Quentins (36 page)

They were at the last verse now, and generously allowing the audience to join in. Even encouraging them by raising their arms.

I'm never drunk but I am seldom sober

A handsome rover from town to town

Ah, but I'm sick now and my days are over.

Come all you young men and lay me down.

They all clapped and praised Maud and Simon. The twins were busy trying to decide what their second and last song should be.

“Do you know, that was so terrific. I wonder if you'd consider quitting when you're winning?” Cathy suggested.

It was not a concept that the twins grasped easily. But Maud glanced over at Derry King. He was the guest of honor, the man they had been asked to entertain. She saw what the others had already noticed. That tears were falling unchecked down his face.

“You're right, Cathy. I think we should leave it. Not always, but just this once.”

“Love you, Maud, and you, Simon,” Cathy said.

“Everyone's getting very odd round here,” Simon said, annoyed that they hadn't been able to sing “Low Lie the Fields of Athenry.”

“You don't have to be quiet just because I cried, and you don't have to drive at five miles per hour because I dared to criticize the mad speed you went at on the way here,” Derry grumbled.

“Lord, but there's no pleasing you today,” Ella said with a sigh.

He was contrite. “There
is
pleasing me, as you put it. I did
so
enjoy that lunch. Everyone was so welcoming. Thanks, Ella.”

She smiled at him. “Go on, they were delighted with you. All of them.”

“Were they?” He was childishly pleased.

“
Oh,
yes, and Brenda says now that she's met you, she
has less anxieties about the project. My parents don't think that you're a big, bad, dangerous Yank. My mathematics pupils love you to bits. You did yourself a lot of good!”

“I had a happy day.”

“So did I. Which is just as well, because I have a lot ahead of me,” Ella said.

“You do?”

“I do, Derry. I want to sort this whole thing out about Don's computer. Finish it, once and for all. And I wonder if I can do it from your suite in the hotel.”

“Sure.”

“You're very restful, do you know that? You don't say big long sentences when one word will do.”

“Good,” he said with a smile.

“I wouldn't be able to do this without you, Derry,” she said.

She was grateful that he hadn't asked her what she was going to do, but then, Derry was a practical businessman. He knew he'd find out just as soon as he got to his suite.

“Why don't you make Muttie and Lizzie some sandwiches,” Cathy said as she let the twins off in her old home in Jarlath's Crescent. “I'll leave them some pavlova as well. Apparently Dee is on a diet and won't allow it to stay in her house overnight, in case she eats it.”

“Did you ever hate Muttie and his wife, Lizzie?” Maud asked Cathy in her normal conversational tone.

“No, Maud, never. Did you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why do you ask?”

“Something Derry said. He said he hated his father.”

“He said that?” Cathy was shocked.

“Not exactly, but nearly. He has cousins here, but he's not going to look them up,” Simon confirmed.

“They're called Kennedy and they're housepainters here in Dublin,” Maud said, proud to have got the information.

“I know them,” Cathy said. “They work with Tom's father.”

“Will we have a surprise party and bring them all together?” Maud suggested.

“No, Maud. I know I'm a dull stick, but believe me, that's not a good idea,” said Cathy, who decided she must ring Dee and tell her at once.

They made a pot of tea from the little tray in the room. “First I'll call my parents, ask them if they're sure they don't want to take the money and run.” She made the call swiftly.

They wouldn't be happy to be paid off in this way, they told her.

“Yes, of course, if there
was
compensation, if insider trading
could
be proved, then they'd be happy to have a share, but not this way.

“We liked Derry King,” her mother ended.

“And he you, Mother.”

She sat very still for a long time after that.

Derry sat equally calm, sipping his tea.

“Right,” she said eventually.

“Tell me what you're going to do.”

“I'm going to call his wife. Ask her what she intends to do. Does she want to have a life in Ireland again, does she own that place in Playa dos Angeles. It's the only one that's not owned absolutely by Don. Maybe he wanted that as a home for her and the children. Maybe he left her a note too.” She was very calm.

“And then?” Derry King said.

“And then, depending on what she says, I will most probably call the Serious Fraud Squad here and ask them to come to the hotel lobby and collect the laptop.”

“And what might she say that would change your mind?”

“If she says she will have nowhere to live and she can't bear the shame, I'll ask you to help me erase that about her home.”

“Very generous of you.”

“I owe him that.”

