Ninemile House Page 18

  “Yeah, you!” Molly, flicked the crumbs of her doughnut from her fingers as she passed.

  “Oh, ha, ha, very witty. Very funny,” he called after them. “Let’s hope you’re not laughing on the other side of your face before too long.”

  After that, the harassment, far from getting better, escalated to the pitch where Derry was beginning to feel not only edgy, but frightened as well. Now it seemed he never took his eyes off her. Everywhere she went, he there ahead of her, or materialised shortly after. If she ventured to the water cooler, you could bet your life he was already leaning against it. If, thinking the coast was clear, she popped into the staff room it was to find he had already taken up residence. It was as if he had some inbuilt radar that made him aware of her movements, almost before she was aware of them herself. More worryingly he had taken to leaving at the same time as her each day despite her varying the times in an effort to shake him off and recently he had followed her to where her car was parked, standing on the opposite side of the road, no doubt grinning when he saw how she fumbled with the keys.

  “Derry, what on earth has got into you!” Frustrated when she had rebuffed him several nights in a row, James sat up in bed and switched on the bedside light. Derry threw her arm across her eyes, as if blinded by the sudden light, but a moment later a tear trickled down from underneath and it became evident that she was crying. “Derry?” James said again, this time anxiously and completely at a loss as to what had upset her.

  “It’s nothing, honestly, I’m okay,” Derry whispered, but a sudden sob gave the lie to that and a moment later she was crying in his arms as though her heart would break, her tears drenching the bare skin of his chest.

  “Hey, hey, now,” James soothed, his hand stroking comforting circles on her back. “Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad, surely? Just tell me and we’ll sort it out, I promise. We’re a team, Mrs Quinn, remember? For better or worse.”

  Too broken and dispirited to keep it to herself any longer, the whole story of how the Slug had been harassing her came tumbling out.

  “You should have told me,” James fumed. “Tomorrow, I’ll go up there and kick his teeth out. So help me, I’ll make bits of him. He’ll rue the day he ever messed with my wife.”

  Despite herself, Derry grinned at this old-fashioned display of male breast-beating. Despite what he liked to think, James was not the physical type. He was a politician. He talked his way out of trouble.

  “No, really, you don’t have to involve yourself. It’s enough to know that I have my very own Superman in my corner to call on, should I need him. I’ll report him to Dave Mercer tomorrow. I should have done it ages ago.”

  Clearly unhappy, James frowned. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go up there and batter him? I will, you know. You’ve only got to say the word. Nobody but nobody is going to get away with stalking my wife.”

  “He won’t.” Feeling better already for having shared her fears, Derry sniffed loudly. “Besides, you have to think of your image. How would it look if pictures of you were plastered all over the press having a pop at the Slug. The electorate don’t like things like that. They like their politicians to appear whiter than white, even if underneath they’re ducking and diving like Mohammed Ali.”

  “I don’t care about that,” James protested, burying his lips in her hair. “You mean more to me than any of that stuff.”

  “Well, I do. You worked your butt off to get where you have and I see no reason why you should lose everything on account of a weasel like Petey O’Donnell.” Derry shifted her weight more comfortably against him. “Anyway, I don’t know why I let him get under my skin so much. It’s not as if it’s the first time I’ve come up against a chauvinist pig. Normally I’d chew him up and spit him out again.”

  “Your reserves are low, I expect. After all, it’s been a fraught few months what with supporting me through the elections and the Gabby business and all that.” James cleared his throat, putting Derry immediately on the alert. “Speaking of Gabby, can I take it you’ve dropped the idea of tracking down her child, now that she’s made it crystal clear how she feels?”

  Derry stiffened. For a moment it crossed her mind to lie, to say that, yes, she’d abandoned the idea completely, only she was a very bad liar and it would take James all of approximately five seconds to call her to account.

  “No, I haven’t given up entirely,” she admitted. “Put it this way, it won’t hurt to know where he is, in case she ever does change her mind. But I won’t go further than that at this point. Is that a deal?” As it happened Rusty’s private eye hadn’t managed to dig up anything concrete yet, so it was still academic anyway and a promise easily made.

  James sighed. “I suppose it will have to do.” Tipping her chin up, he gazed saucily into her eyes. “And now, Derry Quinn, what are the chances that we can go further.”

  God, how she loved him, Derry thought, tears completely forgotten as her lips gave her answer, and she managed once more to forget the awful suspicions that still lurked menacingly at the back of her mind.

  ***

  As it happened, Derry never got the chance to report Petey. When she arrived at the Oracle the following morning it was to find the staff agog with excitement.

  “Have you heard the news?” Molly rushed up to her, as fast as her bulk would allow. “It’s Petey O’Donnell. He’s only gone and quit. No word of a lie! Marched in smart as you like to Dave Mercer’s office and left the door wide open the way everyone would hear what he had to say.”

