This Charming Man

I’m not that kind of journalist. My skill is in wearing people down, in chipping away at the poor bastards, keeping on and on at them until they eventually crack and give me a quote or a story just to get rid of me.

  I studied the results: not encouraging. According to my arrows, Bangers Brady had painted Dee’s house, Christopher Holland was his own previous girlfriend and Dee’s daughter had married me.

  ‘There’s one,’ TC said, leaning over and pointing, as ifhe was helping me to do a sudoku. ‘Look, that one there. “Paddy de Courcy” linked to “Who recommended the painters?” That could make sense. It could have been him.’

  ‘Here she is!’ Lorraine had spotted Jacinta arriving. ‘God, no, it’s red today!’

  ‘Red!’ Three weeks of black had been very wearing but red would be worse. It presaged rage, raised voices and definitely, definitely no cake.

  I folded my page into my pocket and readied myself for Jacinta’s fury.

  The tail-end of the January sales was what she wanted covered. How low did they go? What happened to the unsold clothing? Destroyed? Returned to the manufacturers? Off-loaded onto TK Maxx? ‘Find out about Missoni,’ she ordered. ‘There’s loads left in the Brown Thomas sale, but they’re sticking hard at 40 per cent off.’

  I couldn’t help suspecting that Jacinta had a personal interest in this story.

  Traipsing in and out of clothes shops which offered the ragged dregs of Christmas party frocks, I kept thinking about Dee and I kept coming back to her runaway boyfriend, Christopher Holland. He had, to quote Hercule Poirot, means, motive and opportunity. As he had already shafted Dee way beyond the point where he could ever be forgiven, there was nothing to stop him from shopping her on harbouring illegals. Casey Kaplan had mentioned him having gambling debts and, much as I’d prefer to think that Kaplan was full of shit, maybe Christopher had needed more money.

  He’d been in Dee’s house a lot; whatever she said about compartmentalizing her life, he could easily have coincided with one of the girls. No life was entirely airtight. I mean, I knew about Dee sheltering women, therefore her life was evidently not airtight. I was just some stray journalist who happened to turn up on the same day that a badly beaten woman had taken up residence in Dee’s bedroom. Luckily I liked Dee. But she might have done another interview that day, some other journalist might have come along and sat in her kitchen and eaten home-made macaroons and then gone upstairs and… and… what? What was it? Something in my head had caused an adrenaline surge. Suddenly alert and thinking with crystal clarity, I stopped dead in the street and a man slammed into the back of me. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ I exclaimed while he muttered about fecking eejits who have no respect for other people…

  I stepped out of the pedestrian traffic and backtracked through my recent thoughts, examining each one.

  ‘Some other journalist’? No, it wasn’t that.

  ‘Sat in her kitchen’? Not that either.

  ‘Eaten home-made macaroons’? That was the one!

  The home-made macaroons. I hadn’t eaten any but Dee had told me that that was okay because Paddy was coming over for a working dinner and he’d eat them.

  Assuming that Dee hadn’t cancelled on him and assuming that Elena hadn’t been moved on before he arrived, Paddy was in Dee’s house at the same time as Elena.

  IfPaddy had known about Elena, what else might he know?

  I reached for my phone.

  ‘Dee, remember the day I interviewed you. Paddy de Courcy was coming for dinner that evening. Paddy could have seen Elena. He could have done what I did. You know, opened the bedroom door and seen her. So did he?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Will you just tell me?’

  After a long silence, she said, ‘Maybe. I’m not exactly sure, but maybe.’

  The tips of my fingers tingled.

  ‘Dee, you know your painting and decorating scandal?’

  She sighed her assent.

  ‘Let me just check some facts.’ (I knew all the facts, I was just spelling them out for her.) ‘You got your house painted, the company never sent you a bill and when, off your own bat, you eventually sent a cheque it wasn’t cashed, so basically you’d had your house painted for free. So whoever wanted to shaft you must have got to the decorating firm after you’d decided to use them. Or someone was already in cahoots with them and persuaded you to use them. You told me that the painting and decorating firm came recommended. Yes? Well, who recommended them?’

  Another long silence.

  ‘Was it Paddy? Paddy de Courcy?’

