The Witness at the Wedding

Eleven

It was late by the time Carole managed to get rid of David. He had become increasingly maudlin, and even tried to be affectionate, which was absolutely the last thing she wanted. She was appalled when he tried to kiss her, and even more appalled by the fact that she felt an unwelcome flickering of responsive lust. He was so firmly out of her life that she didn’t want him encroaching even on its furthest margins.

Once she had finally ejected him, her mind was too full for sleep to come easily. Seeing David reanimated a whole complex of emotions that she hoped had been safely consigned to inert half-life. The fourteenth of September – the date when she had promised Stephen his parents would demonstrate what a mature, friendly relationship they had – loomed ever more threateningly ahead of her. And the worries David had voiced about Gaby’s family were also troubling, particularly as they echoed anxieties that she had not dared spell out to herself.

All she wanted to do was to snatch what sleep she could, get up at half past six, forgo breakfast, leave thehated hotel and set the Renault firmly on course for Fethering.

She was therefore annoyed, when the phone woke her at twenty to eight, to realize that she had overslept. It was Stephen. And he sounded very tense. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s Howard. Gaby’s dad.”

“What? Has he been taken ill?”

“No. He’s disappeared.”

“What do you mean, Stephen?”

“A car was ordered to take him back after the party last night. He got into it, and that’s the last anyone saw of him. He never made it home.”