Page 89 of Wedding Crasher

‘Yeah, I noticed. I thought you could probably use these.’

She unloaded at least half a dozen packets of biscuits onto the shelf. Gabe noticed with a pang that she seemed to have brought every possible variety, apart from Jammie Dodgers. The sooner Dora decided to speak to him again the better.

‘What would I do without you?’ he said with a diplomatic smile.

Melanie was good at her job, and right now she was one of a handful of people in the village not treating him as if he were the Peter Stringfellow of the undertaking world. Dan had practically cried with laughter at the idea of Gabe as the village lothario and smacked him on the back with pride, but otherwise, only the people he actually paid to talk to him were bothering to be civil – with the notable exception of Dora. If she looked at him at all, it was with reproach.

‘What time is Dora due in?’

Melanie glanced at the clock.

‘About ten minutes.’

Gabe nodded.

‘Ask her to come and see me when she gets in, will you?’

He picked up his coffee and headed through to the mortuary. At least dead people wouldn’t shoot him daggers or mutter about him behind his back.

‘You wanted to see me, Gabriel?’

Gabe looked up at Dora as she hovered in the office doorway half an hour later. Her arms were folded across her apron-covered chest, and her mouth was set in a thin, pursed line.

‘Come and sit down for a minute, will you?’

Dora bristled with disapproval, but sat down opposite him all the same.

‘Dora, I have a problem.’

‘You’ll be wantin’ the doctor, Gabriel, not me.’

She used his full name in the same ominous way his mother had when he’d been in trouble as a kid. He opened the desk drawer.

‘Here. Look at these.’

He pushed a thin, dog-eared photo wallet across the table towards her. She glanced at it and sniffed, but resisted the urge to pick it up. Gabe knew her well enough to know that her outward restraint would be costing her dearly.

‘Please?’

Dora huffed and picked the packet up by one corner between her finger and thumb, as if she might be contaminated with Gabe’s sleaze by association. She looked through the wedding pictures slowly then slid them back onto the desk in frosty silence.

‘I was nineteen. Simone was seventeen. We were stupid and rebellious, and eloping on her eighteenth birthday seemed like the most romantic idea in the world.’

Dora nodded begrudgingly for him to carry on when he paused.

‘It was a disaster, Dora. We were kids, and her da was up for killing me – and looking back now, I don’t blame him.’ He shook his head as he remembered the rage on Simone’s father’s face. ‘We didn’t love each other, it was just childish infatuation.’

Gabe glanced out of the window and sighed heavily. ‘We divorced a year later. Broke her mother’s heart to have a fallen daughter.’

Dora had given up on any pretence at nonchalance and stared at him, agog.

‘So there I was, twenty, and already a divorcee. An undertaker, and a divorcee – a hard sell in any market, let me tell you. Simone and I decided back then that we wouldn’t speak about it again, so having it splashed across the front of a newspaper was –’ he grimaced as her brothers’ unveiled threats rang in his ears ‘– awkward, you know?’

Dora pulled her ‘you reap what you sow’ face.

‘Why are you telling me this, Gabriel?’

‘Because I miss your Jammie Dodgers?’

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