Letters to the Lost (46 page)

‘You’re awake then?’

He lay very still, his head buried beneath the pillows. Maybe if he didn’t move she’d think he was asleep. Or dead. In fact, if he lay there for long enough with the pillow over his face he might actually
be
dead. It took him a second to realize that, in spite of having a hangover that must register on the Richter scale, the thought didn’t hold the same appeal it had yesterday.

‘How are you feeling?’

He gathered his strength and excavated his head, then prised open one eye to look at her.

She laughed. ‘I’ll go and put some coffee on.’

The kitchen was small, basic and – now she’d washed up what must have been a week’s worth of mugs and bowls – nice. The walls were white and there was an open shelf unit that seemed to house everything from crockery to curry spices. It was painted bright green, but it looked like it must have come from some big old house, or an antique shop or something because the paint was all chipped so you could see the blue colour underneath. She took a mug down from one of the hooks beneath it and spooned coffee into it as she waited for the kettle to boil.

Her neck ached from where she’d fallen asleep on the sofa in an odd position and her clothes felt crumpled and stale. Hastily she gulped down a glass of water, swilling the last mouthful around her teeth as a substitute for cleaning them. Then she poured water onto the coffee and carried it through to the bedroom.

Will had made an effort to sit up. He was fumbling to press pills out of a foil packet when she went in. Paracetamol, not the ones she’d seen when she tidied up the living room last night. The antidepressants.

‘So. How
are
you feeling?’

She set the mug down on the bedside table. In the semi-darkness she saw him grimace as he swallowed the pills.

‘When you were a kid did you ever put salt on a slug, just to see what happened?’ He gulped down water. ‘That. That’s what my brain feels like. I also feel pretty ashamed.’

‘Don’t be daft. It was your own private party – you didn’t ask me to gatecrash it.’

She went over to the window and drew the curtain back a little. The new day’s light was rosy and soft, but it made him wince. ‘It’s probably just as well you did. I’m not quite sure how it would have ended if you hadn’t. But you didn’t have to stay.’

‘I wanted to. Just to be on the safe side.’ She thought about mentioning Dodge’s friend, who had gone to bed drunk like that one night and failed to wake up in the morning, but she didn’t want to talk about Dodge. ‘Besides, I owed you one. I’m not sure how things would have ended if you hadn’t found me that time either.’

‘Your illness wasn’t caused by your own stupidity.’ He sipped his coffee as if it was unpleasant medicine. ‘Anyway – moving swiftly on, how are things for you now?’

She half-sat on the narrow windowsill. Despite everything that had happened between them it felt too intimate to sit on the bed, which took up most of the room. ‘They’re good, thanks. Unbelievably good compared to last time I saw you. I’ve got a place in a women’s hostel, which isn’t ideal, but I won’t be there for long now I’ve got a job.’

‘You’ve got a job? That’s great – where?’

‘At the dry cleaner’s . . . ?’ she prompted gently. ‘Your suit . . . ?’

‘Of course.’ With a moan he fell back against the pillows and thrust his hands into his hair. ‘Oh Christ alive, my suit. My brother’s wedding . . . Today is Saturday, isn’t it?’

‘’Fraid so. I saw the invitation on the fridge. You have to be at some church in Oxfordshire by 11.30.’

‘Actually, I was supposed to be at some swanky restaurant in Oxfordshire by seven last night for a pre-wedding dinner. Oh God . . . I switched my phone off after my mother’s sixth message.’

In spite of his predicament she was struggling not to smile, because, even hungover and harassed, Will Holt still managed to be sweet and funny. And because she was glad to have found him again. ‘You’re in big trouble. Why didn’t you go?’

‘Because I absolutely and completely couldn’t be arsed. By which I mean I couldn’t face it. You’d never guess it by looking at me, but my family is very polished. Very correct. Very clever and high-achieving and well-dressed and good looking. I’m the very odd one out.’

She thought of the pills and felt the smile dissolve. ‘Your mother must be worried that you didn’t show up.’

‘I’m pretty sure my mother would secretly rather I stayed away than turned up and embarrassed her with my crappy job, badly fitting suit, dreadful hair and trashed car.’

‘So you’re just not going to go? Won’t that cause more trouble in the long run?’

‘Probably.’ He sighed. ‘Who knows?’ Putting his mug down he fell back against the pillows and she saw him wince again at the sudden movement. ‘I’m tired of thinking about it, to be honest. I’m also tired of being treated like the village idiot. That might be exactly what I am but it would be nice not to be reminded of it at every verse end.’

