nothing about him.’
Celeste appeared to waver. In the end she said, ‘Please don’t put pressure on me to go to the police. It’s got to be my own decision. There’ll be no going back – it will set in motion a whole process. Right now, I can’t face the thought of being questioned and writing statements and giving evidence in court. Besides what would they charge him with? He hasn’t actually done me any harm. I’m not even one hundred per cent certain it was him who placed that order or took these photographs. I need to be sure before going to the police.’ She reached into her floristry workbox and took out the black bin liner in which she had wrapped the photographs. ‘Look, why don’t you put these in the safe? That way we know the fingerprint evidence is preserved, if I decide to make a complaint against him later.’
Meghan would probably have pressed Celeste harder but there was another ‘situation’ that needed to be dealt with first. She’d never faced anything like this before – in sixteen years of being in business as a florist. She was hoping that Celeste might be able to provide the clue to the mystery.
‘Come with me,’ said Meghan. ‘I really don’t know what to do about this.’ The door of the cold room was closed. As Meghan opened it, a great wave of mingled fragrances surged over Celeste, making it almost hard to breathe.
‘They’ve been here all weekend. Nobody came to collect them.’
The expression of shock registered on Celeste’s face was so graphic it was almost comical.
All of the flower arrangements for the Mia Madison wedding that she had slaved over for the past three weeks were sitting there in the cold room in exactly the positions she had left them ready for collection, still looking gorgeous but not as pristine and fresh as when she painstakingly put them together.
‘What on earth…’ said Celeste. ‘What happened?’
‘She never showed up,’ said Meghan.
PAST
36
She’s flanked by police officers on either side, like a criminal. She’s under restraint, but that is to stop her from running into the flames. One of the rescue team has thrown a survival blanket round her shoulders. She’s shaking and whimpering like a puppy in pain, and her face is stained with smoke and tears. The thundering jets of water have dampened down the blaze. Her eyes are riveted on the point of entry to the smouldering barn – the back door, which leads to the spiral staircase, which leads to Ben’s bedroom where Tom was locked in – the black hole that swallowed up two firefighters each clothed in full personal protection equipment with breathing apparatus and tools, entering the premises in search of her brother.
Ben is crying too. A third officer has taken him to one side. A firefighter is with them. The woman is speaking into a radio – relaying information about the layout of the barn from Ben’s incoherent answers that she’s trying to make sense of.
It can’t be more than five minutes but feels like an eternity before the firefighters emerge from the black hole. The biggest man is carrying Tom. He must have lifted and dragged him down the spiral stairs. The other firefighter is supporting Tom’s upper body and holding a breathing apparatus to his face. As soon as they reach the grass, the paramedics who were waiting on standby wheel over the stretcher and Tom is laid out, and strapped on and trundled into the ambulance that’s parked up on the lawn.
She’s beside herself now, desperate to reach him, tears streaming down her face, beating her hands against the police officer’s chest. She begs to go with him to the hospital, promises to calm down. Once Tom’s secured inside, the police officer releases her and she runs to the ambulance. She grabs his hand. She gives thanks to God. He’s here, his body is whole, untouched by the fire.
A paramedic leans over his chest, adjusting dials and tubes. Her euphoria turns to despair. His hand is warm but limp and lifeless in hers. His beautiful brown eyes are closed, and she fixes her gaze on his long dark lashes (wasted on a boy, her mother always said) watching for the slightest flicker or twitch. She’d like to kiss him, but his lips are hidden by the oxygen mask covering the lower part of his face. She remembers the fire safety lessons they gave them in school. ‘It’s the smoke that kills, not the flames.’
Ben stays behind, his back turned, while the ambulance pulls away. He didn’t watch her go. He didn’t even come over to check on Tom. He’s got more pressing things to do. He’s trying to contact his parents. They’re not picking up. He shouts desperate, tearful messages into their mobile phones… He knows they are somewhere in Majorca… He can’t remember the name of the hotel.
And what happened down in the woods (whatever it was – lovemaking, seduction, rape?) has nothing to do with him anymore. He’s just a child in a man’s body. Did it even happen?
All his focus now, is on how the hell he’s going to face his mum and dad when they come home to find that half their house has been burnt down.
PRESENT
37
By force of habit I find myself haunting the backyard of Seventh Heaven. I feel lost. Of course, You are not in the Bridal Room because there is nothing more to talk about with Mia. The wedding flowers are done. Instead I see your boss. She looks agitated and tense. The ‘Madison Mystery’ has left her feeling on edge and perplexed. I zoom in to scrutinise her expression while she studies your photographs. She notices the Seventh Heaven logo on the plant markers but if I’m not mistaken, she draws the wrong conclusion, which is why she is so jumpy, checking over her shoulder, deadlocking the doors. I know what she’s thinking. Could there be any connection between Celeste’s stalker and the disappearance of Mia Madison? She’s thinks I must have broken into the storeroom to steal the green tape and the plant markers. She would be even more confused and disturbed if she discovered the true identity of the thief.
*
Celeste kept her eyes firmly fixed on the roomful of fading flowers as Meghan filled her in on what had happened. She couldn’t bring herself to look at her boss.