  A sigh. ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s him, Dee.’

  ‘It’s not him,’ Dee said. ‘Don’t be an idiot. When I’m damaged, the party is damaged and when the party is damaged, so is he.’

  ‘Look, I’m not saying it’s a perfect plan.’ I noticed that in my excitement I was talking too loud and half of Kenny’s were listening in. It would have been better to have had this discussion somewhere private but I didn’t want to go to Dee’s house in case the hidden photographers mistook me for a Moldovan woman and I didn’t want Dee to come to mine in case it would draw attention to Damien.

  ‘Precision bombing,’ I whispered. ‘To take you out but to keep the integrity of the party intact. That’s what he’s trying.’

  ‘Precision bombing,’ she repeated and shook her head with some derision.

  I realized how melodramatic I sounded. ‘I’m sorry… this isn’t Black Hawk Down, but I don’t know what other way to say it.’

  ‘It’s too risky for him,’ she said.

  ‘He’s a risk-taker.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  I shook my head. ‘That’s a story for another day.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Dee, I’m sorry, but Paddy de Courcy is not the lovely man you think he is.’

  She looked at me in amazement and I regretted having to destroy her illusions, but it was necessary if– as I was kind of convinced – he was the person who was shafting her.

  ‘I never thought Paddy de Courcy was a lovely man,’ she said.

  ‘Is that right? Well, good, because –’

  ‘Paddy de Courcy is a ruthless, treacherous, greedy, graspingly ambitious, profoundly unpleasant man. He’d sell his own granny at a car-boot sale if he thought it might buy him a couple of votes and, by hook or by crook, he’ll be Ireland’s leader one day.’

  I was stunned into silence. Stunned. Her opinion of him was almost worse than mine. And she had never said. Had never given any indication. Politicians, I tell you!

  ‘So why do you work with him?’

  ‘We all work with people we don’t like. It’s handy for the party – people who distrust me because I’m a mouthy feminist are reassured by my having a good-looking, charismatic man as my deputy.’

  ‘You admit he wants to be taoiseach?’

  ‘God, yes, he’s always had his eye on the prize, but I’ve never thought he planned to do it via leadership of New Ireland. He’s using us because we’re small but we punch above our weight. He’s a big fish in New Ireland and it’s got him noticed, but we’re only a stepping stone. His next big move will be to defect to the Nappies and he’ll take it from there.’

  ‘Say it again, Dee. “A ruthless, treacherous…”’

  ‘“A ruthless, treacherous, greedy, graspingly ambitious, profoundly unpleasant man.”’

  ‘And say the part about selling his granny.’

  ‘ “He’d sell his own granny at a car-boot sale ifhe thought…”’

  ‘“… it might buy him a couple of votes,”’ I prompted.

  ‘“… it might buy him a couple of votes,”’ she repeated.

  Once again astonishment washed over me. ‘I thought you were thick as thieves with him.’

  ‘Now you know.’

  ‘And I think you’re wrong. I think he does want to be leader of New Ireland. At the very least it would get him a ministerial post.’

  ‘What’s Paddy done to you?’ she asked suddenly.

  ‘… Erm??
?’

  ‘Something, right? Something bad? But Grace, don’t try to make the facts fit just to find him guilty.’

  Was I doing that?

  Was my personal stuff getting in the way of reality? Was I trying to blame Paddy de Courcy for everything? Global warming? The destruction of the rain forests? The attacks on Dee Rossini?

  Maybe. I was prepared to admit it was a slight, tiny possibility.

  But as soon as I tried to let go of him and slot another person – Christopher Holland, for example – into the box marked ‘Guilty’ my brain refused to cooperate.

  I just needed one more event to link Paddy to the persecution of Dee and we were in business. Who could I ask? There wasn’t any point ringing Angus Sprott at the Press and asking him ifde Courcy was his source. For one thing he’d never tell me and for another I’d be fingering Damien and for yet another there was no way it would be Paddy in person. He’d have gotten Spanish John to pay someone else to pay someone else to do it: a long enough chain of command that it would never come back to him.

