by GJ Minett
‘So you don’t even know he’s a reporter – not for sure?’
‘No,’ said Ellen. ‘Not really. That’s what he told Liam, but how much that’s worth –’
‘And his name might not even be O’Halloran?’
‘God, I hadn’t thought of that. No. I suppose not.’
She went back into the lounge and sat next to Kate on the settee. She nudged the DVD to one side to make room for her wine glass.
‘What about the laptop?’ Kate asked, pointing with her fork at Eudora’s case which Ellen had brought back from the cottage.
‘Don’t know yet. I was going to have a look before you got here but –’
‘Yeah, I know. Busy, busy. So basically, what you do know is this woman you’ve never met hired a private investigator to find you – and now she’s left you some cottage worth a small fortune in a village you’ve never visited in your life. But you haven’t got a clue as to why.’
‘Right.’
‘And you’ve no idea why they were looking in Scotland and East Anglia.’
‘No.’
‘Where you’ve also never been.’
‘No.’
Kate reached forward and took a sip from her wine glass. ‘And you’re going back up to the cottage when?’
‘Saturday. First thing.’
‘What about the kids?’
‘Jack’s taking them to his parents for the weekend. Grandad’s birthday.’
‘So you’re what . . . coming back Saturday night?’
‘Actually,’ said Ellen, raising her fork as she paused to swallow another mouthful, ‘I was thinking of staying up there for the weekend. I’m guessing I’ll probably need as much time at Primrose Cottage as possible. There’s a whole pile of stuff to wade through in the spare room alone. I’ll have the keys once I’ve met Wilmot. I can always stay there.’
‘You are kidding?’
‘Why?’
‘Hello – just now it was Straw Dogs and duelling banjos, now suddenly it’s the Waltons. What happened to creepy cottage?’
‘It’s O’Halloran who was creepy. The cottage is . . .’ She searched in vain for the right expression. ‘I don’t know – there’s just something about the place. I can’t explain it.’
‘OK then,’ said Kate, leaning forward to pick the DVD up from the table. ‘A couple of suggestions, right? If you don’t like them, just ignore me.’ She waited for some sign of approval from Ellen. ‘OK then. First – this film. How badly do you want to watch it tonight?’
‘I’m easy either way. Why?’
‘We need to have a good look at her laptop and see what’s in there. I mean, you might get lucky and find something which explains the whole thing in one go. Maybe she’s left you a letter or something, in which case – great. But if not, seems to me you’ve got some work to do.’ She put the DVD back on the table, as if its redundancy had already been established. ‘I’d say the biggest problem this morning was you went in there blind. You didn’t know the first thing about any of these people – still don’t, in fact. We could spend a couple of hours this evening, making a list of things you need to do. If we don’t get anything else done, at least we can make a start on Googling everyone whose name’s come up so far. Yes?’
‘OK.’
‘Soon as we’ve finished eating, you can bring a pen and paper over here and we’ll make a start on it.’
‘And the other suggestion?’
‘You fancy some company this weekend?’
Ellen paused in the act of bringing the wine glass to her lips. ‘Serious?’
‘I’m driving though. I’m not going all that way in a crappy Fiesta.’
‘What about the salon?’
Kate shrugged her shoulders dismissively. ‘Told you before – weekends are mine. Not much point in being your own boss if you can’t come and go when you feel like it, is there?’
‘But Adam . . . when does he get back?’
‘Sunday morning. But if he can piss off to Madrid without me, I don’t see why I should be sitting here, waiting like a good little girl when he gets back. So, what’s it to be? You want me to come or not?’
Ellen could see in Kate’s eyes that same glint that had been there on the top deck of the bus, all those years ago – that beguiling mixture of amusement and challenge. They had shared the same journey home from school on countless occasions without ever exchanging so much as a glance. But then, one afternoon, three older girls had taken it into their heads that the freaky little creature sitting on her own on the top deck was more than fair game. They’d surrounded her, and barely got into their stride before Kate slowly rose from her seat and came over to sit next to her. She said nothing to the girls and yet somehow the fact that she was there, talking to Ellen like an old friend, seemed like a challenge. It was certainly enough to signal that the game was over.
