White Wedding (16 page)

‘I need that tin opener. And will you please stop snooping around my house?’

‘It isn’t your house, it’s my dad’s,’ snarled Bel, half shaking, half unable to stem her annoyance, despite the fact that it might inflame him further and result in
her imminent death.

There was a sinister silence, which totally freaked Bel out. She had visions of him looking around for a big rock to throw through her window. Or an axe.

‘I’ll do a slow count to ten, then I’m going to kick the door in.’

Bel’s head began to whirr. If she slipped out of the back door, she could sneak to her car and drive off. It would totally ruin her flat-tyred wheel, but a knackered wheel was better than
a crushed throat.

‘Ooone . . . twooo . . .’

She unlocked the back door, wincing as it opened with an agonized creak. She could hear Psycho-man counting, but only just, because her heart was thumping so loudly it was as if Keith Moon was
pounding on her chest with his drumsticks.

She dropped her keys and swore under her breath. She couldn’t hear any more counting. As she straightened up, she found out why that was. Because Psycho-man was standing in front of her.
And then he ran towards her and pushed her hard against the outside wall, crying out something unintelligible, like Braveheart did while charging the English.

Bel didn’t pass out, but she was a) winded by having been rugby-tackled by Mr Psycho-killer, and b) seeing stars because she had been hit over the head. Her eyebrow was
wet, and when her fingers travelled to it she smelled the iron tang of blood before she felt it drip on to her cheek, warm and sticky-wet.

It wasn’t much good shouting for help, seeing as the only people around were her and Peter bloody Sutcliffe. Plus, her vocal cords had all fused together.

Strangely, Mr Psycho wasn’t finishing off the job;he was holding her up and asking if she was okay.

Yes, she was fine. Her fiancé had been shagging her cousin, she had just wasted twelve squillion quid on a sham of a wedding, run away to a cottage so well equipped that she’d had
to resort to stealing a tin opener from the maniac next door, and now that man had her at his mercy after bashing her over the head. Oh yes, she was bloody marvellous.

‘We need to get you to hospital,’ he was saying to her.

Bel was lucid enough to think that he must be one of those nutters who suffered from Munchausen’s. He had battered her over the head and now got off on rescuing her with a mercy mission.
He was pressing something against her scalp and then lifting up her hand so that she kept the pressure on it as he straightened her up.

She was distinctly woozy as he half carried her into his car and strapped her into the passenger seat. Blood was still dripping from her head and she had the foresight to make sure some of the
drops landed on the car upholstery for evidence.

‘The nearest hospital is the Bronte, isn’t it?’ Harold Shipman next to her was saying as he started up the car. ‘I vaguely remember how to get there.’

Bel stayed silent. She was trying to think of the best way to play this. Should she initiate conversation to form a social connection between them and address him by his name – even though
she hadn’t got a buggering clue what it was? He obviously enjoyed being in a medical role so referring to him as ‘Doctor’ might be a wise idea. Or would that infuriate him –
make him realize that he wasn’t really a doctor even though at school he aspired to be one, but managed only a GSCE in woodwork? Should she just stay meek and mild? But then, sadists loved
that too. She’d always imagined that people in this situation would try to jump out of the car or leap on the driver and force him to crash, but she was frozen to the seat. Watching out of
the window as the car drove at speed down a dual carriageway, she had a real fear that, at any moment, he might take the slip road which led up on to the moors.

Instead he stuck to the busy main roads, eventually taking a left into the Bronte Hospital car park. He swerved the car expertly into a parking space a few steps from the Accident and Emergency
entrance, then he snapped off his seat belt and threw himself out of the car to come round to the passenger side and pull open the door. Gently he reached over and unfastened Bel’s seat belt
for her and helped her out of the car and into the building.

There was a tired-looking receptionist manning the desk as they approached it.

‘Name?’ she asked curtly.

‘Belinda Candy,’ said Bel, although really she was Belinda Bishop, she supposed. Not that she would ever call herself that. The receptionist seemed to be taking an age to stab the
letters into the computer. Bel’s head was still bleeding and blood was dribbling down her face.

‘And what seems to be the trouble?’ said the receptionist.

‘I’ve stubbed my big toe,’ Bel said impatiently while thinking: how thick can a person be?

Psycho-killer followed up with a more sensible answer.

‘She needs an X-ray and stitches. And immediately.’

