“The other set match a known name, a heavy, someone Mark Thillingly would never have gone with. Supports the idea that it wasn’t him after all.” Sullivan clasped his hands together, delighted with himself. “You can’t use any of that, obviously. Not yet.”
“You know I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” Paddy said, trying to think of a way she could use it. “The lawyers won’t let us print anything that could prejudice a trial.”
“Aye. We don’t want these people walking because you put their name in the paper before they get to court.”
“What sort of names would I be not putting in the paper?”
Sullivan leaned toward her and whispered a single word before pulling away. “Lafferty.”
III
Kate had been waiting in the car for what felt like months, sitting doubled over her knees with her eyes tightly shut as her eyes streamed and tried to flush the solid crystal from the mucous membrane. As she sat there she swore she would cut the powder with something. She should have brought the milk powder from the cottage but who thought of these things.
When she finally felt she could sit up she was refreshed and feeling sensible. She had dealt with a medical emergency calmly and on her own. Well done me, she thought, and started the engine, backing out of the space slowly across the empty car park and pulling out onto the road.
The restaurant belonged to Archie and although Archie wasn’t really her friend he had always made it clear that he liked her. He tried to grope her a couple of times, running his fat American hands over her backside when he thought they were alone in the back corridor. Sometimes he followed her to the toilet during late-night lock-ins and once she had let him touch her breast and kiss her neck before fighting him off. Archie liked her a lot.
She cruised slowly past the crescent of shops, saw the TUSKS WINE BAR sign and the bright window behind the lowered white blind. It was a wine bar really, but they did little dishes, tapas, small tastes of delicious food. She’d tried a couple of things and they seemed really very good. Chips and an egg thing. Lovely.
She passed the street nearby that they usually parked in before going to Archie’s. She found a space and was about to reverse into it when she remembered she was trying to sneak around. If she knew to look there for his car, he’d know to look there for her car. Well done me.
A sharpened pencil through a drum of paper. She shook her hand as if trying to fleck off mud. Nasty feeling. She drove around the corner and parked there, on a suburban road, tucking it in tightly behind a big van so that if he was driving past her car would be hidden.
She would have a dry white wine, large, cold, and a giggle with Archie. She might let him seduce her. He was old, wasn’t attractive but she might let him anyway. It had been days since she had even spoken to anyone else and a night with a kind friend would be nice.
Feeling slightly squeamish about it, she put her handbag over her shoulder and stepped out of the gorgeous car, locking it and trying the door handle out of habit, just to be sure. She brushed her blond hair roughly with her fingers, tucking it loosely behind her ear, and did up the gold buttons on her navy suit. As she walked along the road to Archie’s she became more aware of being seen and started to sway her hips, to roll her shoulders and pout a little. She’d have a drink with Archie, scout the place, see if she could leave the pillow there somewhere, and maybe let Archie have his way.
The heat was radiating through the glass of the large window. She remembered a hundred nights here, all conflated into one door being opened for her, one table heaving with the most expensive wines, and Archie pressing dishes on all the guys to complement the wines and enhance the experience.
She smiled along with all the guys as they laughed about something, a joke she was half-listening to, a pun about types of French mustard, and smirking smugly, pushed the door open, clip-clopping down the glazed terra-cotta stairs into the circle of tiles that marked the reception area.
The restaurant was only half-busy but every single person there dropped their cutlery and stared at the door. Puzzled, Kate smiled faintly and turned back to look over her shoulder. There was no one behind her. She turned back and realized that they were all staring at her, gawping, being very very rude.
She tutted and adjusted the strap on her handbag, moving it up her shoulder and looking around for Phillipe, Archie’s maître d’. She didn’t have to wait. Archie himself came straight out of the back room, barreling across the floor when he saw her.
Kate flung her arms up in a great big glorious greeting. “Hello, darling.”
Archie took hold of her wrist, twisting it so that it actually hurt a bit, and pulled her outside, almost dragging her up the three semicircular steps to the street. Her handbag slid down her arm, bumping heavily on the tiles.
Outside, Archie turned to her, pressing his face an inch from hers. “Go away. I never want to see you here again.”
She dipped her chin down and looked up at him coquettishly. “Don’t be a meanie, Archie, I’ve had a rotten couple of days.” She ran her finger down the buttons on his shirtfront. “Be nice to me.”
“He’s after you, you know that?”
“I know, I know, it’s a misunderstanding. He thinks I did a naughty but I’m only naughty in a good way.” She smiled up at him, hoping he would get the sexy hint and take her home with him, look after her. She didn’t care that he was old tonight. She didn’t care that hair grew wildly out of his nose and the neck of his shirt. She didn’t care that he only had a restaurant. She wanted to touch someone and be touched. She needed human contact and a place to go.
“Archie.” Her hand slid up his shirt to the shoulder. It was a cheap shirt, she could hear the nylon fibers letting off a rip-zip sound as her fingertips slid across it. “You like me a lot, don’t you?”
He put his hairy fingers over hers and peeled her hand off his chest. “You know, Kate, I don’t like you. I think you’re a vacant twat. But there was a time when I’d have fucked you.” He held up his finger, drawing her attention to the salient point. “See, that’s different. I’d have fucked you because you were with him. But now-” He flicked his finger up and down her. “Now, I wouldn’t let you pay to suck my dick.”
It was the rudest anyone had ever been to her. Kate stepped back and stared at him. He was fat and old and wore cheap shirts and had hair everywhere. She was the prettiest girl in her year, the best-looking woman at the Marina Club, the biggest prize at each and every ball she had ever attended. She made a face like a little fist, knowing it suited her, playing her best card, and swung an open hand at his great fat head.
Archie grabbed her wrist and held her arm high. He was utterly unmoved. “Fuck off and don’t come back.”
Kate bit her lip. “You’re rude and vulgar,” she said and turned away, walking along the row of shut and shuttered shops, a designer clothes shop, a tobacconists’ that sold excellent cigars, an estate agents’. Lovely shops. She should come back here when they were open.
She felt Archie’s fat puffy eyes on her back all the way to the corner but she didn’t look back. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
She retained her composure until she climbed back into the car and locked the door. No one had ever spoken to her like that and she couldn’t believe he’d had the nerve. Rude, fat man. She let him touch her breast once, slip his fat, hairy hand into the silk blouse she was wearing and give her a squeeze.
She flipped down the sun shade over the passenger seat and turned it toward her, to check her hair and makeup in the mirror. She was far enough away from the strip of mirror to see the reflection of her whole face in it.
Kate gasped. It was too dark for color but she saw black tendrils coming from her nose, a thin black mess with bits, like an octopus climbing out of her nose legs first, a black string across her cheek into her hair, black into her mouth, black all over her chin. Her hair had black in it, in a lump over her ear. The skin under her eyes was puffy and blackened, as if she had been punched. She smiled hopefully at herself, a thin, nervous parody of the glorious smile she habitually gave herself in the mirror. She was missing a tooth, next to her front tooth. She didn’t even remember losing it. She looked like a tramp.