Haz comes back to me. “Either twins or nine months.”
Nine months. I scroll the calendar backwards. At the lake, in the stables, in the little church of the woods, in the car… it’s a long list, but if Jemma is nine months pregnant, the baby can only be mine.
“Haz, I’m coming. I’ll pick you up.”
“I’ll be right here.”
“Oh, hey… say hello to Cécile from me,sexy!” Even if it was altered by the phone and muffled by the distance, I would recognise that irritating voice anywhere.
In a frenzy, I rush down the stairs to get to London as fast as possible.
“Thank you, Lance,” I say, taking the keys from his hand and getting into the car. “Perfect timing.”
As soon as I start the engine, a voice behind me makes me start: “But, Ashford! Where the hell are we going?”
It’s my mother.
*
When I get to the Egerton Hotel, I call Harring back; after a few minutes, he comes out of the front door with messy hair and his shirt is buttoned up wrong and half out of his trousers.
“So, where is she?” I ask him.
“In one of those houses, over there.”
“Excuse me, where is who?” My mother cuts in, opening the car window.
Harring looks at me, confused. “Your mother?”
“She wouldn’t get out,” I reply, drily.
We ignore her and rush along the line of identical dark doors. We can’t see Jemma’s name anywhere, so we decide to ring every doorbell.
Empty houses, nobody home, servants who know nothing. We have no luck, apparently, until an old lady comes out of one of the houses.
“Madam!” We rush towards her. “Do you know a girl named Jemma?”
“Jemma? No, I’m afraid that doesn’t ring a bell…” she says, shaking her head.
“She’s pregnant,” I add in haste. “Ninth month.”
“Oh, yes, Jane!” The lady exclaims.
“Jemma, not Jane,” I correct her.
“I’m quite sure her name is Jane.”
“Haz, it wasn’t her!” I tell him, disappointed by the certainty that he must have been mistaken.
“Of course it was! She was with Vance, with his ponytail, and Carly, dressed in orange. I’m sure!”
“Oh yes, Carly,” the old woman replies. “She makes delicious rhubarb and ginger cakes!”
Haz and I look at each other. “It’s her! She used another name!”
“Madam, does this Jane have a husband? Or a boyfriend?”
“Oh, no, poor darling. She is single, but she lives with her parents. Three doors down, on the left…”
