Belinda McKeon - Solace

She had never even seen the woman. She had only read her words in the transcripts; she had not even listened to the tapes. And she had heard only poor accounts of Elizabeth by now, from her son and from her daughter, and whatever about Rupert, she believed what Antonia had said about her mother; she had heard nothing to doubt or to treat with suspicion in Antonia’s tone. So why did she keep thinking of her? Seeing her standing there, wearing those beads? She would hardly even know jet beads if she saw them. She would not recognize them if they flew off their string and struck her in the eye. And yet, as she heard footsteps on the stairs now, she ripped from her notepad the pages on which she had scribbled during the phone call and tossed them into the bin. Her heart beat so hard she felt it almost as pain. When Imelda came in, Joanne turned to face her, then looked immediately away.

Imelda came over to her desk and tapped a fingernail on the wood. ‘So. You got her? Mademoiselle Lefroy?’

Joanne nodded. ‘I called her,’ she said, as casually as she could. ‘It wasn’t very useful, I’m afraid.’

‘How could it not be useful? What did you ask her? What did she say?’

‘She says she’s not estranged from her mother,’ Joanne said, looking at her computer screen, watching as, noiselessly, another new email piled its black weight on to the top of her queue. It was spam. ‘She says she phones her mother often, says she visits her once a year, says she worries about her all the time. She says the problem is her mother is confused, that’s all. That the mother doesn’t really know what she’s saying when she says that she and her daughter are estranged. That she doesn’t really know the meaning of the word.’ With a tiny click, she deleted the email.

Imelda, seeing the motion of her finger on the mouse, frowned. ‘She’s saying her mother is senile,’ she said, with a wave of her hand. ‘Well, we’ve argued that already. No harm in arguing it some more.’

‘No.’ Joanne shook her head. ‘She says her mother is just getting old.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ Imelda said sharply. ‘Don’t give me semantics. She’s saying her mother is no longer the full shilling. We can definitely use that. We need her over here for next week’s hearing. Get her on the phone again.’

‘No,’ Joanne said, and she felt sweat break out on her skin.

Imelda laughed. ‘ No? I’m sorry? Did you just say no?’

‘I mean, no, I don’t think we can use her. I don’t think she’d be useful to us.’

‘Why?’ Imelda snapped.

‘She hates Rupert. Says he’s a liar.’

Imelda shrugged. ‘So? We can put up with that.’

‘She says he stole from her.’

Imelda’s face changed. A stare, still, but not just a cold stare: something dawning in it, something uncomfortable. ‘For Christ’s sake. Stole what?’

Joanne looked at the screen. The bank website she’d been on earlier was still open. ‘Money. A lot of money. Says he forged cheques. Says he used her bank card.’

‘She says he did this or a conviction says he did it? Which is it? Is there anything to prove this actually happened?’

‘Not that I know of,’ Joanne said, feeling weak.

‘Not that you know of?’

‘I mean, no. No, there isn’t. Nothing ever came to court. She never took it that far. Antonia. She didn’t want to go through a court case with her own family.’

Imelda raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure this woman is actually related to the other two?’

Joanne forced a laugh. ‘I know. It’s funny, isn’t it?’

‘What’s funny?’

‘Just. . how different they are.’

Imelda sighed. ‘She’s different enough from Rupert to cause us some serious problems if Paddy Glackin gets his hands on this. I can’t understand why the mother’s solicitors haven’t been on to her. I can’t believe they wouldn’t chase her up. We should have chased her up ourselves weeks ago.’

‘But she’s not going to be of any use to us,’ Joanne said, her hands and her armpits clammy. What was she doing? Whatever it was, she had to go on with it now. She had to see it through. ‘She says they haven’t been on to her, her mother’s solicitors, I mean,’ she said. ‘She was just as surprised as we were. But that has to be good for us, right?’

‘Does it?’ Imelda said, warily, looking at Joanne. ‘Go on.’

‘It just means they don’t have a clue what they’re doing, really.’ Joanne tried to laugh, but it came out as a gasp. ‘I mean, doesn’t it?’ she said, and in her voice she could hear the plea. She forced herself to look Imelda in the eye. She forced herself to look sure. She forced herself not to faint, because that was what she felt like doing, as Imelda eyeballed her, seemed to assess her, seemed to make a decision on whether she could be trusted or whether she needed to be fired.

‘I think you’re right,’ Imelda said eventually, slowly, and Joanne exhaled.

‘You don’t think we need her?’

‘I know we don’t need her. I know that Elizabeth’s solicitors do. But, as you say, they don’t have the intelligence to look for her. So why should we help them?’ She picked up the transcript from Joanne’s desk; it was open at the page on which Joanne had written Check . ‘Check what?’ she said.

‘Check the daughter,’ Joanne said. ‘Check Antonia. That was what made me realize it was something I had to do.’

‘Good job,’ Imelda said, after a pause. ‘But now it’s your job to forget you ever spoke to Antonia Lefroy. If Glackin and his all-stars dig her up, we’ll deal with that bridge when we have to cross it. But we’re bypassing it now. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes,’ Joanne said, and Imelda nodded.

‘That’s the girl,’ she said, and turned towards her office. ‘Now, would you ever make me a cup of tea?’

Mark checked his watch again. Joanne had said the judgment was likely to be given by four. She was nervous as hell; he had asked her to text him and tell him how things went. He hadn’t heard from her all day, which didn’t worry him, because over the last few weeks, work had become so busy for her that she hardly ever had time even to send him a text. One of her bosses, the woman, had decided she liked her, or trusted her or something, after the incident with the phone call to the woman in New York, and had given her a whole load of new responsibilities, with the consequence that Joanne was knackered all the time. She went into the office every morning practically at the crack of dawn, and she stayed every night until nine or ten. She had worked three Saturdays in a row now, and last Sunday as well. She had said it would definitely ease off when this case was over, and he hoped so: he didn’t think he could stand it much longer.

They had not even been seeing each other for two months yet. It was way too soon for this kind of stress; her snapping at him out of exhaustion, him getting resentful because she was never around. He was being as understanding as he could, was trying to fit himself into her schedule as much as he could — was trying to look after her a bit, walking her home, or cooking her dinner, or getting her DVDs from Mossy, even though she was too shattered even to open them. He listened to her talk about her work, not just before they went up to bed, but in bed; the deadlines she was worried about, the research she had to do, the notes she had to write up. And, over and over, the case that was in the High Court, the old woman and her son, the feuding Anglos. They might as well have been squashed in beside him in the bed. He couldn’t escape them. But now he was going to escape them; he was determined. When the judgment came through, whatever it was, whether it was in favour of Joanne’s firm or not, he would go to the wine shop on Dawson Street, the one closest to Trinity, and buy a bottle of champagne. He didn’t exactly have the money to be spending on champagne at the moment but he didn’t care. He wanted to celebrate. He wanted to turn up on Joanne’s doorstep and bring her flowers and drink the champagne with her and take her to bed. And take her out somewhere the next night, and the next. He wanted to do what people did with their girlfriends, or with the girls they were seeing; not just the sex — though he was ready to get back to that as well — but the other stuff, the dinners, the films, the dates. He looked at his watch again. Half an hour to go.