Cecelia Ahern - One Hundred Names

Patrick Quinn

Gloria Flannery

Susan Flood

Kieran Kidd

Anthony Kershaw

Janice O’Meara

Angela O’Neill

Eugene Cullen

Evelyn Meagher

Barry Meegan

Aiden Traynor

Seamus Tully

Diana Zukov

Bin Yang

Gabriela Zat

Barbara Tomlin

Benjamin Toland

Anthony Spencer

Aidan Somerville

Patrick Leahy

Cyril Lee

Dudley Foster

Josephine Fowler

Colette Burrows

Ann Kimmage

Dermot Murphy

Sharon Vickers

George Wallace

Michael O’Fagain

Lisa Dwyer

Danny Flannery

Karen Flood

Máire O’Muireagáin

Barry O’Shea

Frank O’Rourke

Claire Shanley

Kevin Sharkey

Carmel Reilly

Russell Todd

Heather Spencer

Ingrid Smith

Ken Sheeran

Margaret McCarthy

Janet Martin

John O’Shea

Catherine Sheppard

Magdalena Ludwiczak

Declan Keogh

Siobhán Kennedy

Dudley Foster

Denis MacCauley

Nigel Meaney

Thomas Masterson

Archie Hamilton

Damien Rafferty

Ian Sheridan

Gordon Phelan

Marie Perrem

Emma Pierce

Eileen Foley

Liam Greene

Aoife Graham

Sinéad Hennessey

Andrew Perkins

Patricia Shelley

Peter O’Carroll

Seán Maguire

Michael Sheils

Alan Waldron

Carmel Wagner

Jonathan Treacy

Lee Reehill

Pauric Naughton

Ben Gleeson

Darlene Gochoco

Desmond Hand

Jim Duffy

Maurice Lucas

Denise McBride

Jos Merrigan

Frank Jones

Gwen Megarry

Vida Tonacao

Alan Shanahan

Orla Foley

Simon Fitzgerald

Katrina Mooney

There was no summary, synopsis or anything to explain who these people were or what the story was. Kitty looked in the envelope for more but there was nothing.

‘What does it say?’ Pete asked, no longer able to stand the silence.

‘It’s a list of names,’ Kitty replied.

The names had been typed and were numbered along the left-hand side from one to one hundred.

‘Are the names familiar?’ Pete asked, stretching his body so far over the table he was practically crawling on it.

Kitty shook her head, feeling a failure again. ‘Maybe you guys will recognise them.’ She slid the page down the table and the other three jumped on it like lions on a piece of fresh meat. They placed it in the centre of the table in front of Pete and huddled round it. Kitty watched their faces, hoping for some signs of recognition but when they finally lifted their heads, looking as confused as she had, she sank back in her chair both relieved and confused. Should she know what the names meant? Had she and Constance had a conversation about it before? Was there a hidden message?

‘What else is in the envelope?’ Pete asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘Let me see.’

He doubted her again, and she in turn doubted herself, despite looking inside it twice. Quickly seeing there was no further information he tossed the envelope back on the table and Kitty dived for it and held it protectively as if he had thrown a baby.

‘Did she keep notes?’ Pete asked Bob. ‘In a book or on file? Maybe there’s something in the office.’

‘If there is, it will be downstairs,’ Bob said, looking at the names again. ‘My dear Constance, what on earth were you up to?’

Kitty couldn’t help but laugh. Constance would love seeing them all huddled round, scratching their heads.

‘It’s hardly funny, Kitty,’ Pete said. ‘The feature won’t make much sense if we don’t have a story from Constance.’

‘I disagree,’ she said, surprised. ‘It’s the last piece Constance suggested for the magazine.’

‘I’d still prefer to include Constance’s story,’ Pete said stubbornly. ‘It’s what I want the other stories to revolve around. If we don’t have Constance’s story, I’m not sure about the idea at all.’

‘But Constance’s story is just a list of names,’ Kitty said, losing confidence in herself. She didn’t want the entire tribute piece to rest on her ability to piece together what on earth this list meant. There wasn’t enough time, and the time that they did have happened to be the worst time of Kitty’s life. She was feeling far from inspired and her self-belief was at an all-time low. ‘There’s nothing to explain where Constance was going with it or how she was feeling about it.’

‘Well then, Cheryl will do it,’ Pete said quickly, taking them all by surprise. ‘She’ll figure it out.’ He snapped his folder shut and straightened up.

‘With all due respect, I think Kitty should do it,’ Bob said.

‘But she just said she didn’t think she could.’

‘She just needs a little encouragement, Pete,’ Bob said, a little firmer then. ‘It’s a daunting task.’

‘Fine,’ Pete said suddenly. ‘We have two weeks until we go to print. Kitty, keep me up to date with how you’re getting on. I’d like daily feedback.’

‘Daily?’ she asked, surprised.

‘Yep.’ He gathered his things and made for Constance’s, his , office.

With Pete’s demand for daily updates, Kitty knew that her suspension from the television network, the vandalism to her flat, her relationship breakdown and the court case loss had just scratched the surface, and now the real repercussions of Thirty Minutes were beginning.

Kitty reluctantly sat behind Constance’s desk in her home office, her hands up in the air as though she was being shot at, afraid to touch anything, afraid to ruin the order of how Constance had placed things, knowing they would never find their way back to their rightful place without their rightful owner to fix them. Last week she had loved the feeling of being there but now she felt like an intruder. Bob had given her free rein in the office; there was nothing she couldn’t read, no territory she wasn’t allowed to examine. The previous Kitty – the Kitty who had Constance in her life and who hadn’t a court ruling against her for irresponsible journalism – would have jumped at the chance to be meddlesome and would have read everything she could get her hands on, whether it was related to the story or not, but now it was different.

She spent the afternoon doing fruitless but time-consuming searches through the filing cabinet, trying to see if any other paperwork matched up to the one hundred names. It was pointless because she had no idea what the names meant and how they could be linked to anything else. She Googled the names but nothing of interest came up; everything led her down deceiving paths.

By the end of day two, after an embarrassing meeting with Pete in which she had nothing to report, she returned home to find her flat with red-paint-splashed toilet paper hanging in strands across the front door as if to mimic a crime scene.

Despite going to bed without an ounce of hope and a blocked toilet from when she’d tried to flush away all the toilet paper at once, she managed to wake up somehow feeling vibrant and full of possibilities. A new day meant a new start to her search. She could do it. This was her moment to redeem herself, to make Constance proud. Her final thought of the night had been that the people on the list could be absolutely anyone – and where else do you find people who could be anyone? Not bothering to get dressed, she retrieved the phone directory and sat at the table in her pants.