‘Don’t say that.’ Her voice sounded weirdly low. ‘You’re not.’ She stared at the picture on the wall above his bed because she felt suddenly shy looking at him. It was a poster for some old French film. ‘Last night . . . after you were asleep, I tidied up a bit. I hope you don’t mind. I saw all the notes you’d made on Stella and Charles.’

‘Ah. Yes. Notes are about all I’ve got, I’m afraid. I’ve hit a brick wall and I can’t get any further.’

‘But you
did
it. I . . . I thought . . .’ she trailed off, realizing how bonkers it might sound if she said she thought he’d forgotten her, and how much it meant that he hadn’t. ‘Well, anyway, thanks. You’ve got loads further than I have, so it’s definitely another one I owe you. I’ve made no progress,’ she rushed on, ‘but I’ve been in touch with Dan a lot. On the computer at the library.’

‘Really? That’s great.’

‘Yeah, it is. He’s amazing. It’s easy to forget he’s dying because he’s so positive and, you know . . . alive, if that doesn’t sound daft. I wish so much I could pull this off for him. I feel like I’ve let him down and wasted his time, not finding her.’

‘How long has he got left?’

Will had propped himself up on one elbow, so she could see the contours of muscle beneath the smooth skin of his arm. She had a sudden flashback to last night, when he’d clumsily tried to take off his t-shirt and she’d helped him before he suffocated. She remembered the broadness of his shoulders, the hardness of his chest. And then she tried to unremember them so she could talk to him like a normal person.

‘I don’t know. He doesn’t talk about it much. I ask, but he always manages to skip over the question. They put him on a new drug, which seemed to work well, but then this week he thought he was getting a cold which could be really bad. He never complains, even though he must feel like crap most of the time.’

‘OK, you convinced me.’ With a sigh of resignation Will levered himself away from the pillows. ‘If he can deal with a terminal illness without complaint, I can deal with a hangover. Even though it is a pretty mammoth one.’ He clutched his head, adjusting to gravity. ‘Jesus Christ.’

She laughed. ‘You don’t have to get up yet. It’s still early.’

‘I do if I’m going to be in Oxfordshire by 11.30.’

‘You’re going?’

He gave a low moan and rubbed a hand across his face. ‘I think you’re right. If I don’t it’s just going to make things worse.’

‘It might not be as bad as you’re expecting.’

‘I can absolutely guarantee it will be every bit as bad as I’m expecting.’ He paused, his eyes narrowing. ‘Unless . . .’

‘Unless what?’

The air, which smelled of stale alcohol and warm male, seemed suddenly electrically charged. Their eyes locked over the expanse of crumpled bed.

‘Are you doing anything today?’

Once the decision had been made – once he had overcome her objections about not having an invitation, a posh wedding outfit, the right accent, and once the paracetamol had started to loosen the steel jaws of his hangover – a mood of strange euphoria gripped them both.

There was no time to lose. While Jess showered, Will forced himself to tackle two fried eggs and half a packet of bacon in the hope of mopping up the remains of the Southern Comfort swilling around his system. He was thrusting the iron over his shirt front at breakneck speed when she emerged from the bathroom, swathed in his towelling robe with her dark hair slicked flat to her head. He opened his mouth to say something flippant, but found that his throat was too dry to speak.

Jess dressed in yesterday’s clothes while he hastily threw on his morning suit and grabbed the first tie that came to hand.

‘That suit looks like it fits well enough to me,’ she said, glancing at him as they raced out of the door.

She was right, he realized. He’d felt so awful for the last couple of weeks that he’d completely lost his appetite, with the result that the trousers now did up comfortably and his waistcoat buttons weren’t threatening to burst. Every cloud had a silver lining.

The roads were choked with Saturday traffic. Somewhere near Camden Town she told him to pull over outside a nondescript-looking building and was out of the car before he’d even stopped. If it wasn’t for the persistent thud of his hangover he’d have wondered if he was dreaming all this. Who would have thought it was possible to feel so physically wrecked and mentally exhilarated at the same time? She was back in about a quarter of the time he’d expected her to take, wearing a simple little flowered dress, carrying the same bag he’d taken into the hospital for her and a pair of red high-heeled shoes.

