“Yes, that’s me,” said Kate.
Then the voice said, “You know, I wanted to meet you. I told Jocasta I thought you could perhaps be in one of my fashion features. My name is Carla Giannini, I’m the fashion editor of the Sketch.”
“You did?” Kate’s heart began to pound. “Do you really think that?”
“I think you might photograph very well. I couldn’t say, until I’ve done a few test shots. But I think it’s more than possible. You should come in and see me one day. It would be nice to meet you, anyway, such a brave young girl, taking on the NHS single-handed!” She laughed, a throaty, husky laugh. Kate felt dizzy.
“Do you mean that? That I should come and see you?”
“Of course. Look, think about it and give me a ring. Maybe tomorrow? I’ll give you my direct line.”
Wow. WOW! Cool, or what? God. That would change Nat’s mind about her being sad. A model. In the newspapers. Wow. Oh—my—God.
Kate called Sarah.
“I’ve got to go somewhere tomorrow. After school. I don’t want to tell my mum. Will you say I’m with you, if she calls?”
“Course. Where are you going?”
“I’ll tell you about it when I get back, OK?”
“Cool. See you later.”
Kate went downstairs singing.
Carla put the phone down and smiled. Good. Very good. She had no doubt Kate would be in to see her. Jocasta wouldn’t like it, but that was too bad. She had no claim on Kate. And Carla had pages to fill.
She’d actually quite enjoyed doing the shoot with Martha Hartley. She hadn’t been nearly as bad as Jocasta had made out. A bit…reserved. But she was a lawyer. And she was certainly very attractive, and she wore the clothes—a suit, a jacket, and an evening dress all from Zara—very well. Jocasta not being there had obviously helped; far from being bothered by her absence, Carla had been relieved. It was always easier with these shoots if she could have the subject to herself. As she would have Kate, with luck. Jocasta had called to say she was going to be away for at least two more days.
Half an hour later, as Carla had known she would, Kate called her. Would it be all right if she came in after school the next day—“I could be there about five, five thirty.”
Carla said that would be perfectly all right and put in a call to Marc Jones, a sexy young photographer she had used for the first time the week before, to ask him to come in to do some test shots of Kate.
Jocasta stood at the gates of Gideon Keeble’s glorious house and waited, along with roughly two dozen other reporters, a large clutch of photographers, cameramen, and the policeman who was on duty. She had been waiting for some time now, about twelve hours; it was the first crucial thing you learnt as a reporter (or a photographer) to do. Nobody exactly enjoyed it, but nobody minded either; there was great camaraderie, time passed, people shared cigarettes and chocolate and swapped reminiscences and such scraps of news as they possessed. Generosity was, in fact, the name of the game, unless someone actually managed to get a huge scoop or an exclusive. That was not expected to be shared.
Dungarven House was on the top of a hill; every so often, someone would go up to the locked gates and peer through them, which was fairly fruitless, since the drive curved away to the right of the two lodges, and there was nothing to be seen except a tall beech hedge and, to the left of it, a thick wood. Gideon Keeble was certainly inside; he had been driven in the night before, looking very grim, and the gates had not been opened since. A local reporter had assured them there was no other vehicle access to the estate and an enterprising reporter, unwilling to accept his word, had skirted the entire area by bicycle, and reported only several small gates in the twelve-foot wall that surrounded it, which were locked with huge padlocks, with nothing more than rough tracks leading up to them. The southernmost tip of the estate was bounded by the famous lake, which was impassable from the other side, except by boat. Dungarven House was almost a fortress.
Of course Mr. Keeble might have sailed across the lake, but had he done so, he would have a long walk to any road. Their radios told them hourly that Fionnuala Keeble, the beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter of retailing billionaire Gideon Keeble, had run away from her convent school with rock musician Zebedee and still had not been found. Police were watching ports and airports but there had been no sightings of her, so it was presumed she must still be in the country. Her mother, now Lady Carlingford, was on her way back from Barbados where she lived and was not available for comment. It was generally agreed that if Fionnuala was found, she would be returned to her father at Dungarven House.
