The following day the concrete went down and Handsome and Dorian disappeared, forever.
❊
Chevron was told that Coleman killed Handsome because he tried to get up on his girl and that Arthur had taken the opportunity to shoot him then. Best to keep the mess all in one place, boss. When you are lying, Arthur found, it was always good to stay as close to the truth as possible.
Chevron asked for evidence. Eventually. ‘Not that I don’t trust you, my son,’ he said. Bobby had never called him son when Coleman was alive. When Coleman was alive he was just Ironing Board. Now he was the boss. The man in charge.
Bobby never questioned why Arthur had taken the trouble of photographing the bodies for him, but it made him think there was more to Ironing Board than he had given him credit for. The way he got rid of Coleman had showed a ruthless streak he hadn’t known was there. Honestly, he had not really been expecting him to do it. Shirley had surprised him though. Cried like a bloody baby down the phone to him. She was very cut up saying that she hoped her grassing him up hadn’t resulted in Chevron taking Coleman out. Bobby had reassured her that he would never dream of killing Coleman. He never hit women, and he never took out mates. That was the rules.
‘He’s probably off somewhere living it up and all that. That designer dolly of his moved back to Ireland after I closed the shop. Maybe he followed her?’
Shirley didn’t like that.
❊
Matthew recovered and left the priesthood. He and Annie got married immediately. Her modelling career paid for him to finish his studies and get work teaching. Whereupon she gave up modelling and started having babies.
❊
Coleman laid low with Lara’s Auntie Una in Cricklewood for a month before leaving for New York. Lara followed him a month later, after organising their affairs so that they could start again. She continued designing, but for other people. Coleman’s smart appearance, business nous and a few forged references got him a job on Wall Street where he made a fortune. Lara was sorry to leave Swinging London but discovered, with Coleman, that everywhere swings when you’re in love.
Summer 1975
Noreen leaned back on the pink, studded velveteen headboard and lit a cigarette.
‘I tell you what, John, you’ve still got the magic touch.’
‘Oh God, here she goes.’
‘I mean it. Triple orgasms – here we come!’
‘I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.’
‘What?’ she said, swooping her hand down under the bed and picking up a copy of this month’s Cosmopolitan. ‘It says here you’re only annoying yourself with an ordinary orgasm and double orgasms are only for beginners.’
‘Can we change the subject, please?’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I think Father Carr might have figured out we’re not married.’
‘What?’
‘He was looking for certificates for Mary’s First Holy Communion and I panicked. Started telling him some long-winded tale about the fire in our last house and that the wedding certificate was in a particular place, blah, blah, blah. Lying through my teeth, you know what I get like when I’m nervous.’
‘Yes I do.’
‘Do you remember we had the same problem when we were getting her christened?’
‘Yes I do.’
Nearly ten years together and John still hated having this conversation. She had not taken much persuading to leave Chevrons after their experiences that night. She started working in his brother’s pub in Cricklewood. She loved the craic and the buzz of London so much that they persuaded her dad to put up some money and they bought The Green Boat, an established pub in Hendon. They lied to Frank and told him they were already married. Noreen was pregnant. Frank was furious that they had gone shotgun but not as furious as he would have been if he’d known they had never got married. Noreen just wouldn’t do it. Everyone thought they were married anyway, so John was able to forget about it most of the time. Unless she brought it up. Sometimes he thought she did it to hurt him. Or remind him how lucky he was. Perhaps you could not have one without the other.
‘Anyway, I was thinking,’ she said. ‘Maybe we should get married anyway.’
He looked at her. Was she joking?
‘Why not?’ she said. ‘It’s no big deal is it?’
She put out her cigarette and looked at him square in the face. Querying but not fighting with him. Motherhood had softened some of her old defiance. Noreen was bigger now, after the three kids. Her white skin was mottled with stretch marks, and her chunky legs were splayed on their eiderdown under the practical candlewick dressing gown she had proudly picked up from a church jumble sale the week before.
She was the most unfashionable, incorrigible, unapologetically insatiable woman he knew and she was his. All his. Yet she did not belong to him – she belonged only to herself.
‘Look’ he said. ‘I’ll sort out the padre. Let’s stay as we are for a while yet.’
She looked at him sideways.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Ah lookit,’ he said, ‘the paperwork, everything, it’s too much hassle.’
‘John Connolly,’ she said, giving him a whack over the side of the head with her Cosmo, ‘you are the most unromantic man I know. I will never marry you.’
He laughed, then pinned her down on the bed, peeled back the candlewick and said, ‘Sure there’s no point in rushing these things.’
We hope you enjoyed this book.
Kate Kerrigan’s next book is coming in 2019.
For more information, click the following links
About Kate Kerrigan
Also by Kate Kerrigan
An Invitation from the Publisher
About Kate Kerrigan
KATE KERRIGAN lives in County Mayo, Eire, with her husband and children. Her novels include The Perfect Marriage, shortlisted for the 2006 Romantic Novel of the Year Award, Ellis Island, which was a TV Book Club Summer Read and Only Ever You, winner of the 2017 RNA Romantic Novel of the Year. She is also the author of the highly acclaimed The Dress.
Find me on Twitter
Find me on Facebook
Visit my website If this is your first time reading Kate, you might like to join her mailing list. You’ll get news from Kate's writing world and access to special offers PLUS a free e-book, Dublin Kiss, as soon as you sign up.
Dublin Kiss
If you are a Kate Kerrigan fan, why not join Kate’s advance reader team and join her writing journey, by reading her books in advance of publication.
Kate's advance readers
Also by Kate Kerrigan
Find out more
Find out more
Find out more
Find out more
Find out more
Visit Head of Zeus now
An Invitation from the Publisher
We hope you enjoyed this book. We are an independent publisher dedicated to discovering brilliant books, new authors and great storytelling. Please join us at www.headofzeus.com and become part of our community of book-lovers.
We will keep you up to date with our latest books, author blogs, special previews, tempting offers, chances to win signed editions and much more.
Get in touch: [email protected]
Visit Head of Zeus now
Find us on Twitter
Find us on Facebook
Find us on BookGrail
First published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Kate Kerrigan, 2018
The moral right of Kate Kerrigan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
/>
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB) 9781786694157
ISBN (XTPB) 9781786694164
ISBN (E) 9781786692597
Head of Zeus Ltd
First Floor East
5–8 Hardwick Street
London EC1R 4RG
www.headofzeus.com
That Girl Page 32