This Charming Man (68 page)

‘So Dee and her merry band of do-gooders are helping them. The women get access to a doctor, they get new documents, they stay with one of the do-gooders until it’s safe.’

‘Then they go home?’

That wouldn’t be so bad: if Dee was helping illegals to
leave
Ireland.

Damien shook his head. ‘They don’t send them home because apparently it’s just as bad there as it is here. They try to fix them up with live-in employment, as a nanny, that sort of thing. Some of the women they send to the UK. Which will do wonders for Irish-British relations,’ he said wearily. ‘An Irish government minister facilitating the entry of illegals into Britain. I’m fond of Dee, very fond. She’s a true idealist. But sometimes…’

‘Who’s putting the story together?’

‘Current affairs. Angus Sprott and Charlie Haslett. It’s Code Black.’

‘You have codes? You’re all so macho in there in the
Press
. So how did you find out?’

‘Charlie hacked into my files. I wondered why he couldn’t have just asked me for whatever he needed. The obvious conclusion was that he was working on something dodgy.’ He shrugged. ‘How could I resist?’

‘It can’t be
that
Code Black, then, ifyou were able to just hack into the file.’

‘His new baby is teething. He isn’t getting much sleep. I guess he forgot to secure it.’

‘How far advanced are they? When are they planning to run the story?’

‘As soon as they’ve got pictures.’

‘And when will that be?’

‘The next time one of the women is spirited into Dee’s house. Photographers are watching the place twenty-four-seven.’

I was shocked. Dee under constant surveillance? Like a terrorist?

The question that always cropped up whenever Dee was in trouble, cropped up again. ‘Who’s doing this? Like, any idea who the source is?’

‘The source?’

‘Right. I know.’ The identity of sources was never revealed because then – duh! – they wouldn’t be sources any more. ‘Keep your knickers on.’

‘Yeah, sorry. Anyway, the Chrisps have to be behind it because it’ll knock out not just Dee but the entire New Ireland party. There are rumours that a general election will be called soon. Probably in March. Like last time, the Nappies won’t win enough seats to form a government on their own. But if New Ireland is in disarray, they won’t have a coalition partner – leaving the way clear for the Chrisps.’

‘Damien, I’ve got to tell Dee.’

‘Why do you think I told you?’

‘But ifanyone finds out it came from you…’

He’d lose his job.

He paused. ‘I’ve thought about it. Let’s take that chance.’

‘Damien, you’re… you’re very good.’

‘Dee, who knows about it?’

I’d managed to get her early in the morning, before work, in her office in Leinster House, and I made her sit down then I told her what Damien had told me. The blood receded from her beautiful face and she became waxy and immobile. ‘How…?’

‘That’s what I’m asking you. Who knows about it?’

She undid her topknot and ran her fingers through her loose corkscrew hair, then she rounded it all up again, bringing stray springy strands into the fold, and twisted it back onto her head, even tighter than before.

Finally she spoke. ‘Only the girls themselves. And a handful of other people. But there’re so few of us and we all want the same thing…’ She suddenly focused on me. ‘And
you
know, Grace, but as you’re here warning me, I presume it’s not you.’

‘What about the other people? Damien said there’s a doctor? And a person who does documents? Could it be one of them?’

‘They’ve got as much to lose as me.’

‘Who could have accidentally found out? Who comes to your house? Have you a boyfriend?’

She shook her head sharply.

‘You said that to me before and you did have one.’

‘I’m sorry about that but I really don’t have one now.’

‘Your daughter?’

‘She lives in Milan.’

‘A cleaner?’

‘You’ve been to my house. Does it look like I’ve a cleaner?’

‘Friends? You have friends over for strange-looking pasta. You had Damien and me.’

She placed her palms flat on her desk. (Again, very attractive nail polish. A type of dull heather shade. As was the case with all Dee’s nail varnishes, it was nicer than it sounds.) ‘Look, Grace, this is how it works. It’s planned. Helping a girl get away isn’t easy and the window of opportunity is quite specific. I always have advance notice, usually a few days, when a girl is coming. So I clear the decks. Make sure no one else will be in the house at the same time.’

‘But Elena –’

‘Elena was an emergency. They don’t happen often.’

‘The fact is, Dee, that someone knows and someone has told.’

‘They’re only children, you know,’ she said sadly. ‘Young girls. You wouldn’t believe the appalling things that are done to them. They’re raped, starved, beaten, their bones are broken, cigarettes are stubbed out in their vaginas –’

‘Stop.’

