But then her story took on a whole new dimension when she and five others died in a helicopter crash somewhere along the north Donegal coast. The outpouring of national grief that followed was phenomenal and curiosity about her lingered in the ether for months.
So while the book may be an attempt by Jimmy’s publisher to cash in on an early wave of nostalgia, Jimmy himself sees it as more than that – because as far as he’s concerned, whatever nostalgia there might be is not just for the dead girl, it’s for the dead boom as well, for the vanished good times she’d been the potent, scented, stockinged, lubricious poster-girl for…
In any case, the point is: it’s an angle. He has ideas. He’s excited. He’s getting paid.
And, in ten minutes’ time, he’s meeting the dead girl’s sister.
A first-hand source.
But then it hits him again, comes in another wave. Phil Sweeney wants to pay him to drop the story?
It’s insane.
Tell me it’s not the prospect of the last chapter they’re drooling over.
For fuck’s sake.
The last chapter of the book, covering the twenty-four hours leading up to the crash, was always going to be the most interesting one – Susie still in crisis over the whole Celebrity Death Row controversy, Susie turning up uninvited at Drumcoolie Castle, Susie sending that weird series of texts, Susie’s last-minute decision to go along for the helicopter ride.
Jimmy shifts on the stool.
Susie’s unerring, compulsively watchable, creepily addictive little Totentanz…
He stares at a row of bottles behind the bar.
It’s so obvious now that Phil Sweeney is covering for someone, a friend or a client, some balding, paunchy fuck who was maybe having an affair with Susie at the time and doesn’t want the whole thing dredged up again now, doesn’t want his name associated with her, doesn’t want his reputation or his marriage put in jeopardy.
Jimmy lifts his glass.
But could it really be as banal as that, and as predictable? Unprepossessing rich bloke, gorgeous girl on a fast-ticking career clock? Then this grubby, undignified attempt a few years later to pretend it never happened?
He downs most of what’s left in the glass.
He thinks of all that research material laid out on his desk. He’s gone through it a hundred times, but maybe he needs to go through it again, with a fresh eye, a colder eye – in case he missed something: a detail in a photo maybe, a telling glance, a bit of furtive hand-holding.
Evidence.
Not that it’ll make any difference, because even if something does turn up, what’s he supposed to do? Not write the book just to save the blushes of some solicitor or banker friend of Phil Sweeney’s?
Jimmy drains his glass and puts it back on the bar.
This is only speculation, of course. But it means he’s going to have to phone Sweeney back. Find out what the story is.
Out of respect, if for no other reason.
And the sooner he does so the better.
He looks at his watch.
But not before this meeting with Maria Monaghan.
Jimmy gets off the stool and gathers up his stuff from the bar – keys, phone and change. They go in various pockets. The newspaper he takes in his hand. He looks at it for a moment, then leaves it on the stool.
He nods at the barman on his way out.
Conway moves away from the window, head still pounding. He walks over to the doorway, hears voices and follows them. In the kitchen Danny is drawing quietly at the table and Jack is playing on the floor. Corinne is cooking something in a wok. Molly is beside her, looking up, her nose wrinkled in distaste.
‘I don’t like that.’
‘But sweetheart, you don’t even know what it is.’
‘I don’t like it.’
Conway stands for a while by the fridge, observing the scene. He is about to make a comment when he hears a key in the front door.
Everyone turns around.
‘MOMMY.’
A few moments later, Ruth walks into the kitchen. Within seconds she is being harangued, pulled at, climbed on.
‘MOMMY, MOMMY, LOOK AT THIS! MOMMY!’
‘I’m looking,’ Ruth says. ‘I’m looking.’
‘She took my Woody,’ Danny says, ‘and hid him in the washing machine.’
‘I didn’t hide him there,’ Molly says, stopping short of adding your Honour, ‘I put him there.’
Conway starts massaging his temples.
Ruth catches his eye.
‘You OK?’
He nods yes, but it’s not very convincing.
‘MOMMY.’
Raising her arms over Danny in exasperation, Ruth says, ‘Please, chicken, quiet for a second, Mommy needs to talk to Daddy.’
Corinne intervenes. ‘OK, guys, dinner is ready. Time to wash hands.’
She herds them off.
In the sudden calm that follows, Ruth looks at Conway. ‘So, did you go to the doctor?’
He nods another unconvincing yes.
‘And?’
‘Nothing. He said it was tension.’
‘I could have told you that. I did tell you that.’ She takes a grape from a bowl on the counter. ‘You worry too much.’
He doesn’t say anything. It’s not an argument he can win without getting into areas he doesn’t want to get into.
He watches as she breaks another grape off and pops it in her mouth.
Ruth is a redhead, with green eyes and pale, freckled skin. After three kids, she’s heavier than she used to be – but then again, and without her perfectly reasonable excuse, so is he. She’s still good-looking though, gorgeous in fact, curvier than before and therefore, as far as Conway is concerned, sexier… a perception these days, it must be said, that is filtered through the alienating prism of extreme and permanent exhaustion.
‘Did you get to talk to Larry Bolger?’
‘Yeah, this afternoon. Finally. ’
They’d been playing phone tag for a couple of days.
‘What did he want?’
‘I’m not sure really. I’m meeting him tomorrow.’
‘He didn’t say?’
‘No.’
‘Strange.’ She reaches across the counter for a bottle of Evian. ‘I wonder what he’s up to these days. He probably just wants to talk. Rake over old times. Revisit old grievances.’ She opens the bottle of water and takes a sip from it. ‘Summon up old ghosts.’
Conway stares at her.
Shit.
Of course.
That’s precisely what the old bastard wants to do. He must have heard the same thing Phil Sweeney heard.
Susie Monaghan.
Old ghosts…
Ruth returns his stare. ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ Conway shakes his head. ‘I’ve just… remembered something.’
Realised something.
The headache. He’s had it since the other night, since around the time he first heard Bolger had phoned looking for him. Which means it really is tension – but not because of the banks, or Tara Meadows, or his kids, or some stupid crush he might have on the au pair.
It’s because of…
‘Honey,’ Ruth says. ‘What’s wrong?’
… a very different convergence…
‘You’ve gone pale.’
… of very different pulses…
He shakes his head again.
… of anxiety.
‘No,’ he says, ‘I’m… I’m fine.’
Conway mightn’t have seen the dots straightaway, mightn’t have wanted to see them.
Ruth leans forward. ‘You sure?’
But he sees them now, sees where they connect.
‘Yeah,’ he says, and reaches up to open a cupboard. ‘I just… I need to take something for this damn headache.’