Ellen imagined Kate taking on O’Halloran. She smiled.
‘I’d love you to come,’ she said.
February 1974: Martin Adams
‘How did you find me?’
‘Nice to see you too, Martin.’
‘It’s Peter,’ he says, casting an anxious glance over his shoulder, ‘My name is Peter.’
‘Relax,’ says O’Halloran. ‘I don’t think anyone’s really interested in us, do you?’ He seems amused by the situation. ‘Two old friends, having a chat? Catching up on lost time?’
He doesn’t share O’Halloran’s obvious high spirits. He says nothing – doesn’t feel it deserves a response. Taking the chair he’s been offered, he risks a quick look around the bar. As O’Halloran has suggested, no one seems to be paying any attention. The fact that the room is unusually crowded for this time of evening is working in his favour, he decides. Safety in numbers.
‘Have a crisp,’ says O’Halloran, tearing the packet open on three sides and nudging it across the table towards him. ‘Salt and vinegar.’
He ignores the offer and looks closely at the man opposite him, taking stock of the changes that seven years have wrought in his physical appearance. He’s filled out, he decides. He was always tall but now he’s big and the extra weight is hanging from him – there’s no muscle definition to speak of. He can’t be more than thirty, but for a relatively young man he’s in poor shape. His complexion is pock-marked and he’s got the pasty look of someone who needs to get out more often.
O’Halloran is at least willing to look him in the eye instead of looking away. Memories of him from seven years ago are hazy but he senses there’s a confidence in this man, a cockiness even, that wasn’t there before. He’s not entirely sure he should view this as a positive.
‘How did you find me?’ Peter asks again.
‘I’m an investigative reporter. It’s what we do. We investigate.’
‘That’s a joke, I presume.’
‘You think so?’
‘You couldn’t find your way out of a paper bag.’
‘And yet here I am, Martin.’
‘Peter.’
O’Halloran smiles. ‘And yet here I am, Peter,’ he says, placing unnecessary emphasis upon the name.
And he doesn’t know what to say to this at first. They assured him this couldn’t happen, that as long as he was careful (and he has been so, so careful) he was perfectly safe. Fingers on one hand, they said. Need-to-know basis. No chance of a leak. And yet, despite all their promises that only a handful of people would know his new name, let alone his whereabouts, O’Halloran has managed to track him down. If they can’t hide him away from the public, how on earth are they going to protect his boy?
He looks closely at O’Halloran, wondering if maybe he’s been too easily sidetracked by the shambling appearance. It would be so easy to underestimate him.
O’Halloran drains his glass, holds it up to the light and waggles it in front of his face.
‘A drink would be nice’, he says. ‘Since you’re offering . . .’
‘You haven’t answered my question.’
‘I’ll stick with the JC, I think – don’t want to change boats in midstream, eh?’
He doesn’t move. This feels like a trial of strength. There’s a stand-off for a few seconds, while he takes the measure of O’Halloran, who’s holding his glass out in front of him, unwavering. There’s an element of mockery in the gesture, the smugness of a man who’s sure he holds all the cards at present. It would be nice to do something to shake that complacency, to take the glass from him and thrust it into his face, but it’s not a serious option and he knows it. If O’Halloran looks sure of himself, it’s for a good reason. The last thing Peter can afford is to draw undue attention to himself. He takes the glass and gets to his feet, unable to shake off the uncomfortable feeling that round one has already been conceded.
