"Thanks, Nick, and I always think you look very handsome, too," she said.
"No, you look as if you've been on a ten-day binge. You've got huge dark circles under your eyes."
"Yes, Nick. Sorry, Nick. Now tell me, is there any good news on the search for investors?"
"There's other news first ... Sandy and I are going to get married," he said sheepishly.
She flung her arms around him. "I'm so pleased. You'll be very happy, both of you."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because you're such friends. That's a huge start."
"Weren't you and Don friends?"
"No, as it happened, it didn't seem to matter at the time, but looking back on it, of course that was the huge gap in it all."
"What are you going to do about his bloody computer?"
"I gave it away," she said, looking straight at him.
"No, you didn't, Ella."
"Why should I keep it?"
He looked at her, his head on one side. I know you, for heaven's sake. You didn't give it away. Who would you give it to, for one thing?"
"I don't have it." She looked mutinous.
"You do, Ella. You're talking to me, your friend. I know you have it and you must give it to the Fraud Squad as quick as possible and don't have these goons coming after you. Give it in, be done with it, I beg you." His face was troubled.
"There's nothing in it, anyway."
"So what's the problem then?"
"It's not something you do, informing, sneaking, getting people into trouble."
Nick looked at her in disbelief. "Listen to yourself speak for a moment. What has he done, Ella? Think for a moment. Just because you loved him doesn't make you remotely his sort of person. We're just not the kind of people who do everything under the table and run like rats when it all goes up in flames."
"Okay, Nick, don't go on."
"I have to go on. You seem to have lost your marbles on this one, Ella. You did not give it away. If you had, he wouldn't be looking for it all over the place."
"There's nothing on it."
"There must be some information in there. Why do you think he's set Mike Martin on to you? Saying give us a number to phone. Or else."
"He didn't say "Or else", did he?"
"No, but it was in Martin's tone."
"What do you think I should do, Nick?"
If you won't give it to the police then go away," he said.
"I can't go away. You know that. This isn't the time for a holiday. My head would explode."
It wouldn't be a holiday. It would be work, paid work."
"Where?"
"New York City! We've had more good news. The King Foundation says we've got to the next level. We're on the shortlist."
"Nick, that's great. Why didn't you tell me?"
"There were bigger things to talk about. But this is great, and one of us has to go, so it's perfect timing. Go on, Ella. It would solve everything."
I can't leave all my jobs."
"We've asked round. They'll all let you go. Tom and Cathy, Quentins, Colm's and Deirdre's laboratory. The only parties having any problems with this are Maud and Simon, who have learned whatever it is you asked them to and fear they might have forgotten it when you come back."
"You asked them without telling me .. . you dared to do this on my behalf?" Ella was incensed.
"We had to prove to you that you could go, before we bought the ticket."
"Ticket?" she said.
"Yes, yes. You need a plane ticket to get to New York. Go, Ella."
"Make the call," she said suddenly. Til go out and look at the river."
Til tell him you are away and it will be true," Nick said. Mike Martin answered the phone.
"I went to find her," Nick said slowly.
"And?"
"And she's not here, apparently." "Not here? What does that mean?" "What it says. She's gone away. No one knew where." "Who did you ask?"
"Her various employers. You can check with them." "She'd be wise not to play around with Don." "Oh, I'm sure she knows that now, but at the time she probably thought it was a good idea and that he meant what he said and that sort of thing."
"You're a smart-arse, aren't you, Nick?"
"No, I'm relatively simple, but I was pleased that Ella is away, as it happens, and hope that she's strong enough to face you all when she gets home." He hung up, shaking. Ella came back from the river.
"They believe you've gone, Ella, so now let me brief you properly on Derry King." "On what?"
"A very rich guy indeed. He set up a foundation to help artists and film-makers. More strong black coffee. All the hopes and the entire current assets of Firefly Films are going into this trip." "You can't do this to me, Nick." Ella was alarmed. "We have to. It's our only hope." I'm fragile. You said yourself I look like shit." "You have two and a half days before you meet him. You could paint your face or something." Her parents were pleased with the news. It will get you out in the real world again," her mother said.
"Lord, I don't think staying in a Manhattan hotel and trying to get a man to invest in a tiny Irish company is exactly what you'd call the real world," Ella said.
"It's a change," her father said.
"There's one thing I have to tell you. Otherwise I can't go. You know that man, Mike Martin? He's often on television."
"I know him," her father said.
"Well, he's a friend of Don's, apparently, and Don is looking for a laptop machine he left in my flat. So Mike Martin might just possibly come and ask you about it. Suppose he does come and enquire. Can I ask you to say you have no idea where I am, but you know I took a laptop with me? I hate the lies, more lies, but it's nearly true. I am taking it with me, and you won't know where I am every hour of the day." She looked from one to the other pleadingly.
"That's fine. We'll say it just like that," her mother said.
"You never tell us your movements, that's what we'll say," her father agreed.
"And you won't let them browbeat you or anything?" She was looking at her parents fondly.
"Browbeat . .. what a marvellous word. I wonder what it means." Her father was smiling a less papery smile than he had some months back.
"Let's look it up, Dad." She went for the dictionary. It wasn't all that helpful. It meant to bear down on someone sternly, to bully them.
"We knew that already," he said.
"It's from Old English, "bru"," Ella read.
"A lot of help that is," her mother laughed.
They were much more like a happy family out there in the shed than they had ever been before. Ella called in briefly to the twins in Muttie and Eizzie's house.
"Hallo, Ella. We heard you weren't coming. We were just talking about you." Simon sounded pleased.
"You were?" Ella was apprehensive.
"The man who rang and said you're not coming for two weeks, was that the bastard?"
"No, no it wasn't at all. It was Nick, a very nice man."
"Is he part of your future?"
"No, Simon, he's not, as it happens." Ella had a nearly irresistible urge to say that Nick was part of her distant past, the first man she had slept with, in fact. But not with those two, never wise to let them have any real information at all.
Til tell Maud. She's making fudge in the kitchen."
"Simon, I'll be posting a letter in the mail to you. We were meant to be doing some geometry this week . . ."
"But we don't have to work if you're not here, surely?"
"You don't have to, but wouldn't it be nice if when I got back you had both studied this nice, easy explanation that I've written out for you about circles?"
"Oh, they're too hard. We couldn't understand those at all. One thing was the radius and then they called it the diameter and then they called it the circumference .. . no, that's too hard on our own."