The O’Hara Affair (47 page)

‘So you think he’s been targeting this girl?’ asked Shane.
‘Yes. But he has – um – how do you say it? He has lost the run of himself.’

‘I always mistrusted that gobshite,’ said Shane. ‘He’s a fucking sociopath. I’ve been looking for ages for an excuse to tell him to shove his film up his hole and hit him a good dig.’

‘You are not going to hit him a dig. I am.’

‘Fleur! That’d be like pitting a miniature poodle against a Rottweiler.’

Fleur gave Shane a supercilious look. ‘Don’t you know how I keep in shape,
chéri
? I kick-box.’

‘Well, Fleur O’Farrell – you rock!’

‘
Merde!
’ said Fleur with feeling. ‘I forgot my phone. Has one of you a camera phone? I’d like this to be on record.’

‘Yes,’ said Finn. ‘I have.’

‘And please don’t either of you intervene unless I ask you to. I want to have the pleasure of knocking Mr O’Hara’s lights out all to myself.’

A minute or so later, they came to the end of the boreen. All was quiet, apart from the sussuration of wavelets on the shore. Corban’s car was parked outside Bethany’s cottage: Fleur pulled up beside it. There was no sign of him on the beach, in the garden, or in the field beyond.

Getting out of the car, Fleur marched up the garden path. She was invincible – Jeanne d’Arc flanked by her generals, and she was firing on all cylinders.

‘Bethany!’ she called, pressing the doorbell. ‘Are you there?’

There was no answer.

‘Bethany!’ Fleur raised a fist to bang on the door, then realized that it was open a fraction. The lock had been forced. She pushed.

Inside the cottage, Corban was lolling on a sofa, one leg dangling over the arm, the other stretched out before him.

‘Well,
bonsoir
, beloved,’ he slurred. ‘What a coincidence. I
came looking for Bethany too, but it would appear that there’s no one home. Little Red Riding Hood must have run back to mummy.’ Unhooking his leg from the arm of the sofa, Corban rose unsteadily to his feet. It was clear that he wasn’t aware of Shane and Finn standing just outside the front door. He gave an unpleasant laugh. ‘What’s this?’ he said, peering at her face. ‘Fleur
sans maquillage
.
Ooh la la
! Looks like you’re past your sell-by date, sugar. Best before…hmm…five, ten years ago, maybe.’

Fleur regarded him levelly. Then, very calmly, she shifted her balance, raised her right leg, and aimed a leisurely kick at Corban’s shoulder. He reeled backwards.

‘What the fuck!’ he cried, clutching the arm of the sofa.

Fleur laughed out loud at the expression on his face. He looked like the school bully surprised by the class wimp; Goliath toppled by David.

Raising a hand, he rubbed his left shoulder. Then he turned a dazed look back at her and narrowed his eyes. ‘You stupid bitch,’ he growled. ‘Oh, you stupid little bitch. You are so going to regret that, Mademoiselle O’Farrell.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Fleur, with hauteur. ‘I’m not sure that wasn’t one of the most enjoyable moments of my life.’

Corban took a step towards her, murder in his eyes. This time, Fleur smashed a foot into his chest, and he fell heavily onto the sofa.

‘Did you get that on camera, Finn?’ she asked, glancing over her shoulder.

‘Sure did.’ Finn ambled into the room, checking out the images on his screen. ‘Wow. That’s some sequence. Lucy Liu, eat your heart out. You could be a Charlie’s Angels stunt double, Fleur.’

‘Who the fuck are you?’ demanded Corban.

‘He’s my cameraman,’ Fleur told him. ‘I’m filming a
documentary on the making of
The O’Hara Affair
. I’ve already got some extremely interesting footage.’

Finn was joined by Shane, who took the phone, looked at it and smiled. ‘You look like a prize loser, O’Hara,’ he said. ‘You look like the tosser I’ve always suspected you to be.’

Corban’s face had turned an ugly shade of puce. ‘What are you doing here, you arse-wipe actor?’

Shane handed the phone back to Finn. ‘I’m here because I wanted to see you get what you deserve. And it was well worth watching. You’re a nasty piece of work, Mr O’Hara. I don’t like men who prey on little girls.’

A creak on a floorboard from above made them look up. Bethany was crouching on the landing, pale-faced and vulnerable in scanty sleepwear. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

Lumbering to his feet, Corban fixed Shane with a threatening look. ‘You don’t want to mess with me, pal,’ he warned. ‘I could pull the plug on this movie in the morning.’

