The Rain-Soaked Bride (33 page)

‘North,’ Toby replies. ‘Great.’

He cuts into the central courtyard of a block of flats and looks around. No rear exit. ‘Creative,’ he sighs.

An old woman is manhandling her shopping through the pass-coded entrance door to the flats beyond. He tries to look casual – an almost impossible task given the suit he’s wearing

– coming up behind her and helping her lift the wheeled trolley through.

‘Thank you, dear,’ she says.

‘My pleasure,’ he replies. ‘I don’t suppose you live in one of the flats over there, do you?’ he asks pointing in the direction he needs to go.

‘Number 12a,’ she replies. ‘Just there.’ She points directly opposite them.

‘That’ll do,’ he replies. ‘I need a massive favour.’

‘Toby,’ Shining asks, sighing at the flurry of negotiation going on in his earpiece, ‘I hate to rush you . . .’

‘I’m on it!’ Toby replies.

‘Who are you talking to now?’ the old woman asks. ‘God?’

‘He would love to think so. Which way?’

She points along the poky entrance hall. ‘Bathroom’s at the back there. Second on the left.’

‘You’re a wonder,’ Toby replies, kissing her on her forehead.

‘Well,’ she shrugs, ‘when you’ve got to go . . .’

He dashes into the bathroom, relieved at the sight of the window that looks out over the road behind. He opens it and drags himself through. It’s tight, and there’s a moment when the latch catches on his belt, but with a little wriggling he manages to get through, hanging by his fingers from the sill. He’s looking out over the green. The car should now be approaching from his left. All he has to do is get ahead of it.

He drops to the ground, keeping his legs loose so that he rolls.

Brushing the dust from his suit as he runs, he crosses into the park and begins to sprint. The car will have to drive along the road he has just crossed, then turn the corner and drive up the far side. If he can just get to the far corner before the car does, he’ll cross the road before them.

‘I can see you!’ says Shining. ‘You’re going to make it. Keep running, they’re just behind you.’

Toby doesn’t bother to reply, saving his breath as he tries to move even faster. He risks one quick glance behind him and he can see the car moving along the road he just crossed. He just has to complete the diagonal before they turn the corner. He can see Shining now, beckoning to him from a few yards away. There’s a hedge at chest-height, bordering the edge of the green, but it’s dense and he vaults it, springing down on the other side in a shower of leaves and a pair of slightly scratched palms.

‘Made it!’ Shining laughs, beckoning for Toby to move ahead of him through the gate.

Toby notices the car turning onto the road just behind them. He walks ahead of Shining and past the ornately painted sign declaring the place to be the ‘Church of the Sacred Mind’. The curly letters that make up these words are surrounded by stylised pictures of brains.

‘I can’t believe you convinced us to use this place,’ he says, trying to catch his breath.

‘Nonsense, it’s perfect, a solid humanist ceremony and a cracking buffet lunch. As well as being a legally ordained minister and demonologist, Pleasance is a cracking cook.’

The car that Toby was avoiding pulls up in front of the building and April gets out.

‘See, darling?’ she says to the car’s other passenger, ‘I told you he wouldn’t be late.’

Tamar steps out and smiles at the man who is about to become her husband. ‘He does not dare,’ she says. ‘He knows I would kill him.’

‘Ah,’ Shining sighs, ‘young love.’

‘Here they are!’ shouts Pleasance Bellvue, minister of the Church of the Sacred Mind and occasional agent for Section 37. ‘Everything’s ready for you in the garden, my loves, you’ve a splendid turnout.’

She is a giant of a woman, six and a half foot of Jamaican descent. When she offers enthusiasm, the world can be in no doubt of the fact.

She takes Toby and Tamar’s hands and then wraps them both in a bear hug that leaves an already slightly breathless Toby feeling unconsciousness can only be seconds away.

‘Go through,’ Pleasance tells them, finally releasing them, ‘have a mingle. I’ve just got to turn the samosas over.’

Toby takes Tamar’s hand and they step out through a large pair of patio doors into the garden.

It’s a massive courtyard, its walls lined with ivy that has been threaded with fairy lights. Against the far wall, there is a small raised dais, surrounded by white drapes and sprinkled with petals. A banner above it reads ‘Tamar and Toby, The First Day Of The Rest Of Their Lives.’

‘There’s a thought,’ says Toby.

‘She puts my name in front,’ says Tamar, squeezing his hand. ‘She is a wise woman.’