Jocasta spent quite a few of those twelve hours trying to get hold of Gideon’s private number; but the charming, easy, hospitable Gideon Keeble, who had called her direct on her mobile, had done so from a number which told her politely now that Mr. Keeble was not available and to try later; there was no facility even to leave a message. The same applied to all his office numbers. His e-mail address was equally elusive; the one everyone had was at his London office and although she had sent what she thought was an irresistible appeal, it had yielded nothing. Well, she didn’t blame him. She’d felt pretty shitty even asking.
She returned every so often to her hire car, which was parked a quarter of a mile or so down the lane, to check her e-mails, and as darkness fell on the Cork countryside, and the shadows of the great trees surrounding Dungarven House deepened, could only try to imagine what fear and anger Gideon Keeble must be experiencing over the disappearance of his beloved only daughter.
She looked at her screen as she typed her thoughts and sighed. That wasn’t going to redeem her in Chris Pollock’s eyes. Give me a break, she said, looking up at the half-moon in the soft dusk sky, please, please give me a break.
She pulled a second sweater on; it was getting very chilly. Most of them had agreed that they would give things until ten and then go and book into the pub. Jocasta was unwilling to do that. With the run of bad luck she seemed to be having, Fionnuala and Zebedee would arrive naked, astride a white horse, the minute she’d left the gates. She had already decided to sleep in her car.
God, she wanted to pee. She’d have to go and find a bush—again. She shouldn’t have drunk all that coffee. She struck out to the right of the lane, and made her way across the rough moorland into a small hollow; it was safer down here, away from the good-naturedly ribald comments from the others.
She stood up gingerly, pulling up her trousers; she really was getting terribly cold. Maybe she should go for another walk, get her circulation going. If she walked down the lane she wasn’t going to miss a car. She set out briskly, and after about ten minutes she saw a tiny pinprick of light coming towards her. It was fairly steady, not the up-and-down movement of a walker’s torch. And certainly not a car. There was complete silence. So what—oh, of course! It was a bicycle. Someone was cycling up the hill. A farmworker perhaps, from the estate. But why should he be coming up at this hour? She waited, almost holding her breath, and the light suddenly swerved off the lane and disappeared. Or rather went off to the right. Its rear light bounced up and down now, but proceeded quite steadily; it must be a track of sorts. Jocasta decided to follow. It was probably a wild goose chase, but—And then there was a muffled cry and a curse and the light went out.
Jocasta walked cautiously over to the dark heap that the bike and its rider had become.
“Hello?” she said. “You all right?”
There was silence.
“I said hello. Anyone there?”
Nothing.
She was right up to the heap now; it took shape; it was a boy of about fifteen, sitting on the ground, rubbing his ankle. He had a canvas bag beside him.
“Are you all right?” she said again.
“Sure I’m all right.” The accent was strong.
“Good. I thought you might have hurt yourself. Bit of a bad place to fall off your bike.”
He tried to stand up and winced. “Fock,” he said. “Focking Mary and Joseph.”
“You’ve hurt yourself. Want me to look?”
He shook his head.
“Funny night for a bike ride,” she said.
No reply.
“You on your way up to the big house?”
“I am not. Making my way home.”
“Which is where?”
“Down there.” He pointed down into the darkness.
“Strange, you seemed to be going in the opposite direction,” she said. “Anyway, you won’t get home in that state. Would you like me to drive you?”
“No thanks.” He stared at her. “You one of those reporters?”
“Yup.”
He hesitated. “You won’t write about me, will you?” he said.
“I might,” said Jocasta coolly. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“Let me have a look at your ankle.”
He scowled at her, then pushed his foot towards her.
She felt it gingerly, then very gently and slowly moved it. It didn’t seem to be broken.
“I think it’s just a bad sprain. You got a torch?”
“Only on the bike.”
“OK. Let’s just—” She pulled the light off the bike, shone it on his ankle. It was already swelling. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to take you home?”