‘But you won’t pull the plug,’ said Fleur, with equanimity. ‘Because you won’t want my documentary to be made public. Are you still filming, Finn?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And the additional footage I have at home could be of even more interest to the general public,’ she continued. ‘Except
that
is X-rated stuff.’

A closed look came over Corban’s face.

‘I took the DVD from your apartment, Corban,’ Fleur told him. ‘I’ve burned several more copies, and they’re in a vault in the bank. If you cut finance to this movie, I will make sure that not only will Finn’s video be made available to the disappointed distributors – your own escapades on celluloid will be too.’

‘Fleur, don’t be so fucking—’

‘Shut up, Corban. There’s more, so listen carefully. I do
not want you to come back to Lissamore. I want you to put your penthouse on the market. I do not want you to attend the wrap party of
The O’Hara Affair
. If you do, my documentary will have its premiere in the community hall in Lissamore that same night. And then it will go up on YouTube.’ Fleur shifted her balance, looking at him with intent, and Corban flinched. ‘I want you to go now,’ she said. ‘And you are to
walk
back to the village, because if you get into the car I shall call the guards and have you charged not only with drunk-driving, but with breaking and entering.’ She indicated the forced lock with a brief nod. ‘Go now, Corban.
Vas t’en
. Run along like a good boy.’

Corban looked balefully around at the room. Then, mustering whatever dignity a debauched drunk can manage, he blundered through the door of Bethany’s cottage, and staggered into the night.

There was silence in the room. Then Shane started to clap his hands. ‘Fleur O’Farrell!’ he said. ‘You are the stuff of legend!’

Finn and Bethany joined in the applause, as Fleur collapsed on the sofa. ‘Oh –
merci à Dieu
!’ she said. ‘I need a drink after that.’

‘There’s brandy,’ said Bethany. Getting to her feet, she descended the stairs and crossed the room to a cupboard.

‘Let me do it,’ said Shane. ‘You go sit down.’

Bethany sat on the sofa beside Fleur, and tucked her feet up under her.

Fleur took her hand. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

Bethany nodded. ‘I’m just a bit shaken.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Fleur. ‘You poor little kitten. Tell me
chérie
– do you want to press charges?’

‘I don’t know. I –’ Bethany considered, then shook her head ‘– no. I don’t want to press charges. A friend of mine
reported a minor assault once, and she was put through the mill by barristers. She said that in the end the courtroom experience was worse than the attack.’

‘Well, rest assured that
Monsieur
won’t be bothering you again,
ma petite
.’

Shane handed Fleur a glass, and offered another to Bethany. ‘No thanks,’ she said. ‘You have it. I hate brandy.’

‘Can I get you something else?’

‘Green tea would be good. There’s a box of teabags by the kettle in the kitchen.’

‘Mind if I help myself to a brandy, too?’ asked Finn.

‘Sure,’ said Bethany. Then she made a ‘yikes’ face. ‘Shit. My dad will think I’ve been partying.’

‘No worries. I’ll replace it,’ said Shane, disappearing into the kitchen.

‘And I’ll organize someone to fix the door,’ said Fleur. ‘Are your parents coming down for the long weekend?’

‘Yes. They never miss the regatta.’

‘OK. So you’re sorted for company this weekend. And you’re staying with me tonight.’

‘Oh, can I, Fleur? Thank you – thank you so much.’

Fleur squeezed her hand. ‘You can stay as long as you like – why not stay until the film wraps?’

‘That’s real kind of you, but I’m going to ask Mummy to stay on here. I didn’t realize until now how much I missed her.’

Fleur smiled. This babe who looked drop-dead gorgeous in scanties still needed her mother…

‘It must have been dead lonely for you staying here all by yourself,’ remarked Finn.

‘Not really. I love this place so much I haven’t ever been spooked.’

Until tonight, thought Fleur, grimly. Corban O’Hara may
have the Midas touch when it came to making money, but he besmirched everything else he laid his hands on.

‘What did you do, darling, when he forced the door?’ she asked.

‘I hid in the airing cupboard.’

‘
Mon Dieu!
Flogging is too good for that man. Were you there for long?’

‘No. Just a couple of minutes. I heard him fall through the door, and then nothing till you arrived.’

‘Let’s definitely scupper his boat,’ Finn piped up.

‘What?’

‘Dad and me are going to scupper his boat,’ he repeated. ‘We could do it, no problem. Couldn’t we, Dad?’

