Chapter 1

Elaine felt a shiver rip through her body as she fished around in her wallet for cash. Maybe it was down to nerves? Or maybe it was the fact that the lunatic cabby had wound all the windows down and was speeding through the streets of London like a crazed Michael Schumacher? He wasn't even looking at the road, glaring at her instead through the rear view mirror. He was probably high from the cocktail of fumes which had engulfed them both in the confined space. In hindsight, a whole can of super-strong hold hairspray, two coats of supposedly melon scented (but unmistakably fake tan smelling) bronzing lotion and a generous splash of Hugo Boss pour femme was overdoing it. He swerved right across oncoming traffic onto Brook Street and executed an emergency stop just past the church.

She ran her hand carefully down the delicate Asia-blue silk of her uncharacteristically fashionable and outrageously unaffordable Roberto Cavalli dress. She could feel the luxurious, soft material ripple underneath her fingers, sliding effortlessly over the top of the 5mm cross linked polyethylene wire with 24 AWG high purity OFC and flexible PVC shield cover. Good, it was still firmly duct taped into place. She put on her suit jacket to cover any conspicuous lumps and bumps and connected the jack lead to the mini-disk recorder in the lining just behind the pocket.

He must have been the worst driver to ever scare the living crap out of someone, but she paid him an apologetically large tip all the same. He sped off and she was ready to face the music. The single ex girlfriend at her smug ex boyfriend's wedding where he's about to marry the girl of his dreams. The cliché was so hilarious that she thought she might as well subscribe to it, maxing out her latest piece of plastic on high-lights, high fashion and high heels in a vein attempt to upstage the bride. No doubt the bride would be a naturally stunning model, maybe with a Mensa membership and a high flying, high salaried and yet remarkably worthy job like heading a charity for the preservation of endangered cute and cuddly animals. Elaine would have no chance. Everyone would assume that she was still in love with the prick in the penguin suit at the altar and that her fake, "oh so happy for you, what a lovely couple" type lines were just a lame attempt at hiding her insane jealousy and broken heart.

In truth she could barely contain her apathy. But playing up to this role made it far less likely anyone would suss out what she was up to. If she was behaving rather oddly, pointing her fake Prada hand bag at seemingly random blokes, they would put it down to her losing all sense of coordination after drinking away her sorrows on copious amounts of complementary pink champagne. What were they more likely to think? That girl's secretly filming us at the socialite wedding of the year, quick hide the drugs and blow her cover? Or, that girl's so out of it, look at her crazy erratic arm movements and random handbag pointing, what an eccentric weirdo. "Bet he's glad he got shot of her." Actually she had dumped him. But that was hardly relevant now.

She tapped her fore-finger on the mini mic in her sleeve button hole and watched the levels jump up and down on the screen inside her jacket lining. She hit the red button, first on the mini disk recorder and then on the mini DV camera in her hand bag. PC Wanker Williams may be a completely useless, spineless, pathetic excuse of a man but she had to admit that she couldn't have done this without him. Even still, maybe she could borrow the equipment a bit longer and catch him out having an affair. Then Louise would finally have an excuse to shake him off. He was so seeing someone. But that was the least of her worries right now.

She looked at her watch and smiled at the fact that for once in her life she wasn’t late. She closed the jacket, zipped up the bag, took a deep breath and crossed the road to try and find Lou amongst the already assembled possy of guests.

***

On the other side of town Louise smiled her best smile at the cabby and shouted through the gap in the glass partition.

"I hope I make it to the church on time!"

She was too polite to ask him to put his toe down and hoped he might take a hint. He didn't.

"Have you seen what they're doing to St Paul's?" He didn't even wait for an answer. "It's going to look beautiful when they've fixed it up. Now that's what I call a church."

It's not a church it's a Cathedral. He was grating on every nerve in her body with his snail paced Sunday driving and detailed descriptions of the sites. She was never late for anything. Never. Now this guy was about to smash her 27-year-long tradition of unrelenting reliability into smithereens. Didn’t he realise that by causing such a cataclysmic anomaly he would simultaneously upset the space time continuum of all things constant and create a warp in her universe? Perhaps she was overreacting. She sealed the pink trimmed envelope encasing a tall, thin, glittery card and took a new, unopened card out of her bag. Slightly smaller, fatter and plainer, it had three subtle cream paper roses stuck on the front. She wrote a different message inside, disguising the hand writing as best she could and replacing the blue biro she'd just used with an inky black fountain pen. With all the bugging and wiring and planning and stuff she was pretty sure the obligatory Hallmark "Congratulations on Your Wedding Day" purchase would have slipped El's mind. She blew the ink dry. Louise was proud of her organisation skills but even she had to laugh at the ridiculous amount of effort she was putting into wedding card fraud. Pathetic really, considering what her friend was going to be doing today.

Why couldn't they have just hidden the plans from her until it was all over? Her own husband, especially, should have known it would make her a bag of nerves. The very thought of it made the dormant butterflies in the pit of her stomach suddenly surge up to her throat without warning. She closed her eyes and shook her head, as if to try and tip out all thoughts of drugs, police and subterfuge. She signed her friends name and instead of sealing it, this time she tucked the top of the thick cream envelope into itself and put both cards back in her bag. The cabby indicated right and glided gently into Brook street, gradually grinding to a halt opposite the church. The butterflies dispersed slightly but refused to calm down. For some reason she suddenly wished she'd eaten breakfast. She paid the fare and despite herself she tipped the driver. She crossed the road to join Elaine.

Elaine always stood out in a crowd. Especially in the summer when she reminded Lou of Dorothy, stuck in Kansas as the rest of the world suddenly wakes up all bright and spangly and techni-coloured. Elaine always wore black and her skin maintained its translucent white pigment when most people were browning, bronzing or even burning. She was stubborn and ever since her school days she was one of those girls who believed that every strain of her personality and uniqueness was somehow embodied in her overly long hair. It was wildly overgrown, hanging heavily from her centre parting, straight down to her lower back, with just a slight kink where it ran over her square shoulders. No matter how many people told her how fabulous it would look in this or that style, how her blue eyes would stand out more if she dyed it dark instead of leaving it mousey brown, how her heart shaped face was crying out for a lovely feathered cut, she would never let a pair of scissors near it. She insisted on smothering her eyes with dark, smoky eye shadow that she’d been using since her teens and the harsh colour made the rest of her naked features seem bland in comparison. She was beautiful though, facially. You just had to look really hard to notice it. Apart from when she smiled and no-one could help but notice that she practically beamed beauty. She had great teeth.

“Lou!”

Lou turned to wave at a leggy brunette in a blue silky dress, trying to work out where she knew her from. She was approaching slowly, looking uneasy on a brand new pair of Jimmy Choos.

“Hey!”

“El? What… How did… Oh my… I hardly recognise you!”

“Well that’s the idea really. Blending in. How do you afford all this stuff on your teachers’ salary? I’m wiped out!”

“You know how.” Lou turned her eyes up into her head and took a cigarette out of her bag from the pure stress of thinking about it. “You did a bloody article on it." She held the cigarette between her lips whilst rummaging around in her bag for a lighter and muttering, "Irresponsible lenders. They’ll be the death of me.”

“Those things will be the death of you.”

Elaine still felt major guilt pangs every time she saw Lou light up.

***TO BE CONTINUED*** (or scrapped)