*
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.’
There was a stunned silence for a moment. ‘Roland? As in Hugh’s other best man Roland?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Um, right—if you didn’t catch the message I was in the middle of leaving, it’s Bella’s sister Grace. There’s a flood at the flat and I need an emergency plumber.’ Her voice took on a slightly haughty tone. ‘I assume that you, as the landlord, have a list of tradesmen you use.’
So that was why she thought he’d pay the bill for an emergency plumber. ‘I’m not the landlord.’
‘Ah. Sorry.’ The haughtiness disappeared, and there was the slightest wobble in her voice. ‘I don’t suppose you know the landlord’s contact details?’
Why on earth would he know something like that? ‘No.’
‘OK. Never mind.’
And there it was.
The tiniest sob. Muffled quickly, but he heard it.
It brought back all the memories of Lynette. Her heart-wrenching sobs every single month they’d failed to make a baby. The guilt about how badly he’d let her down and how he’d failed her at the last.
Plus Grace was his best friend’s sister-in-law. If Roland’s sister had called Hugh for help, Hugh would’ve come straight to Philly’s rescue. So Roland knew he had to do the right thing.
‘I’m sorry to have bother—’ she began.
‘Grace. How bad is the flood?’ he cut in.
‘You’ve just told me you’re not the landlord, so don’t worry about it.’
He winced, but he knew that he deserved the slightly acidic tone in her voice. But there was one thing that was bothering him. ‘Where did you get my number?’
‘Bella left me a note on the fridge—a phone number for emergencies.’ She sighed. ‘Again, I apologise. I assumed it was the landlord’s number. Obviously I was wrong.’
That didn’t matter right now. He was focused on the flood. ‘Have you turned off the water?’
‘Yes. I’m not an airhead,’ she said drily. ‘I also turned off the electricity supply to prevent any problems there, and I’m currently draining the system to try and stop any more water coming through. I need a plumber to fix the burst pipe, and I also need to tell the people in the flats upstairs, in case the problem in my flat has affected their water supply, too.’
He was surprised that Grace sounded so capable and so organised. It didn’t fit with what he’d been told about her. But she’d said there was a burst pipe, and clearly she didn’t have a number to call for help—apart from his, which Bella had left her in case of emergencies. He could hardly just hang up and leave her to it. ‘What’s the address?’ he asked abruptly.
‘Why?’
‘Because you just called me for help,’ he said.
‘Mistakenly,’ she said crisply. ‘For which I apologise. Yet again.’
‘Bella obviously left you my number in case of emergencies—and a burst pipe counts as an emergency.’ Although Bella had forgotten to tell him she’d given Grace his number, that wasn’t Grace’s fault. ‘Where are you?’
‘Bella’s flat.’
‘I don’t actually know the address,’ Roland explained.
‘Oh. Right.’ Sounding slightly reluctant, she told him the address.
‘OK. I’m on my way.’
‘Are you a plumber or something?’
‘No, but I know a good one. I’ll call him on the way and have him on standby in case you can’t get hold of the landlord.’
‘Thank you,’ Grace said. ‘I appreciate this.’
Roland called his plumber from the car, warning him that it was possibly a storm in a teacup but asking him to stay on standby. But, when he turned up at the flat, he discovered that Grace had been underplaying the situation, if anything. The water had clearly been gushing for a while and the carpets were soaked through; they’d need to be taken up and probably replaced. The sofa also needed to be moved, because water was seeping into it. And he felt another twinge of guilt as he noticed that Grace looked as if she’d been crying. Although she was clearly trying to be brave, this had obviously upset her.
‘Did you manage to get in touch with the landlord?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘His details are probably somewhere in Bella’s shoebox—but I’m not blaming her, because I should’ve checked everything properly myself before she and Hugh left. I live here now, so it’s my responsibility.’
‘Shoebox?’ he asked, mystified.
‘Bella’s not really one for filing,’ Grace explained. ‘She has a shoebox system. Business receipts go in one shoebox, household stuff in another, and you just rummage through the shoeboxes when you want something.’
‘That sounds a bit chaotic.’ And it was definitely not the way Roland would do things. It wasted way too much time.
Grace shrugged. ‘At least she has the shoeboxes now. It took a bit of nagging to get her that far.’
What? This didn’t fit, at all. Wasn’t Grace the drunken, princessy one? And yet right now she was wearing a sober grey suit and white shirt; plus that looked like a proper briefcase on the kitchen table, along with a pair of sensible black shoes and an equally sensible-looking handbag. Her nails weren’t professionally manicured, her dark hair was cut simply in a long bob rather than being in a fussy high-maintenance style like the one she’d had at the wedding, and her make-up was minimal.
Maybe he’d got her totally wrong. More guilt flooded through him.
‘The neighbours aren’t home yet, so I’ve left a note on their doors to tell them what’s happened,’ she said. ‘And I really need to find the landlord’s details and check the insurance.’
Again, there was that tiny wobble in her voice.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked, hoping that she wasn’t going to start crying.
‘I’ve had better days.’ She lifted her chin. ‘And worse, for that matter. I’ll live. Sorry. I would offer you a cup of tea but, as I don’t have water or electricity right now...’ She shrugged. ‘I’m afraid I can’t.’
‘It’s not a problem,’ Roland said. ‘My plumber’s on standby, so I’ll call him again to get him up to speed with the situation—and we need to shift that sofa in a minute before it soaks up any more water, to try and minimise the damage.’
‘And the bookcase. And the bed. And...’ She blew out a breath. ‘It’s just as well my car’s a hatchback. I’m going to have