“No, I’ll be fine. It’s downhill to the village all the way, I can just sit on the bike.”
“Pity.” She looked at him consideringly. “Quite a good night for poaching, isn’t it? Not much of a moon, just enough light.”
“I am not going poachin’!”
“Oh really? Well, you certainly aren’t any longer,” said Jocasta. “I think you’d better let me take you home. And I swear I won’t tell anyone, anyone at all.”
“You won’t?” His eyes in the half-light shone wide with fear. “Me mother would take a belt to me.”
“Quite right, too. And your father, I daresay.”
“Me father has passed on. There’s just me and me mother. And the little ones.”
“How many little ones?”
“Five. I’m the eldest.”
“I see. So the odd trout or hare must be a big help. Now look—I’ll just drop you at your house, no one will know. I swear.”
He looked down at his ankle. “OK,” he said finally. And then, reluctantly: “Thanks.”
“That’s OK. One thing in return. How do you get into the grounds? You must know a way.”
“I don’t.”
“Of course you do,” said Jocasta briskly, “don’t be silly.”
There was a long silence; then the boy said, “Follow this track right up to the wall. Follow round to your right. Few hundred yards along, there’s a big tree. One of the branches hangs over the wall.”
“Bit of a drop, isn’t it?” said Jocasta thoughtfully. “That wall’s twelve, maybe fifteen feet high. And then how do you get out again?”
“I’m not telling you any more,” he said. “I thought you just wanted to get in.”
She thought for a moment. It was quite true; she would find her own way out somehow.
“Right,” she said standing up, holding out her hand to pull him up. “Let’s get going.”
Twenty minutes later, she was back. She parked her car quite a lot further down the hill. She didn’t want any of the others getting on her trail. She pulled the torch out of the car, slung her rucksack onto her back, and then shut the car door very quietly. She pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt and started walking up the lane again, on the grass verge, looking out for the track. She’d better not get on the wrong one. Getting lost was all she needed.
Right. Here was the wall. To the right, he had said, a few hundred yards…Tree, tree, where was the bloody tree?
There! Right there, just in a curve of the wall. Not too bad to climb, either, until she was level with the top of the wall, standing on a very strong branch with a helpfully placed parallel one to hold on to.
Then it got worse. She could step onto the wall quite easily, but she then had to get down on the other side. And it was a good twelve-foot jump: onto grass to be sure, but nonetheless it looked like a long way down.
And there was absolutely no sign of the house; she had no real idea of the direction she should walk in. A mental calculation told her about ten o’clock from where she landed, but that was pure guesswork.
Shit, shit. She should have bought a map of some kind. And suppose Keeble had dogs roaming the grounds, or even an armed guard as it was rumoured the Barclay twins did?
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” she said aloud, unhitched her rucksack, threw it down, and then, wondering in the slow motion of fear if this would be the last thing she ever did, jumped after it.
Chapter 20
Right. She’d made it. She hadn’t broken her leg; there were no dogs savaging her or guards standing over her with rifles. She hadn’t even lost her rucksack. She was safely inside the grounds of Dungarven House and all she had to do now was find the house. She hitched her rucksack onto her back, and following her hunch, set out in what she thought was the right direction.
With the moonlight and the light from her torch she could see quite easily. She came out of the thicket and looked around her—no sign of a house. Never mind. She’d find it. She’d done brilliantly so far. Chris Pollock would be proud of her. As for Nick—she hadn’t given Nick a thought, she realised, for hours. Good!
Suddenly she heard a dog barking. So he did have guard dogs. But the sound didn’t move. It stayed. Which could only mean that it either was tied up somewhere or was inside the house. She would follow the sound.
