Now, of course, the de Courcey wealth was so unfathomably, breathtakingly, mind-bogglingly vast, that it would take actuaries working round the clock to make a rough stab at calculating it.
Son and heir to the dynasty, I knew well, was Frederick the Third, thirty-two years of age, an only child and pretty much everything the gossip columns and tabloids would have him be. Good-looking, intelligent, charming and a bit of a magnet to the ladies, there was rarely a day when ‘Freddie 3’, as he’d been dubbed, wasn’t splashed far and wide in the media, generally on the arm of an ever-changing array of girlfriends. All stunning, all fabulously successful in their own right, thanks very much, and of course, it went without saying, all jaw-droppingly magazine-cover, Instagram-gorgeous.
So when I first got the summons, over two years ago, to the de Courcey mansion, I could take a good, educated guess as to what the problem was. Or rather, who the problem was.
Initially, however, I’d thought it was some kind of joke when the secretary of a private secretary first got in touch. The email and follow-up phone calls were discreet and to the point; my presence was requested at a meeting in one of the family’s many, many homes dotted around the globe. This particular residence was outside of Dublin, almost hidden away in the secluded privacy of a working stud farm that only ever seemed to produce Grand National winners and Derby champions. The de Courceys were winners through and through, and wouldn’t have stood for any less.
A car was sent to take me there, with a driver who point-blank refused to engage, so that by the time we pitched up at the first of several security checkpoints leading to the private house, even a hardened veteran like me, who’d never experienced nerves in the entire course of my life, actually found myself getting antsy.
The whole set-up was calculated to intimidate, with all kinds of nonsensical requests to bring photo ID and a lanyard pass, just for the privilege of a ten-minute meeting with person or persons unknown – I still hadn’t been briefed as to who it was that actually wanted to speak to me in the first place. The information restrictions were Kremlin-like.
The de Courcey house itself was a huge Palladian-style mansion, so beautifully preserved and lovingly maintained, it would put you in mind of Brideshead Revisited. An exquisitely maintained driveway that seemed to go on for miles swept you to the portico at the main entrance, with a flight of a dozen stone steps that whisked you from there up to the front door. Which was opened before I even got to ring the doorbell. Which in turn meant there were CCTV cameras discreetly all over the place, so they quite literally could see you coming.
An actual butler opened the door and was the first person who spoke to me by name. ‘Ms Monroe. Come this way, please. You’re expected in the library.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, drinking in the spectacle of the double-height hallway, with its stone lions guarding the cantilevered, gilt-edged staircase that seemed to sweep upwards to the sky. Although why anyone bothered to use the stairs in this house was beyond me; there was a discreet lift with white marbled doors right beside it.
I was guided on through to the library, which would have put Hogwarts to shame. Leather-bound books dominated mahogany bookcases that stretched right up to the ceiling, which must have been over twenty feet high. So high, in fact, that there was a balcony at an upper level, all the better to reach whatever first edition you wanted to get your clammy paws on. Although, I thought wryly, they probably made you handle everything in here with disposable cotton gloves, a bit like they did with Ancient Egyptian finds in the National Museum.
Silence; just the muted ticking of a clock from somewhere.
Feeling on edge, a bit like Pip about to meet Miss Havisham, I whipped my phone out of my bag. I was pretty well prepped for this meeting, but no harm in brushing up on a few facts while I waited.
No signal. Nothing, not a sausage. I was just about to try switching the phone off, then on again, when a whispery, papery-thin voice from behind startled me.
‘You’ll find there’s no data coverage inside of the property, Miss Monroe. The entire house is firewalled and only those with a personal password have access to Wi-Fi. For security reasons, I hope you understand.’
I jumped and turned around to see an old, old lady in a wheelchair, who appeared to have glided in noiselessly and who was now directly behind me.
I scanned her up and down and did my thing.
Appearance: she looked about a hundred and three, with snow-white hair so fine that you could see her scalp clearly through it, wearing a pussy-bow blouse and with a plaid checked blanket covering her legs and knees.
