‘Sicily?’ Lou looked up from where she was stirring the now-soaking dried porcini.
Toni nodded.
She had never run away in her life. Never. But no matter which way she tried to work the problems out, they were insurmountable. Sicily, with golden sun and beaches and the azure gleam of the Mediterranean, was calling to her.
‘Italy,’ said Trinity. ‘I know this sounds a bit mental, but I’m sort of trying to get away at the moment too. Could I come? I mean, I’ve got money. I’ll pay my way.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Toni, popping the Dom Pérignon expertly. ‘I’ve got my husband’s AmEx. It’s a charge card and it comes out of a sterling account he keeps for work. I bet there’s still money in there because he always forgets he has it. About time he paid, don’t you think, Lou?’
Oszkar Gottschall looked at the email with some agitation. It was addressed to Lou from one of the country’s top wedding planners, and it appeared Lou was on very friendly terms with this woman. The woman had phoned on Saturday looking for Lou, but the message she’d left had been vague.
Oszkar had tried to track Lou down to no avail.
Now this blasted woman had emailed and things were worse. Her email made no sense.
Thank you so much for the chocolates, Lou! Dark cherry centres – my favourite, but you knew that, you star. I’m back at work now and about the Kennedy/Schenkmann wedding: the couple love the sound of your idea. Plus, Cinnamon is the name of Fiona Kennedy’s family dog! Who knew? But because Michael’s grandmother really does only have a few months left, they have moved the date of the wedding to Saturday week. I know it’s crazy but they so want Michael’s granny there before she becomes too ill and is bedbound. He says the idea of being at the wedding is keeping her going. I phoned on Saturday but you weren’t around, so maybe we can talk later? Izzy xxx
Oszkar read the email again.
‘What is this about cinnamon?’ he said, mystified. ‘This email makes no sense. I do not understand.’
Mindy, the new office manager, with a degree in business studies and three years working for her uncle’s building company behind her, stared at her new boss and thought of shrugging but quenched it.
It was her second day and things had been a bit hectic since she’d joined Blossom. She adored the shop floor, although, behind the scenes, the bouquet part of the business was very hectic, dirty, and seemed to involve lots of standing for hours on end. It wasn’t what she’d thought the flower business would be about, but she was upstairs in the office most of the time so far.
Mindy loved flowers, which was why she adored the shop with its lovely bouquets waiting to go and ranks of flowers, cut and with excess greenery removed, in serried ranks of rainbow colours. Yellow flowers were her favourite. Her Instagram account was a hymn to sunflowers and lilies.
Her obvious love of flowers and the fact that she was twenty-five and a cheap hire had helped her get this job. She didn’t have much experience in the world of floristry, but business was business, right? She was totally qualified to be a new business strategy manager.
‘You can learn on the job,’ Mr Gottschall had said in the interview. ‘We have a good team. Lou Fielding will teach you the basics of what we do.’
But now it seemed this Lou lady had vanished, and they wanted her urgently. Lou was normally in on Mondays but there had been no sign of her. They’d checked her emails but this one, which was important, was stressing the boss and Mindy had no idea how to sort this all out.
In McCondren Builders, Uncle Toby always knew what to do about things. Or if he didn’t, he had a person working for him who did. Maybe this Lou woman was one of those people who knew how everything worked?
‘Could we phone Lou?’ said Mindy, meaning thatshewould not phone Lou, because she didn’t know her, obvs, but that Mr Gottschall could do it. Or his wife, who said their little girl’s birthday was coming up and Lou knew the name of a face painter who was amazing. ‘Youcould phone her,’ Mindy added, to make sure he knew what she meant.
‘I have tried to phone Lou!’ shouted Mr Gottschall. ‘But she does not answer her mobile and she is not at her home.’
Mindy couldn’t help it: she shrugged. Her new boss glared at her, and jabbed at the computer screen. Mindy wondered if the flower world was for her. For all his flaws, Uncle Toby was not a shouter.
‘You do it,’ he said. ‘Email this woman back and find out what she means. She is very important. I did not know that Lou knew her so well. You must say she is ill ...’
When he was gone, Mindy forwarded the email to her own desktop. She read back over the email and then looked up the wedding planner lady, who turned out to be ultra-cool with a fabulous Insta page full of celeb weddings. The missing Lou Fielding went up in Mindy’s estimation.
She began an email to the wedding lady. She was not going to lie. If Oszkar Gottschall wanted lying, he could do it himself. Lou had gone missing: that’s what she would say.
Lillian Cooper heard her front doorbell ring and as she fumbled around for her glasses, she knocked something over on the bedside table and heard the crash of a cup. Shit.
She sat up in bed, winced at the pain this invoked in her skull, and looked around. The tang of red wine told her that she clearly hadn’t finished the cup of wine she’d dragged up to bed the previous night. The glasses were still all dirty and she hated putting them in the dishwasher. They were precious, especially the ones from TechBite, who’d been so pleased with her MotherBoard sculpture that they’d presented her with leaded crystal white wine glasses.
Lou was excellent at washing glasses. Nobody got a sheen on glass like Lou. Lillian herself couldn’t really be bothered with washing things by hand. It was such a waste of time. Where the hell was her daughter? This was no longer funny.
The doorbell rang again, more insistently.
‘Yes?’ shrieked Lillian, hauling herself out of bed.
She made it to the window, opened it and yelled down: ‘Yes!’
