Holiday with the Best Man

Bella was the bubbly one who coped just fine with change and seizing the day, always living life to the full; whereas Grace was more cautious, weighing things up and doing the sensible thing every single time. Even though calling off the wedding had been the right thing to do, it had caused her a huge amount of heartache and guilt. Bella had stood by her, as had their parents. But Grace hated the ensuing chaos.

At least she had a flat of her own again now. She’d been let down at the last minute with the flat she’d managed to find, but Bella as usual had been a bit scatty and forgotten to give her landlord her notice on time. And it had all worked out perfectly for both of them, because the landlord had agreed to let Grace take over the lease; she was just awaiting the paperwork. So that was another little bit of her life rebuilt.

Trying to push away the thought that she wasn’t adjusting terribly well to her new life so far, Grace opened the front door of the house that had been converted into three flats—and saw with horror that the hallway was an inch deep in water. Water that was coming from underneath her front door.

OK. Forget the panic and work with your common sense, the way you always do, she told herself. Turn off the water supply at the mains to stop any more water gushing out from wherever the leak is, turn off the electricity to avoid any problems there, run the taps to make sure the system drains fully, and then find out where the leak is coming from and call the landlord to organise a plumber.

Fortified now she had a plan to work to, Grace opened the flat’s front door to find water everywhere. The carpet was soaked through and she could see from the change in the colour of the material that the water was soaking its way up into the sofa, too. What a mess. She took a deep breath, took off her shoes, and put them on the kitchen table along with her handbag and briefcase so they’d be out of the way of the water.

Stopcock. Where would the stopcock be? The house had been converted into flats, so there was only a fifty-fifty chance that the stopcock would be inside her flat. But, to her relief, when she opened the cupboard under the sink in the hope that it was the most likely place to find the stopcock, the little wheel on the water pipe was clearly visible. She turned it off. Another switch dealt with the electricity supply, and when she went into the bathroom to turn on the taps to drain the system she could see the problem immediately: water was gushing through a burst pipe underneath the sink.

She grabbed the washing up bowl from the kitchen sink and put it there to catch the water that was still gushing from the burst pipe, then turned on the taps in the bath so the system would start to drain.

Those were the most important things. Now to call the landlord—and she really hoped that he’d be able to send an emergency plumber out to fix the pipe tonight. Though, even when the pipe was fixed and the water supply was back on, Grace knew that she was still going to have to find somewhere else to sleep tonight, because the flat was too badly flooded to be habitable. She’d also have to find somewhere to store all her stuff.

Although part of her wanted to burst into tears of sheer frustration and anger and misery, she knew that crying wasn’t going to solve anything. She needed to stick with the practical stuff. Once she’d sorted that out, she could start weeping. But absolutely not until then.

There was a note in Bella’s handwriting underneath a magnet on the door of the fridge, with a telephone number and the words, Call if any problems. Obviously this was the landlord’s number; Grace was truly grateful that for once her little sister had been organised, despite spending the last three weeks knee-deep in plans for her whirlwind wedding to Hugh. Grace grabbed her mobile phone from her bag and called the number on the note.

* * *

Roland didn’t recognise the number on his phone’s screen, so he let the call go through to voicemail. A cold caller would give up as soon as Roland’s recorded message started playing, and anyone who really wanted to talk to him could leave a message and he’d return the call when he had time.

There was an audible sigh on the answering machine. ‘Hello. This is Grace Faraday.’

Bella’s sister? Roland frowned. Why on earth would she be calling him?

‘Please call me back urgently.’ She said her telephone number slowly and clearly. ‘If I haven’t heard from you within thirty minutes, I’ll call an emergency plumber and assume that you’ll pick up the bill.’

Why did she need an emergency plumber? And why on earth did she think that he’d pay for the cost?

Intending to suggest that she called her landlord or her insurance company instead, he picked up the phone. ‘Roland Devereux speaking.’