Lavender Jones was sitting at the table in the interview room, both palms pressed against the surface. Huge rings bearing gemstones hugged every finger, and bangles glittered on her arms where she'd rolled up her jumper sleeves. Dark hair dip-dyed like strands of caramel framed a pretty, ageing face with pearly lips and a tawny skin tone.
I pushed the door open and entered the interview room. "Lavender Jones?"
The smile that pulled her mouth was tight, but there was a friendly light in her hazy eyes. "Yes. Are you Inspector Rames?"
"I am. This is Sergeant Sullivan."
We sat down together on the other side of the table. Lavender appraised Alex with a slightly wider smile, and I couldn't help but do the same. He was a tall and well-built man, his dark suit snug on him as if it had been custom made. Yet he had an edge of ruggedness too, in the stubble lining his jaw and the mischievous amusement waiting to shine in his eyes.
I cleared my throat and dragged my gaze back to Lavender. "We were told you wanted to speak with us...?"
She did the same, looking down at the table. "Yes, Ethan called. He told me about Iberia and Ruby." Her voice softened. "I was Iberia's wedding planner."
My ears pricked up. "So you'd been working with her closely over the past few months?"
"The past year, actually." She shook her head sadly. "It's still sinking in. This whole day was supposed to be revolving around her -- I would have been at the venue by now, keeping everything in check. But she's...gone." She leaned forward. "As soon as I heard the news, I came. I liked Iberia, and I've learned a lot about the girls. So if there's anything you need to know..."
"I need to know everything." I clasped my hands together on the table. "Introduce the wedding party to us. I'd like to learn about them in detail from an outsider's point of view."
"All right, then." Lavender sat back and thought for a moment. "I suppose I know the most about my clients, Iberia and Ethan. Iberia, in particular, I worked with a lot. As I'm her wedding planner, she can contact me any time she likes." Lavender hesitated. "Late last night, she called me in floods of tears because she was worried that Ethan wouldn't want to go through with the wedding."
"Do you know why?" Alex asked.
Lavender spread her hands. "She just said they'd had an argument. I tried to calm her down, reminding her that he hadn't actually called off the wedding."
"So she gave no indication at all as to what had come between them?"
"No. Sorry."
"You weren't aware if either party had cheated on each other?" I asked.
"Cheated?" She blinked at me. "No, they wouldn't do that. They were in love. According to Iberia, they met at secondary school and started dating when they were thirteen. They stayed together all the way until the end of college, and then they split up when they attended university. Ethan went away to New London while Iberia stayed here. But when he graduated and came back, they reconnected again very quickly. True love always finds a way."
"Right." I didn't want to taint her perception with the truth yet. "When did they get engaged? Just before they started planning the wedding, or a while before?"
"Last year. So that was roughly a year after they'd got back together."
Alex shifted in his seat, his leg brushing against mine. "How often did you actually meet Iberia and Ethan face to face?"
"Oh...too many times to count."
"What about the rest of the wedding party?" I asked. "Did you get to meet them?"
"I met two of the bridesmaids," Lavender said. "Jade and Danielle. Jade was the maid of honour, but Danielle helped out more because she was the only one who'd already married. Iberia told me that Danielle tied the knot at eighteen and fell pregnant not long afterwards with her little boy, Benjamin. But her husband died when they were twenty. There was an accident. He fell off a metal walkway while he was drunk." She lowered her voice. "Although Iberia speculated that he wasn't coping with the newborn very well and jumped. Anyway, after his death, Ethan moved in to help his twin sister look after the boy."
"Interesting. Do you happen to know the life story of Ruby Beaumont?"
Lavender pursed her lips. "No, I never met her in person. But I've seen a lot of them all together in some vlogs Iberia uploaded to Xplora -- Diaries of a Fiancée. I also gathered from Jade that the Beaumont sisters live alone together. Their parents moved to New London during the girls' university years, but they decided to stay here with their friends."
