‘Obviously.’
‘But still so irritating.’
‘The most irritating woman who has ever walked this earth.’
Back at the hotel, Nessa and Maureen seemed to be in charge of the search party. Teddy was wielding an extra-large torch.
‘François is searching the whole of the grounds,’ explained Maureen. ‘Laurence is combing the golf course and Patrick Power has gone somewhere.’
‘Patrick Power?’ asked Rosie.
‘He’s one of the guests,’ explained Maureen. ‘He left the wedding for some reason and I found him wandering around. He asked what was going on and I explained and he said he had an idea. Very nice of him, it really is. I did try to dissuade him, but he was determined.’
Rosie and Grace looked at each other for a moment. But there was no time to lose so they had to keep searching. Rosie checked her own cottage, their secret garage bar, the other storehouses. She bumped into François, who was even looking in the large chest freezer.
‘You nezzzer know,’ he said, enigmatically.
Eventually, they all made their way back to the front of the hotel. ‘I’ve checked everywhere,’ said Grace.
‘Let’s have another drive around,’ said Rosie, just as Laurence reappeared in his car.
‘I’ve been driving around everywhere,’ said Laurence. ‘Can’t see her anywhere. I stopped everyone and asked them if they’d seen a middle-aged woman with bouffant blonde hair and very prominent eye make-up and a weird smile but no one had.’
Teddy and François were equally Lucinda-less. ‘She’s a most infuriating woman,’ Teddy was saying to François. ‘Nothing like my Sarah, at all. Chalk and cheese.’
François looked confused. ‘She is like cheese?’
‘What are we going to do?’ said Nessa. ‘It might be time to alert the guards.’
Rosie nodded. ‘We should file a missing persons’ report.’
They all nodded, feeling sad that it had come to this, especially on the night of the first wedding they had hosted, and they thought of poor Lucinda so miserable to take off like that… or maybe even worse.
And then, out of the darkness, there were footsteps and an unmistakeably braying voice. ‘So he said to me, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. He couldn’t resist me, apparently, and I was to return to his yacht and we’d sail the Aegean…’
They stood in silence, listening to the voice rabbit on.
‘He took my rejection very badly. I said that I needed more than money and jewels. I needed a connection… bodily and mentally…’
And there she was, Lucinda, her arm through Patrick’s.
‘Good evening, everybody! Oh look, a welcoming committee, I had no idea I was remotely important to these people.’ She shot Rosie a look before resuming her glorious smile, all pointy teeth and cheekbones.
‘Where were you?’ asked Grace.
Lucinda looked fleetingly embarrassed. ‘I wanted to be alone,’ she said. ‘I thought that my family would be better off without me. And so I needed to disappear… to think. And then, of course, this handsome man arrived…’ She looked at Patrick coquettishly. ‘And saved my life. For the second time today. First Pedro and now me. A double hero.’ She looked around, concerned. ‘Where is he? Where is my baby?’
Bertie stepped forward. ‘He’s in an old rabbit hutch. I found it in the garage,’ he said. ‘He was a handful. Like a hornets’ nest but worse. A hornets’ nest of vipers.’
But Lucinda was looking stricken. ‘Ahutch? Pedro? He’s not a rabbit! Take me to him immediately! He’ll be squashed in there. Or get myxomatosis…’
Bertie led the way, Lucinda flapping beside him.
‘He’s got claustrophobia. He’s on special tablets for it. And has a fear of the dark. He needs a lamp on every night.’
Lucinda will never change, thought Rosie. She was one of those tricksy, complicated people who were always playing their own game, solely to amuse themselves, and one which no one else knew the rules of.
Patrick looked at Rosie and raised an eyebrow. ‘She wasn’t so hard to find. I reckoned she might be on that bench she mentioned. You pointed it out from the car the other day. And I went down, and she was sitting beside the road, waiting for someone to find her. She wasn’t distressed. I think she wanted to test how much everyone cared about her.’