‘We were all dashing around on Saturday as you know, doing the deliveries for the other two weddings – and you and Emily went off early to do the cemetery run – so Mum was here, holding the fort for me in the shop. I’d told her all the Madison flowers were ready to be picked up, all wrapped and prepared. I’d left the back door to the cold room unlocked, so that the wedding planner could get the delivery guys to drive into the yard and load up the flowers without coming through the shop floor.
‘Anyway, Mum was distracted and busy with customers in the shop. She lost track of time and it wasn’t until lunchtime that she remembered the wedding flowers. She’d been expecting the wedding planner to at least pop her head round to let her know they’d arrived. She couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw that all the flowers were still there.’ Meghan went on to explain that her mum wasn’t too good with mobile phones and had been stressed and rushed off her feet for the rest of the day with people coming in to buy flowers for special events and family gatherings on the May bank holiday weekend. So, the long and the short of it was that Meghan hadn’t found out there was a problem until she got back late in the afternoon. Her immediate thought had been that there’d been a mix-up with the dates. But she had checked, and rechecked Celeste’s function sheet and notes and the date was correct.
‘Of course, I wanted to call the wedding planner, but I realised I didn’t know her name or her number. So, then I tried to get hold of the chief bridesmaid, but I kept getting the message number unavailable again and again. And then I tried Mia’s mobile, but she’s not answering her phone or returning her messages. Every time I ring, it goes straight to voicemail, and then I get the message to try again later because her voicemai
l is full. I’ve tried emailing her too but no response.’
Meghan pulled the door shut impatiently and went into the office to pull out Celeste’s file on the Madison wedding.
‘I’ve been through the whole file and couldn’t find any other contact details. Didn’t you take an address?’
Celeste flipped through the pages, for a couple of minutes and then said, ‘No, I don’t think I ever did get an address. She gave me her phone number and her email. She doesn’t have an address in the UK. I guess she was staying with her in-laws or with friends or in a hotel. I have no idea. No fixed abode, I guess. Because she paid in cash, I didn’t need her address for a card payment, so I don’t even have her US address.’ Meghan didn’t make any attempt to hide her annoyance with Celeste.
‘It’s so unprofessional,’ she muttered.
But Celeste’s tone was defensive. ‘It didn’t seem necessary getting her postal address. We had the address of the venues. Sorry I just didn’t think about it. Everything is done online these days.’
Meghan blamed herself for not being stricter with Celeste about following the proper procedures. She understood that the younger generation were less focused on geographical and physical locations since so much took place in ‘cyberspace’ these days. But still, the Madison bride must have an address, she thought crossly. A woman of her standing would have a roof over her head.
Meghan was getting herself more and more worked up. ‘Do you have any idea why she could have done this?’ she said in exasperation. Celeste shrugged, and carried on turning the pages of her notebook.
‘Do you have any other way of contacting her?’ asked Meghan. ‘What about the bridegroom? Do you have any contact details for him?’
Celeste closed her notebook and put it back in her workbox. ‘No… No contact details for the bridegroom,’ she said flatly. ‘I could search for her on Facebook,’ said Celeste, in an effort to sound amenable ‘but if she’s broken up with her fiancé or he’s stood her up at the last minute or there’s been some other crisis, the last thing she’ll want is to have gossip and rumours flying around on social media. This wedding was supposed to be kept a secret from her parents, remember.’ Suddenly, Celeste blurted out. ‘Maybe it’s something to do with the baby… a miscarriage or something… some kind of emergency? That would explain why she hasn’t been in touch and why we can’t get hold of her.’
Celeste noticed that Meghan had put on her ‘business manager’ face, with pinched lips and furrowed brow. ‘Think about it, Celeste. It doesn’t look good for us. I know that we’re not in any way to blame for this situation, but we don’t want the name of Seventh Heaven to be linked to some kind of drama or calamity. That kind of bad association creates adverse publicity. More importantly, we don’t want to be seen out there on social media platforms as breaching the bride’s confidence by not respecting her privacy if she has had some sort of life crisis. It is paramount that we keep up our reputation for absolute discretion and respect for our clients’ privacy.’
Celeste understood why Meghan was paranoid about this. As florists, they were often involved in delivering flowers to hotel rooms or unusual addresses when it was patently obvious that the gifts were being delivered to a mistress or in the course of an illicit affair. Before Celeste’s time there had been a mishap in which a bouquet of flowers intended for his mistress had mistakenly been delivered to an important business client’s billing address (which was also his home address) instead of a hotel address in London, and he (and his wife) had had a huge row over it. Needless to say, that business account had been lost for good.
‘I’ll keep trying her numbers,’ said Celeste briskly. She took out her phone and dialled. Once again, the calls went to voicemail. ‘I guess there’s not much more we can do at this stage.’
‘Perhaps the woman’s a fantasist with a wild imagination?’ mused Meghan. ‘Maybe the wedding was all in her head? I always thought she had more money than sense.’
