In the pin-drop quiet deserted dawn on a Sunday, her heart was pulsing, ker-thunk ker-thunk.
Any traces of sleepiness from her grotty hour’s rest were chased away by the gigantic adrenaline surge as she turned the lock to open her door. She half expected to find a crowd of snoring people with outstretched legs, weaponry like unplugged irons in their hands, a boobytrap tripwire at her feet.
The hotel was silent, and Edie winced as if the squeak of her trolley case was making the noise of a jumbo jet taking off. She pushed the handle down and picked it up. She reasoned with herself: what percentage of people will have stayed awake, patrolling the building? What percentage of people, bar Louis, would be able to visually ID her as the fallen woman anyway?
She breathed deeply and jabbed her finger on the button to call the lift, as her skin glowed and prickled with the combined heat of an intensely bright yellow summer morning and the slick of guilty, fearful sweat. As per last night’s vomiting episode, she knew that once the practical problem of getting out of here was out of the way, the creeping psychic torture would be far, far worse.
The middle-aged man on reception looked startled as Edie rolled her case out of the lift and said, testing her croaky voice: ‘I’d like to check out, please.’
He stared at Edie for a moment, putting two and two together, and Edie felt like a celebrity for all the wrong reasons. She had some dark glasses somewhere in her bag, but wasn’t going to put them on until she hit exterior sunlight. Only Stevie Wonder was allowed to wear sunglasses indoors without being a tit, even Edie’s predicament didn’t change that. She wished Hannah was here. She wished she had just one person on her side, to vouch for her. Although she knew Hannah would have some vigorous words for her, too.
‘Could I order a taxi to the station?’ Edie said, ‘I’ll wait out there.’
The man nodded in embarrassed understanding. Given her state, Edie couldn’t help but think that he was thinking was this woman really worth it.
Edie pushed through the revolving door, into the car park and came face to face with another human being. She tried not to startle at seeing the 40-something mother with curly hair, a very small baby in her arms and a toddler bumbling around at her feet. Thankfully, Edie didn’t know who she was, and the woman smiled at her as a reflex response, suggesting she definitely didn’t know who Edie was.
‘Morning!’ Edie said in a peppy, sergeant major-ish voice.
‘Morning! Nice one, isn’t it?’
‘Gorgeous.’ Appalling.
‘You’re up early!’ Her eyes moved from Edie to her case, and back again. ‘And you don’t have this lot to contend with,’ she jiggled the baby, who frowned at Edie with its suspicious crumpled face.
‘Haha no, tons of work to do. Big project on. Thought I’d best get home.’
Oh God, taxi, please turn up, and soon.
‘Do you have far to go?’
‘London.’ Edie swallowed, with a dry mouth. ‘You?’
‘Cheltenham. We won’t be going til his nibs wakes up though. Far too much red wine. Have you been at the wedding, too?’
Shit.
‘Uh. Yes.’ Edie gripped the handle on her trolley case more tightly.
‘Awful business, wasn’t it? Stanley! No digging up handfuls of earth, thank you. Clean play only or we go back inside.’
Edie couldn’t be more grateful for Stanley’s sort of muck raking.
‘Seems Charlotte found Jack having some how’s your father, or snogging or something, with another guest. Unbelievable,’ the woman said. ‘Can you believe it? On your wedding day? To be carrying on with another woman?’
‘Huh,’ Edie said, trying to make an incredulous-yet-also-disinterested face. ‘Wow.’ She shook her head.
The woman shifted the baby to her other Boden trouser-clad hip.
‘… Did you not know?’
Shit.
‘Uh, I knew … something had happened. I didn’t know exactly what,’ Edie said, quickly. Think. Think of something to say to keep her occupied. ‘Where are they now?’ Edie said, mindlessly.
‘Charlotte left with her parents. You know her parents? They have the big white house over on the other side of the green.’
‘Oh, right. Yes.’
‘Poor, poor thing. I can’t imagine what she’s going through.’
‘No, dreadful.’
The woman was contemplating Edie more carefully now. She was wondering why she was really stood outside the hotel before six in the morning, looking like a bedraggled Walk of Shamer, and feigning improbably little knowledge of the previous night’s earthquake.
‘How do you know Jack and Charlotte?’ she said hesitantly, asking for confirmation of a hunch.
‘I work with them.’
There followed an acutely uncomfortable few seconds where the woman’s face became a taut mask of revelation. It was as if she’d seen a WANTED poster over Edie’s shoulder.
A minicab finally swept up the drive and Edie could’ve thrown herself arms wide across the windscreen in exultant relief.
‘Bye!’ she said to the woman, who was staring dully at her, not noticing Stanley was now eating gobfuls of soil.
The driver helped Edie haul her case into the boot and she hopped into the back like a scalded flea, in case the woman started screeching that the man from Blueline Taxis was unwittingly aiding and abetting a dangerous felon.
As the car turned through near-empty roads, Edie couldn’t resist looking at her phone. If it had been hard for her father to grasp why they pulled duck-face selfies, she imagined explaining to him why, at a time like this, she would investigate things that were guaranteed to violently upset her. Because the big online glass palace full of funhouse mirrors was where half your reputation lived, now.
Edie had a flurry of a dozen or so Facebook messages. She opened them, nauseous with foreboding. They were distant acquaintances, the social media version of phishing scams – feigned concern and closeness, to gather information. Bloody hell, how shameless.
Long time no speak! Heard something kicked off at the wedding yesterday. Are you OK? Laura x
It’s been a while, hope all is good! And WOW: is what people are saying true? What happened, Edie? Hope everything is still going well at your company. I’ve had a second child since we last spoke! Best wishes, Kate
Hi. Do you know what people at Ad Hoc are saying? I felt I had to tell you … don’t know whether it’s true. Terry PS we worked together from 2008-9
Edie gulped and hammered delete-delete-delete, only skimming the first few lines of each. Long time no – DELETE.
She had messages (3) in ‘Other,’ i.e., from people who weren’t in her friends list. She guessed they’d be more savage. U R A RANSID FIRECROTCH TART was all that ‘Spencer’ had to say. She deleted and blocked.
She also deleted and blocked a total stranger called Rebecca who used lots of words that couldn’t be published in a family newspaper.