waving a raffle ticket in the air, the presenter on the platform said, “I think we’ll draw again, if there’s no winner….”
“Shout!” I poked Clare and waved my own hand wildly. “Here! The winner’s over here!”
“And the new number is … 4403.”
To my disbelief, some dark-haired girl on the other side of the room started whooping and brandishing a ticket.
“She didn’t win!” I exclaimed indignantly. “You won.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Clare was shrinking back.
“Of course it matters!” I cried out before I could stop myself, and everyone at the table started laughing.
“Go, Poppy!” called out Natasha. “Go, White Knightess! Sort it out!”
“Go, Knightie!”
This is an old joke. Just because there was this one incident at school, where I started a petition to save the hamsters, everyone began to call me the White Knightess. Or Knightie, for short. My so-called catchphrase is apparently “Of course it matters!”2
Anyway. Suffice it to say that within two minutes I was up on the stage with the dark-haired girl, arguing with the presenter about how my friend’s ticket was more valid than hers.
I know now that I never should have left the table. I never should have left the ring, even for a second. I can see how stupid that was. But, in my defense, I didn’t know the fire alarm was going to go off, did I?
It was so surreal. One minute, everyone was sitting down at a jolly champagne tea. The next minute, a siren was blaring through the air and everyone was on their feet, heading for the exits in pandemonium. I could see Annalise, Ruby, and all the others grabbing their bags and making their way to the back. A man in a suit came onto the stage and started ushering me, the dark-haired girl, and the presenter toward a side door and wouldn’t let us go the other way. “Your safety is our priority,” he kept saying.3
Even then, it’s not as if I was worried. I didn’t think the ring would have gone. I assumed one of my friends had it safe and I’d meet up with everyone outside and get it back.
Outside, of course, it was mayhem. As well as our tea, there was some big business conference happening at the hotel, and all the delegates were spilling out of different doors into the road. Hotel staff were trying to make announcements into loudspeakers, and cars were beeping, and it took me ages just to find Natasha and Emily in the melee.
“Have you got my ring?” I demanded at once, trying not to sound accusatory. “Who’s got it?”
Both of them looked blank.
“Dunno.” Natasha shrugged. “Didn’t Annalise have it?”
So then I plunged into the throng to find Annalise, but she didn’t have it; she thought Clare had it. And Clare thought Clemency had it. And Clemency thought Ruby might have had it, but hadn’t she gone already?
The thing about panic is, it creeps up on you. One minute you’re still quite calm, still telling yourself, Don’t be ridiculous. Of course it can’t be lost. The next, the Marie Curie staff are announcing that the event will be curtailed early due to unforeseen circumstances and are handing out goody bags. And all your friends have disappeared to catch the tube. And your finger is still bare. And a voice inside your head is screeching, Oh my God! I knew this would happen! Nobody should ever have entrusted me with an antique ring! Big mistake! Big mistake!
And that’s how you find yourself under a table an hour later, groping around a grotty hotel carpet, praying desperately for a miracle. (Even though your fiance’s father has written a whole bestselling book on how miracles don’t exist and it’s all superstition and even saying “OMG” is the sign of a weak mind.)4
Suddenly I realize my phone is flashing and grab it with trembling fingers. Three messages have come in, and I scroll through them in hope.
Found it yet? Annalise xx
Sorry, babe, haven’t seen it. Don’t worry, I won’t breathe a word to Magnus. N xxx
Hi Pops! God, how awful, to lose your ring! Actually I thought I saw it … (incoming text)
I stare at my phone, galvanized. Clare thought she saw it? Where?
I crawl out from under the table and wave my phone around, but the rest of the text resolutely refuses to come through. The signal in here is rubbish. How can this call itself a five-star hotel? I’ll have to go outside.
“Hi!” I approach the gray-haired cleaner, raising my voice above the Hoover’s