Silas Nash Book 1: Hush Hush Honeysuckle: Chapter 10

Jessica showed her security pass to start her shift at BAE Systems Barrow. She was proud to be a tiny part of the history that was responsible for building the country’s biggest nuclear submarines. BAE, formerly Vickers Shipbuilding, had made and forged part of the country’s history. The order for HMS Vengeance in 1887 by the Royal Navy saw Barrow become the first shipyard in Britain that could build a battleship. They have built 373 merchant ships, 312 submarines, and 148 naval surface ships in Barrow since, and Jessica was responsible in part for the smooth operations of the HR department. True, she had only been inside a submarine once and found it claustrophobic, but it pleased her to think that she was doing her bit for national defence—even if most of her day was spent in the photocopying room and making coffee for people more in the know than her.

As usual, she fought to get a parking space. And she ended up miles from the building and might as well have walked from home anyway. She watched the office staff lining up at another security point to get clearance for their eight a.m. shift. She joined the back of the queue and hoped she’d have time to grab a cup of tea to take to her desk before the pressure piled up with the tasks expected of her.

She showed her pass, and Jake, the security guard, smiled at her. He was a friendly guy and didn’t seem to fit the role of a security man. He was too nice. But it was his job, and he gave an apologetic grin like he did every morning as he checked her bag. She had long since got over the embarrassment of him shuffling through the tampons and feminine wipes. She got as far as the locker room, where she had to leave her bag. She had five minutes to get a drink and call her sister before she had to put her phone away. They weren’t allowed past this point. She put in a quick call, but it went straight to voicemail. She left a message.

Jess and Paige were going to their parent’s house that night for their anniversary dinner. They had been married for forty-six years. Not quite a milestone, but that many years were worth celebrating. Her parents were the shining role models of marriage that she aspired to. They still kissed every time one of them left the house. After being together for fifty-one years through dating and marriage, they couldn’t nip to the shop for a box of tea bags without a proper goodbye. It was both sickly and inspiring.

At twenty-three, Jess had only had two proper relationships. She was back on the dating scene after the last one cheated on her. She longed to meet, fall in love, marry, and have kids. The whole nine yards and all in the correct order. Her biological clock was ticking, and she couldn’t wait. She had an irrational and stupid idea of wanting to be married longer than her parents—but they had a hell of a head start. They were only in their seventies and could be married for another twenty years before one of them popped off. And the likelihood of either finding joy in somebody else’s bed was less every year. Jess needed to get moving and find a husband.

Her sister was supposed to be taking care of the flowers while she said she’d do the actual present buying. Jess took the time to research what she should buy, and while there was no traditional gift for the forty-sixth wedding anniversary, the modern gift was poetry. The traditional gemstone was the pearl, and the flower was the daffodil.

Jess had scoured booksellers and found a first-edition copy of Daffodils and Other Poems in Grange-over-sands, the place where pensioners went to die. She remembered Wordsworth wrote Daffodils, which was appropriate. Her dad would say, ‘What the bloody hell have you bought me that rubbish for? Couldn’t you find a decent bottle of whiskey?’

And her mother would say, ‘How lovely.’ She’d turn the first two pages over without reading a word, and that would be the one and only time the book would ever be opened. Being the eldest, Jess would inherit the God-awful thing when they died. She also bought them a printed anniversary plaque—she’d gone for twee and sickeningly sweet. It said, If everybody in the world were as happy as you, we’d all be laughing and smiling, too. It was presented with two freshwater pearls in a matchbox that cost her a fortune. She patted herself on the back for finding the most useless and ridiculous presents she could imagine. Her mum and dad had everything, and buying for them, either collectively or individually, was a nightmare.

If she felt she had problems, she smiled at the thought of her sister trying to find daffodils in September. Jess had insisted on them, a big glorious bouquet and expected the best her sister-of-no-patience could manage would be artificial silk ones.

The cake was ordered from a local bakery. Three tiers to put any wedding cake to shame, with two old people on the top. They looked like sugar representations of the Elderly People Crossing sign. The man had a walking stick, and her dad would go ballistic.

Her dress for the occasion was hanging on the back of the wardrobe door, and everything was organised—she hoped.

By four-thirty, when she clocked out, the last thing she felt like doing was driving to Morecambe. She was picking her sister up at seven-thirty and then going to Heysham, where their parents lived. With the hour’s drive to get there, it didn’t give her long to get ready.

She made good time along the A590 and only got held up behind a tractor once. She’d tried calling three times in the car—but still, there was no answer. She’d better not have forgotten to sort those flowers. Jess reasoned that she must have been in the bathroom getting ready and didn’t hear the phone. The fact that her sister was getting ready was a good thing. From her birth onwards, she was traditionally late for everything. Jess smiled and pulled up outside the house.

Going to the flat on the ground floor, she knocked on the door. There was no answer, so she knocked again and then peered through the window. Although the living room looked okay, it was empty, and she felt a bubble of apprehension when she saw a mug overturned on the coffee table. It wasn’t much to alarm her, but it hadn’t been picked up.

She knocked again.

Then rang her phone.

Then shouted through the letterbox.

‘Paige. It’s me. Where the hell are you?’