Maeve Binchy - Quentins

"I don't think she cares about the computer," Barbara said.

"I agree with you and I don't believe she's handed it in."

"She told me she had given it back."

"She said given it back?"

"Those were her words. Then she said, "Well, to the Guards anyway"."

He was thinking hard. I still don't believe she would have done it. I know her voice, you see."

The telephone rang. "Can you answer it? It just might be her," he pleaded.

But it was Sandy at Firefly Films.

He stood listening.

"Who was that?"

"Just friends concerned for her."

"So they know I'm back, you can see I haven't much time."

"Do you know that I don't give a damn how much time you have, Don Richardson, or how little? Our only daughter had the misfortune to love you and she has ended up a hurt, damaged girl as a result. She lives with a sense of guilt and shame on account of you, and the fact that her father is a shell of a man, disgraced and empty, and that I live in a prefabricated hut instead of that house over there. She has wept oceans over your leaving her to live in a marriage that she thought was over. She wept further oceans when she thought you were dead. Now do you understand how little I care about how much time you have or don't have ? I do not know where Ella is, and if I did know, then by God I wouldn't tell you."

"I'll go now, Barbara, and I won't say any more. I urge you not to, either. Remember, there is still the possibility that Ella may forgive me and come with me. I don't want her to feel that the door to her mother and father is closed."

He was gone and Barbara Brady stood in her doorway shaking at the courage she had shown and her fear that Don Richardson might be right. Was it possible that, after everything, Ella would go back to him again? Derry walked by Quentins again. This time there was activity

inside. He knocked at the back door. "I'm Derry King. I'll be meeting you tonight," he said.

The tall dark man dusted the flour and sugar off his hands and gripped Derry's warmly. "Brenda told me all about meeting you at lunch. I couldn't be there. Someone had to run the shop."

"And it's an elegant shop I hear from all."

"Well, thanks to you we're going to make it more widely known, certainly. Come on in, won't you?"

If Patrick Brennan was the slightest bit surprised to see a caller at 6.30 in the morning, he showed no sign of it. He was always here at this hour to do the pastry cooking. He was bad at delegating, he admitted, and just couldn't hand it over to someone else. This was his real skill, and what he enjoyed most. Today he had to make two lemon tarts, a chocolate roulade, a chocolate mousse, a tray of poached pears, a great bowl of chocolate curls, two litres of praline ice-cream and a raspberry coulis.

"But do you have to start so early?"

"Well, I do, really, you need constant exact temperatures for desserts. Later in the day the ovens are always opening and closing. It's not as good."

And before the city woke up properly, Quentins seemed to be buzzing. A lad called Buzzo came in to hose out the dustbins in the lane and line them with heavy-duty rubbish sacks. He scrubbed out the kitchen and made a note of supplies needed.

"My brother used to do this at the start," Patrick explained. "But he's a family man now and he'll be going out to get us the vegetables, so we hired Buzzo. Poor divil, it's his only way of having a proper breakfast, getting a few euros together and still getting to school by nine a.m. He gets the money in his hand from me. I don't really approve, but if you had Buzzo's family . .."

"Drink, I guess?" Derry enquired.

"Oh, no. Drink they could cope with. Drugs, I'm afraid. Lives in a bad area. All his brothers are addicts and his father's a dealer."

"His mother?"

"Away with the fairies, spaced out for years now."

"No hope for the kid then?"

"He's survived so far. He's very bright, you see, so a few of us just make it easier for him to get by without having to be tempted by the drug money. Soon he'll be old enough to have a place on his own. He's gone down now to make tea and tidy up a bit for Kennedys" men, who are doing a job down the road." "Are they a good firm?"

"About the best. They did our last repaint job and I couldn't praise them enough."

There was the sound of a horn outside.

"It's the linen, Mr. Brennan. I'll take the sack down to them now," Buzzo called out.

Yesterday's dirty tablecloths and napkins went off at speed down the lane and Buzzo returned carrying a large box of folded replacements. This had just been placed in what was called Brenda's cupboard when the meat arrived.

By now the chef trainee had arrived, so he took over and Buzzo, with his folded bank note in his pocket, was heading off for the second job of the day. It reminded Derry so much of his own early years, finding any job that was going and nailing it down. He wished he could tell Buzzo how well it had turned out for him, but kids hated these preaching speeches, so he would say nothing.

The trainee, who was called Jimmy and was a bit slow for Patrick's liking, was being hastened through his coffee. His job now was to cut up the meat and have it ready for Chef to cook when the time came. At the same time he was to make a stock with the bones, chicken carcasses and vegetables that were in the cool room all tied up in plastic bags.

And then Blouse Brennan appeared to check the list of what they needed. "I'll have to buy courgettes. My own are ludicrous," he apologised.

"That's all right, Blouse, a lot of places buy all their vegetables," Patrick assured him.

Then the fish box came, from the fishmonger, and then boxes of wine from the supplier and the cheeses.

The assistant chef, Katie, said that there were three new cheeses today. She laid them out expertly on a marble-topped trolley in the cool room. "That's three more to teach the waiters how to explain and pronounce. I'll have to ring up the cheese man and check myself first. We don't want to look like eejits."

Derry smiled at her. If she were to say that to the camera, it would be very endearing. Ella had been right. Following a day in the restaurant was a good way to let the story unfold.

Ella! She was going to be fine. She had promised to ring if she wasn't. Ella wanted to be alone. She needed to think. She did not need endless helpful voices of friends telling her she was all right and that it was all right and everything was going to be all right. None of these things was true.

Don Richardson was coming after her. Or was he?

Could she take Sasha seriously? She needed to talk to somebody. It wasn't fair to wear Derry down with it all again. Perhaps Don would go to her parents" house.

She called her mother. And discovered that he had just left.

"How was he, Mother?"

The question seemed to upset Barbara Brady. "He was ... well, he was all right."

"No, Mother, I mean it."

"Well, what do you want to know? He wasn't pale or anxious .. ."

"I mean, was he sane or did he look as if he were going to come after me with a cleaver?"

"He thinks he's coming after you with an offer you can't refuse. He thinks you're going back to him."

"Then you've answered my question, Mother. He's far from sane and we must bring in the cavalry."

She phoned the Fraud Squad. They had heard. He would be in custody by evening.

Dee wasn't able to come to the phone, her message said. Ella saw Nick and Sandy watching her covertly through the glass door .. . she couldn't wait like this in a trap until he arrived. She had to get out. But she knew they wouldn't let her.

Leaving her jacket over the back of her chair and her handbag on the desk so that they would think she was coming back, she took her telephone and her wallet with her. She slipped out to the bathroom and to the side door into the lane. They would be annoyed, but she had to be alone. She hailed a cab and asked to be taken to Stephen's Green. From the back of the cab she dialled directory enquiries and got Michael Martin's number. She got through straight away.