“It’s supposed to be the Delmara Spring Fashions,” replied Kathy eagerly. “Bit early in the year for that, I would have thought, but it seems that’s how they do it.” Proud of her daughter’s success, Kathy was only too ready to talk about it and indeed had come in for no other reason. “It’s to be held in the Magnifico Hotel and there’s all sorts of famous people expected to turn up, Sheila tells me. On the twenty-first of January.”
Phil’s heart leapt into her mouth. There was a dull ache in the pit of her stomach.
“And Sheila is going to be there?” she managed to ask presently.
“Oh, she’ll be the star of the show!” Kathy laughed. “I’d love to see her but it wouldn’t really do. I’d never fit in with all the glamour.”
“Nonsense, Mrs. Doherty,” protested Annie Maguire, flourishing the teapot hospitably. “I’m sure if Sheila thought you’d like to be there she’d get you a ticket. More tea, Mrs. Doherty?”
“Well, maybe just a drop.”
The rest of the conversation flowed over Phil’s head. She sat numbly, feeling slightly sick.
There was no longer any question. She must pass on a warning, for Sheila’s sake, if for no-one else.
On the following day, she told Annie that she thought a bit of fresh air would do her good. She would just walk down to the shops and back.
Annie agreed.
Phil made her way instead to the nearest telephone box. There was a confidential number for giving anonymous information. She tried it first.
But things were not to be so easy.
There was no answer to be had on the confidential line. Time after time Phil pressed redial, only to get an engaged signal.
Her legs were beginning to give way. She knew she couldn’t stand in the box for much longer.
In desperation she tried the local police station.
“Hello,” she began, “I want to report a threatened kidnapping at the Magnifico –”
“Name, please,” said a brisk voice at the other end.
“I don’t want to give my name –”
“Name, please. We need your name for the record, madam. It can be kept private, probably.”
“This kidnapping – it will be on January 21.”
“I need your name, madam, if I’m to take this seriously. There are too many hoax warnings, you know. Why don’t you just give me your name and we’ll go on from there? And what about a password to show you’re genuine?”
Phil replaced the receiver with a trembling hand. Surely they would act on the information she had given them.
But she knew that the constant stream of hoax warnings, a habit built up during the Troubles, were against her. They would likely put this down as another one.
It was hopeless.
And indeed, at the local station the desk sergeant was replacing the receiver with a shrug. Another hoax, he thought. He would pass on the gist of the warning to his superiors and they could do what they wanted with it. The Magnifico. And had she mentioned a date? He thought perhaps she had but he hadn’t caught it properly. There was always a lot of security at the Magnifico, anyway.
Phil made her way home with some difficulty and went straight back to bed.
Annie, worried that she was trying to do too much too soon, kept her to the house for the next few days.
By the time Phil was allowed to venture out again, it was the twenty first.
She walked along the road aimlessly. Where should she go? The Magnifico?
She shuddered away from the thought.
Instead, she took a taxi to Davy’s flat.
Still weak and shaky from her long bout of ’flu, she was very tired by the time she reached Thomas Street.
She was cold, too.
She expected to have the flat to herself. A card, kept for her by her mother until she was well enough to read it, had arrived at Christmas. It said only,
“Held up for longer than expected.
“Don’t expect me before the end of next month.
“Love, D.”
She remembered the warning words of the woman Máire to Danny. They were to get as far away as they could as soon as they could. They were not to go back to the flat. So no-one would be there.
She climbed the stairs wearily and let herself in.
It seemed a lifetime since she had been here, just before Christmas, and had overheard the conversation between the gangsters.
Máire and Danny.
She remembered crouching, frozen with fear, in the passage outside the kitchen, listening to their voices.
Like an old video, the sequence re-ran itself in her head. She saw herself as if in a dream and wondered if the whole thing had been a nightmare or a hallucination. Had there been any kidnapping at all?
It seemed even longer ago, an eternity, since she had seen Davy.
He had disappeared back in early December.
Still she did not know where he was or when he would come back.
Or if he would come back.
Confidential business, he had said. Can’t tell you anything. Better not knowing.
Yes, perhaps, but Phil thought she would have felt happier if she at least knew where he was. If she knew when she would see him again.
Sorting out some problem with the drug pipeline, she guessed. Further afield than down south, or surely he would have finished by now.
Wandering into the kitchen, she looked around. Was it worth making herself a cup of tea?
There would be no milk.
Phil had never learnt to enjoy either black tea or black coffee.
It wasn’t worth the effort.
Phil began to shiver. She realised that the flat was cold.
She had not noticed at first.
She switched on the electric fire and for some time crouched before it, trying to get some heat into her body.
Presently she wandered into the bedroom and lay down.
It was too big an effort to undress.
She pulled off her shoes and her jeans, lay down in shirt and underclothes, dragged the covers around her and dropped into a deep sleep.
