The next few days were idyllic. Sophie spent almost all her waking hours with Chris and was very rapidly coming to the conviction that she would also like to spend her sleeping hours with him. They went for walks with Jeeves and down to the beach for long swims in the sea. She took him to the little restaurant in Albenga and back to the pizzeria, and they just talked and talked. She told him about her book, which was progressing really well at the moment, and he was as supportive as ever. He told her about his recent overseas trips and how much he enjoyed what he did. The more she was with him and the more they kissed and cuddled, the more convinced she became that this was the man for her and it seemed almost absurd that she had had such doubts.
As promised, Chris took a good look at the furniture in the house and made a number of interesting discoveries. Prime among these was the huge tapestry on the wall of the lounge. He studied it closely and took a load of photos before consulting a colleague in London who came back with the breathtaking news that, subject to detailed analysis, it looked very much like a medieval original which could well be worth more than the arms. Adding in various other old and valuable items, the figure Sophie and Rachel stood to make from disposal of these objects at auction was stunning and more than a little humbling. The sisters discussed it and decided that if all went well, they should consider setting up some sort of fund or charity in Uncle George’s name to celebrate his life and to give something back to people who needed it more than they did.
Dinner at Dan’s house the day after Chris’s arrival was most enjoyable, not least as they met Jennifer for the first time. Sophie immediately took to her and couldn’t have approved more of Dan’s choice. It was clear to see that Jen had also taken the transition from good buddy to girlfriend in her stride and she and Dan looked and sounded inseparable. With Rachel’s Gabriel arriving very soon, everything was working out and they couldn’t have been happier.
Gabriel’s flight was a few days later on September the twenty-ninth, and he planned to stay for the party on the first of October to celebrate Rachel’s birthday and, of course, their successful completion of all the conditions of Uncle George’s bequest. He was scheduled to land at Nice airport in the late afternoon and so Rachel drove across to pick him up. Sophie offered to go with her but, understandably, Rachel preferred to have him to herself so they could talk things over in the car on their way back to Paradiso.
The only disappointment that day was the weather which had finally broken and the rain had been bucketing down for hours. The garden and vineyards were awash and, however hard Sophie tried to keep him dry, Jeeves kept on slipping in and out and as a result soon emanated an unappealing wet dog smell. More importantly the weather was making driving conditions difficult, so Rachel set out good and early for what should have been, under normal circumstances, a journey of less than an hour and a half to Nice airport.
Sophie got a call from Rachel at five, saying she had arrived safely at the airport – although the spray thrown up by the big trucks on the motorway had been challenging – but Gabriel’s flight was delayed by over an hour. Even so, she reckoned she should still be home by around eight o’clock. As Sophie read this, she felt a little flicker of concern. Neither of them had thought to bring forward their normal evening log-in onto Uncle George’s computer and, of course, this had to be done before midnight without fail. The irony that they might have got all the way through the three months together only to fall at the final hurdle wasn’t lost on her. It therefore came as a great relief when she received a text from Rachel at seven, telling her they were in the car and on their way home, hoping to be back in time for dinner at eight thirty.
Outside, the weather conditions showed no sign of improving and when Sophie and Chris took Jeeves out for a quick walk, the ground underfoot was inches deep in water in some places and all three of them were soon soaked to the skin long before they got back home. By this time it was half past seven so, after leaving Chris to dry the dog, Sophie ran upstairs to shower and change before hurrying down again to start laying the table and turn on the oven to warm the chicken and mushroom pie she had prepared as the main course.
Eight thirty came and went and Sophie’s anxiety increased. She turned off the oven after an hour as the crust was blackening and the chicken drying out fast, and she and Chris sat side-by-side, waiting for sight of the Mercedes. Nice as it was to be alongside him, holding his hand and chatting, Sophie’s apprehension continued to grow. Apart from the not so small matter of the computer log-in and the possibility of seeing their castle lost to them, she was growing ever more worried for her sister. In this weather, the autostrada would be treacherous and the thought of something happening to her was too terrible for words. With her parents gone, and now Uncle George too, Rachel was her last remaining close relative and she couldn’t bear the thought of being parted from her. Chris was supportive and encouraging but she could see that even he was getting worried as nine o’clock arrived and there was still no word.
Sophie turned on the local news and the first thing they saw was a grainy picture of flashing blue and orange lights and the appalling news that one of the motorway bridges between here and the French border had collapsed an hour earlier, taking a number of vehicles with it and causing an unknown number of fatalities. Sophie’s hand flew to her mouth and she instinctively reached for her phone. She called Rachel’s number but a recorded message told her it had been impossible to connect her. She looked across at Chris, doing her best not to give in and burst into tears. He reached over and cradled her with his arm.
‘Try not to worry, Soph. They’ll be all right, you’ll see.’ He pointed to the screen where the pouring rain was still making the images hard to decipher. ‘The emergency services are all there. If something had happened, we would have heard by now. They’re probably just stuck in a queue. Just think: the collapse of the bridge must have closed the motorway so they’re probably in a traffic jam somewhere.’
‘But why hasn’t she called and why doesn’t her phone work?’
‘You and I have both driven that piece of motorway. It’s just one tunnel after another – and some of them are really long. She’s probably stuck somewhere without a signal. Just give it time. It’ll be all right, you’ll see.’
Sophie managed a little smile of gratitude for his attempts to cheer her, but a cold feeling of dread settled in her stomach and refused to go away. She counted off the minutes, her mind turning over and over, and one thing emerged with clarity. Although there was now the very real possibility of their being unable to log in and, therefore, failing to complete Uncle George’s prescriptive conditions, the loss of the castle and the massive financial bonus the sale of it would provide was nothing compared to the prospect of losing her sister. Just as their uncle had hoped, these three months had brought them back closer than ever, and if she had to choose her sister or the money, Sophie knew without a shadow of a doubt which choice she would make.
