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over-tight jeans tucked into high suede boots, shifting her
Selfridges Food Hall shopping bag to reach for her keys, Lola was flooded with jealousy for her. Because Raisin-Face was about to go inside her own house, and Lola was locked out of hers, which
meant she had to stand in the street hearing this appalling, unbelievable news about her beloved Daddy, unable to crumple onto a sofa in decent privacy and cry her eyes out—
    ‘I didn’t want to disturb you, ’ Carin said, distinct amusement creeping into her voice now. ‘Weren’t you on your hen night? I was sure you’d ring sooner or
later. When you realised there was a problem with the money fountain.’
    Lola swallowed hard.
    ‘Did you do something to my credit cards?’ she asked in a tiny voice. ‘And my key isn’t working—’
    ‘Like I said, I was sure you’d ring sooner or later!’ Carin wasn’t even bothering to pretend not to enjoy this. ‘I’m organising something of a financial
restructuring, now that I have power of attorney—’
    ‘You have power of attorney?’ Lola realised that she wasn’t quite sure what that meant.
    ‘You do know that the house is owned by one of your father’s companies for tax reasons?’ Carin said. ‘And your father made me a co-trustee of your trust fund.
I’ve suspended payments from that too. I think your withdrawals from it have been unreasonably large for years.’
    Lola’s headache was like a vice now. She was literally unable to process all the information Carin was throwing at her. Grief was bubbling under the panic. She could sense it down there
somewhere, far below, but it hadn’t reached her yet. Could Carin truly be behind Lola being locked out of her own house.
    But, according to what Carin had just told her, it wasn’t her house at all . . .
    ‘How could you do this ?’ Lola gasped. ‘How could you think – Daddy’s really sick and instead of looking after him, you actually got someone here to change
the lock on my house —’
    Carin’s voice sharpened to a point.
    ‘I think I just explained that it isn’t your house, Lola! You have a fiancé – go and stay with him! Your father’s supported you for long enough – it’s
someone else’s turn now!’
    ‘But I’ve got all my stuff in there!’ Lola wailed, too hungover and spongy-brained to come up with any better riposte, though she was dimly aware that there must be
hundreds.
    ‘I’ll make arrangements for you to get your things, ’ Carin said airily. ‘Now I must go, I’m afraid. I have so much to organise!’
    A click on the line signified that Carin had hung up, but Lola, unable to believe it, kept saying: ‘Hello? Carin? Hello? ’ for at least a minute afterwards. Then, frantically,
she searched her phone for Jean-Marc’s number. Five minutes later, having left three frenzied messages begging him to call her as soon as possible, she slumped back against her pretty
pale-green front door, which wasn’t her front door any more, apparently. Her headache was pounding at her temples with a croquet mallet, and her brain was so overloaded she thought that if
she had to take in one more unbelievable piece of information, grey ooze would start pouring out of her ears.
    She was almost convinced that this was some awful joke Daddy and Carin were playing on her. It couldn’t really be true. Her father couldn’t really be in a coma! Maybe this was some
kind of Swedish custom, messing with the bride the day after her hen night? Some awful, psychotic, evil Swedish custom, of course—
    And why wasn’t Jean-Marc calling her back?
    Across the little mews, a front door burst open and Raisin-Face came running out, waving something. Having changed into slippers and velvet lounging trousers, she reached Lola in a matter of
seconds.
    ‘Do you know ? Do you know? Have you heard? ’ she gasped, flailing with the paper.
    ‘It’s in the Standard ?’ Lola grabbed the paper. ‘Daddy’s in the Standard ?’
    But the headline