This Charming Man (61 page)

We were trapped.

‘No, no, no, no, no, no, no,’ Natasha moaned.

‘Get a hold of yourself!’ Dolores cried.

‘Have got so much to lose!’

‘Need to get off main road,’ Chloe said, poring over map.

‘
You’ve
got so much to lose? I am officer of the shagging law! How you think I feel?’

As they squabbled in the back over who had the most to lose by exposure, glow from the other checkpoint became visible in night sky. Traffic beginning to slow.

‘Shit,’ I breathed.

‘Lola,’ Chloe said, ‘according to this, should be small road to left coming up… it’s here! Here!’

No signs to indicate small road, came upon it too suddenly, twisted steering wheel sharply to left and, as made the turn, tyres screeched loud enough to alert Plod who were standing in middle of road, lit by sodium glow, like aliens emerging from spacecraft. Even as I plunged car into dark side road, aware of them tensing and staring at us. Shouts filled the air.

‘Fuck! They’ve seen us.’

‘Just keep driving, Lola,’ Chloe said in calm voice. ‘Right turn will be coming in four hundred yards. Take that.’

‘They’re following us!’ Dolores cried. ‘I can hear them on walkie-talkie.’

‘You serious?’

‘Yes, yes! Two officers in a squad car.’

Shock so bad, actually felt myself lift and float. I was in car chase with police. How had this happened?

‘They’ll know local roads better than us,’ Sue said. ‘We’re fucked.’

‘Just keep driving, Lola,’ Chloe kept repeating in calm, calm voice, as I hurtled along narrow, twisty, potholed road in pitch black. ‘Now, ladies, listen to me. Shortly we’re going to pull in and the four of you are going to get out. Quick as you can. Then hide yourselves. Lola and I will keep driving and they’ll keep following us.’
Hopefully,
I could hear her think. ‘We’ll come back when we can. Turn right here, Lola.’

My responses super-fast. Terror is a marvellous thing. ‘Chloe, you get out too –’ Why should she stay with me and take the rap?

‘No way am I leaving you on your own.’

‘Oh my God, is that sirens I hear?’

Yes. Horrors. Even worse, could actually see the Plods’ headlamps. Countryside so dark that, depending on twist of road, at times they were lighting my way.

‘Okay, Lola,’ Chloe said. ‘Get ready to pull in. Rest of you, prepare to jump overboard.’

Road too narrow to conceal four trannies. Couldn’t see how throwing them from car would save them. But had swerved into scooped-out entrance to something. Trannies tumbled out like skydivers. Doors slammed shut. Pulled away in hail of gravel.

‘What was that place?’

‘Quarry.’

‘How you know about it?’

‘On map.’

On
map
. ‘Jesus, most women can’t make head nor tail of maps. Squad car still following?’ But knew it was, because siren still wailing.

‘Village coming up. We’ll pull in?’

‘Okay.’

‘Remember, we have done nothing wrong. Okay, here we are, stop here.’

Parked car beside darkened pub. Nervous. Peelers pulled up behind. Two got out, looking very, very cross. Angriest-looking one ordered me, ‘Get out of car.’

Chloe and I both got out. I asked, as innocent-sounding as possible, ‘Is there problem, officer?’

‘Why you drive away from road check?’

‘What road check?’

Gave me knowing stare. Thought he had me on drunk-driving.

‘Why you not stop when you hear siren?’

‘Did. Stopped at first safe spot.’

Another hard stare.

‘Blow into straw,’ milder-looking one told me, then they exchanged spiteful smile, promising each other they would push for custodial sentence for me.

To their great – and bitter – surprise, I passed breathalyser and they couldn’t get me on anything else. Licence clean. Car not registered as stolen. No dead bodies in boot. No drugs in car. Just two girls on their way home from night out dancing.

Policemen very reluctant to leave. Knew something was being hidden from them, but they couldn’t nail it.

Slowly they got back into squad car, all the while giving me filthy looks.

‘You’d better make sure you never cross my path again, Ms Daly,’ angriest one said in farewell.

‘And a happy Christmas to you too, officer.’

Beside me, heard Chloe snigger. (Have to admit, actually said it because showing off in front of Chloe. If on my own, would have been far more respectful.)

Engine started, lights on, exhaust pumping smoke, squad car left us. Watched until it vanished from view, then I asked, ‘They gone?’

Chloe stared down dark road. Red rear lights had disappeared. Even sound of car had stopped. Pure silence.