As they step out, the small group of people gathered around a central buffet table turn and give an enthusiastic round of applause. Someone wolf whistles. Toby notices it’s Cassandra, who is wearing a dress that appears to have been constructed out of bomb-damaged net curtains.

‘You’re finally here, then,’ says a voice to Toby’s right. It’s his father, staying as close to the exit as possible. ‘Trust you to know so many mentals. I dread to think what your mother, God rest her soul, would have said.’

‘Congratulations?’ Toby suggests, before quickly changing the subject. Today was going to be a happy day, he was damned if he’d let it be otherwise. ‘Thank you for coming.’

‘Aye, well, I was down anyway. Couldn’t miss this, could I? Never thought I’d see the day.’

‘Hello, Roger,’ says Tamar, taking his hand. ‘It is nice to see you again.’

Toby smiles. She’s a better liar than he is. When he’d first introduced them six weeks earlier, during a torturous weekend at his father’s cottage in Wales, he had suspected it had taken a considerable effort on her part not to break Roger Greene’s neck. He had found her several times hiding in the bathroom and pulling faces in the mirror.

‘Sure you don’t mind inheriting such a father-in-law?’ he had asked.

‘Death comes to us all in the end,’ she had replied with a smile.

‘Nice to see you, too,’ says Roger to Tamar, speaking slowly and loudly as if to an idiot. Toby has tried to explain that, however strangled her English occasionally sounds, she can understand him just fine. Roger is clearly not yet convinced. ‘I hope you know what you are doing? Not too late to back out you know . . .’

‘Thanks, Dad,’ says Toby.

‘You know what they say,’ Roger sighs. ‘Marry in haste . . .’

‘Before the baby arrives?’

Roger Greene turns to see the glamorous figure who has joined them and his eyes light up. Toby smiles, his father always has had an uncontrollable libido.

‘Well, hello,’ he purrs, making no attempt to hide his appreciation of the new arrival. ‘The afternoon’s looking up.’

‘Oh, you charmer,’ the new arrival replies.

‘Dad,’ says Toby, ‘this is—’ but a raised hand stops him.

‘Don’t spoil the surprise,’ insists Alasdair Forge, white witch and female impersonator. ‘I’m sure your father will find out in good time once we’ve got to know each other a little better.’

Alasdair puts his arm around Roger Greene and leads him towards the buffet table. He doesn’t attempt to stop the old man’s hand as it makes its slow way down his back before coming to rest on his left buttock.

‘I think your father will be angry,’ says Tamar.

‘Won’t he just? Don’t worry about it.’

‘I wasn’t.’ She kisses him on the cheek.

‘You sure you want to go through with this?’ Toby asks her. It is not the first time he’s asked the question.

‘I would not be here if I did not,’ she replies. ‘You are a good man and you make me laugh. I could do worse.’

‘So romantic. You didn’t mention your uncontrollable lust for me.’

She smiles at him. ‘See? You are always funny.’

She takes his arm and drags him over to where Jamie Goss is trying the punch.

‘The wonderful thing about punch,’ he says, ‘is that it’s both food and drink in one bowl. I can get charmingly wasted and also keep up with my five-a-day.’ He pops a segment of apple in his mouth and grins at Toby. ‘Not that you’re probably familiar with fruit.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, nothing, I just didn’t imagine you eat a lot of it.’ Goss pats him on the stomach.

‘Jamie is trying to infer I’m fat,’ explains Toby.

‘No I’m not!’ Goss insists. ‘I’m implying it. It’s you that’s doing the inferring. Anyway, I’m allowed to be a bit mean, you’ve made me bring Alasdair to a wedding. It’ll give him ideas.’

‘You should be so lucky,’ Toby tells him, looking over to where Alasdair is laughing loudly at something deeply unfunny that Roger Greene has just said. ‘Anyway, he’ll probably end up marrying my father.’

‘As long as he doesn’t try and bring him home.’ Goss turns to Tamar. ‘I presume he’s paying you to marry him?’

‘No, I no longer sleep with men for money, thank you.’

Goss’s face falls. ‘Oh. I didn’t mean to . . . I mean, it was supposed to be a joke.’

‘Wonderful,’ says Toby. ‘You’ve actually made him stuck for words.’

Tamar picks a piece of orange from Goss’s punch glass and pops it in her mouth. ‘I win,’ she says. ‘Always.’

‘Can I push in?’ Toby thinks that Derek Lime, ex-wrestler and physicist can push in anywhere he damn well likes. ‘Good to see you again,’ he says to Toby, shaking his hand carefully so as not to break it. ‘I knew your name wasn’t Charlie,’ he says, nodding at the banner.

