In case you missed them:

Chapter one
Chapter two

Soon it was time for the groom and his best man to head over to the registry office. On Bill’s request, Anatoly had borrowed a slightly more posh service car to use as the wedding vehicle. It didn’t matter that they weren’t going very far for the reception. Bill wanted everything to be as near perfect as possible for Allie. 

Away from Bill’s prying eyes Anatoly knew that Jack and Philip had a “Just Married” sign for the back window, and tins cans on string to tie to the bumper for after the ceremony. Anatoly had caught them whispering about it during the brief wedding rehearsal the week before. “I heard nothing,” he had said as they spotted him. “What you two do to get into trouble is your own problem.” However he had been grinning as he spoke.

They arrived at the registry office and Bill had a cigarette pressed onto him by Anatoly before they went in, meaning they got to see some of the guests arriving. A few of Bill’s SIS colleagues appeared and shook his hand. Bill’s only relatives, a few distant cousins, turned up and so did some of Allie’s friends, escorted on foot from the nearby station by Jack and Philip. 

Aunt Polly then appeared and shook Bill’s hand warmly. “I always hoped things would work out for you both,” she said kindly before moving on to talk to Jack and Philip. Behind her, rather bemused by everything around him, was Uncle Jocelyn. His round-shouldered, wild-haired, bespectacled stare let everyone know that he wasn’t really with them, but rather miles away with whatever he was working on and his precious papers.

Polly waited for him to catch her up and then began steering him around people and into the right room by gentle pressure on his arm. 

“I’m surprised that Aunt Polly managed to pry Uncle Jocelyn out of his study for today,” Philip said to Jack after the couple had moved out of earshot.

“She wouldn’t have, I’m sure, if they had still been at Craggy Tops,” Jack replied.

“Long way to come, too,” Philip said thoughtfully. “I don’t think that they ever travelled so far back when they lived there. I can only imagine the look on Jo-Jo’s face if he’d had to drive them all that way in the rattly old car.”

They both paused for a moment, thinking about Jo-Jo, the servant, odd-job man, driver, and secret forger who had worked for Aunt Polly at Craggy Tops. It was all well and good to joke about Jo-Jo’s temper three years after his arrest, but they still remembered all too clearly the moment he had dropped his mask of foolishness and had revealed himself to be as cold and calculating as he was clever. Having broken up the forging gang during their first summer together, none of the four children liked to think of what Jo-Jo might do to them should they cross paths again. 

“They’re much better off now, aren’t they?” Jack said finally.

“Well, Uncle Jocelyn complains constantly about having had to leave Craggy Tops, but I think Aunt Polly has a much easier time of it now, especially with her poor health. She’s got hot and cold running water, and electricity for a start.”

Jack had only spent a few weeks at Craggy Tops before the undersea explosions set off by the desperate gang had ruptured the well on the mainland and ruined the house’s only water supply. But he remembered well having to fetch water in buckets, trimming the wicks on the paraffin lamps, collecting firewood and all the other jobs which were rather laborious given the primitive conditions found in such a desolate location. It hadn’t bothered the children much at the time, but he could imagine how draining it would have been for increasingly elderly Aunt Polly year after year. 

“And your uncle can still write his book from the new house,” he said.

Philip laughed. “He’s been writing that all his life, or so it seems. I don’t know if he’ll ever finish it.”

Jack coughed and Kiki imitated him, making people close to them laugh in bemusement and awe. Jack gave Kiki a little warning tap on the beak when she flapped her wings and puffed her throat. “Steady on, old thing. You need to behave today.”

“Steady on, old thing, behave! Behave! Steady, behave!” Kiki repeated, hopping from foot to foot on Jack’s shoulder.

“Exactly,” Jack said firmly. “Behave.”

Before long they were ushered inside as the registrar’s room, and the last guests found their seats as the clock moved closer to 10.30 and Allie’s scheduled arrival.

Bill and Anatoly went to the front of the room, nodding to the registrar, before Bill turned to Anatoly and asked, “You still have the rings don’t you?” 

Anatoly looked shocked. “You never gave them to me…” he started but at the look on Bill’s face, which had suddenly drained of all blood, he hastily laughed and pulled out the box from his pocket. “I did, however, remember to pick them up!” he finished off and grinned sheepishly. 

“Don’t you start,” Bill warned him as everyone in the room heard a car pull up outside. Bill slid one finger around his suddenly tight collar, glanced warningly at Anatoly to discourage him from any further tricks as the car doors slammed outside and footsteps could be heard heading towards the room they were in. 

There was a sudden, “God save the King!” squawk from Kiki in the hallway, which was hastily silenced by Jack who was waiting outside the doors to take pictures of Allie being walked down the aisle by Philip. 

The registrar cleared his throat and the pianist in the corner started the wedding march. Jack opened the door, and hurried up the aisle as Dinah and Lucy-Ann came through the doors ahead of Philip and Allie. 

The girls looked grand in their dresses with a simple bunch of flowers each, and their hair done nicely. Bill moved forward and kissed them each on the cheek as they got to the front of the room. He straightened up and looked back down the aisle as Jack hurried half way back and started snapping pictures. One of Allie’s friends from the village pulled him out of the way as Philip and Allie approached them so Bill could see Allie for the first time. 

Bill found that his breath caught in his chest as he laid eyes on Allie. She looked divine as she walked down the aisle in her light blue dress, Philip escorting her. She smiled shyly at Bill as she drew level with him. Bill smiled widely at them both and shook Philip’s hand before Allie and Bill both turned to the registrar. 

“All be seated,” he said. “We are gathered here today to witness the marriage of William Patrick Cunningham and Alison Elizabeth Mannering…”

To be continued.