‘Fern…Fern, I’m sorry…’

The thickset Sam was sweating and pale. His broad face had a sickly green tinge and his dinner suit looked as if it was too tight and too hot for him. Rivulets of sweat were running down from his receding hairline.

Behind him, the vicar looked on with astonished concern.

‘Sam, what is it?’ Fern whispered.

The trumpet sang out unconcernedly behind them but now Fern’s attention was fairly fixed on her fiancé.

‘I can’t…’

It was too much.

Sam cast his bride an agonised glance, clutched his stomach and bolted…

Fern was left standing alone at the altar.

It wasn’t just Sam.

Fern stood in the centre of the aisle, still holding her uncle’s arm, and around her the church erupted into action. It was as if Sam’s departure had opened a release valve.

There were people pushing past with the same agonised expression that Fern had seen on Sam’s face, hands to mouth or stomach…

The church was emptying as if it was burning.

Fern stared around her, dumbfounded.

The vicar was backing into the vestry.

Someone was sobbing at the end of one of the pews.

The strident trumpet died away. The trumpet player let his instrument fall. The trumpeter stared down at Fern from his place in the choir-stalls for a long moment before, with a small groan, he too disappeared from view.

And then, as Fern gazed around the chaotic church, she saw a girl move quietly from the back pew. She was a slip of a girl-Fern’s age or a little younger-dressed demurely in black with her mass of unmanageable hair tied back severely into a knot.

Lizzy Hurst…

Lizzy was slipping away, as unobtrusively as she could, and there was no agony on Lizzy Hurst’s face.

On her lips was a smirk of malicious triumph.

It had to be food poisoning…

Fern’s mind worked fast as she gazed round at the confused scene. There was no explaining what was happening except the theory of a massive dose of something bad to eat.