“You owe him nothing. We've been through this.”

“Then you'll remember I want to behave perfectly.”

“He's dead, Ella. He doesn't know how well and perfectly you'll be behaving.”

“Please, Derry, help me.”

“How?”

“Sit beside me while I make the call.”

“You've thought it all out, then?”

“Yesterday all day. I made a tour of the past, pulled it all together. This is what I want to do.”

“Right, I'll sit beside you,” he said.

The phone rang only six times, but it seemed like ages. A man answered.

“Can I speak to Mrs. Margery Brady, please?” Ella felt her voice faltering.

Derry squeezed her for solidarity.

There was a pause. “Who?” the man asked.

“Mrs. Brady. Margery.”

“Where did you get this number?”

“Is this Twenty-three Playa dos Angeles?”

“Yes, but . . . this is not a number that anyone has . . .”

The voice sounded familiar. Terribly familiar.

“Don?” Ella gasped.

“Angel? Ella, is that you? Angel?”

She couldn't find the breath to say a word.

Derry had an arm around her shoulder and was offering her a sip of water. She pushed the water away but held his hand very tight.

“Don, is that really you? You're not dead?”

“Where are you, Angel?” His voice was insistent, very anxious.

“You told me you were going to die, kill yourself,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief.

“I
was
going to, in the end. No good at finishing anything, me.” He gave a hollow little laugh. The laugh he gave when things were very serious.

“I thought you were dead, Don. Dead, you know, at the bottom of the sea. I wept over you everywhere that you would never see this lovely autumn with the leaves changing, with the sun coming through the trees. I even wept for your sons, that they wouldn't know you . . . and you never died . . . you never died at all.”

“But that's good, Angel Ella, isn't it? We'll be together once I sort out this mess.”

“You never loved me, Don.”

“Of course I did . . . do.”

“What had you intended to do, Don?”

“Wait until I could get the laptop so that we could sort it all out. Get our life together.”

She was silent.

Derry squeezed her hand harder. She had been holding the receiver so that he could hear what was being said.

“Ella. Ella angel, are you there?”

“You never loved me at all. Was it just sex? Was it because I was young? What was it?”

“We'll meet. Bring me the laptop. I'll tell you everything then.”

“I can't do that, Don.”

“Why not?” He sounded weak.

“Because I gave it to the Fraud Squad.”

“And the money for your parents? I can prove you took that.”

“No, I gave that back too.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Why not?”

“There would have been someone on to me by now.”

“There will be, Don, there will.”

“When did you give it to them?'

“An hour ago,” she said, and hung up the phone.

I
t all took much less time than they thought.

The detectives came to the hotel. Two quiet, unassuming-looking men, one a tall, dark man she had met before when she had lied about the computer.

“So it turned up eventually?” he said, looking at her.

“It did,” she said simply.

“And you are . . . ?” he asked Derry.

Derry handed him a business card. “Derry King, friend and business partner of Ms. Brady.”

“And this is . . . ?”

“A ticket and key for a safe deposit box. Don Richardson claims he left bank drafts or certified checks there for me.”

“And you haven't opened it?”

“No.”

“If they were for you . . . ?”

“He defrauded my father of money. They were a sort of apology, or that's what I thought.”

“All the more reason to take them, then . . .” The detective never finished a sentence, just left it hanging there, and someone finished it for him.

This time it was Derry. “Ms. Brady and her parents, being very moral people, decided they couldn't just take money like that and say nothing. They are returning it to you.”

“Quite so. Very admirable.”

“And the password to the computer is dos Angeles, like the city Los Angeles.”

“Ah, you just guessed this . . . ?”

“Not exactly . . .”

“So Mr. Richardson told you . . . ?”

“Not exactly that either. He told me ages back that it was angel and when I tried it recently it wasn't, so I tried words a bit like that and it opened.”

“Well done, Ms. Brady.”

“But that's not the main thing . . .” she said, her words tumbling out.

“It's not?”

“No, the main thing is he's not dead. He's alive. I spoke to him this evening. He never killed himself at all.”

She looked from one face to the other to see the shock register. But to her surprise, there was nothing at all.

“We never really thought he
was
dead,” said the detective. “Didn't fit the pattern. Made no sense for him to kill himself.”

“I thought he was dead and I used to know him very well indeed,” Ella said.

“Yes, I'm sure.”