When he reaches the bar, he’s surprised to see her serving there. She often helps Jerry out if things are getting busy but he didn’t notice her when he came in and feels unaccountably anxious that she might have been watching him while he talked with O’Halloran. He waits patiently while she serves some of the local football team, who are meeting up here before a night on the town. She gives no indication that she knows he’s there but as she finishes dealing with the customer in front of him, she reaches for a straight pint glass, without looking up, and fills it almost to the brim with lemonade. Then she tops it up with lime juice, drops in a couple of ice cubes and puts the drink in front of him with a shy smile. She allows her fingers briefly to brush against his, an innocent, childlike gesture in a woman of her age but one which she would never have ventured even a few weeks ago.
She looks up in surprise when he nudges O’Halloran’s empty glass towards her and asks for a pint of JC as well. She gives the pump handle a sharp tug and looks casually round the room, tilting the glass to keep the foaming head under control. Her glance settles eventually on O’Halloran in the far corner.
‘Old friend?’ she asks
‘Not really.’
She nods, and he sees the shadow fall across her face. He wants to expand on what he’s said. He’s been too brusque.
‘Just someone I used to know,’ he says.
She puts the drink on the counter and takes the money from him. She brings the change back, and there are the fingers again, lingering a little this time. She asks if he’ll be happy to do a stint behind the bar later if needed. She’s taking over from Jerry at nine thirty and may be glad of some help. He says that’ll be fine, forces a reassuring smile and carries the drinks back to the table. He can feel her questioning eyes on his back all the way there.
O’Halloran has been amusing himself with a pile of beer mats, flicking them into the air from the edge of the table and catching them in the same hand. He spreads them out on the table and accepts his drink, taking three slow draughts before he puts it down. He wipes some of the foam from his upper lip, then reaches past his own drink to pick up the other glass. He holds it up to the light as he peers at its contents.
‘Jesus,’ he says, screwing up his face in disgust. ‘What is this?’ He sniffs it, then replaces it on the table, pushing it away from him. ‘Sworn off the demon drink, are we?’
It’s tempting to say he’s careful about who he drinks with nowadays – once bitten, twice shy. Already his mind has made the involuntary leap back to those weeks just after the trial, the only time he’s ever allowed drink to get the better of him. For just that brief window of time, he was desperate for its analgesic qualities and utterly unprepared for how susceptible it made him to the seductive whisperings and silvery tongue of the gangly young man who’d slipped onto the bar stool next to him. Vulnerable was no fit state in which to encounter someone like O’Halloran.
He keeps his thoughts to himself. O’Halloran takes a final handful of crisps, and stuffs them into his mouth. Then he makes a funnel of the packet, tips his head back and pours the remaining crumbs down his throat.
‘Should’ve asked you to get another couple of these while you were up there,’ he says, screwing the packet into a ball and wedging it into the ashtray. The moment he lets go, it springs back into shape. ‘Talkative sod, aren’t you?’ he says, chuckling to himself. ‘Hardly get a word in edgeways.’
‘What do you want, O’Halloran?’
‘Frank.’
‘How did you find me?’ he asks for a third time.
‘Ah, well now. I’ve been thinking about that.’ O’Halloran slumps back in his chair, wiping the salt from his hands on his sleeve. ‘I mean, I can see why you’d want me to explain it but . . . well, seems to me, if I do, I’ll be tossing away the one big advantage I have over you. First thing you’ll do is make sure it can’t happen next time, am I right?’
‘You think I’ll disappear again?’
O’Halloran picks up one of the beer mats and turns it in one hand, tapping alternate edges against the table.
‘You saying you wouldn’t?’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he says, sounding more resigned than defiant. A burst of raucous laughter tumbles down from the bar where the footballers are starting to get a little rowdy. O’Halloran glances across briefly, then turns back to face him.
‘Yeah, well – you’ll excuse me for not putting too much faith in any assurances from you after the way you upped and legged it last time.’
‘You think I had a choice?’
‘People always have a choice.’
‘Easy for you to say. You didn’t have people spitting at you in the street or making crank calls every ten minutes. Try having a patrol car outside your house at night to deal with the local yobs, then tell me I should have stuck it out.’