  “Which was?” Agog, herself, and more than a little relieved that she would never again be on the end of the Slug’s unpleasantness, Derry urged her on.

  “Oh, boys oh boys, he had plenty to say all right. It must have been festering in him for years. No wonder he stank.” Molly shook her head as if in despair, but it was clear from the brightness of her eyes that she was revelling in the drama. “Only went and tore poor David off a strip, didn’t he? Told him he was nothing but a two-bit hack who had got further than he ever thought by climbing on the backs of truly talented journalists, like himself. Then finished off by saying that at least the Trib could recognise real genius when they saw it and he was off to greener fields where he’d be appreciated and not shat upon by the world and his whoring wife.”

  At the mention of the Oracle’s main rival, Derry’s eyebrows rose so far, they almost disappeared into her hairline. “The Trib? Petey O’Donnell’s been headhunted by the Trib? Not in a million years!”

  “Hard to believe, I know.” Molly bristled with the importance of her news. “And that’s not all. He was boasting that he’d managed to bag himself a huge scoop, some project he’s been working on for ages, apparently. That must have been what all that cloak and dagger stuff was about, you remember when he had that bit of stuff in his office and the pair of us were almost killed wondering who she was.”

  Derry felt herself go cold at this reference to Sinead, although instinct cautioned her to keep quiet about revealing the identity of James’s secretary. Not that there was anything to fear in Molly, although a gossip columnist was a gossip columnist and there were some amongst the breed, that would sell their own grandmothers if it brought them acclaim within the profession and a job with the broadsheets. Instead she tried to appear interested in a casual kind of way.

  “So, what kind of scoop? Did he say?”

  Molly hooked an untidy strand of hair back behind her ear. “Nah. Still, you know Petey O’Donnell, it was probably all wind and piss. I have a theory that that man is solely responsible for the whole global warming issue. They should have put a tax on him years ago, given all the hot air he spouts.”

  “You could be right,” Derry agreed, watching Molly’s eye roving around for the next newsworthy recipient. “In any case, if it’s bad news, it won’t take long to filter through.” She fluttered her fingers as the other woman honed in on a likely candidate coming through the door and rushed over to accost him before anyone else got there f
irst. “Anyway, I’d better go and do some work. Catch you later.”

  More disturbed that she cared to acknowledge, even to herself, she was just about to sit down at her desk when David Mercer, the editor in chief, opened the door to his office and beckoned her in.

  “Derry, can you pop in here for a moment, please?”

  “Sure.” Derry turned and followed him into his office, slightly puzzled when he pointedly closed the door behind them and waved her into the seat opposite his desk, his brow corrugated into a fierce frown.

  Wasting no time on preliminaries, he nailed her with a look. “I gather Molly has filled you in about Petey’s sudden departure?”

  “Me and everybody else she can get her hands on,” Derry shrugged. “You know what Molly’s like. A klaxon on legs.”

  “Indeed, I do.” The editor smiled briefly, the lines at the side of his mouth turning to deep crevices. Distinguished rather than handsome, Dave Mercer was one of those men who came into their own in middle age and these days although his hair was more silver than black, his frank sea-green eyes and overall air of wisdom and gravitas, caused women to look at him more than once and both sexes to trust him instinctively. A rare quality indeed in a newsman and one he had no hesitation in exploiting. “But Derry, it’s not Molly I want to talk about. It’s Petey. Did you know that he’s really gunning for you?”

  Derry grimaced. “Well, put it this way, I know he isn’t exactly my number one fan, and if I was ever in any doubt, his recent actions have put an end to those.” “Oddly enough, I had already made up my mind to speak to you today. Still it looks like that’s all academic now.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” Dave Mercer shuffled uncomfortably. “He’s got something on you, Derry. I don’t know exactly what, but in the midst of all the vitriol he spewed at me this morning, he also threw in a few broad hints relating to you. If I were you I’d be on my guard.” He smiled to take the sting out of the warning. “Oh, it was probably nothing at all and I’m not trying to frighten you. But just be a little bit careful, eh?”

  “Thanks, Dave.” Derry stood up, aware that her legs were shaking and hoping the trembling wouldn’t transmit itself to her voice. Dave Mercer’s respect and good opinion were important to her and the last thing she wanted to appear like was some air head bimbo on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “I’ll remember what you said, although I truly can’t think of anything that he could get mileage out of.” Except, Gabby, she thought dismally, nodding her head in acknowledgement and exchanging brief automatic greetings with colleagues as they passed. Dear God, she prayed silently, don’t let it be that. Gabby was making such good progress, the last thing she needed was to be invaded by the press. That was the last thing any of them needed, come to that.

  As she reached her desk, the phone was ringing. Picking it up with nerveless fingers, Derry was surprised to find her voice come out in a croak. “Yes?”

