Greg and Cherry’s reception, like every other social event they hosted, was held at the Old Deanery, which was where Greg, and from henceforth until death do them part, Cherry, lived barely a stone’s throw away from the cathedral. Not that Greg—or, presumably, the bloke upstairs—would look kindly on anyone throwing stones near those stained-glass windows. It was a buffet affair, with chairs only for the most decrepit, which solved the who-to-seat-where problem nicely but meant it was less of a formal do and more of a free-for-all.
I finally got a chance to talk to Phil over a Buck’s Fizz and some homemade quiche. Made, I hasten to add, not by my sister’s fair hands or even Greg’s, but by one of his army of widows and spinsters of this parish. Plus a good few married ladies who’d got fed up with waiting for him indoors to pop his clogs and got on with doing what they wanted anyway. They could usually be relied on for a tasty, if not very imaginative, spread.
“Did Darren speak to you?” Phil asked before I could get a word in edgewise.
“You mean about the runaway bridegroom? Yeah.”
“Husband, not bridegroom. They got married over a year ago. So are we doing it?”
“What, here and now? Don’t think it’s that kind of party.”
Phil huffed a laugh. “The mate’s missing husband. And you know it.”
I supposed that meant he was all right with it, but it still felt dodgy to me. “You sure it’s okay? Misleading the lady about how we find the bloke—assuming we do find him?”
“From what Darren says, she wants to be misled. What’s it matter so long as we get results? She’ll get her old man back, we’ll get paid, and she’ll get to brag to her mates how a psychic found him for her.”
“Great. Just what I need—even more people knowing about my little party trick.” I’d have to admit I felt a minor sting of betrayal. Time was, Phil was as keen as I was to keep it all low-key.
Phil shrugged. “That ship’s sailed. All you can do now is take a running jump on board. Get what you can out of it.”
He had a point. “Guess I’m game if you are. Long as you don’t mind playing second fiddle to my thing.”
Phil raised an eyebrow but, sensibly given we were out in public, decided to ignore the innuendo. “Anything’s better than another cheating-partner case.”
I had to sympathise. Besides being a sad reflection on society in general and the sanctity of the marriage vows in particular, infidelity cases had to bring up a few painful memories for Phil. You might be forgiven for wondering why he’d become a private investigator in the first place, seeing as tail-the-spouse jobs seem to be your basic bread and butter for people in his profession, but then you probably aren’t as well acquainted as I am with the stubborn git who’s my beloved.
“Fine. Tell Darren he can set up a meeting with the client. But, oi, you’ve gotta be there too. Not my area of expertise, this.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be there to hold your hand.”
I could think of something I’d rather he’d be holding, but right then old Edie Penrose doddered up to say a quavery hello and I never got to tell him about it.
There were speeches—Dad mumbled something rambly and incomprehensible, then Greg said something touching and heartfelt that had Cherry blushing bright pink and the rest of us staring into our glasses, equal parts moved and embarrassed. And just when we were bracing ourselves for a speech from the best man, who was one of those tall, pale Church of England types I mentioned earlier and who looked like he could bore for England, the bishop stepped up. His speech was so polished he could have gone on the after-dinner circuit with it—actually, come to think of it, maybe that was where Greg and Cherry had found him. He had us all in fits with a short selection of hilarious but inoffensive ecclesiastical anecdotes and topped it off with a hearty toast, and an invitation for the happy couple to cut the cake.
There were two wedding cakes—a traditional fruit one, because you could get a shedload of little slices out of it, plus a croquembouche, one of those gravity-defying towers of profiteroles they like to make them do on Bake Off, for the photos and the favoured few. (And yes, since you ask, I was one of them.) Apparently Greg had been to a wedding in France at an impressionable age and never quite got over it. Not that I’m complaining. It was well tasty.
Soon after that it was time to say goodbye to the bride and groom, and we all trooped outside to wave them off in a taxi. Greg and Cherry had not only chosen a winter wedding, they’d decided for some incomprehensible reason to honeymoon in Scotland. In February. Hopefully they’d packed their skis. And their thermal undies, which had to be a bit of a mood-killer on honeymoon. I’d mentioned as much to Phil a while back, with a heavy hint I’d want us to be looking for somewhere a lot warmer for our own postwedding getaway.
“Somewhere you get blue sky more than once a summer. Where . . . where lemons grow on trees. I can’t remember the last time I saw a lemon on a tree, instead of in a tray in the supermarket.”
Phil had pointed out that the average honeymooning couple had other things on their minds than the ready availability of freshly picked citrus fruit, and outdoor temperature was unlikely to be an issue either.
He was probably right, I reflected with a last wave at the happy couple. I was pretty certain that Sis at least had been saving herself for her wedding night. Much as it pained me to think about it, all those decades’ worth of pent-up passion wasn’t likely to be deterred by anything short of a tungsten carbide chastity belt.
I shuddered. Enough of that, ta very much. Time to worry about more pressing concerns, like where the hell had Mike got to?
A lot of the guests toddled off after the hosts had gone. Fair dues, many of them were already out past their bedtime, it being well after teatime and them not exactly in the first flush of youth or even middle age. Close family, however, got to stay and help clear up the mess. And Mike was staying with me—I mean, with me and Phil—so I knew he hadn’t gone anywhere.
Or rather, he shouldn’t have gone anywhere. But he wasn’t in the front room, the back room, the kitchen, or the loo. And neither was Dad.
I was starting to get a bad feeling about this.