Features: her hands were bony and liver-spotted, with heavy, oversized rings on what seemed like every single finger. In fact, the rings were so hefty-looking, they appeared to be the only thing weighing this wisp of a woman down.
Jeez, I thought, taking in a diamond the size of a small egg on her hand. Pawn that alone and you’d have the price of a town house in Dublin 4. Easily.
‘Good morning,’ said the old lady, holding out a wizened hand, which I shook very, very gently. This one was so frail-looking that a firmer handshake might have landed her in the A&E.
‘And apologies for all the secrecy in getting you here,’ she added, in a soft-spoken tone with an accent that could have been from anywhere. East Coast American? The Hamptons, maybe? Posh English? It was impossible to tell.
‘But you come highly recommended from a close personal friend of mine, you see,’ she went on, ‘and I think it’s just possible that you might be able to help our family in what, I’m afraid, is a most delicate matter.’
I felt my confidence surge at that, but then dealing with ‘delicate matters’ was something I was fast gaining experience with.
‘I’m Ellen de Courcey,’ this old, old lady said with a steely smile. ‘And, as you can probably guess, I’m here to talk to you about my grandson, Frederick Junior.’
‘I thought as much,’ I nodded.
‘Won’t you sit down, please? So we can talk properly.’
She wheeled noiselessly over to a vast sofa and coffee table and waved at a Trafalgar chair by an other, ormolu coffee table for me to sit down and make myself comfortable. Then she must have given some invisible command, because the butler glided back into the room like he was on castors, laden down with a tea tray. Without asking, he poured tea into chintzy pink floral teacups and passed a cup over to me, automatically assuming I’d love nothing more than a watery Earl Grey.
‘You must understand, Miss Monroe,’ Ellen de Courcey said, with the stiff, old-fashioned manners of someone straight out of an Edith Wharton novel, ‘that my grandson is everything to my husband and me. Everything.’
I nodded, but then I’d done my research thoroughly and you didn’t need to look far to see why. Freddie Junior’s parents had separated many years before his father had passed away from alcohol poisoning – it had been headline news at the time and Freddie Junior would only have been ten or eleven years old back then. His mum, meanwhile, had remarried a leading cosmetic surgeon in New York, and if the tabloids were anything to go by, she was now about to sign up for a second series of a reality TV show in the US, where her two teenage daughters, along with the second husband, appeared front and centre stage. Freddie Junior was now pretty much all his doting grandparents had, and vice versa.
‘Frederick Junior has always lived his own life, of course,’ Mrs de Courcey said, faffing between a slice of lemon or milk, ‘but we’ve always been in loco parentis to him, you see. Great things are expected of him. A lot rests on his shoulders. It’s long been the dearest wish of his grandfather and I that he would, in time, take the helm of the family business, and steer it into the future. Whereupon he might even have children of his own to pass it all on to. Naturally, as his closest relations, Frederick’s well-being is our top priority. We want him to be happy. But it goes without saying, we also want him to be happy with the right person. Ideally, we’re looking for a good, sensible Kate Middleton sort. Poli
te. Respectful. And, above all, trustworthy. Her Majesty must bless the day that a rock-solid young lady like Kate Middleton came into all their lives.’
Yeah right, I thought, my mind working fast. You want Frederick to be happy – but with someone of your choosing, as far as I can see.
‘And the sad thing is,’ Mrs de Courcey sighed wistfully, ‘that Frederick Junior always had such lovely girlfriends in his life. Beautiful, successful young ladies from good, solid families, most of whom we knew socially. Girls who’d been to the right schools and who had desirable careers. His grandfather and I would have been overjoyed to see him settle down with any of them. But he’s been such a rogue, you know! Constantly overlapping one girlfriend with another, till it almost made one’s head swim.’
I nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. But then tabloid banner headlines like ‘Love Cheat Freddie Strikes Again!’ weren’t all that uncommon.
I can help you there, I thought, calmly looking across at my hostess. You’ve certainly sent for the right woman. For no extra charge, I can even scare him monogamous, if that’s what you want.