At that point, Meghan’s reflections were cut short by a van pulling into the yard bringing weekly deliveries of fresh flower stock from one of the Seventh Heaven suppliers. Meghan’s bewilderment and concern turned to annoyance as her practical business instincts resurfaced.
‘Well, thank goodness Mia Madison paid in advance! Let’s just hope she gets in touch soon to let us know what to do with all these flowers – it’s such a waste. At least they could be given to a hospital or care home if she doesn’t want them anymore… In the meantime, you better push them all over to the side of the room to create some floor space for these deliveries.’
*
Later that afternoon, Celeste loaded up the panniers on her bicycle with two bedside arrangements of ‘get well’ flowers for delivery to in-patients at the nearby Lister Hospital in the heart of Chelsea. She had been tempted to use blooms from the abandoned Madison wedding flowers, but in the end, she thought better of it. It felt disloyal – like a betrayal of their friendship. It was an easy fifteen-minute bike ride through attractive residential backstreets.
Celeste was glad to get out of the shop into the fresh air and away from Meghan, who had been distracted and bad-tempered all day. Celeste had the uncomfortable feeling that Meghan blamed her for the mystery and embarrassment surrounding Mia Madison’s wedding flowers. Meghan had more or less said as much, thought Celeste, as she unloaded the panniers and carried the flowers up to the hospital reception desk. They had almost had an argument over it as she was preparing to leave. Celeste had made a show of defending herself vigorously.
‘It wasn’t my fault that the woman did a runner!’ Celeste had said. ‘I went out of my way to give her excellent client care and support. What more could I have done?’
*
It’s a quiet afternoon in Seventh Heaven after the bank holiday weekend so Meghan tells Celeste she can go straight home after the two hospital deliveries. While Celeste cycles back to her apartment, Meghan decides to call it a day. She flips the sign on the door to ‘CLOSED.’ There are so few sales that it doesn’t take her long to transfer the takings from the till and cash up.
When Meghan puts the cashbox into the overnight safe, her fingers brush against the plastic bag containing Celeste’s photographs. She is suddenly curious to look at the images Celeste brought back from the North London cemetery. She has set herself the task of getting through her inbox and up to date with her invoicing this evening, so she puts the bag to one side on her desk. The photographs will be her incentive to get through her work. She concentrates so hard that she doesn’t notice the light fading as the sun goes down. Every now and then she looks up from her paperwork to glance at the plastic bag, positioned on her desk like a smoking gun.
The office window faces onto a side street. Her attention is drawn by the sound of a car pulling up outside. The beams from its headlights are like searchlights on the other side of the glass. It is dark outside, and she jumps at her own reflection in the windowpane. She walks over briskly to close the blind. A few seconds later, she hears a car door closing and the sound of footsteps. ‘Pull yourself together,’ she says out loud as she switches on all the lights. The business with Mia has upset and unsettled her.
She goes into the cold room (where the smell of the open blooms is now so overpowering as to be almost nauseating) to collect a pair of disposable surgical gloves from the store cupboard. Florists use these routinely for precision handling certain varieties of blooms that are staining or harsh on the hands. These gloves are also ideal for the purpose of looking through photographs without leaving behind the marks of one’s own fingerprints.
She takes the photographs into the office and spreads them out on her desk. There are about thirty of them – all of Celeste, taken from various different angles, and positions, some face-on, some from behind or to the side, some wide-angle and some zoomed in, at different times of the day, on different days, in front of different graves. Meghan will insist that Celeste takes this up with the police. This ridiculous situation cannot be
allowed to continue. Her hands tremble slightly as goes through the photographs. Then abruptly they stop moving altogether.
She pulls out a photograph and holds it under her desk lamp. It isn’t the image that has caught her attention but the fixings – the flat wooden stick and the tape attaching it to the paper. Gently she pulls away the green tape, so familiar in her fingers because she works with this green tape almost every day. Removing the wooden stick from the photographic paper, it comes as no surprise when she turns it over to see the words ‘Seventh Heaven’ printed on the back.
Hastily, she puts the photographs back into the bag, all the while glancing towards the windows where every passing shadow makes her stiffen. She closes the safe then puts on her coat, locks the back doors and makes her way to the front door. She avoids exiting through the backyard – just in case the driver of the car parked in the side street is still lurking around somewhere in the vicinity of the shop.
Slowly the chilling realisation dawns on her – whoever took those photographs of Celeste must have sneaked into Seventh Heaven and stolen a roll of floristry tape and a handful of plant markers. It’s time to go.
PAST
38
Celeste is in the garden with Tom at their old family home. Tom is about three years old and she’s about ten. They’re playing on the swing – or rather Celeste is pushing Tom on the swing because their mother is ‘resting’ on the sofa in the sitting room with a splitting migraine and an empty bottle of gin and has sent them out ‘for some fresh air’.
Celeste knows the score. She’s not stupid. But she plays along in an unspoken conspiracy with her mother to protect her little brother’s innocence.
‘Mummy’s been working very hard. She’s very tired,’ she tells Tom (almost believing in her own lies). ‘She’ll be feeling better soon and then she’ll take us to the park.’
No Smoke Without Fire Page 20