"What do you know about Ethan's parents?" Alex asked.
Lavender's lip curled. "William Sharpe is a meddling old man. He called me several times with demands to change what Iberia wanted -- he had the power to do that with the parts of the wedding he'd paid for. It made things very difficult. He was trying to sabotage it."
"Because of Iberia's class?"
"Yes. He was convinced that she was a gold-digger, and he wasn't afraid to say it."
"Did anyone else dislike her?" I asked.
"Well..." Lavender shrugged. "All the girls got frustrated with her sometimes. She spoke her mind -- if she didn't like the way someone looked or what they did, she would say it, and harshly. And she bitched about everyone. But they loved her deep down."
"She'd offended Ethan recently, it seems," Alex said. "You mentioned earlier that she'd called you about an argument. She was worried that Ethan wouldn't want to marry her anymore. Was that because of something she'd done?"
"I'm sorry. I meant what I said -- I don't know what it was about."
"But she seemed to be the one they'd been arguing over?" I prompted. "She sounded afraid that he wouldn't marry her because of something she'd done?"
"I think so, yes. But I really didn't get much sense out of her."
"We have Xplora messages from Ethan that suggest that Iberia had been cheating on him," Alex said. "Tell us the truth. Did you know about that?"
Her lips parted. "What? No, you must have that wrong. Iberia was head over heels in love with Ethan!"
"And Ethan," I said, "was cheating on Iberia with Ruby Beaumont. Had Iberia found out?"
Lavender shook her head violently. "No. You've got it wrong! They can't have done that. I thought...I thought they were in love."
I exchanged a look with Alex.
The only person who could answer our next questions was Ethan.
***
After dealing with unhelpful messages from other wedding guests, Alex asked the PRBs to run a search on the cake knife that had killed Ruby. It wasn't marked by brand, and they couldn't trace it to any online shops.
By the time we'd sorted that -- or not sorted that -- it was late afternoon. I tracked Ethan Sharpe on my tabphone and found that he was exactly where he was supposed to have been: St. Mary's Church.
It was just a few minutes away from Iberia's flat, so we rode a tram as far as we could and then made the rest of the journey on foot. The rain had turned into a downpour. Shoppers struggling with umbrellas scurried down the road like wet rats. Students followed, holding bags or folders over their heads and squealing at the tops of their voices. Cigarette butts disintegrated on the concrete, and cheap neon signs struggled to stay alight as cracks allowed the water to seep in and destroy them.
Alex was striding ahead again, his hood drawn up. As I tried desperately not to fall behind, I stomped straight through a puddle. Dirty water splashed up my jeans, and I groaned as it soaked through the denim. "Rain, rain, go away. Come again another bloody day."
Alex slowed his stride. "You need a proper winter coat."
He was right. With only my leather jacket acting as an outer layer, it wasn't just my jeans that were getting wet. The jumper underneath was soaked through, and my hair was hanging down my neck in thick, dripping clumps. Water slid down the back of my shirt collar, and I shivered irritably and scowled at my sergeant. "If that means having one like yours, no way. You know it'll break."
"All you have to do is snap your fingers, and the hood draws up or down."
"Something would go wrong with that, I'm sure. It wouldn't listen to me." I snapped them, watching his coat intently. "See? Your hood's not coming down."
He laughed. "Because it only listens to me."
"Oh. It never gets confused by anyone else? That's quite clever." I held up my hands. "But the answer is still no. I just can't cope with going as far as having rebellious technology in my coat."
St. Mary's Church came into view, clad in white stucco that was almost blinding among the winter shadows. Fifteen floors high, the skyscraper ended in a spire that was studded with white lights like diamantés. A neon blue cross hung over the doors. We turned off the road and walked straight in.
Between sterile white walls, pews of black leather lined an aisle. At the front of the room was a glass altar, and another neon cross was hanging on the wall behind it. Ethan was standing there with his back to us.