‘I couldn’t not help them.’

‘Dee, I’m on your side, but you’re breaking the law! I’m not saying it’s not a cruel law but you’re a government minister. Ifyou don’t want to lose your job and your career and your political party – and you will ifthis comes out – you’d better find out who’s behind this. And find out quickly because the
Press
are keen to run the story.’

‘It’s got to be Bangers Brady and his Christian Progressives.’

‘That’s the obvious conclusion. But
who
in the Christian Progressives?’

‘They’re a big party. It could be any number of them.’

‘No, Dee, you have to focus. Some
one
has it in for you.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Every day of my life I know that lots of someones have it in for me.’

‘What I mean is, Dee, you’re so used to being pilloried from all quarters that you’ve forgotten that terrible things don’t happen simply because of
random forces of evil swilling around in the ether, but that terrible things happen because individual human beings make them happen.’

I thought it was a very good speech actually. I wondered ifshe was impressed.

She looked like she was fighting back a smile. And this was no smiling matter! Briefly I had a spy-film, betrayal-all-around, no-one-can-be-trusted moment when I wondered if Dee herselfwas the source. It was like seeing double, but in your brain.

‘Dee?’

‘Grace, I’m not laughing. I’m very grateful. I’ll go through everything I have, I’ll talk to the others, I’ll find out who’s done this.’

‘Dee, you need to find out
fast
and get them to stop the story. And in the meantime you can’t have anyone – any of the girls – showing up at your house. Once the
Press
have photos, they’re running the story.’

‘Morning, morning, morning, morning, morning,’ I greeted TC, Lorraine, Clare, Tara and – yes – even Joanne.

‘Still freezing out there?’ TC was keen to moan about life in general and usually he would find a willing accomplice in me.

‘Still freezing,’ I replied briskly, scanning the deluge of press releases in my mailbox. Without wasting time wondering ifthey were good or bad, I picked out five possible stories to pitch to Jacinta whenever she came in, then, watched with extreme suspicion by TC, I began to write names in a random fashion on my jotter: Dee Rossini; Toria Rossini; Bangers Brady; Toria Rossini’s husband, whatever his name was; Christopher Holland; Me; Damien; Paddy de Courcy; Sidney Brolly; Angus Sprott; Scott Holmes, the journalist who’d done the horrible piece with Christopher Holland.

Anyone I could think of who had been connected with Dee over the past six months, I scattered their names around the page.

‘What are you up to?’ TC asked.

‘Nothing.’ I shielded the page with my arm.

I was doing something that I’d read of detectives in Val McDermid novels doing: they write down everything they know about a case, including all the confusing loose ends, and they look for a pattern or a connection. But maybe it doesn’t happen in real life. Maybe real detectives can’t break into houses with a credit card either. Maybe real detectives in Hawaii never say, ‘Book him, Danno.’

But I didn’t know any other way. I bounced my pen off my page. Who else? Dee’s ex-husband, of course. As I sightlessly scanned the office, seeking inspiration, David Thornberry unfolded himself from his desk and grabbed his cigarettes. There’s another one, I thought, and scribbled his name down. He’d had an exclusive on ‘Dee’s daughter’s unpaid wedding scandal’, which Big Daddy hadn’t let him go with. While I was about it, I wrote down Coleman Brien’s name too.

Then I scribbled a series of questions, scattering them around the page, trying not to overthink them. ‘Who painted Dee’s house?’ ‘Where was her daughter’s wedding held?’ ‘Who recommended the hotel?’ ‘Where did Dee meet Christopher Holland?’ ‘Who was his previous girlfriend?’ ‘Who was Dee’s previous boyfriend?’ ‘Who told Dee about the Moldovan girls?’ ‘Who did the documents for them?’ ‘Did they know someone in the Chrisps?’ ‘Did they know Christopher Holland?’

The page was pretty full. Maybe I was going to have to go to the stationery cupboard for a bundle of index cards and write stuff on them, then fling them around the floor to see what story unfolded in the formation they landed in. But maybe real detectives don’t do that either.

I stared at the page, dense with writing. Assuming I’d included everything that was relevant – and Christ alone knew whether I had or hadn’t – somewhere in there was a connection which should hint at the person or persons who were gunning for Dee.

I drew arrows, connecting names to statements, trying to stay open-minded, trying to let a different energy guide me.

But I don’t believe in energy. I don’t believe in intuition. I don’t believe in hunches.

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?’