Chapters (78)
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
- Sixty-Seven
- Sixty-Eight
- Sixty-Nine
- Seventy
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Remarkable Praise for Nicci French
- Also by Nicci French
- About the Publisher
“I gather you’ve taken a couple of weeks off work.”
“How do you even know that?”
“You weren’t answering your phone, so I rang the hospital.”
“You can always send me a message.”
“I didn’t want to send you a message. I wanted to talk to you.”
Jude didn’t know how to answer this, so she just looked around the room.
“Yes,” said Nat. “As you can see, there are a lot of your things. At some point we’re going to have to sit down and decide who takes what. Obviously, we’re sitting down at the moment, but we should do it formally. I want you to have what’s yours.”
“I wasn’t thinking that.”
“But it’s true.”
“I know. But at the moment I don’t have anywhere to put all these things. I’m having a complicated time. Can we wait a bit and then do it calmly?”
“Calmly?” said Nat, with an edge in his voice. “And cleanly too, I suppose. Maybe I don’t find it as easy as you do to separate two lives that have got so intermingled. Undoing the arrangements we spent so much time working on. For example, have you written to all the people you invited to the wedding, uninviting them?”
“Of course I have,” said Jude. “I did it almost at once, you know that.” A shocking thought occurred to her. “Do you mean you haven’t told everybody?”
Now Nat looked evasive.
“I’ve told a few people. I haven’t contacted everybody yet. You’d better show me your list so we don’t email the same people twice.”
Jude didn’t know how to interpret this. Had Nat not got around to letting people know the way he didn’t quite get around to picking up his dirty clothes and putting them in the washing machine? Or did he have some strange idea that she would come crawling back to him and beg for forgiveness and the wedding would go ahead?
“But you already have the list. I blind-copied you into my email,” she said. “And I sent a text telling you. You must have seen it.”
“Very efficient,” he said, in a tone that dismayed her.
“What did you expect me to do? Let the word get out? I wrote to my friends and told my family. You can write to your friends and your family.”
They had a brief squabble about the friends who might be counted as belonging to both of them. Jude said that he should just look at the list of everyone she had told.
“Shall I contact the venue?” said Nat.
“Haven’t you done that yet?”
“Why would I ask you if I’d already done it? I’ll see if I can get the deposit back but they’ll probably insist on keeping it.”
Jude didn’t reply.
“A bit of a waste of money,” said Nat.