At ten o’clock, and every ten or fifteen minutes from then on, Sophie kept calling and calling, but still without success. Chris forced a mug of hot tea and a slice of her own apricot tart into her unresisting hands but she couldn’t eat a thing. She sipped the tea, lost in her thoughts as the minutes ticked by, and it was almost eleven when finally her phone rang. She almost knocked it off the table in her rush to answer it, and the sensation of relief that flooded throughout her whole body as she heard her sister’s voice threatened to reduce her to tears.
‘Hi, Soph. There’s been an accident on the motorway. We’re…’
‘Are you all right?’ This was all that mattered.
‘We’re fine. We’ve been stuck in a tunnel since eight o’clock. We’ve been trying to call but there was no signal.’
‘Thank God you’re all right.’ Sophie beamed across at Chris and, at the same time, felt tears running down her cheeks. ‘I’ve been so worried.’
‘Listen, Soph, there’s a problem, a big one. We’re still only at Arma di Taggia and we’ve had to come off the autostrada onto the coast road, but it’s absolute chaos with all the traffic and it’s stop-start all the way. I’ve got a horrible feeling we aren’t going to get back in time to sign in. Soph…’ Her voice broke. ‘…we could lose the castle.’
‘It doesn’t matter, Rach. Really, it doesn’t. The only thing that matters is that you’re safe.’ She felt a cold wet nose nudge her knee and a large paw land on her thigh. She looked down and saw a pair of brown eyes staring up at her, clearly troubled. She caught hold of Jeeves’s paw and squeezed it gently. ‘You’re safe, Rach, that’s all that counts. Just drive safely and if you’re late, you’re late.’
When the call ended, she wiped her eyes and relayed to Chris what Rachel had said. He pulled out his phone and checked the map.
‘Arma di Taggia is about thirty kilometres from here. Under normal circumstances that’s barely twenty minutes. Maybe the traffic will clear or they’ll get back onto the motorway. They can still make it.’ He set down his phone and stood up. ‘Anyway, like you say, the important thing is that they’re safe. This calls for a drink.’ A few seconds later he handed her a big glass of cold wine from the fridge. ‘Now drink up and try to eat something. If she doesn’t get back in time you can call the lawyer and explain. I’m sure he’ll understand.’
Sophie took a big mouthful of wine and gave him a wry smile. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure. He struck me as a particularly pernickety sort of chap.’
‘He’ll understand; you wait and see.’
Rachel phoned forty minutes later to relay the information that they were once more back on the autostrada, heading for home. By this time it was a quarter to midnight and Sophie couldn’t keep her eyes off the clock on the wall. Gradually, the hands crept upwards until, inexorably, they reached twelve. Sophie took a deep breath and looked across at Chris.
‘Well, that’s it. We’ve missed a day. Unless Signor Verdi turns out to be a whole lot more flexible than I think, we aren’t going to become millionaires.’
He stretched his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her to him, kissing her lightly on the top of her head. ‘I still think it’ll be okay, but if it doesn’t work out, so what? Whatever happens you’re going to walk away with a lot of money, even if it isn’t millions after all, but like you said the important thing is that you’ve still got your sister. You had lost her for a while, but now you’ve got her back and that’s priceless.’
Rachel arrived at almost half past midnight, looking weary and despondent. Beside her was a tall man with a friendly face – albeit looking a bit strained under the present circumstances – and Sophie took to him immediately. He, like Chris, was being very supportive and, by the sound of it, had been having the same conversation with Rachel in the car that Chris had been having with Sophie here. Sophie ran across to them and hugged her sister as if her life depended on it, close to tears. Her sister hugged her in return and they stayed like that for some moments before rushing upstairs to Uncle George’s study. The Labrador followed on behind, clearly bemused at so much activity in the middle of the night. Sophie and Rachel reached for the computer, although Sophie’s watch was telling her they were well into the new day. They looked on as the screen lit up and then, to their horror, the red outline of their hands began to flash and an error message appeared.
Error: incomplete sequence. Failure to log in correctly previous day. Contact administrator.
Sophie removed her hand for the screen but kept hold of her sister’s.
‘It’s too late to call him now but I’ll text Signor Verdi and tell him what’s happened. He’ll understand, I’m sure.’ She tried to make her voice as confident as possible although, deep down, she had a sinking feeling. It looked like the dream was over.
They trailed back downstairs and Sophie pulled out the lukewarm pie and the rest of the dinner she had prepared, but neither she nor Rachel managed to eat very much at all. Finally throwing in the towel at one o’clock, Sophie stood up and announced she was going to take the dog out for a quick pee and then go to bed. All of a sudden she was feeling immensely weary. Chris stood up and gently pressed her back into her seat.
‘Leave Jeeves to me. I’ll take him out for a quick run and then I’ll dry him off and drop him up to your room in a little while. Why don’t you go to bed? You look worn out.’
Sophie protested weakly but he insisted. As instructed, she went up to her room, brushed her teeth and fell into bed. In spite of her tiredness, however, she was still wide awake when she heard the door creak open and saw her dog come trotting in. Before it could close again, she called out.
‘Chris, are you there?’
‘I thought you’d be asleep by now.’ His voice was little more than a whisper.
‘Will you come here, please?’
He came in and followed Jeeves across to her bedside. She looked up, caught hold of his hand and smiled at him in the darkness. ‘I really don’t feel like being on my own tonight, Chris. Would you feel like keeping me company?’
He did.