Leon di Clemente was deep asleep when his mobile phone rang.
‘Mmmm?’ he said groggily, knocking books off his bedside table. His clock informed him it was 2.50 a.m. But when he realized who the caller was, it was as if a glass of cold water had been thrown in his face. He sat bolt upright, wide awake.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘The question, Mr di Clemente, is what I can do for you. I’d like to meet.’
‘Of course. Yes,’ Leon stammered.
‘Good. Is tomorrow afternoon convenient?’
Twenty seconds later, Leon slumped back against his pillow, physically and mentally exhausted. Had that conversation really just happened?
Then again, after the day he’d had today, perhaps nothing should surprise him?
He slipped back into a deep and dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Max Bingley’s wedding to Stella Goye was Fittlescombe’s most talked-about event of the summer. With the village fete and the annual Swell Valley cricket match both now over and done with (both had been drearier affairs than usual thanks to some dismal spring and summer weather), the wedding became the focal point of the entire village. In early August the skies had finally cleared, and a belated summer descended over the South Downs. Temperatures for the Saturday of the wedding were expected to soar into the high eighties, lifting local spirits still further and prompting a run on Pimm’s, the like of which the village off-licence hadn’t seen in a decade.
Rumour had it that the wedding would also be the first time since Jason and Tatiana’s elopement that the entire Cranley family, both generations, would be gathered under the same roof.
‘Poor old Reverend Slaughter only just got St Hilda’s roof fixed,’ Gabe Baxter joked to Seb Harwich, filling his vintage MG up with petrol at Vick’s garage in the village. The MG had been an extravagant birthday present from Laura, whose happy hormones seemed to have gone mad with breastfeeding Felix. ‘Shame to see the top blown off it so soon.’
‘You think there’ll be fireworks then?’ Seb asked, checking the oil on his decrepit Datsun. Seb was back in Fittlescombe briefly, in between trekking in the Andes and going on what he reverently described as a ‘cricket pilgrimage’ to India, Australia and the West Indies in September. His so-called year off was beginning to look more like a decade, but he was such a nice lad, it was hard to hold his lack of industry against him. And at least he was finally over Logan Cranley. Gabe had caught a brief glimpse of Seb’s latest squeeze in The Fox last weekend, a stunning blonde with the sort of legs guaranteed to cure any twenty-three year old of heartbreak within minutes. ‘I don’t think even the Cranleys would air their dirty laundry on Old Man Bingley’s special day.’
‘It’s not the Cranleys,’ said Gabe. ‘It’s Tatiana and Brett. They won’t be able to help themselves. They’re like two cats in a bag.’
‘I thought you liked Brett?’
‘I do,’ said Gabe. ‘But I also know him. He hates Tati Flint-Hamilton’s guts.’
‘I disagree.’ Santiago de la Cruz, Seb’s stepfather, came out of the garage shop looking thunderous with a copy of the Daily Mail under his arm. Yet another scandalous piece about Seb’s sister Emma has been printed in the gossip section, upsetting poor Penny dreadfully. ‘I reckon Mr Cranley’s protesting too much. He fancies her.’
‘Tatiana? No way,’ said Gabe. Once cricketing rivals, Santiago and Gabe had become good friends over the years.
‘Well, we’ll see at the wedding I suppose, won’t we?’ said Seb. Pulling the paper out of his stepfather’s hand, his eyes widened at the piece on his sister. Emma’s antics didn’t upset him the way they did his mother, but this latest sex scandal was more salacious than most. Apparently she’d been caught on video trying to sell sex to a Middle Eastern sheikh for some insane amount of money.
‘I’m not sure we’ll be going to the wedding,’ Santiago told Gabe.
‘Why not? You must have been invited.’
‘We were, and we accepted. But Penny can’t face it. Not now.’ Retrieving the newspaper from Seb, Santiago passed it to Gabe.
‘Shit,’ said Gabe, skim-reading the article.
‘Yeah,’ Santiago muttered darkly. ‘Shit. I tell you, compared to my wife’s darling daughter, Tatiana looks positively saintly.’
‘I’m not sure anyone could make Tati look saintly,’ said Gabe. But his mind was already wandering back to Santiago’s earlier comment, about Brett Cranley lusting after her. If that were true, if Brett was secretly falling for his own son’s wife, it would really set the cat amongst the pigeons.
Max Bingley’s wedding was looking set to be one big fireworks display.