‘But one in particular stood out,’ Ellen de Courcey went on, in that whispery, Jackie Kennedy-esque little voice. ‘A most delightful young lady, a doctor, you know, studying to be a consultant, if you don’t mind. Always convenient to have a medic in the family, you know. But then, just when I began to relax and think all would be well, and that we might even hear news of an engagement . . .’
There was a brief hiatus as she paused to take a delicate sip of tea, so I took advantage.
‘If I may, Mrs de Courcey,’ I interrupted, ‘I think I can possibly second-guess the rest.’
After all, you wouldn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to see what was coming here. Clearly, this Freddie Junior had been happily dating the consultant-to-be, only to fall in with some gold-digging wannabe who was only after him for his money. Someone Grandma and Grandpa heartily disapproved of and wanted to see the back of, ASAP.
‘Frederick is seeing someone and you’d prefer it if she was out of the picture?’ I offered tentatively.
‘Her name is . . . Harriet Waters,’ said Mrs de Courcey disdainfully. ‘And I know it must be quite serious between them, because Frederick appears to have changed since he met her. He’s no longer playing the field as he’s always done. Instead, all he can talk about is Harriet this, Harriet that, insisting that his grandfather and I actually meet her, if you can believe that. So I’m prepared to pay you a very vast sum of money to remove this person from our lives. If you’d be so kind, please,’ she added, almost as if this was already a done deal.
As if this was ever easy. As if what I did wasn’t a potential minefield of duplicity and manipulation and, when necessary, coercion. As if she was politely asking me to take out the trash, then wash my hands thoroughly afterwards.
‘Can you give me any information about her?’ I asked, quickly getting down to brass tacks. ‘The more I have to go on, the faster I can get you results, you understand.’
There was a disgusted sniff from Mrs de Courcey and she held a delicate tissue to her nose, as if she was driving past a stinky pig farm.
‘Oh my dear,’ she said faintly. ‘The worst. The very worst imaginable. And Frederick is so very young and susceptible, you see. He’s . . . perhaps not the most . . . intellectual person you’ve ever met . . .’
Which, I knew, was effectively code for, ‘he’s not the brightest bulb on the tree’. I nodded along, remembering only too well the tabloid nickname for this Freddie de Courcey. Tim Nice-But-Dim.
‘So his grandfather and I have a clear duty of care to steer him in the right direction, you understand.’
Jesus Christ, I thought. Just what exactly had Freddie Junior got himself into? And how bad could his girlfriend possibly be? A drug user? A reoffender, just out of women’s prison on bail? A porn star? I racked my brains, unable to imagine just how undesirable she could be, whoever she was.
‘You must brace yourself,’ Mrs de Courcey continued.
Then she told me.
Then silence. Just the ticking of a discreet clock in the background and the clink of Mrs de Courcey’s china cup against a silver spoon, as she took a tiny, delicate sip of tea.
I tried not to react, but must have betrayed myself a little, because two beady old-lady eyes instantly lit on me, sharp as Sabatier knives.
‘You perhaps think that I’m being a little too harsh?’ she asked, peering at me over her teacup. ‘Too judgemental? Perhaps even snobbish?’
‘No . . . not in the least . . .’ I tried to say, but for an elderly lady of such advanced years, the old matriarch was considerably ahead of me.
‘I am most relieved to hear it.’
More silence.
‘You must make allowances for my advanced years, Miss Monroe, because, on occasion, I can be a tad forgetful,’ Mrs de Courcey said after a lengthy pause. ‘As you already know, you and I have a mutual connection in common.’
‘That’s right,’ I nodded, purposely not saying the name.
‘And I happen to know from this mutual connection of ours,’ she went on, ringing a tiny silver bell beside her, ‘that you’re seeking to set yourself up in business. I’m a little uncertain as to your exact job description . . .’
‘I’m a fixer,’ I said confidently. ‘I make your people problems go away. And that’s it, that’s what I do.’
