Cecelia Ahern - One Hundred Names

Colin Maguire and his crew of supporters are possibly behind the abusive attacks which Katherine has had to endure. The victim of a bully campaign, Katherine, known to some friends as Kitty, has been suspended by the network, cast aside at a time when she needed them most.

There was a pretty headshot of her and beneath it the caption said ‘Scapegoat’.

She now has been suspended from Etcetera magazine. Though the case had nothing at all to do with the magazine, terrified advertisers coming under pressure, possibly from Maguire’s crew, are withdrawing their support in the face of such shoddy and careless journalism, leaving the magazine in uncertain times.

Despite all that, Logan insists she is working on the most ‘exciting project of her life’ though she was reluctant to say what that was, leaving those who know her to speculate if there’s such a story at all.

Beneath the article there was a poll taken with the public to see if Katherine Logan deserved the abuse she was getting. Seventy-two per cent said yes, eighteen per cent said no, ten per cent didn’t care.

Kitty narrowed her eyes and stared at Richie’s ugly face again. She wanted to do such violent things to him, it scared her.

‘Writing a book, my hole,’ she said aloud, then remembered she wasn’t alone. She looked up and the couple were watching her, a little disgusted by her words and presence. She dropped the paper down on the table and left the house.

‘Hey, is that her?’ she heard Alice ask before she closed the door behind her.

And then one good thing happened that day, the first good thing, the only good thing, but sometimes you only ever need one good thing.

Archie Hamilton called her.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

They met in the Brick Alley Café in Temple Bar, a charming café on Essex Street that seemed to be the only place that wasn’t a pub or chain sports bar or establishment without a shamrock or leprechaun emblazoned across the front, Ireland’s version of the child-catcher to lure in the tourists. It was a low-key place with friendly staff, and when Kitty entered she saw Archie sitting alone at the back of the café. He was the first customer of the day and had been successful in finding a table alone. Later, customers would be encouraged to sit at large wooden communal tables. He looked up when she entered, seemed slightly amused, and then he looked back down at his paper again. He appeared even more exhausted than he had before, as though he hadn’t slept, but after two nights of very little sleep Kitty dreaded to think what she looked like herself. After calling Richie’s phone sixteen times and getting no answer, she’d leaped on her phone as soon as it rang. She was lucky it was Archie.

She sat beside him on a high stool at a counter that was a wooden bench secured to the wall. Above the counter was a blackboard with the daily specials, and above that it said, ‘Every table has a story to tell’. She knew that was certainly true of this table. She was just hoping Archie was going to tell it.

‘Hi,’ Kitty said.

Archie was sitting to the side of his chair so that his elbow was resting on the counter and he could have a full view of the room. Perhaps not wanting to turn your back on a room is what came of doing time in prison. Or, in Kitty’s case, it was pure nosiness.

‘I just ordered breakfast,’ he said into his paper. ‘Do you want to order some?’

She could tell the paper was the Sunday tabloid with her story. So he had seen the article and for some reason that was probably why he had called her. He didn’t seem like the gloating kind, so she waited for his reasoning to be revealed.

‘No, thanks. I’m not hungry.’

‘You should eat,’ he said, still not looking at her.

‘No.’ She felt sick, sick by what she had read, by how she had been lied to, humiliated, by the fact she had slept with Richie. She felt disgusting and used and like she could never trust anyone ever again, and the last thing she wanted was food.

‘You need to keep your strength up,’ he said. ‘Or those fuckers will get you down.’

She sighed. ‘Too late for that.’ She heard her voice tremble; he did too and looked up from the paper. She was thankful his food arrived at that point, though the smell of it made her queasy. A large plate of tomatoes, eggs, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, black and white pudding and enough toast to tile a roof with. The waitress placed it down before him and he finally set his paper aside and transferred his concentration to the food.

‘Are you ready to order?’ the waitress asked.

‘I’m not eating, thank you.’

‘Tea, coffee?’

‘Still water, please.’

‘And a plate of fruit,’ Archie said, cutting into his sausage. ‘She’ll have a plate of fruit. Fruit stays down okay.’

‘Thanks,’ Kitty said, touched by how he cared. ‘I suppose you’re the expert on this.’

He nodded his head in a horse-trying-to-get-rid-of-a-fly-on-his-nose kind of way.

‘What did you want to speak to me about?’

He didn’t answer, he just shovelled the food in his mouth, massive amounts that puffed out his cheeks and he chewed merely a few times before swallowing. Then he spoke as though she never asked the question. ‘Did you know the guy?’

She knew who he was talking about straight away.

‘An old college friend.’

‘Ha. That old chestnut.’

‘They did that to you?’

‘The entire family. And friends. They know how to catch people out. People who don’t know better. People who aren’t trained in how they work. People who believe what they read. Regular people.’

‘I’m not regular people.’

‘You’re different. You’re one of them, you weren’t expecting it.’

‘I’m not one of them,’ she said, disgusted. ‘Never have, never will. I made a mistake on a story; he did this deliberately.’ Her blood boiled. She really wanted to run from this meeting straight away and confront Richie at his house but she was afraid of what she might do to him. She couldn’t face assault and battery charges on top of everything else.

‘You’re angry,’ he said, watching her. Her foot was bouncing up and down; she felt like putting her fist through the wall.

‘Of course I’m angry.’

‘That’s why I phoned you.’

‘You like talking to angry people?’ she snapped.

He smiled. ‘I wanted to speak to one of them who I knew would never be one of them. That fella, your old college friend, he did me a favour.’

‘Well I’m glad he made one of us happy. So you trust me now.’

He didn’t respond, kept tucking into his breakfast. Kitty’s fruit and water arrived and despite feeling nauseous she picked at it and began to feel a little respite.

The café door opened and the third customer of the day entered. She was a mousy-looking woman, small face framed with dull brown chin-length hair and a fringe. She was meek-looking, thin and frail, as though a strong wind would blow her over. She looked around the café hopefully, as though expecting to see someone, and then her face fell and she sat at the communal wooden table. Archie actually looked up from his breakfast, took her in, and watched her cross the room and sit down. From that point on his eyes rarely left her.

‘Know her?’ Kitty asked.

‘No,’ he said bluntly, and turned away to down his tea. ‘So what do you know about me?’

‘A lot more than I knew about you on Friday.’

‘Go on.’

‘Ten years ago your sixteen-year-old daughter went missing. She was last seen on CCTV leaving a clothes shop in Donaghmede shopping centre. The gardaí issued a search for her, you and the family began a public search and a rather big campaign. A month later she was found in a field. She’d been strangled. Four years later you assaulted and viciously beat a twenty-year-old man believed to have been her boyfriend at the time and you went to prison for four years.’