‘Or Keith,’ says Goss.

‘Or Gary,’ says Cassandra, having joined them.

‘Terry,’ Toby corrects her.

‘You were always Gary to me.’

‘It’s all right,’ says Shining, joining them. ‘I have a friend called Leonard who will be wiping your memories before you leave the building.’

Derek laughs.

Goss takes another mouthful of his punch.

Shining takes Toby by the shoulder. ‘Can I borrow him for a moment?’

‘Is Len all set?’ Toby asks.

‘By the time they get home, they won’t have the first idea what they’ve been doing all day. The only exception is Pleasance. After all, she does have to file the paperwork.’

Shining looks at Toby’s father who is trying to dance with Alasdair despite the fact that there’s no music playing. ‘What about Roger?’

‘He’s not cleared to know any of these people.’

‘Oh, I know, but he easily could be.’

‘No. Let him forget the same as everyone else. I’ll tell him I’m married the next time we see him. Which I hope won’t be too soon.’

‘Certainly not for a couple of weeks.’ Shining pats his jacket pocket. ‘I’ve printed off your boarding passes. You’re all set.’

‘Thank you. I do hope we don’t miss the Apocalypse or anything while we’re away.’

‘If you do you do, I managed on my own for long enough. Although . . .’ Shining takes Toby’s arm. ‘It won’t be the same. You know that, yes? The difference you’ve made . . . not just to the Section . . . you’ve given an old man a spring in his step.’

‘I suspect it to be arthritis.’

‘I hope your plane crashes.’

‘If it does, I’ll haunt you.’

‘You’d better.’

Shining gives him a hug, but Pleasance has appeared and that means it’s time for Toby to get married.

Throughout the ceremony, all he can do is stare at the woman he loves, still not quite able to believe it. A couple of times Pleasance has to nudge him to give his responses because at that moment he is all but lost, amazed at the life that now lies in front of him.

They kiss and there is a shower of confetti. Some of it appears to sparkle and pop as it descends around them.

‘Just a little extra I threw in,’ says Cassandra to April who is stood next to her. ‘I don’t think it’s dangerous.’

‘My darling,’ says April, ‘what in this life of worth isn’t?’

Arrábida Natural Park, Setubal, Portugal

‘There’s a phone.’

Toby pulls the hire car in to the small layby, kisses his wife and looks out of the windscreen at the small roadside stall set up next to the callbox.

‘I think,’ he says, ‘that if we want a bunch of flowers, some overpriced honey or jars of fruit, we’re in luck.’

‘It is not far until we are at Setubal,’ says Tamar. ‘I’ll let you buy me dinner there.’

‘Fair enough. I’ll be quick.’

He takes his mobile phone out of his pocket and holds it up, still not able to find a signal. Normally, he’d be glad of the fact, but he wants to reply to a panicked text from Shining that slipped through during some magical moment of network coverage on the drive through the park.

Looking over at the stall he sees another tourist browsing the bouquets, the owner of the small Seat parked further along, he assumes. He is all but hidden in baseball cap and sunglasses, scratching at his short beard as he tries to make his choice. Toby mocks himself for paying such close attention, even on holiday – no, honeymoon! – he’s on the lookout for trouble.

It’s the text, he tells himself. Shining wouldn’t disturb them unless it was important.

‘Good price for roses,’ says the stall owner as Toby passes, offering him a smile of tobacco-yellow teeth.

‘No, thank you,’ Toby replies. ‘I’m just after the phone.’

The owner shrugs, returning his attention to the man in the baseball cap who has chosen a bouquet of red roses.

Toby steps into the callbox, inserts some change and dials the number for the office.

After a few moments, Shining answers. ‘Dark Spectre publishing,’ he says. Only Section 37 would choose a small-press horror publishing company as a cover. It does the job but Shining has threatened to start actually publishing some submissions which has Toby wondering when the little free time he does enjoy is likely to vanish.

‘It’s me,’ he says.

‘Toby? The line’s awful. What are you doing ringing me? If it’s advice you’re after, I’m afraid you’ve pegged the wrong man.’

Toby watches as the man in the baseball cap walks away from the roadside stall carrying his bouquet of flowers.

‘You sent me a text,’ he says, ‘saying something serious had cropped up and you needed to speak to me.’

‘I didn’t, you know . . . unless it was April, she keeps stealing my phone. I can’t imagine she’d have wanted to interrupt the two of you, though.’