‘Very successfully, too, according to what I’ve heard,’ she replied.
‘Well . . . thank you.’
‘However,’ she went on, ‘in order to succeed, you will need clients, won’t you? Lots of them. High-end people too, well connected, with enough money to make your chosen vocation lucrative. Am I right?’
I nodded.
‘Which is where I can help. You do this for me, and I will personally set you up in business. I’ll refer everyone I know to you – discreetly, of course. If you manage to fix my own particular “people problem”, as you refer to it, I will make certain you have such an abundance of clients that you never need to look back.’
I looked over at her, dumbstruck at the carrot that was being dangled in front of me. I thought of the sheer amount of people this woman would know, the level of society she operated in, the money I could make . . .
‘And there’s something else too,’ Mrs de Courcey said, calmly and coolly. ‘You are, I understand from this same mutual acquaintance, flat-hunting at the moment, I believe is the common parlance. And that, in time, you ultimately wish to purchase your own home. Is that not correct?’
‘Well, yes,’ I said, not quite sure where this was going.
Just then, the butler appeared once more, silent as the grave and carrying what looked very much like an estate agent’s prospectus. Brand new, glossy and shiny – the kind that I occasionally flicked through for property porn but knew that anything in it, on my humble salary as a legal secretary at a law firm, was for evermore out of reach.
‘If you’d be so kind as to peruse this,’ Mrs de Courcey said, as the butler handed over the brochure.
Puzzled, I did as I was told, and it almost took my breath away. These apartments were in the swishest, most out-of-my-league part of the city; the whole development was brand new and still under construction, but I knew that even a broom cupboard in one of them would go for a sky-high price.
Why was I being shown this? This was nothing more than a tantalising glimpse into a pipe dream and frankly, I thought, a big waste of everyone’s time.
‘You’re thinking you could never afford something like this,’ Mrs de Courcey said softly, reading my thoughts. ‘But supposing you could?’
‘It’s out of the question,’ I replied, firmly putting the brochure on the coffee table, refusing to annoy myself anymore by looking at it.
‘Oh, but nothing is out of the question, my dear. Our entire family fortune is founded on that very principle. Call this a “sweetener”, as my husband says, t
o seal our little arrangement. Meanwhile, I suggest you check out the penthouse. Doesn’t the two-bedroomed have the most heavenly view?’
Chapter Nine
Harriet
It is a very peculiar thing, Harriet thinks, when your best friend seems less than happy to have you back in her life again.
But why is Meg acting so weirdly, she wonders, as she steps outside onto the wraparound balcony in Meg’s flat, pulls Meg’s dressing gown tightly around her, cradling a cup of coffee made from Meg’s Nespresso machine, plonking down on one of Meg’s elegant grey rattan armchairs and staring out over the city docklands, shimmering below her in the midsummer heat – the very same view Meg got to look at every day of the week.
It made no sense on any level. She and Meg had been as thick as thieves; they were inseparable, they were like sisters, and had been ever since the day they’d first met.
This was a notoriously hard city to crack, and for Harriet, moving to Dublin in the first place had been the most challenging and intimidating thing she had ever done. She’d come from a small town down the country where everyone talked to everyone else and where the dogs on the street knew your business better than they knew their own.
But living here was so different, it was tougher, less forgiving for a start; everyone was so busy and on the make all the time. For Harriet’s first few months here, she barely talked to anyone at all. Her whole life involved getting up, leaving the tiny little shoebox of a spare room she was lodging in, courtesy of her Auntie Mai, then shuffling into work and straight back home again afterwards, walking past pubs and bars full of people having a far better time than her.
Of course she had a few friends from home and college working in the city too, and while it was fun whenever they met up, nights like that were very few and far between. Everyone was either too broke or too busy, so a snatched bite to eat after work and a movie every so often was about the best they could do. Meanwhile, Harriet’s old set of pals were still back home, texting her, Skyping her and almost cracking her resolve by telling her, ‘We all miss you so much! When are you coming back home?’
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