She wondered as she walked, slowly and carefully, keeping her torch shining low on the ground, what Fionnuala was like. She had looked her up in the cuttings: her mother, Aisling, Gideon’s second wife, had married Michael Carlingford a couple of years ago and spent half her time in Barbados, half in London. The divorce had been unpleasant and noisy and Fionnuala had obviously been shipped off to boarding school, so as to be the least possible bother to her parents. Jocasta knew what that felt like. If she’d had the chance to run off with a rock star, she would have done so, just to cause them the maximum trouble and embarrassment.
One of the few pieces of information available on Fionnuala was that she was a fine rider, and expensive horseflesh had been placed at her disposal almost from the moment she had been able to sit up. She rode in the occasional one-day event, and hunted from time to time, and those were the only occasions that yielded any photographs. Rather unsatisfactory ones for the gossip columns, of a rigid, unsmiling little face under her riding hat.
On the two occasions Jocasta had talked to him at any length, Gideon Keeble had not mentioned her; indeed, she would not have known he had a child. Another similarity between herself and Fionnuala.
The barking was getting louder; she was walking up a slight incline now into a group of trees—and through them she could see a light. Several lights, in fact. As she stepped out of the trees, yes, there it was. A large house, but not a huge one. She stayed close to the trees, worked her way towards the back of it: and as she did so, saw a great incline falling down again from the house itself, and below that a shimmer of light. The lake. Moonlight reflected in the lake.
Jocasta looked up at the sky, clear as it never was in the city, studded with myriad stars, and she would have stood there for a long time, just drinking it in, had not the dog started barking again, and, using the sound as a guide, she began to walk towards the house.
“You sound absolutely terrible, love.”
“I feel absolutely terrible. I don’t think I can stand it much longer.”
It was so unlike Helen to complain that there was a silence; everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at her.
Helen did feel appalling. She’d had bronchitis after Christmas, just as she did every year, but it appeared to have reignited; over the past few weeks, she had coughed repeatedly, night after night, went short of sleep, had a constant headache. “H
ave you been taking your antibiotics?” asked Jim severely.
“Yes. Of course. He might as well have told me to eat sugar lumps.”
“Might have been better, love. You’re skin and bone. It’s all this worry, I’m sure. Your mother, the publicity, all that. It’s been a big strain on you. I’m sure you’ll feel better soon.”
“Dad!” said Juliet. “Is that the best you can do? Poor Mum. You ought to—well, what about taking her away for a few days? See she has a bit of sunshine.”
“Juliet,” said Jim, “you sound like your sister. Where do you suggest I take her, the south of France or something?”
“Yes. Why not? It’d be lovely down there now.”
“I daresay it would. And my name’s Midas. Do you realise what it would cost just to get down there?”
“Forty-five pounds each,” said Juliet firmly. “Look, it says so here in the newspaper: easy Jet to Nice, forty-five pounds.”
“Catch me on one of those things,” said Jim, “tied together with bits of string.”
“Oh Dad, honestly. Charlotte Smith’s parents did it last week, and they’re (a) not rich and (b) not exactly reckless,” said Kate.
“It does sound a lovely idea, Jim,” said Helen. “And a bit of sun would be so nice.”
They all stared at her; she so seldom asked for anything for herself.
“And it’s half term next week,” said Juliet. “Go on, Dad, give poor Mum a break.”
“And who’s going to look after you two?”
“We could go to Gran. Or she could come here.”
“Yes, or I could go to Charlotte,” said Juliet. “Oh go on, Dad. Live dangerously.”
Helen giggled, which triggered a spasm of coughing.
Jim looked at her, then at Juliet. Then he said, “I’ll look into it. Give me that paper. I might look on the Web as well.”
Jocasta found herself at the back of the house. It was very beautiful indeed, classic Georgian, with wonderful tall windows also reflecting the moonlight, and a terrace running its full length. Jocasta walked towards the terrace, wondering for the first time what on earth she was going to do next. Did she knock on the door, tell the elderly retainer who would surely answer it that she had come to see Mr. Keeble? Did she try to get into the house—she remembered Gideon himself telling her doors in rural Ireland were never locked—or did she stand peering through the windows, rather like Peter Pan, observing the household as it went about its business?
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