‘Sure,’ said Shane from the kitchen. ‘If you get hold of the gear.’

‘What gear?’ said Bethany, puzzled.

‘Scuba kit. We’ll go down some night when there’s a gale forecast and cut through his moorings. It’ll look like an accident, and even if he suspects it ain’t, there’s not a lot he’s going to want to do about it.’

Fleur clapped her hands. ‘My godson,
le héros
!’ she said. ‘What sweet revenge!’

‘I’m sorry to have put you to all this trouble,’ said Bethany. ‘I mean, it’s not as if he did any real harm.’

Fleur saw that the girl was looking a little confused. All she knew was that a trio comprising a mad-looking French woman and two half-cut men, one of them a Hollywood A-lister, had come barging into her cottage, beaten a man up, ordered him to get out of town, and were now planning to scupper his yacht. That was pretty harsh punishment to mete out to a drunk whose seeming only crime had been to break into a cottage and collapse upon a couch. No wonder she was confused! She must think that the civilian law enforcement
ethos in the sleepy hamlet of Lissamore was akin to that in
Kill Bill
.

‘Trust me,’ said Fleur, putting an arm around Bethany’s shoulders. ‘You don’t know the half of it.’

And as she took a welcome hit of brandy, Fleur hoped that that was all that Bethany would ever know about the toxic incident that had been the O’Hara affair. She hoped neither of them would have the misfortune to have an encounter – virtual or otherwise – with Corban O’Hara ever again in their lives.

When Dervla awoke, sunshine was streaming through the bedroom window. She’d forgotten to shut the curtains last night before getting into bed. She lay still for some time, thinking. Her sleep had been profound, dreamless, and uninterrupted by any rattling of the door handle. She felt rested for the first time in weeks. That sleeping pill had certainly done the job.

She wished Christian were here. She’d love a cuddle whilst enjoying a lie-in, a laugh with her husband. When was the last time she’d laughed for pure joy? The only adverbs to describe the way she laughed now were ‘mirthlessly’ or ‘darkly’ or ‘sourly’. Christian had emailed her a joke last night that had made her laugh ‘grimly’. It went: ‘Did you hear about the eighty-three-year-old woman who talked herself out of a speeding ticket by telling the officer that she had to get there before she forgot where she was going?’

She got out of bed, slid into her kimono, and went to the loo. In the kitchen, she switched on the kettle and the radio, and set about making Daphne’s breakfast.

‘Irish people now live longer than the EU average,’ announced the newsreader on RTE 1. ‘The HSE says this poses its own challenges for the health services in dealing with chronic illnesses that would previously have reduced life expectancy—’

Challenges! Why not call a spade a spade and use the word ‘problems’?

Dervla changed the channel to Lyric FM, and Mozart’s clarinet concerto came cascading through the speakers. She chopped strawberries and she buttered toast and filled the little cream jug and made sure there were no dusty bits in the Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. Then she took a white rose from the jug on the windowsill and set it by the toast rack, before carrying the breakfast tray through to Daphne’s room.

The bed was empty. Dervla set the tray down on the table and went into the bathroom. There was no sign of her mother-in-law there, nor any sign that she had used the loo. She wasn’t in the sitting room, and she hadn’t strayed into Dervla’s room by mistake. Oh, God! Could she have escaped through the front door? But Dervla distinctly remembered having locked it last night, after she’d put Kitty to bed in the kitchen of the big house. She went to double-check, just in case. Yes. The mortise had been turned twice, the Yale secured, and the safety chain hooked in place. The kitchen door was locked too. That only left…the sliding doors in Daphne’s bedroom – the ones that were usually locked. But last night – last night Finn and Daphne had been out there, picking flowers and swinging on the garden seat…

Dervla raced back to the room. The curtains were still closed, but lifting a little in the breeze. The room smelled not of old lady, but of jasmine. That could only mean one thing.

Feeling like an ice sculpture, Dervla crossed to the window and pulled the curtains. Beyond the open glass doors, two white peacocks were strutting on the grass, which was stippled with daisies. Daphne was sitting on the swing seat, her face turned to the sun. She was wearing her nightgown, and there was jasmine blossom on her lap and in her hair. As Dervla approached, she saw that Daphne’s smiling mouth
still bore the traces of the lipstick she’d put on the night before.

‘Daphne?’ said Dervla. ‘Are you all right?’

There was no reply. Dervla didn’t need to touch her mother-in-law to know that she was dead.