“You might have told me,” she said with tears in her eyes. “Saved me all that heartbreak.”

“We didn't exactly see you since it happened. We asked you to keep in touch in case his briefcase turned up and you didn't . . . so how could we have told you?”

Derry intervened. “But now the briefcase
has
turned up and Ella
has
been in touch, so is that everything?” His voice was smooth but with authority.

The two men responded to him. They stood up and shook hands. They thanked them for the cooperation and asked Ella and indeed Derry, if he wished, would
they accompany them to the safe deposit box so that the hand-over of what it contained could be authenticated. “His name and address and contact numbers are all there. He calls himself Brady, of all names. Isn't that a really nice bit of a laugh for all of us?” There was real sympathy in the faces of the detectives. The whole thing was over in an hour.

Ella called her mother. “It's done. It's given back. Well, given to the Guards anyway,” she said in a dull tone.

“Well, I'm sure that's right. Thank you, Ella.”

“No, thank you, Mother, and Dad, too, for being nice and normal and believing someone I introduced you to. I will make it up to you if it's the last thing I do.”

“Stop, Ella.” Her mother noticed that the voice on the phone was shaking and tearful.

“And one more thing, Mother . . .”

“You're not coming home tonight,” her mother guessed.

“That's it. You're psychic,” she said.

“Don't get too upset, Ella. That's all I ask. The man is dead now, let him rest. We have no way of knowing how sorry he may have felt at the end. His mind disturbed and everything. We can't judge the dead.”

“The man is not dead, Mother. He's alive and well and living with his family in Spain.”

“No, Ella. He was killed in that terrible boat tragedy . . .”

“He faked it. He's living out there on Dad's money, and do you know what? He's calling himself Brady, Mother. That's what he's doing.” She sounded quite hysterical.

“Is Derry there?” her mother asked.

She handed him the phone. Ella could hear only his end of it.

“Well, of course I will, no, have no worries.
Certainly I will. No, she's actually much calmer than she sounded to you. I think it's just saying it for the first time to someone is the hard bit. No, she's in no danger, Barbara, believe me, she's not. And I too. Good-bye.”

She sat there unseeing. They were talking about her as a parcel. A package of nerves and reactions. Not a person.

“Do you know, Derry, the only thing that will hold me together over all this is very hard work,” she said.

“Good. I was hoping you'd say that.”

She was surprised. “I thought you'd say talk, examine it, analyze it.”

“No, there's no point. We won't get to first base now, analyzing what makes that guy tick. You've done all you said you would from this end. Now get on with your life.”

“And I can stay here?”

“Of course. Let's get down to work straightaway.” He pulled a second chair up to the desk. “Let's look at some of these stories. See how we could tell them . . . should it be table by table . . . have Mon and Mr. Hayes sitting down side by side, explaining how it all began at one table, then move to another and get another story . . .

“Or we could do it as an hour-by-hour thing . . . like they start to stir at about five
A
.
M
.”

Ella laughed. A real laugh. “I don't think
anything
stirs in Dublin at five
A
.
M
.”

“Now we're changing roles. You've been busy telling me how modern it all is here.”

“Make it seven and we're more realistic.”

“Nonsense, Ella. Think about the garbage being collected, the stuff coming in from market. It
has
to be earlier.”

“It would be interesting to see. We'll ask Brenda and Patrick tomorrow night,” she said.

“Meanwhile, we'll go through the best stories and the ones that will be hard to tell.”

“The guy from Scotland, Drew, he's not going to tell his own tale, is he? Show himself up as a would-be thief?”

“Apparently he is, his luck turned that night, his fiancée admired him so much for resisting temptation. Brenda says he's only bursting to tell his story.”

Derry shook his head in amazement. “Aren't people here quite extraordinary?” he said in wonder.

“No, they're not. It's not just Ireland. It's the same everywhere, in England, in the U.S., all dying to tell their story and have their fifteen minutes of fame.”

“There's a danger that people exploit them,” he said.

“Of course there is, but we're not that kind of business. Derry, you're not having second thoughts on me, are you?”

“No, of course not. But talking about second thoughts?”

“Yes?”

“I just wanted to say when your anger dies down, you'll probably be relieved that he's alive. Don, I mean. It's only natural. You loved him and he loved you. It has to be better that he's alive, not dead at the bottom of the ocean. So, if you have second thoughts about him and are glad he's still around, then that's normal. That's what I wanted to say.” He looked oddly shuffling as if he didn't really believe all this but felt that it should be said from a fairness point of view.