Chapter Fifty-One
Inside the Magnifico, Ronnie Patterson, the local TV chat show personality known to Sheila and heartily disliked for his assault on her after the Miss Northern Ireland finals, murmured confidentially in one corner with Liz Heron from the Belfast Telegraph.
Gavin Phillips, a young barrister whose face had recently become well known, sipped his G&T in a leisurely fashion while groaning at the jokes of self-styled comedian and club entertainer Paddy Moore.
Well-heeled businessmen and their wives chattered animatedly, excited as much by the presence of so many well known faces as by the occasion, or by the clothes they were about to see.
In one corner, Pat Fitzwilliam, the racing driver, gazed into his brandy and soda, a lock of fair hair tumbling over his forehead as usual, and waited for the action to begin.
He was present, as he was on every occasion when Sheila Doherty was on view, solely because his first sight of her, just a year ago in his native Dublin, had affected him in a way which a less cynical generation would have described as falling in love at first sight.
To Pat, Sheila was a magnet. When she was to be seen, he found that more and more he needed to be there.
Not that he was happy about this.
Only last season, he had made the transition to Formula One racing. His life was opening up before him, full of excitement and glittering prospects. A woman’s face and body had no business to come between him and the happiness of achievement and the fulfilment of a lifetime’s ambitions.
He scowled at the pretty young journalist who was attempting to start up a conversation with him and was deaf to the attempts of his friend and fellow driver, Artie Mulligan, a colleague from his earlier days in Formula Ford racing.
Artie wanted to claim his attention for a scandalous discussion of their leading rival’s driving skills and life-style.
“Sure, you’re
no fun these days, Pat,” complained Artie, as Pat responded to one of his best jokes with no more than a grunt. “What’s the matter with you at all?”
But Pat returned no answer.
Gavin Phillips, the young barrister, waited with almost equal eagerness to see Sheila Doherty appear for the same personal reasons as Pat. He had never met Sheila but he had seen her picture more than once and he had watched her, in fascination, on television. He wanted to know if what he had felt for her would survive her real life appearance, or if he had been fooling himself when he thought that he had fallen in love.
But he managed to conceal his restlessness rather better.
Skilled through the training of his courtroom experience in presenting a public image, Gavin kept his cool without apparent difficulty.
Looking round the room, it occurred to him to wonder how many of the men waiting for Sheila to step out unto the catwalk would be untouched by some element of desire at the sight of her.
Not many, he thought.
Mrs Rosemary Frazer Knight, wife of the Jackson Knight who owned a province-wide chain of supermarkets, and mother of Sally Kilpatrick, preened herself as she caught sight of her head in one of the many mirrors which reflected the light and glitter of the room and multiplied its dimensions. She, like the famous model, was a redhead.
“I suppose there is a resemblance,” she thought. “It certainly is the colour of the moment.”
The resemblance existed only in Mrs Frazer Knight’s mind and in the flattery of her hangers on. Her rather coarse features, and body heavy with maturity, put her in a different league from Sheila in everything but the similar colouring.
Nevertheless, Mrs Frazer Knight had bought, or forced her husband to buy, many of the clothes worn by Sheila Doherty at fashion shows, with adjustments for size, and wore them in the conviction that she now looked as Sheila had looked.
Nor was Mrs Frazer Knight alone among the well-off women present in entertaining the belief that by buying the dresses Sheila showed, they could look like her.
For, after all, it was the existence of that belief which earned Sheila the large sums of money which Delmara paid her.
Behind the scenes, Francis Delmara, an established fashion designer for several years now and trembling on the verge of a breakthrough into the very top rank, trembled literally as he anxiously supervised the last details.
This was the moment when he would have to allow his creations to appear and to sink or swim as they were, without further help.
“Sheila, beautiful, lift your skirt a little higher on the left – that’s right, angel. Take it slowly, now. I want everyone to see the overall shape for at least five seconds when you first step out, before you move. Chloe, your hair! Get Chrissie to spray that strand flat into place, it’s disastrous – I can’t have you looking like a tramp tonight! April, not those shoes with that outfit – the green ones, sweetheart – change them at once! When will you learn to listen?”
Francis, usually so self-possessed, waved his hands about and despaired.
Sheila had never seen him so lacking in self-control.
At last, however, he could afford to wait no longer.
The show was already late in starting.
That was not yet a problem. Too prompt a start would have seemed over-eager.
But already the audience was showing signs of restlessness. To keep them waiting any longer would produce an atmosphere of impatience which would not be conducive to success.
At exactly the right time, working by the instinct which had brought him to the top, Delmara raised his hand in signal.
The lights in the body of the hall were dimmed, those focussed on the catwalk went up, and music cut loudly through the noisy chatter.
Then there was a sudden silence.
Francis Delmara stepped forward and began to introduce his new spring line.
* * *
Sitting in the front row of celebrity seats, MLA Montgomery Speers became aware that the first half of the show was over. Delmara was speaking, hoping they had enjoyed what they had seen, promising more delights after the interval, inviting them to enjoy the food and drink provided at the buffet.