  ‘Your daughter’s wedding, when so many things went wrong, do you think someone in the hotel could have been paid to cock it all up? To “lose” the wedding cake? To cause chaos in the kitchen so that there weren’t enough meals?’

  ‘It’s a theory. But there’s no way of proving it.’

  It mightn’t be that hard. I’d need to talk to everyone who worked in the hotel on the day of the wedding. Mind you, it was five months ago, staff turnover in hotels was notoriously high. But worth considering.

  ‘It’s not Paddy,’ Dee said. ‘But it could be Christopher. Really it could be.’

  ‘Okay.’ I decided to go with this different tack. (In the Val McDermid novels, the detectives say you must stay open-minded.) ‘Why did he sell his story about his relationship with you?’

  ‘The Globe paid him lots of money, I presume.’

  ‘You presume? Haven’t you asked him?’

  She looked at me like I was insane. ‘I haven’t spoken to him since the story came out. Two days previously actually.’

  ‘Nothing at all? You never got the urge to ring him and shout abuse?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or to get answers to some questions?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even some night when you were drunk?’

  ‘I don’t get drunk.’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Well, all right then, I do. But why would I bother wasting my good drunkenness on him? He let me down. I knew he would. Men always do.’

  ‘So why did you bother with him at all?’

  ‘Because he had a big dick and could do it three times a night.’

  ‘… Er… really?’

  ‘Yes, sometimes four.’

  Christ alive, but she was fabulous.

  ‘No one – almost no one – knew that you had a boyfriend. How did the Globe know that there was even a person to approach and offer money to? Somebody had to have told them. Did Paddy know about Christopher?’

  She hesitated. ‘Perhaps. There was one time Christopher showed up at my office. I got rid of him sharpish but Paddy asked about him. I said he was a friend of Toria’s. I’ve never been sure he believed me,’ she admitted. ‘Paddy misses nothing. But I thought we’d moved on from Paddy.’

  ‘So did I.’

  There was something that naked curiosity compelled me to ask. ‘Casey Kaplan said he knew Christopher. Is that true? Or is he entirely full of shit?’

  ‘It’s true.’ She laughed at my sour face. ‘Christopher and Casey are very close friends, they were at school together. He really does know everybody. He’s just one of those people.’

  ‘It could have been Casey Kaplan.’

  ‘It wasn’t him.’ Dee was scornful. ‘He wouldn’t have given the story to Scott Holmes, he’d have done it himself. Anyway, it wasn’t him because he’s a sweetheart.’

  ‘Surely you mean a gobshite?’

  ‘Okay, those ridiculous clothes, the swagger, the rock-star jargon… But he’s a pet. It’s the main reason he’s so connected – everyone likes him.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Except you, then.’

  ‘I’m ringing Scott Holmes,’ I said. ‘He might tell me something.’

  ‘He won’t,’ Dee said.

  ‘Let’s see,’ I said, locating my phone and hoping I still had Scott’s number.

  ‘Scott? Grace Gildee here.’

  ‘Gracie!’ I endured the ‘How’s tricks’ conversation for as long as I could, then I said, ‘Scott, I need your help.’ (Good thing to say. Act helpless. Gets results quicker. A truly depressing indictment of the state of male/female relations but I’m only telling it like it is.)

  ‘Aw, Gracie, you only call me when you want something.’

  ‘Back in November, you did a big piece with Christopher Holland, Dee Rossini’s boyfriend. Remember?’

  ‘Course.’

  ‘The initial contact? Was it Christopher Holland himself? Or was it agented?’

  ‘Aw come on, Grace, that’s confidential.’

  ‘Scott, we’re not discussing the Good Friday Agreement. Was it Paddy de Courcy?’

  ‘Wha – ? Are you crazy?’

  ‘John Crown?’

  ‘De Courcy’s driver? No.’

  Silence hissed on the line.

  ‘Grace, I’ll tell you this much, it was agented, but I never got the name. I never even met them.’

  Shite. ‘So how were you contacted? Did someone appear to you in a dream?’

  He laughed. ‘Mobile.’

  ‘Any chance you’ve still got the number?’

  ‘It’s probably been disconnected by now. Usually the account is opened just long enough to set up the deal, then shut down again.’