“No, Derry, and I won't ever be glad about anything connected with him. Whether he is alive or dead doesn't really matter to me. I think I preferred him dead. I certainly don't love him or anything about him. So there'll be no second thoughts. But I'm not going to spend my life consumed with hate either. That would be really to be a loser.” She thought he
looked very pleased, but maybe it was just his pleasant smile.

When she awoke on the sofa yet again there was a note.

I've already gone to investigate this early-morning Dublin. See you tonight at Quentins, 7:30. Call my cell phone anytime if you need me. Love, Derry.

Ella spent the day at Colm's restaurant on Tara Road.

“I don't know why you should think I should help you boost a rival restaurant,” Colm grumbled.

“Because I'm a neighbor's child, because you're not remotely in competition with me, and you love to talk about your pride and joy. I just want to know what's a typical day.”

“As if there ever was one. Come on in and have coffee and I'll walk you through it.”

By lunchtime, she thought she had understood the routine. It would be very visual. Derry would like it. Patrick and Brenda wouldn't object, their place was immaculate and all that backstage stuff would be something to be proud of.

“You look tired, Ella. Stay and have lunch. You've seen it all being cooked. Enjoy it.”

“No, I have a lot of things to do. I have to tell several people something but I want to rehearse on you, Colm. Just to make sure I can do it without crying.”

“Fire ahead.”

“Don Richardson's not dead. I spoke to him yesterday. He's in Spain, on the run.”

“Is it a secret?” Colm asked.

“No, not now.”

“Good. I'll tell Ria's ex-husband, Danny, that he might go out and kill him for all of us. Would that help?”

Ella laughed nervously. “No, not really, but it did make me laugh. I don't suppose everyone else will be as practical as you are, Colm.”

She told Deirdre. Deirdre sat and listened with a stony face. “Mother of God. Why couldn't he have done it properly? Did he wash up somewhere?”

“No, I don't think he tried it at all,” Ella said.

“And now of course you're taking him back.” Deirdre was anguished.

“
No,
Dee, I'm telling you only in case it was in the papers.”

“No! You are taking him back or going out to him. I know you are.”

“Oh, Deirdre, shut up. You're meant to be cheering me up, telling me some old song like ‘There Ain't No Good in Men,' not telling me I'm going back to him.”

“I wonder if Nuala knows,” Dee said.

“Let's tell her, then,” Ella said, her eyes dancing. And for a glorious moment Deirdre thought maybe it was going to be all right. That the one great love of Ella's life might not be able to seduce her back in again.

“Nuala! It's Dee.”

“No, Dee, I'm not going to talk to you. Last time you frightened me to death I had to blackmail them all with the fear of telling Carmel about your disgraceful antics with Eric to get them off Ella's back. Fine pair of friends you both turned out to be.”

“Shut up, Nuala. I told you if we had anything to tell you, we would.”

“Did you?” Nuala was confused.

“Yes, and now we have. I have Ella here and now we do have news for Frank and his brothers.”

“You do?”

“Will I put Ella on?”

“Well, not if she's going to be cross with me,” Nuala said.

“Not at all. She won't be cross with you. Here's Ella now.”

“Hi, Nuala.”

“Oh, Ella, I'm sorry. I don't think Dee explained it all properly at the time.”

“No, Nuala, I'm sure she didn't. Have you got pen and paper?”

“Yes, I have.” Nuala sounded very nervous.

“Write this. It's Don's telephone number in Spain. Oh, and he's not dead, by the way. That was a mistake. He's alive, but he calls himself Mr. Brady. I know, isn't it a scream. No, I'm not drunk, Nuala. That's the number and the other thing is that the Fraud Squad has his computer with all the details, everything it contains. Oh, and the last thing is that Dee would have gone the distance and told Carmel every last detail. She's been a marvelous friend.”

“Ella.” Nuala's voice was hoarse with fright. “They're going to be in terrible trouble if it all gets out. Not only will they have lost money and property but there's a matter of tax, you see.” She ended in a near whisper.

“Oh, there often is, Nuala. Anyhow, we're all fair and square now.”

Ella hung up, and they giggled as they had done for so many years.

“What I've been saying is getting easier to say as the day goes on,” Ella said as she walked into Firefly Films.