Speers turned to the young, blonde girl, Karen, seated beside him.
“Take me over with you and start a conversation with Ronnie Patterson,” he said.
It was an order rather than a request.
“Make it very laid back, mind. I don’t want him to think I’m after anything.”
Karen worked in television as a freelance researcher, and was a familiar acquaintance of the chat show host. Speers, although he had met him, was not on those sort of terms with Patterson.
Montgomery Speers had it in mind to make an appearance on Patterson’s show. This in addition to his intended interview for a local news programme.
A profile raising exercise.
He would talk about his companies and allow politics to creep in only very casually towards the end of the interview.
A few minutes later, he was saying to Ronnie Patterson, “Like a lot of people, I catch your show most Saturdays – quite an innovation for the province. Must give you a great feeling of power.”
“Power?” Patterson laughed wryly. “Few of us have any power in this country at present. The power lies with the money men, as always. The new criminal gangs, the guys who are taking over from the paramilitaries, now the peace process is finally getting somewhere, the drug dealers and bank robbers.”
It was a jarring note.
Speers turned the conversation with a shrug.
“It can’t last much longer. The police know what they’re doing. They're starting to see results. The country’s looking up. New jobs coming in. My new factory at Craigavon, for instance – a couple of hundred new jobs there alone, to add to all the others …”
He broke off modestly to allow Patterson a chance to compliment him on what he was doing for unemployment. But instead Patterson said, “I hope you're not one of these people who want to see this province becoming a milk cow, Speers, as opposed to a Celtic Tiger. Squeeze out all the money and see ‘The rich get richer and the poor get – children.’”
It was said with a laugh but Montgomery Speers realised that he must have made a false move.
He might have known that Patterson would be a woolly minded pink liberal – all these media people were.
He set to work to recover lost ground.
“Oh, I don’t profess to have any easy solutions to repairing the damage of years – who does? I try to address the more practical issues. People need jobs and houses. I try to do my bit in that line.”
Patterson looked approving and Speers saw that he was beginning to make progress.
Behind the scenes, Delmara was dealing with a firm hand with some small problems.
“Chloe, you go and put on the jade earrings for your next change – they’re on that shelf. In this business, you pay attention to detail or you’re out! April, you almost slipped on your last exit – do you want our clients to think you're tipsy? Make sure it doesn’t happen again. And look, the seam has started to unravel in the blue playsuit for your next change! Quick, someone – Phyllis – get it fixed – you only have a minute!”
Sheila, who had almost burst into tears at this stage in her first Delmara show, remained calm.
Francis, in private life so cool and poised, was always sharper, more critical during an opening night.
It went over her head and left her untouched.
Swiftly but carefully she got into the leisure wear she was about to show and checked hair and make-up.
“I want that jumpsuit!” Rosemary Frazer Knight whispered to her husband, and he murmured back,
“Yes, darling, yes. Beautiful – beautiful.”
She glared suspiciously at him.
Did he mean the suit or the girl?
But after a moment, she relaxed, and decided to believe the best. Anyway, he had agreed to buy her the jumpsuit and she would look beauti
ful in it, too.
Artie Mulligan nudged Pat Fitzwilliam as Sheila came out again in swimwear.
“Fancy a bit of that, eh?”
The glare he got in response silenced him.
Pat seemed to have got it bad. Not like him.
Artie grimaced to himself and decided to watch his mouth in future. No sense in falling out with a good mate over something like that, and Pat was a good mate even if he seemed to have gone haywire over a girl. A pretty special girl, Artie had to admit, but all the same –! No woman was that important, thought the youthful Artie, unable to see into his own future.
The evening was nearly at its climax.
The show had begun with evening dress and now it was to end with evening dress – but this time, with Delmara’s most beautiful and exotic lines.
Sheila changed swiftly into a cloud of short ice-blue chiffon, sewn with glittering silver beads and feathers. She went out onto the catwalk.
The door to the ballroom burst open. People began to scream. It was something Sheila had heard about for years now, the subject of local black humour, but had never before seen.
Three figures, black tights pulled over flattened faces as masks, uniformly terrifying in black leather jackets and jeans, surged into the room.
The three sub-machine guns cradled in their arms sent deafening bursts of gunfire upwards. Falling plaster dust and stifling clouds of gun smoke filled the air.
For one long second they stood just inside the entrance way, crouched over their weapons, looking round. One of them stepped forward and grabbed Montgomery Speers by the arm.
“Move it, mister!” he said. He dragged Speers forcefully to one side, the weapon poking him hard in the chest.
A second man gestured roughly with his gun in the general direction of Sheila.
“You!” he said harshly. “Yes, you with the red hair! Get over here!”
Chapter Fifty-Two
For one second there was a deathly frozen hush.
Then someone screamed and immediately the noise broke out – people shouting, pushing, weeping.
It was the tallest of the gunmen who took control.
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