‘Is this OK?’ she asked breathlessly as she opened the door. ‘It’s the best I can do, so if you want to change your mind I won’t be offended . . .’

‘You look bloody gorgeous,’ he said truthfully.

She got in. ‘The charity shops around here are pretty amazing, but I didn’t have any posh shoes. A girl down the corridor’s lent me these.’

‘Do they fit?’ He concentrated on moving back into the stream of traffic, though it wasn’t easy. Not with her slim legs splayed on the seat as she turned to sling her bag into the back and the scent of her clean hair and warm skin filling the small space.

‘Not really, but I’ll stuff the toes with tissue or something. Seriously, one day I’m going to go into a shop and buy some shoes that are actually my size. Anyway, you’ll never guess what I’ve got.’ Out of the corner of his eye he saw her hold up a large brown envelope. ‘Certificates from the National Records Office. Dan ordered them. They must have arrived this morning.’

‘Which ones?’

Jess had pulled the papers half out of the envelope and was studying them. ‘Charles Thorne’s death . . . and Daisy Lillian Thorne, also death. I don’t know how they’ll help us trace Stella though.’

‘They might give us a clue as to where she was living, though if it was a while ago the chances are she’s moved. What do they say?’

She bent her head to study them. ‘Blimey – the writing on Daisy’s is impossible to read . . . Charles was living in Herefordshire when he died. Cause of death was “misadventure” – whatever that means.’

‘Hmm . . . It’s another way of saying accident.’ Will was weaving between lanes, taking the fastest course through the traffic. ‘Does it give any more detail?’

‘Not that I can see.’ She slid the certificates back into the envelope and leaned her head back on the seat. ‘I’ll feel sick if I read them in the car.’

He put his foot down to pass a bus and shot her a broken smile. ‘That would make two of us.’

*

The mirror in the passenger sun visor was missing, so Jess had to wait to do her make-up until they left the motorway and Will didn’t need the rear-view mirror so much. She was glad to have something to focus on, other than the grandeur of the houses they passed, nestling behind lush hedges and electrically operated gates, and the giant mistake she’d made in agreeing to come.

Will had got quieter since they left London and she wondered if he was regretting it too. Their manic mood had gradually deflated and they’d barely spoken for the last ten miles. As a beautiful honey-coloured church appeared around a bend in the road she glanced across at him. His face was ashen.

‘This is it.’

A white vintage car decked with ribbons and flowers was parked outside. ‘Oops,’ Jess said as they passed it. ‘Looks like we’re late.’

‘If it means we’ve missed having to talk to people outside the church I’d say it’s perfect timing,’ Will said through tight lips, pulling onto a grass verge beyond the gleaming rows of 4×4s, sports cars and top of the range executive saloons. As they got out, the sound of singing drifted out across the tranquil graveyard. Will leaned into the back to get his jacket while she put on the shoes Jazz had lent her. God, they were far too big. She felt like a little girl who’d raided her big sister’s wardrobe as she tried to match his pace up the path to the church. But being slightly behind him allowed her to see exactly how gorgeous he looked in his wedding suit. She might have cursed the jacket with its long tails yesterday when she was lugging it off the bus, but she could certainly see its advantages now. With his newly washed hair falling over his forehead he looked like Mr Darcy. He slowed down to wait for her and held out his arm for her to lean on. Her stomach flipped.

‘Here goes,’ he muttered as they reached the door. His expression would have been more suited to a funeral than a wedding. The hymn was just coming to its rousing end as they slipped in, and an usher leapt up to give them an order of service.

‘Sorry – I’ve only got one,’ he whispered. ‘Could you share? Are you bride or groom?’

‘Groom.’

‘Gosh, sorry.’ The usher grinned. ‘You’re Si’s brother, aren’t you? Family’s at the front.’

Will shook his head quickly as if to say he’d hate to cause a disturbance and steered Jess into a pew at the back. At some point between the door and the pew she’d stopped leaning on his arm and was holding his hand instead. She wasn’t sure how it had happened, only that she liked it and that she was disappointed when he let go.

At the front the vicar was declaring that marriage was a gift of God, bringing husband and wife together in the delight and tenderness of sexual union. Bloody hell, thought Jess, get straight to the point, why don’t you? She felt jittery and wired, acutely aware of Will’s body, slumped in the pew beside her. She breathed in his citrusy scent, though since she’d used his shower gel and shampoo in the shower that morning she couldn’t decide whether it was coming from her skin or his.