He pauses, aware that he’s started to raise his voice. A woman at the next table seems to be taking an interest in the tone if not the substance of their exchange. She flashes a quick smile when he meets her gaze, then returns to her magazine.
‘If it hadn’t been for that article . . .’
‘Hey,’ says O’Halloran, throwing his hands up in a defensive gesture. ‘I was just the messenger, remember? It’s not like I made it all up.’
‘You twisted everything,’ he hisses.
It seems such a long time ago. He doesn’t remember the evening too well in detail. He knows that at some stage, after many more drinks than he’d ever had before, he went back to O’Halloran’s and opened up, truly opened up, for the first time. He’d stayed well clear of the press until then but this doe-eyed, serious young man was the first person to show any interest in him since the whole thing started. He seemed anxious to listen rather than condemn him, as if he actually understood, sympathised even. Said he wanted to put things in their true perspective, show another side to this story that needed to be aired. It’s almost embarrassing now to recall how naive he’d been.
He accepts he probably said most of what finally appeared in print. He recognises much of it from private rants born of a genuine sense of grievance, outbursts he’d always kept to himself. In context, within the general picture of a grieving husband and desperate father, these lapses might be understood. Out of context, and especially in print in the cold light of day, they were lethal. He might have survived the photos of himself, staggering down the steps and struggling to get into a taxi in the early hours of the morning. He might even have got away with the heavy-handed hints that his boy had always been too easily influenced by his mother, with her bigoted religious convictions and rigid moral code. What really did for him though was the comment that anyone who did what those two girls had done to his boy deserved whatever they got. He knows he’s capable of blurting out such things in a fit of anger but no way would he have meant it. Not like that. No one could ever mean it literally.
O’Halloran seems unimpressed. ‘Twisted everything? Bit dramatic, wouldn’t you say? I’d call it journalistic licence. You’ve got to expect a bit of that.’
‘You lied to me.’
‘Hey,’ laughs O’Halloran, almost choking as he takes another mouthful from his glass. ‘A bit of revis
ionism never hurt anyone, but let’s keep at least one foot in the real world, shall we? The only reason you were talking to me is because you thought you were dealing with some novice who might be easy to manipulate. You wanted someone to put your side of the story, right? I spent hour after bloody hour, listening to one long, dreary, never-ending, self-pitying whine, while you droned on and on about how unfair life was and how you never got a fair shake of the dice, like you were the only person who’d ever had a bit of bad luck. You think that was going to win anyone over? I’ll tell you this much, you did not want an accurate transcript of that tape to appear in the papers. If I was a bit creative in places, I was doing you a favour, trust me.’
‘Trust you?’ He shakes his head and reaches for his drink which he has not touched until now. He realises suddenly that Jerry is at a nearby table, wiping it with a cloth and collecting the empty glasses. He forces a quick smile and Jerry pulls a face, nodding in the direction of the footballers. He knows it’s all for show really – Jerry prefers to be rushed off his feet, hates it when there’s hardly anyone in the bar.
He waits until he feels it’s safe to continue.
‘So why are you here?’ he asks eventually. ‘Another big exclusive? The man who tracked down . . .’ He leaves the sentence unfinished, unwilling to resurrect the name he believed he’d buried for good. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he says again. ‘Not this time.’
‘Really?’
‘I’ve got a new life here. I’ve got friends, people who respect me for the work I do. I’m not going to throw it all away by running like last time.’
O’Halloran sits back in his chair and takes this in, as if surprised by what he’s heard.
‘I’m glad to hear it, Martin,’ he says eventually, and it’s difficult to decide whether the use of the incorrect name this time is a deliberate provocation or a mere slip of the tongue. ‘No, really – I am. I think it’s great you’ve managed to settle down and create a little something here for yourself. Mind you . . .’ He pauses to take another mouthful of beer. ‘If we’re going to be picky about things, it’s not actually you who’s done it, is it?’