  ‘Thank you, Scott, I too am a journalist, I understand your nefarious ways. But give it to me anyway.’

  ‘The usual caveats. You didn’t get it from me etc., etc. Let me find it.’ After a few moments of clicking and rustling, he called out a string of digits.

  ‘Thank you, Scott, you’re a decent man.’

  ‘Let’s get together some evening,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s,’ I said and quickly disconnected.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t like him but he was into all that hearty New Zealand stuff. The main reason I’d broken it off with him – apart from being in love with Damien – was that he was always making me trek up the side of a mountain in the snow.

  ‘Have you any change?’ I asked Dee. ‘I need to make a phone call.’

  She held her mobile towards me.

  ‘No, I need to use a public phone. We can’t leave an electronic trail.’

  ‘The Bourne Identity now, is it?’

  She produced a fifty-cent piece and I made my way to the grim alcove that housed Kenny’s phone. I punched in the numbers Scott had given me and held my breath as I waited.

  I’d expected all kinds of noises – but not a ringing tone. It rang! It rang three times, then it was answered. A man’s voice said, ‘Ted Sheridan’s phone.’

  I disconnected immediately.

  My hands were shaking.

  Ted Sheridan.

  Sheridan.

  All the proofI needed.

  I returned to Dee.

  ‘Was it Paddy?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Told you.’

  ‘Come on. We’re going for a drive.’

  ‘The Godfather? Goodfellas?’

  While I drove I called Ma. ‘I need you to find a photo. From long ago, when Marnie was going out with Paddy de Courcy.’

  Dee, sitting next to me in the passenger seat, gave me a sharp look.

  ‘Not of the two of them,’ I told Ma. ‘I need one of Sheridan. I know there’s one knocking around.’

  It wouldn’t take Ma long to locate it. They thought it pitifully bourgeois to record every family occasion with a fat pile of photos. They didn’t even own a camera and the few photos they had of Marnie
and me as teenagers had been taken and donated by Leechy.

  ‘What are we doing?’ Dee asked.

  ‘Picking up a photo of de Courcy’s old friend Ted Sheridan, then we’re going to show it to Christopher Holland and ask him ifthis is the man who persuaded him to do the kiss’n’tell on you.’

  ‘I’m not… There’s no way I’m talking to Chris –’

  ‘You don’t have to talk to him, but you do have to be there. How else will you have proofthat de Courcy is behind all this?’

  Because it was late the roads were empty and we reached Yeoman Road in ten minutes. I ran into the house and Bingo threw back his head and howled with joy to see me. Ma had found the photo; it was of Marnie, Paddy, Leechy, Sheridan and me, clustered together and laughing.

  ‘Thanks, Ma, you’re a superstar. But I can’t stay.’ I tried to shake Bingo off my leg. ‘Get off me, for the love of God!’

  ‘Come on, Bingo,’ Ma cajoled.

  Finally I broke free of Bingo’s passionate hold. Back in the car I handed the photo to Dee. ‘Hold this. Now, where does Christopher Holland live?’

  She looked like she was going to refuse to tell me, then caved. ‘Inchicore.’

  She was transfixed by the photograph. ‘Paddy looks so young, better now than he did then. And look at you, you’re exactly the same! Who are the other people?’ She was studying Leechy. ‘Is that… surely it’s not –’

  ‘Who? Show. Oh yeah.’

  ‘I didn’t know you knew her.’

  ‘I don’t any more. Listen, ring Christopher Holland. Make sure he’s at home. Tell him you want to see him.’

  ‘I don’t want to see him.’

  ‘Well, pretend. We’re trying to save your career here, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘What ifhe won’t see me?’

  ‘Say, “You owe me that at least.” Shame him into it.’

  She produced her phone from her bag, but sat with it resting in her hand, her head bowed.

  ‘Ring him!’

  With a marked lack of enthusiasm, she made the call. He must have answered because she said, ‘It’s Dee.’ Then a few more sentences. ‘I need to see you.’ ‘Now.’ ‘Ten minutes.’

  Then she hung up and shuddered.

  ‘Come on,’ I coaxed. ‘You’ll be in his flat. You can break something belonging to him. Something precious.’