‘Well, we’ll see what the doctor has to say about that,’ said the receptionist.

‘I am a doctor,’ Psycho-killer said in the same impatient and ever-so-slightly belligerent tone which the desk Hitler was using towards him. ‘Dr Dan Regent. And this lady needs
to be assessed
now
. Can you get someone quickly, please?’

The receptionist’s whole demeanour changed then. Her regard for the general public, who gave her so much daily hassle, was inversely proportionate to the esteem in which she held anyone
with a medical degree. She jumped to her feet and scuttled off.

Bel slumped on to a chair.

‘Are you really a doctor?’ she asked. ‘Or did you just say that?’

‘Yes, I’m really a doctor,’ came the reply. ‘I’m on a sabbatical. I’d hoped I wouldn’t see the inside of a hospital again until at least
Christmas.’

On the wall facing them was a television on which the jingle for the news was playing. The lead story was that the psychotic killer, Dr Donald Reynolds, had been apprehended in the Lake
District. Despite the pain she was in, Bel couldn’t suppress a little giggle leaking out.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Dr Dan Regent.

‘Nothing,’ said Bel, pressing her head even harder in the hope of stopping the sickening throb.

‘You ought to ask your father to get the roof fixed,’ he said. ‘There were a few tiles loosened during the night. That one that fell off was so sharp that it could have killed
you.’

‘A tile?’ said Bel. ‘A tile fell on my head?’

‘It just clipped you. I saw it falling but I wasn’t in time to push you out of the way entirely.’

‘Oh you were
saving
me.’ Bel laughed through the pain.

‘What on earth did you think I was trying to do – kill you?’

‘Of course not.’

Bel’s eyes drifted back to the TV screen as the image of the recaptured real psycho appeared. He looked much older than his purported fifty-six. And if he had an athletic build, she was
Keira Knightly.

A soft-voiced doctor in scrubs called her name and Dan helped Bel to her feet and took her through to a cubicle.

She needed five dissolving stitches in her head. She felt like Frankenstein afterwards as she walked back to the car, holding on to Dan’s arm. Her head felt as big as a watermelon inside
the bandage. In her free hand she was gripping a leaflet about head injuries.

‘Would you like me to ring anyone for you?’ Dan asked, surprisingly gently for a once-suspected serial killer, as he pulled the seat belt from her hands to fasten it for her.

‘No, I’m okay,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

‘Quite the independent, aren’t you?’ he levelled at her.

‘Yes,’ was all Bel said by way of return.

She sat in silence as he drove down the bypass and headed out to the edge of the moors. Thoughts of her dad and Max and Violet pushed through to the front of her brain. Despite the notes she had
left them and the texts she’d sent, they’d be worried sick, she knew. It made it all the harder to go home. She hadn’t given much thought to their distress levels in the run-up to
the wedding; instead she had concentrated on imagining the shame she hoped Shaden and Richard would be feeling. She had prioritized the ones she hated above the ones she loved.

Her eyes began to drip tears and she attempted to wipe them away, cursing herself for the involuntary sniffing.

She saw Dr Dan glance over.

‘You all right?’ he said.

‘Never better,’ she said, keeping her eyes facing forward; yet out of the corner of her right one she sensed him smiling.

‘You know, you really oughtn’t to be by yourself for a few hours.’

‘There’s a pet shop in Keighley. If you pull in, I’ll buy myself a goldfish,’ Bel replied, squaring up to the momentary weakness she felt. There were unpleasant thoughts
coming at her now from all angles, and she didn’t want them bombarding her and battering holes in her self-protective armour.

Dan indicated right and started up the twisty lane that led to the cottages. As he pulled on the handbrake outside the front door to Emily he sighed heavily.

‘Annoying as this is for us both, I think you’d better come into
my
cottage,’ he said, stressing the possessive. ‘As a doctor, I am duty-bound to
insist.’

Like hell, her thoughts said. ‘If I must,’ her voice said. She supposed it made sense. Plus, she knew that he really would insist and she felt too weak to win the argument, so it was
best to simply agree.

It was raining yet again. A typical British weather day: dark, wet, depressing. It was as if the inside of Bel’s head was projected on to the sky.

Inside Emily, she sank onto the huge comfy sofa and put her feet up on the equally fat footstool. Dan went straight to the kettle and clicked it on. He stacked up the litter of A4 sheets on the
coffee table to make some space.

