DS Jessica Daniel series: Locked In/Vigilante/The Woman in Black - Books 1-3 (112 page)

Jessica didn’t know whether to answer honestly but it wasn’t really in her nature to stay quiet, even at what could be inopportune times. ‘I don’t know, you tell
me,’ she replied.

Caroline blinked back tears and laughed. ‘I wanted you to say “no”.’

Jessica could tell her friend was being half-serious. ‘Sorry . . .’

‘It’s all right. I don’t know either. He’s nice though and he loves me, that’s what matters.’ Jessica said nothing, letting her friend get things off her
chest. ‘It’s just big-day nerves,’ Caroline added. ‘I’m not going to make a dash for it when we get to the altar.’

‘I don’t think you’d get too far in those heels anyway.’

The church was a small building in a little village on the outskirts of the city that had been on the same site for hundreds of years. As the sun shone and the two women stepped out of the
vehicle, the photographer rushed in, taking photo after photo. Jessica hated having her picture taken at the best of the times but she gritted her teeth and did her best to smile, knowing this was
bad enough but the posed pictures that would be taken after the ceremony would really test her patience.

When he finally left them to enter the church and get into position for the aisle walk, Jessica looked up to see the setting properly. The picturesque church and its green surroundings, along
with the bright blue sky, really was like something on the front of a postcard.

‘This is lovely,’ Jessica said.

Caroline looked a little emotional as they walked the short distance to the church’s main doors. They entered a small room just inside where the other bridesmaids were waiting with their
parents before the adults went into the main part of the church, leaving just the four of them.

As the church organ started up with the opening chords of the wedding march, Jessica winked at her friend. ‘Deep breath.’

They stepped out of the room and began to slowly walk down the aisle. Aside from the organ, Jessica could only hear shuffling as people turned en masse to look at them walking together. Jessica
had visions of tripping and wiping out her friend along with the other bridesmaids but kept a careful eye on where she was stepping.

They neared the front and Jessica glanced up to see the grinning face of Thomas and his best man then glanced to her left and almost gasped with embarrassment. The man sitting on the end of the
line two rows back caught Jessica’s eye and smiled. She could see he was wearing a purple velvet smoking jacket along with dark green trousers. Jessica couldn’t see what shoes he had
on, if any, but dreaded to think what they could be.

‘What
are
you wearing?’ Jessica mouthed silently to the man but he shook his head as if to indicate he hadn’t understood. She stopped looking at him and continued to
walk until the small party arrived at the front and the organ went quiet.

It was clearly a little strange for her to be giving Caroline away but everyone involved must have known the situation. The ceremony went as would have been expected but Jessica felt
self-conscious standing at the front.

After it was over and the newly married couple walked back down the aisle towards the outside of the church, Jessica didn’t waste the opportunity to slide in next to the man two rows
back.

‘What
are
you wearing?’ she demanded in a loud whisper as the church organ blared again.

‘What?’ he said.

Jessica looked down to see he was wearing a pair of canvas trainers that matched his jacket. ‘You’re wearing purple shoes, a purple jacket and green trousers to a wedding. What kind
of idiot wears trainers to a wedding?’

The man shook his head as if he didn’t understand the point. ‘You said “dress smartly”.’

‘Exactly!’

‘These are my best clothes.’

Realising she wasn’t going to win the argument, Jessica stood back up, offering the man her arm to exit the church. ‘You and I are going to have to go shopping, Hugo.’

The other people at the wedding seemed part-bemused, part-amused by Hugo. His real name was Francis but he was a magician who used ‘Hugo’ as a stage name. Jessica
had first met him a couple of years ago and, although not a friend as such, she figured he was as good a person as anyone to take to a wedding. There was no real attraction but her thinking had
been he could at least entertain the other guests. She’d overlooked the fact he could also embarrass her but, given this was the first time she had ever seen him wearing shoes that matched,
Jessica figured it could have been worse. He did at least look as if he had combed his hair for the occasion, his shoulder-length brown locks as tidy as she had seen them. The one good thing was
that Caroline fell in the ‘amused’ rather than ‘bemused’ camp.

