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Maybe he should’ve made an excuse not to come to the wedding in the first place. Maybe he should’ve said he was speaking at a conference and, because Ruby had only given him a few weeks’ notice, there simply wasn’t enough time to find someone to take his place.
But then he’d hate himself for letting her down.
He needed to brace himself and deal with it. Be the cool, calm, analytical scientist he’d spent the last five years turning himself into. The one who kept his feelings completely locked away and could deal with almost anything without betraying a flicker of emotion. There was no place in his professional life for guilt, for nervousness and wondering how people were going to react to him, so he shouldn’t let any of that have a place in his personal life, either.
He could do this. The taste of bile in his mouth, the way his hands felt cold and tingling with adrenaline—that was all psychosomatic and he was going to ignore it. And he’d grab some paracetamol to deal with the tension headache that had started more than an hour ago, as soon as he’d crossed the county border to Norfolk.
He pulled into the car park in the middle of the town, fed coins into the meter to get a pay-and-display car park ticket to tide him over to the next morning, and stuck the ticket on the inside of his windscreen.
The letting agent had warned him that parking was tricky outside the rented cottage so he left the car and made his way to the address. He pulled up the four-digit key code for the safe box where the house keys were stored from the last email from the letting agent on his phone, retrieved the keys and dumped his luggage next to the stairs in the living room. When he headed into the kitchen at the back, there was a tray on the small kitchen table containing a plate, a mug, a spoon, a box of tea-bags and a tin of good instant coffee. There was also a white paper bag, and a note propped on top of it.
Welcome to 2 Quay Cottages. There’s milk and butter in the fridge, bread in the cupboard, and a little something in the paper bag to keep you going until dinner. Any problems, please call in at number 1.
Clearly the neighbour was happy to act as a kind of caretaker. That was reassuring, given that the letting agent was in London. OK, Brad thought, and opened the paper bag.
A blueberry muffin.
Home-made? he wondered. From the neighbour? Though surely the neighbour would’ve put his or her name on the note. Or maybe they’d been interrupted while they were writing the note and simply forgot to sign it. Whatever, the gesture was appreciated.
Brad realised then that he was hungry. He’d worked through his lunch break so he could leave early and miss the worst of the rush-hour traffic for his three-hour drive from London to north Norfolk, but then he’d been too keyed up to eat when he’d stopped for a rest break. He hadn’t bothered to stop at the large supermarket on the edge of town—one that hadn’t been there on his last visit—and he hadn’t even thought about dinner. He’d just been focused on driving to Great Crowmell and facing all the memories.
He took a bite of the muffin. And it was fabulous.
For a second, he was transported back to the early days of his marriage. When Abby had made blueberry muffins for breakfast on Sunday mornings, and he’d woken to the smell of good coffee and cake. They’d always eaten the muffins in bed and lazed around until lunchtime...
He shook himself. Long, long gone.
Coffee. That would sort out his head. And it would help the paracetamol to tackle his headache, too.
He took the kettle to the sink and turned on the tap.
Nothing.
The neighbour hadn’t left a note about there being any problems with the water.
Frowning, he went upstairs to the bathroom and tried the taps on the sink and the bath. Nothing there, either. When he flushed the toilet, the cistern didn’t fill up. Clearly someone had turned off the stopcock, for some reason, and forgotten to turn it back on. It would be easy enough to fix.
But he couldn’t actually find the stopcock. The obvious place for it to be located was under the sink in the kitchen, but it wasn’t there—or in any of the other cupboards. It wasn’t in the bathroom, either.
Great.
It looked as if he was going to have to disturb the occupant of number one, after all, to see if he or she knew what the water problem was and where the stopcock was located.
