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I could tell Hannah thought it highly unlikely that Finn was in hospital without anyone knowing, but she clamped her lips to prevent her objections from escaping. ‘Well, there are quite a few of them around here, so calling probably makes more sense than just turning up at A & E. Why don’t we go back to mine and phone them from there?’ she suggested.
I swivelled in the passenger seat, or at least as far as my dress would allow. ‘Do you mind if we go back to my place instead of yours?’
Hannah’s eyes held mine for a long moment.
‘So he’ll know where to find you?’ she said gently.
I nodded.
‘And if he doesn’t? If you don’t hear from him?’
‘I will,’ I said with a conviction I knew no one was ever going to understand, except possibly Finn himself. The seconds ticked by, and it felt like every year of our friendship was being put to the test.
‘Okay then,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and make some phone calls.’
*
Strangely, I’d been unaware of the uncomfortable tightness in my chest until breathing in the familiar smells of my home released it. Even so, my senses remained on high alert as I opened doors and glanced expectantly into rooms. Finn had his own key to my place, and even though I’d tried not to get my hopes up, part of me had clung to the belief that I’d find him here, waiting for me. I even sniffed the air, like a bloodhound who’d lost the scent, but all I could detect were the aromas of an empty flat. In a moment of pure panic, I suddenly couldn’t remember the smell of Finn’s aftershave, as though even this was slowly fading from my memory.
‘You should probably get changed first,’ Hannah suggested, closing the front door behind her. I shook my head. There would be something achingly final about taking off my wedding dress. It was a step I wasn’t ready to take yet.
‘Later,’ I said, already heading towards my desk and laptop. ‘I need to find him first.’
Tulle and lace rustled in protest as I pushed the fabric of my skirt into the desk’s kneehole and fired up my laptop. While waiting, I reached for a pen and an old-school reporter’s notebook, the type I still preferred to use when working.
There were more hospitals than I’d expected in the city, and I hurriedly scribbled down their details while plotting their locations on another screen on to which I’d summoned a map of the local area. A hundred missing person incident rooms from films and TV flashed across my thoughts. I shuddered as I glimpsed a horrible premonition of my future, with my lounge wall plastered in photographs, ‘Missing’ posters bearing Finn’s face, and a spider’s web of Post-it note clues.
I reached for my phone and dialled the first hospital on the list.
Over the next two hours I was put on hold, got disconnected and was transferred to the wrong department more times than I could count. Whichever way the conversations went, they all ended in exactly the same place. They were very sorry but they had no patient named Finn Douglas at their hospital, nor had anyone matching his description been brought in without ID in the last twenty-four hours.
Sometime between hospitals number three and four, Hannah disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a mug of tea, which she set on the desk before me. I sipped it gratefully, despite the cavity-inducing quantity of sugar she’d added.
‘It’s for shock,’ she whispered when my eyes widened on taking a mouthful. I couldn’t really argue with her, because since the moment I’d first learnt that Finn wasn’t at the church waiting for me, shock was the only word to effectively describe what I was feeling.
Pressing so hard that my pen sliced through several pages of the notepad, I scored a frustrated line through the final hospital on the list.
‘So, what now?’ asked Hannah, who at some point had pulled on one of my old hoodies over her bridesmaid’s dress.
Surprisingly, I hadn’t even noticed the falling temperature that had left my arms and shoulders covered in goosebumps. The day was fading into dusk and rapidly hurtling towards evening. Some fifteen miles away, in a five-star hotel that we’d chosen with care, our guests were being asked if they wanted the poached salmon or the beef. My own stomach rolled unpleasantly at even the thought of food.
‘I have to go out again. I should visit the bar where Finn had his stag last night. Maybe someone there saw something useful.’
Hannah shook her head. ‘There’s no need. William and one of the ushers already went there while you were making your phone calls. They spoke to the bar staff and even found a couple of customers who were there last night.’ I hadn’t realised I was holding my breath in anticipation, until Hannah’s next words set it free. ‘No one saw anything unusual. Although they did say it was a bit odd that Finn left his own party so early.’
‘Did he call for a taxi? Perhaps the cab company could track down the driver.’
‘No. According to Trevor, Finn drove himself to the bar.’
I frowned as I corrected her. ‘No, he’s got that wrong. Finn was getting an Uber there, so he’d be able to drink.’
‘I don’t know what to tell you, hon. They sounded pretty certain that Finn drove there in his own car and left early without drinking anything, hardly.’
Hannah’s eyes darkened in concern as the wall I’d carefully constructed around me began to crumble. I’d built it to keep out the other dreadful possibility. But now for the first time I gave the awful idea oxygen, and it drew breath, robbing me of mine.What if Finn had changed his mind? What if he’d decided he didn’t want to marry me after all?
I ran blindly from the room, but there was no escaping this moment. Pieces of my future were hurtling through the air like shattered stained glass. Each fragment sliced me like a blade. Suddenly I was ripping at my dress, frantically trying to peel it from me like a contaminated skin, but the ribbons lacing me into it were tighter than a straitjacket. The room started to spin, and I could feel my knees weaken and then buckle as the dress came up around me, trying to swallow me whole.
Hannah’s arms were there, firm around my waist, holding me up and against her. I fell gasping into her shoulder, as though drowning.
