At the same time as feeling like the rug had been pulled from under him, he found himself strangely unsurprised by Lillian’s behaviour. It was as if some part of him had always known there was no substance to their connection; that the bond between mother and son was paper-thin, lightweight, and would dissolve like tissue as soon as he refused to do as she wanted.
It horrified Jude that his mum had been so confident in her control of his actions; that she hadn’t felt any need to downplay her involvement in the permanent job offer from Larry. She’d thought him so malleable –sodevoid of any motivations or wishes of his own – and she’d based that judgement on years of successfully pointing him in one direction or another. He was as angry with himself as he was with her, and Joe had impressed upon him that therapy was a vital step in sorting his head out. He planned to take the recommendation seriously.
Just as he was contemplating a shower, Jude’s phone rang. Hannah was calling him. Her number hadn’t changed in the whole time he’d been away, and every time he remembered this, he felt a fresh wash of guilt at having ghosted her. Was it wishful thinking to wonder if she’d deliberately left the door open, in case he ever changed his mind?
He answered as soon as he could pick up, concerned something must be wrong for her to be reaching out just two and a half hours before wedding lift-off.
‘Hannah?’ he said into his handset. ‘What’s up?’
‘It’s Ed,’ she said, the high pitch of her voice betraying panic. ‘He’s disappeared.’
‘What?Why?’
‘He got a text – a fuckingtext– from our dad to say he can’t make the wedding. He was devastated. And he’s got cold feet about the size of this thing, the magazine deal, all the hoopla .?.?. Remember I said he wasn’t as cool about it as he seemed?’
‘Shit. Yes. Oh my god.’ Jude could feel his heart hammering inside his ribcage – banging like it was trying to getout. ‘If this wedding doesn’t happen, Joe will beruined. I know he seems invincible, but—’
‘He isn’t,’ Hannah said, knowingly.
Jude nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see him. ‘What can I do?’ he asked.
‘We have to find him,’ Hannah said. ‘Talk him down. He wants this, he’s just hurting. Freaking out.’
‘Of course, I’ll help you look for him. But where do we start?’
‘I don’t know .?.?. Pubs? Cafes?’ Hannah guessed. ‘Anywhere walkable from Renfrew, since he has no car.’
‘You don’t think there’s a chance he could have got in an Uber .?.?.?’
‘Oh god, maybe,’ Hannah groaned. Then she said: ‘Actually, no. Probably not. He’s left his phone here.’
‘Well, that’s something. Keep thinking, and so will I,’ Jude said. ‘I’ll come to you, we’ll make a plan and then split up to start searching. We’ll cover more ground that way.’
‘OK. Thank you.’
‘Of course.’
‘And don’t tell Joe Ed’s missing,’ Hannah said urgently. ‘I don’t want to terrify him without cause – we’re going to sort this out, and maybe he’ll end up being none the wiser.’
‘Right,’ Jude said. ‘None the wiser.’ He chose not to remind her that deliberately keeping things from Joe was almost always impossible; that the chances of him not finding out something was going on were so remote, you’d need the James Webb Space Telescope to find them.
They said goodbye, Jude pulled his trainers on and – in case he couldn’t get back here in time – picked up his travel bag and slung his wedding suit over his arm. He ran down the hotel corridor, his pulse still thudding in his veins, and instructed himself to stay calm. He’d send Joe a text, he decided – make up some urgent but unserious excuse for dashing off unexpectedly.
It was unfortunate that seconds after he punched the ‘down’ button for the lift, its doors opened to reveal Joe standing inside it: relaxed, fresh-faced and smiling.
‘Where are you off to in such a rush .?.?. with all your stuff?’ he demanded, raising an eyebrow.
‘I’m just .?.?. Er. Hannah wants help with something,’ Jude said, doing an incredibly poor job of not looking like he was panicking. ‘She rang me. She needs me.’
He hadn’t registered this before, but the thought that he’d been her first call made him feel ten feet tall. It seemed important. And it certainly appeared that she’d confided in him before reaching out to Livi, Claire, Charlie or even her mum – all of whom were on-site.
‘Well,’ Joe said with a smile, ‘if she’s asked you to be there for her, be there. I’ll see you at the wedding.’
‘Great. Yes.Definitely. The wedding,’ Jude said, pushing his way into the lift Joe had just vacated. He pressed the button for the lobby before he could say anything else suspicious.
Jude knocked on the door of the bridal suite just twenty minutes later, and found that Hannah – in typical fashion – had spent the time creating two well-organised lists of places they could look for Ed.
She’d googled local amenities, then divided them up sensibly so she and Jude could hit as many as possible within the next hour. He reached for the piece of paper she was holding out to him, noting it had been hastily scribbled on White Rose Inn-branded notepaper from the writing desk in the bay window.