  “Mrs Quinn?” The disembodied voice at the other end was gravely, unfamiliar. “Jerry Steinberg here. Rusty Buchanan referred you to me. Concerning your sister’s son?”

  Light dawned. The American PI! “Oh, yes, yes of course.” Derry’s grip tightened on the handset. “Did you . . . have you found him?”

  “Affirmative!” The word splashed into the atmosphere like a pebble in a pond. Derry could already feel the ripples starting to spread out in who knew what direction. She drew in a deep ragged breath. This had certainly been a morning for surprises. “I can send the details over to you right now, if you let me have your email address.”

  Right now? Derry stared blankly ahead of her, assailed by sudden doubts. God, was she really ready for this? She’d been so certain before, but now . . .

  “Mrs Quinn?” A note of impatience entered the PI’s voice. “Mrs Quinn are you still there?”

  “Yes. Yes.” Derry steeled herself. As she read out the details, she could hear him tapping them onto his keyboard and moments later, such was the miracle of technology, the little golden envelope containing details of her long-lost nephew floated onto the screen and hovered tauntingly before her eyes. Long after the PI rang off, leaving only an eerie line of static stretching from one side of the Atlantic to the other, she sat gazing at it, aware that this was one of those seminal moments in life. The contents of that innocent looking little email were like an unexploded bomb which, once detonated, had the possibility of blowing several lives apart. The question was, had she the courage to detonate it? As a way of buying time, she got up and went for a cup of coffee in the staff room which was buzzing with speculation over Petey O’Donnell’s sudden departure. One or two people ventured to involve her in the discussions, but Derry’s mind had moved on and so she didn’t linger, just took her cup straight back to her desk. Psyching herself up, she clicked back into her in-box, located the email from the American PI and opened it. And suddenly there he was, her long-lost nephew staring back at her with her own eyes, with Gabby’s eyes. Welling up, so that the photo blurred in and out of focus, Derry scanned his face minutely, lingering on the features that were so much like those of her own family, and yet which carried the stamp of his father’s people too. “Michael Kinnane!” The echoes of her mother’s voice came back loud and clear. “That’s what went wrong. God rot him!” Well Michael Kinnane must have been very handsome, Derry thought, because you would have to go a long way to find any one half so handsome as his son. No wonder Gabby had fallen for his charms!

  Tearing her eyes away, she quickly scanned the PI’s report accompanying the picture, almost choking as she took in his occupation. How bloody ironic! Perhaps it was just as well that Gabby had no wish to reunite with her son. After everything that she had suffered, the knowledge of what he had chosen to do with his life would surely kill her.

  ***

  “Dear Angie,

  I haven’t heard a word from you and I hope you’re all right. Do you think you could drop me a line, because you have me a bit worried. You know, I really, really miss you, even though I am starting to get used to a “normal” life. Nobody else understands what it was like at Ninemilehouse. They all seem to think I should just forget about it now. Derry says I should draw a line under it and move on. She says the bad times are behind me now and I have to look to the future. Oh, but Ange, it really isn’t that easy. There’s times I wake up in the morning and think I’m back there still and my heart starts beating really hard and I get that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach like I used to get whenever I was in trouble and Sr Peter was on the warpath.

  And yet, Ange, in a funny kind of way, I miss it. I miss you. I miss knowing where I’m supposed to be at a certain time and what I’m supposed to be doing. Despite everything, I kind of fitted in back there. I’m not sure I fit in here at all or if I ever will. That’s not to say I don’t like it here. I do. And I love being with my sister and her family. They’re so kind. I just don’t know if I can ever be like them!

  Gabby broke off for a moment, chewing the end of the pen meditatively.

  “Now don’t go getting mad at me. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful – especially when you are still holed up in that place – but, you know, this freedom takes a bit of getting used to too. I’m nearly always frightened, except when I’m with Mahendra.” A slow smile spread across her face as she wrote the name. “Do you remember me mentioning him before? The Indian man? Well I work in his shop now – just stacking shelves and doing a bit of stocktaking and things and only for a few hours each week. He really is a very kind man, Ange, and I’m blushing as I write this – wait for it – we held hands when we went or a walk on the beach a few evenings ago. Imagine that! Me holding hands with a man. Sr Peter would kill me. She’d march me straight up to confession. But, Ange, that’s not wrong is it? Holding hands is not dirty. I really like him and I think he likes me.

  Write soon. God bless you.

  Gabby

  PS. Give my love to Mary and Clare.”

  ***

  Unsure what to do with the
information, Derry sat on it for a few days, although she fully intended telling James, but suddenly he seemed distracted again, easily irritated by everyone and everything and, once more, Derry found her mind travelling down a path down which she had no wish to follow. Easier said than done and soon she was back to watching him like a hawk, sneaking around ear-wigging on his phone conversations and analysing every little nuance and snippet of conversations when the meaning wasn’t immediately patently clear, till she felt like her head would burst from the strain of it all.