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         Perspective. I need to get perspective. It’s not an earthquake or a crazed gunman or a

nuclear meltdown, is it? On the scale of disasters, this is not huge. Not huge. One day I expect

I’ll look back at this moment and laugh and think, Ha-ha, how silly I was to worry—

         Stop, Poppy. Don’t even try. I’m not laughing—in fact, I feel sick. I’m walking blindly

around the hotel ballroom, my heart thudding, looking fruitlessly on the patterned blue carpet,

behind gilt chairs, under discarded paper napkins, in places where it couldn’t possibly be.

        I’ve lost it. The only thing in the world I wasn’t supposed to lose. My engagement ring.

        To say this is a special ring is an understatement. It’s been in Magnus’s family for three

generations. It’s this stunning emerald with two diamonds, and Magnus had to get it out of a

special bank vault before he proposed. I’ve worn it safely every day for three whole months,

religiously putting it on a special china tray at night, feeling for it on my finger every thirty

seconds … and now, the very day his parents are coming back from the States, I’ve lost it. The

very same day.

        Professors Antony Tavish and Wanda Brook-Tavish are, at this precise moment, flying

back from six months’ sabbatical in Chicago. I can picture them now, eating honey-roasted

peanuts and reading academic papers on their his ’n’ hers Kindles. I honestly don’t know which

of them is more intimidating.

        Him. He’s so sarcastic.

        No, her. With all that frizzy hair and always asking you questions about your views on

feminism.

        OK, they’re both bloody scary. And they’re landing in about an hour, and of course

they’ll want to see the ring—

        No. Do not hyperventilate, Poppy. Stay positive. I just need to look at this from a

different angle. Like … what would Poirot do? Poirot wouldn’t flap around in panic. He’d stay

calm and use his little gray cells and recall some tiny, vital detail which would be the clue to

everything.

        I squeeze my eyes tight. Little gray cells. Come on. Do your best.

        Thing is, I’m not sure Poirot had three glasses of pink champagne and a mojito before he

solved the Murder on the Orient Express.

        “Miss?” A gray-haired cleaning lady is trying to get round me with a Hoover, and I gasp

in horror. They’re Hoovering the ballroom already? What if they suck it up?

        “Excuse me.” I grab her blue nylon shoulder. “Could you just give me five more minutes

to search before you start Hoovering?”

        “Still looking for your ring?” She shakes her head doubtfully, then brightens. “I expect

you’ll find it safe at home. It’s probably been there all the time!”

        “Maybe.” I force myself to nod politely, although I feel like screaming, “I’m not that

stupid!”

        I spot another cleaner, on the other side of the ballroom, clearing cupcake crumbs and

crumpled paper napkins into a black plastic bin bag. She isn’t concentrating at all. Wasn’t she

listening to me?

        “Excuse me!” My voice shrills out as I sprint across to her. “You are looking out for my

ring, aren’t you?”

        “No sign of it so far, love.” The woman sweeps another load of detritus off the table into

the bin bag without giving it a second glance.

        “Careful!” I grab for the napkins and pull them out again, feeling each one carefully for a

hard lump, not caring that I’m getting buttercream icing all over my hands.

        “Dear, I’m trying to clear up.” The cleaner grabs the napkins out of my hands. “Look at

the mess you’re making!”

        “I know, I know. I’m sorry.” I scrabble for the cupcake cases I dropped on the floor. “But

you don’t understand. If I don’t find this ring, I’m dead.”

        I want to grab the bin bag and do a forensics check of the contents with tweezers. I want

to put plastic tape round the whole room and declare it a crime scene. It has to be here, it has to

be.

        Unless someone’s still got it. That’s the only other possibility that I’m clinging to. One of

my friends is still wearing it and somehow hasn’t noticed. Perhaps it’s slipped into a handbag …

maybe it’s fallen into a pocket … it’s stuck on the threads of a jumper … The possibilities in my

head are getting more and more far-fetched, but I can’t give up on them.

        “Have you tried the ladies’ room?” The woman tries to get past me.

        Of course I’ve tried the ladies’ room. I checked every single cubicle, on my hands and

knees. And then all the basins. Twice. And then I tried to persuade the concierge to close it and

have all the sink pipes investigated, but he refused. He said it would be different if I knew it had

been lost there for certain, and he was sure the police would agree with him, and could I please

step aside from the desk as there were people waiting?

        Police. Bah. I thought they’d come roaring round in their squad cars as soon as I called,

not just tell me to come down to the police station and file a report. I don’t have time to file a

report! I’ve got to find my ring!

        I hurry back to the circular table we were sitting at this afternoon and crawl underneath,

patting the carpet yet again. How could I have let this happen? How could I have been so stupid?

        It was my old school friend Natasha’s idea to get tickets for the Marie Curie Champagne

Tea. She couldn’t come to my official hen spa weekend, so this was a kind of substitute. There

were eight of us at the table, all merrily swigging champagne and stuffing down cupcakes, and it

was right before the raffle started that someone said, “Come on, Poppy, let’s have a go with your

ring.”

        I can’t even remember who that was. Annalise, maybe? Annalise was at university with

me, and now we work together at First Fit Physio, with Ruby, who was also in our physio course.

Ruby was at the tea too, but I’m not sure she tried on the ring. Or did she?

        I can’t believe how rubbish I am at this. How can I do a Poirot if I can’t even remember

the basics? The truth is, everyone seemed to be trying on the ring: Natasha and Clare and Emily

(old school friends up from Taunton), Lucinda (my wedding planner, who’s kind of become a

friend) and her assistant, Clemency, and Ruby and Annalise (not only college friends and

colleagues but my two best friends. They’re going to be my bridesmaids too).

        I’ll admit it: I was basking in all the admiration. I still can’t believe something so grand

and beautiful belongs to me. The fact is, I still can’t believe any of it. I’m engaged! Me, Poppy

Wyatt. To a tall, handsome university lecturer who’s written a book and even been on the TV.

Only six months ago, my love life was a disaster zone. I’d had no significant action for a year

and was reluctantly deciding I should give that match.com guy with the bad breath a second

chance—and now my wedding’s only ten days away! I wake up every morning and look at

Magnus’s smooth, freckled, sleeping back and think, My fiancé, Dr. Magnus Tavish, Fellow of

King’s College London,1 and feel a tiny tweak of disbelief. And then I swivel round and look at

the ring, gleaming expensively on my nightstand, and feel another tweak of disbelief.

        What will Magnus say?

        My stomach clenches and I swallow hard. No. Don’t think about that. Come on, little

gray cells. Get with it.