‘Tea or coffee?’ he asked her.

‘Brandy,’ said Bel.

‘Not wise,’ Dan replied. ‘You have three options: tea or coffee or nothing.’

‘I’ll have a coffee, then, thank you. Strong, milk, a quarter teaspoon of sugar.’

‘A quarter?’ mocked Dan. ‘Is that worth putting in?’

‘It’s just for a hint of sweetness,’ replied Bel. ‘So, yes, it is worth it to me. It doesn’t have to be an exact quarter.’

‘Okay,’ Dan said, resigned. ‘But I’ll try to get it as near as dammit to the requested fraction.’

She rested her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes; it really was the most comfortable seat in the world and the one she had imagined curling up on after fleeing the wedding
reception, instead of the poky lumpy thing in the cottage next door.

Dan coughed to alert her to the fact that he was standing next to her holding out a drink. She took the mug from his hand. A big solid left hand, she noticed. No ring on the third finger, but a
large gold signet ring on the middle one.

‘Thank you,’ said Bel.

He sat down in the armchair – her dad’s old chair. She used to snuggle up on his knee on that chair and he’d read her a story.
Beauty and the Beast
was always her
favourite. She’d always dreamed of marrying someone like the nice beast with the big heart. Well, she’d married a beast all right, but the reverse kind – one with the beauty on
the outside and the ugliness within.
Bloody tears. Bugger off back to where you came from, will you?

‘So,’ said Dan, cradling the mug in his hand. ‘This is all a bit surreal, isn’t it?’

‘You’re telling me,’ said Bel. She wondered how long it would take him to start asking questions. Not long, apparently.

‘Can I just ask—’

‘Please,’ she held up her hand. ‘No questions. I shan’t ask any or answer any.’

‘I was only going to ask you if you wanted a bowl of soup,’ said Dan with the hint of an impatient grumble in his voice.

‘Oh.’

‘Heinz Tomato. Nothing fancy.’ Then he slapped the heel of his hand to his head.

‘Of course a tin opener would be handy at this point.’

Bel cringed. ‘Can’t remember what I did with it.’

Their eyes locked and then simultaneously, and without planning to, their faces broke into wide smiles. ‘I’ll find it and get it back, I promise,’ said Bel.

‘I could make us a sandwich,’ Dan suggested. ‘I don’t need the can opener for a cheese toastie.’

‘I’m fine, thank you. I’m not hungry.’

‘I am,’ said Dan, and he switched on the grill. Soon the smell of toast and cheese was filling the room and Bel’s stomach growled like a wolf in pain. She wished she had said
yes to the offer now.

Dan switched off the grill. Bel almost started to salivate as she heard a knife crunch through the toastie. Then Dan put a plate down in front of her.

‘Just in case you’ve changed your mind,’ he said.

‘It’s rather possible that I might have,’ said Bel with a sniff.

Bel awoke to the sound of a boiled kettle clicking off and the chink of a metal spoon against a china mug.

‘What the—’ she exclaimed, pulling herself up to a sitting position.

‘Morning.’

She was huddled in a quilt on the large squashy sofa and Dan Regent was stirring coffee into a cup. He had bed-hair. Dark and messy, his look was something top male models in magazines probably
took hours to acquire.

‘It’s the morning?’ Bel foraged in her mind for the point when she’d felt too tired to say: ‘I feel tired and I need to go back to Charlotte.’

‘Let me save you the bother,’ said Dan, as if he could see the whirrings in her mind. ‘You drifted off to sleep and I didn’t wake you. I thought it was best if I kept my
eye on you.’

‘Thank you,’ said Bel, not quite sure if that was the right thing to say, but saying it anyway.

‘I’m going to the village shop later, if you should need anything.’

Bel stretched under the duvet. He must have put it over her. Oh God, she hoped she hadn’t been snoring. Richard used to say that she made little snuffly noises during the ni—

She cut off the thought of him because it hurt. As her anger was dissipating the pain was getting through.

‘I’d better go next door,’ said Bel as she stood up, then fell backwards again. If only Dan wasn’t here, she could quite happily have stayed snuggled in that quilt on the
sofa and watched
Antique Aunties
, the show where two funny old ladies went around people’s houses snuffling out their treasures like truffles.