I walked up the aisle, careful to keep my footfalls quiet. Alex followed me. When we reached Ethan, we stood on either side of him.
He'd changed into a navy blue suit, white shirt, and black bow tie. A white rose was tucked into his top pocket. The flicker of his eyes told me that he'd registered our arrival, but he kept his gaze trained forward.
The church smelled faintly of incense and oil, and a strange sense of peace wrapped me up like a warm hug. Not for the first time, I wondered if God was real, or if it was just a placebo effect.
"You're grieving for two," I said.
Ethan finally looked at me. "Of course. Iberia was my fiancée. Ruby was my friend."
"With benefits." I thrust my hands into my sopping wet pockets. "Who are you imagining walking up this aisle? Ruby or Iberia?"
He turned sharply, the heels of his shoes squeaking against the floor. "Iberia. Ruby was just a bit of fun. All that wedding planning was such a nightmare, and I needed to be reminded of what it felt like to be light again. To be free."
"Did Ruby know it was just a casual thing? Or was she getting too clingy?"
"She was Iberia's bridesmaid. Our wedding was in her face whichever way she looked. Of course she knew it was casual."
"So she didn't need to be helped out of the picture?"
He tensed. "No. How do you know about us, anyway?"
"We have Ruby's tabphone," Alex said. "We've seen your messages."
"My messages?" Ethan's face turned puce. "Aren't there any God damn fucking laws protecting privacy anymore?"
I winced. If God was real, He wouldn't be happy. "There's no need to flatter yourself -- quite frankly, we're uninterested in your phone sex. What we are interested in is whether it has anything to do with the murders of Iberia and Ruby."
"What do you mean?"
"Last night, you had an argument with your fiancée. This morning, she was murdered."
He glowered. "We argued about Iberia -- not me. She never knew about Ruby. And I didn't kill either of them!"
"So you didn't go to Iberia's flat this morning, argue about your affair, and lose your temper?"
"No! I told you where I was: at home with Danielle."
"And you didn't go to Iberia's flat this morning, argue about her affair, and lose your temper?"
"Her affair...?" He stared at me. "She wasn't cheating."
"Then what were you arguing about yesterday?"
He closed his eyes, his brows sinking together. His Adam's apple bobbed once, twice, trying to disgorge the words. Then he shook his head. "Iberia was the love of my life. I can't tell you."
He brushed past us and fled down the aisle. As he pulled open the glass doors, cold air flooded in and shattered the spell of peace. It prodded me into action with icy fingers, and I stepped after him.
Alex caught my shoulder. "Leave him. We've asked a lot today."
I met his eyes and saw a similar pain reflected there. He knew how it felt to be quizzed by the police after the murder of someone he loved.
I relaxed, letting Ethan go. My sergeant let go of me.
"Ethan's made up his mind," Alex said. "He's not going to tell us anything else now."
"Fine." But the chill that had swept into the building stayed, and I started to shiver.
Alex put his arms around me. "Also, it's twenty to five. Don't you have a wedding dress to collect?"
"Sh-- sugar." I slid away from him. "Yes. I'll have to go now because I need to grab my shoes. Tell Dixon when you get to the station, please -- I forgot to run it past him. And could you bring my bag back home? It's still in our office."
He shook his head with a wry smile. "You're so stressed, I'm sure you'd forget your head if it wasn't attached to you. We should have hired a wedding planner."
"Well, it's a bit late now." I strode to the doors. "Besides, I like being in control."
Alex caught up with me and took my hand. "I know. Are you sure you're not going to forget something about the wedding, though?"
"What is there to forget? We've got the rings, and it's Sebastian's job to worry about those on the day. I'm fetching my dress now, so that will be sorted. When I actually have some roses, that will be sorted, too. Nina, Cassia, and Gem have their dresses. Everything's in hand."
"When are you picking up the wedding cake?" Alex entered the downpour.
I froze on the threshold.
He turned around. "What?"
"Wedding cake?" I repeated faintly. "What wedding cake?"