‘They’re gone.’

We’d got away with it.

We’d got away with it!

Suddenly fizzing with adrenaline, with joy, with relief, with pleasure at having pulled a fast one.

‘Chloe, you were brilliant! Turn right, pull in –’

‘No,
you
were brilliant.’

‘Left turn coming up –’

‘And you just kept your cool and did it!’

‘Thelma and Louise, that’s who we’re like!’

Wanted to high-five her, hug her, pick her up in my arms and twirl her around.

In the end, settled for snogging her.

Casey Kaplan tore a sugar sachet open with his teeth.

‘Gobshite,’ I murmured, amazed – almost pleased – that Kaplan had found yet another way to irritate me.

‘Yeah, gobshite,’ TC agreed. ‘What’s wrong with using your fingers?’

‘I know this might sound mad,’ I said in an undertone. ‘But I almost
enjoy
hating him.’

‘Me too.’

Kaplan’s desk was set a little way off from the cluster of Features, far away enough for us to be able to bitch about him but close enough that we had to do it quietly. Discreetly we surveyed him tipping the sugar into his coffee then – we were agog – stirring it with a blue biro.

‘Gobshite,’ TC breathed.

‘Yeah, gobshite,’ I whispered. ‘What’s wrong with using a spoon?’

‘He could just shout in to Coleman Brien to bring him one and Coleman would jump to it, probably offer to stir his coffee for him –’

‘–with his mickey –’

‘–yeah, with his mickey –’

Suddenly Jacinta’s witchy face appeared between TC and me. ‘I hate him too,’ she hissed angrily. ‘But do some fucking work.’

Office-wide the mood was volatile. Half the paper had given up smoking on the first of January. Eight days in, it was ready to blow sky-high. Because I’d gone through my initialwithdrawalin October, I wasn’t too bad. It didn’t mean that I didn’t ache for cigarettes – because I did – but I wasn’t locked into a state of near-blind rage, like everyone else.

Mind you, nor did I feel the comfort of marching shoulder to shoulder with fellow sufferers because I knew what was going to happen: tomorrow was Friday, and after work everyone would go to Dinnegans and three-quarters of those who had given up would resume smoking between their third and fourth drink. The other quarter would fall off the wagon over the weekend, and come Monday morning I would be restored to my position
of lone non-smoker. (Or rather, non-smoking smoker. There were one or two people dotted among the staff who had never smoked, but I felt no kinship with them.)

‘Grace!’ Jacinta urged. ‘Work!’

Reluctantly I returned to my story, and when my mobile rang, a thrill – small but nevertheless a thrill – lit me up like a power surge. Any kind of diversion would do. I checked the number. Was it safe to answer? Dickie McGuinness.

‘McGuinness here.’

The static was so bad I could barely hear him. He sounded like he was ringing from Mars. Which meant he was probably fifty yards down the road in Dinnegans.

‘Dickie, we miss you!’

Dickie had been ‘out on a story’ since the start of the week. It must be great working crime. So long as you came up with an exposé of ne’er-do-wells a couple of times a year, you could spend the rest of your time enjoying a life of leisure.

‘Grace, I’ve something for you.’ Static fizzed on the line.

‘I dread to think.’ Dickie could be very vulgar, especially when he had drink in him.

‘Do you want…’ He dipped out of coverage. ‘… don’t you?’

‘What is it?’

‘Do you want it or don’t you?’

‘Yes, I said! What is it?’

‘The name of the person who paid the two characters to burn out your car.’

My heart seized up in my chest and I pressed my phone so hard against my ear that the cartilage clicked.

Alerted by intuitive nosiness, TC abandoned his typing to look at me.

‘Are you listening?’ Dickie demanded.

‘Yes!’

‘Do you want it or don’t you?’

‘Of course I fecking do!’ Half the office jerked their heads around to stare in my direction.

‘Am I…
ah
…
ih
… to… self here?’

‘No, Dickie, I’m here, it’s the line. Tell me.’

‘John Crown.’

‘Say it again.’

‘John Crown. C-r-o-w-n. Like crown of thorns. John. J-o-h-n. Like John the Baptist.’

‘I’ve never heard of him.’

‘…
wah
…
nih
…Salome.’

‘No. John Crown. I’ve never heard of John Crown.’

‘Up there for …
geh
…
buh
… dancing.’ A great ball of static roared on the line, then I was suddenly disconnected.