Jessica tried to pretend she was enjoying herself as she was yanked, sometimes literally, from one posed photo to another. By the end of it, she could quite happily have cut off the
photographer’s hand to stop him putting it in the air every time he wanted the assembled people to smile and say ‘cheese’.

When the organised picture-taking was over, Jessica finally got a chance to catch up with her parents. She had seen them in the church but only to wave to while, before that, she hadn’t
seen them in a few months. Her dad took the opportunity to tease her about her new ‘boyfriend’.

The bride and groom had gone off to their hotel room for a few hours before they were going to return to the party. When the youngest bridesmaid had asked why they weren’t just going
directly to the reception, Caroline had told her she and her new husband were going to ‘rest’, completely ignoring Jessica’s inadvertent snort of laughter.

‘Enjoy your “rest”,’ Jessica said with a giggle.

With a few hours to kill, Jessica, Hugo and her parents went to a local pub for a chat before heading to the reception venue. Hugo didn’t seem to mind the fact he wasn’t really
involved in the conversations and happily sat around watching people go by. Jessica wondered if he was feeling hot in the velvet jacket but, if he was, he said nothing. After a couple of drinks,
she even began to warm to his outfit and, before long, they had to catch a taxi to the reception itself.

The party was being held in a massive conference room at a nearby golf club where Thomas’s father was apparently one of the higher-up members. Huge bay windows on one side of the room
opened out onto the course itself and it was along there where the long head table was placed.

Jessica saw from the seating plan that she was on the main table with Caroline on one side and Hugo on the other. It was the traditional spot the father of the bride might have had and she
couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed. Her parents were on one of the circular tables placed around the room. Each one was named after a different country for a reason Jessica
didn’t know. Her parents were on ‘Canada’, which was next to ‘New Zealand’.

Although Caroline told her she didn’t have to, Jessica had spent some of her free time trying to put together a speech. Despite that, when the moment came after the meal, she just
ad-libbed, talking about her friend and telling the story of how they met quite by chance because they ended up sitting next to each other in a lesson many years ago. She ended with a standard
‘Congratulations’ and sat down, leaving it to the best man to poke fun at the groom.

Just when it looked as if everything was completed, with the staff hovering ready to start moving the tables so the floor could be cleared, Jessica heard someone else tinkling their glass. She
looked sideways and saw Hugo rising to his feet, tapping his knife on his champagne flute to get people’s attention. Caroline nudged Jessica with her elbow and the two women exchanged the
same ‘What’s going on?’ look.

Before Jessica could intervene, Hugo started to speak. ‘I would just like to add my congratulations to the happy couple and I hope they haven’t dropped too much food on
themselves.’ He sat back down as quickly as he had stood up and, apart from one person who started clapping at the back of the room before stopping when they realised no one else was joining
in, there was silence.

Jessica noticed Caroline look down at her lap, presumably wondering if she had dropped any food. She picked up the cream-coloured satin napkin that was still on her lap and went to put it on the
table before squealing slightly and opening it out. Jessica saw there was a beautifully drawn picture of the bride and the groom on the material. She had no idea what had been used to create it but
Caroline first showed it to Thomas and then turned it around for the rest of the room to see. It really was a strange piece of art but absolutely compelling because of its perfect likeness of the
two people.

‘Did you draw that?’ Jessica asked Hugo, who shrugged with a vague acknowledgement as people around the room began to applaud the unconventional gift.

Caroline turned it around to have another look and then leant behind Jessica to talk to Hugo. ‘This is amazing. Thanks so much. We’ll get it framed or something, it’s so
unique.’

Hugo continued to nod in the way Jessica had seen him do before when he had stunned people with tricks. This was slightly different but equally as impressive, although Jessica never ceased to be
amazed by how strange he was. She wondered what else he was good at, given she could now add art to the list of illusion, singing and taxidermy he had impressed her with.