With clumsy hands I rang him right back and got a two-note, high-pitched tone I’d never heard before. Maybe he really was on Mars. I tried again and got the same noise. Then again. I stared at my phone wondering what was going on. Was I calling the wrong code? Was my phone broken? Or was it simply the ‘Dickie effect’? He worked hard to create an air of mystery around himself and, to be fair to him, he sometimes pulled it off.

‘What’s going on?’ TC asked.

‘Nothing.’ I clicked off a quick text to Dickie asking him to call me.

‘I will ask again.’ TC bit out the words. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Nothing.’ I needed him to be quiet. My thoughts were racing. John Crown? John Crown? Who was he? Did I know him? What had I done to him? Had I written something bad about him? I searched in my head, flicking back through all the stories I’d ever covered, but I couldn’t get any matches.

My thighs were shaking and I planted my feet firmly on the carpet tiles in an effort to stop them. Knowing the name of an individualwho hated me enough to set my car on fire was distressing in a way I couldn’t ever remember feeling before. In the five weeks since Dickie had told me that it hadn’t been an accident I’d been in such deep shock I wasn’t sure I believed it was true. The only time I felt the fullness of my terror was in the early mornings – six mornings out of seven the fear was waking me at 5.30. However, learning this man’s name had brought the horror of it right up against me. It was unavoidable – I was petrified.

‘It’s obviously not nothing,’ TC persisted. ‘Do I look stupid?’

‘Yes. Really stupid. Especially when you’re doing a sudoku. You press your tongue against your upper lip and we can see the funny black bits under your tongue and you don’t even know you’re doing it.’ I looked up from examining my phone and made humble eye contact with him.

‘Sorry, TC.’

‘Who’s John Crown?’ Tara asked.

‘Yeah, who’s John Crown?’ As well as the narkiness, another feature of a nicotine-starved workplace was a great hunger for entertainment.

‘I don’t know.’

‘You do!’

‘Yes, you do!’

‘Tell us, you do!’

Lorraine didn’t ask me anything: she’d buckled and resumed smoking on 3 January.

Joanne didn’t question me either. She’d never smoked in the first place. (As people frequently observed, she’d never really fit in.)

‘Your ear’s bright red,’ TC observed. ‘It looks abnormal.’

Actually it was very painful. Could I have broken it? Can you break your ear?

‘Work!’ Jacinta hissed like a goose. ‘All of you, work!’

‘Can we get cake?’ Tara asked.

‘Oh yes! Please, Jacinta, cake!’

‘No, no, we can’t bloody well get cake!’

I couldn’t work. The pressure in my head was building. John Crown? Who was he? Why would he pay people to steal my car? Why would some complete stranger do that to me? Perhaps it was a case of mistaken identity? But how could I find out?

Without explaining myself, I slipped out of my seat and made my way to the fire exit.

I needed some peace to think. And perhaps the cold air might calm down my red ear.

The fire escape – strewn with a thick carpet of cigarette butts – was deserted. I sat on a metalstep. The air was bone-cold and misty and the quiet roar of the city was all around me, but at least people weren’t yelping into my banjaxed ear about cake.

I took a deep breath and acknowledged something: Damien might know who John Crown was. I could ask him. But something – and I didn’t know what it was – was stopping me. The same something that had stopped me from telling him what Dickie had originally told me – that my car had been burnt out deliberately. Usually I told Damien everything; well, nearly everything. I mean, he didn’t know that every month just before my period I had to pluck three wiry whisker-style hairs from around my mouth. Not
that it was exactly a state secret – if he asked me straight out about it, I wouldn’t lie, but I wasn’t going to unilaterally volunteer the information.

Anyway… I didn’t know why I hadn’t told him that someone had had it in for me.

Maybe I was afraid that if he knew, it would make it real?

And it was real.

I started shaking again but at least this time I could blame it on the cold.

God, what a life. All this on top of me going out of my mind about Marnie. Shortly after I’d last seen her, the worst-case scenario came to pass: she’d lost her job, Nick had left her, taking the two girls with him, and he’d put their lovely big house on the market. The only reason it hadn’t sold yet was because we were in the depths of winter, but it wouldn’t be January for ever.

Christmas had been utterly miserable. Bid’s fourth bout of chemo had finished on Christmas Eve but there was no way of telling if it was working. Apparently it didn’t bring about gradual healing; in fact, it might have no effect whatsoever until the very last dose on the very last day. Until she had a scan after her final bout in February, no one would have a clue if she was going to live or die.