The tables were cleared by staff and a band started playing soft background music. There were plenty of wine bottles still around the edges of the room that hadn’t been finished during the
meal and Jessica happily drank away. She was feeling nice and tipsy when the first dance finally got under way. The groom’s parents were both in tears, leaving Jessica feeling a little
uncomfortable as she rarely showed any outward emotion. Halfway through the song, Caroline beckoned her onto the floor but it was Hugo who dragged her towards the happy couple and put his hands on
her waist, initiating a slow dance. Other couples followed and, before Jessica knew it, she was in the middle of a host of people gently swaying to the song.

If anyone else from the station had been present, Jessica would have felt deeply embarrassed but, as it was, she allowed Hugo to lead her around. She stepped in closer to him, letting him hold
her and figuring he was a good choice of person to bring. He was definitely odd but at least he wasn’t trying to come on to her.

After what seemed like an age, the song finally ended and everyone stopped to applaud the newly married couple. Hugo grinned and stepped away from Jessica almost as quickly as he had pulled her
onto the dance floor in the first place.

While some carried on dancing, Jessica trailed her guest back to the children’s table. She didn’t know why that was where he wanted to sit but followed his lead. A few of the younger
boys were racing up and down at the rear of the room but Hugo beckoned them over and showed them a trick where he made a wine glass disappear in front of their eyes. Before Jessica knew what was
happening, there was a small crowd of people around them watching the magician go through a routine of making things disappear and reappear, or simply guessing the contents of their pockets after
asking a few questions. As she suspected he would have, Hugo also had a deck of cards in his pocket and moved onto card tricks, bringing various ‘oooh’ noises from the people
present.

At one point he borrowed a bracelet from Jessica’s mother and made it reappear on Jessica’s own arm. Neither of her parents seemed to believe that she wasn’t in a relationship
with Hugo. ‘Oh, he’s lovely,’ her mum kept saying, while her dad said he couldn’t wait for the man to take Jessica off his hands, openly asking how much it would cost him.
Jessica didn’t have the inclination to tell them Hugo lived above a betting shop and surrounded himself with dead stuffed animals. Luckily for Jessica, her parents left relatively early as
her father was feeling tired. She kissed them both and assured them she would call in the next day or two.

The photographer was still hanging around and had moved from taking photos of the couple dancing, cutting the cake and eating the cake to focusing on the other guests. He was particularly taken
with Hugo and, as the crowd slowly began to thin with the younger children leaving, he asked for a picture of Jessica and Hugo together.

Jessica wasn’t in the mood but had no time to object before Hugo shuffled into the seat next to her, beaming at the camera.

‘Can you smile for me,’ the picture-taker said to Jessica as if addressing a child. She did her best to not look annoyed. ‘Okay, now can you each hold a glass as if
you’re toasting the camera,’ he added. Hugo eagerly picked up his glass while Jessica’s was again empty. Someone poured her more wine and she copied Hugo in saluting the camera
with her glass, smiling wearily. ‘Okay, can you swap hands?’ the photographer said, pointing at Hugo then at Jessica. ‘You’re holding it with your left hand and you’ve
got it with your right. It doesn’t look right.’

Jessica swapped and the photographer snapped away. He went to stand up but a thought popped into her head. ‘Can I have a look at those pictures?’ she asked. The man seemed confused
but crouched down, turning the camera around so she could see the images in the viewfinder. In the second set of pictures, she and Hugo were holding the glasses in their outside hands. She had hers
in her left, while he was using his right. In the first set, they had the drinks on their inside hands next to each other. The photographer was correct when he said things didn’t look right.
‘Thanks,’ Jessica said, letting the man stand again.

After he had walked away, she turned to Hugo. ‘Are you left-handed?’ He shrugged in the same way he always did when acknowledging something. ‘You are?’ Jessica asked
again, wanting confirmation.

‘Yes.’

‘So would you always pick a glass up with your left hand?’

‘I guess.’

Jessica thought about herself. Most of the time she would drink using her right hand. On occasion she might use her left but not often. She stood quickly.