Goodnight, honey, and sweet dreams, Holly.
Axxxxxx
Chapter Ten
The blow falls the following Friday night.
I’m crawling home from work through the lashing sleet and gales, yet in spite of my disastrous non-date the night of the Government Budget, I’ve actually got this lovely warm glow inside. Because given what December is traditionally like for me, Andy McCoy is turning out to be the most perfect antidote to C-Day that I could ever possibly have envisaged.
He’s been ringing me at all hours this whole week, ever since our aborted night at the Shelbourne, apologizing over and over again, almost as if he were the no-show and not me, if you can believe that.
‘You see, Holly, I had that early morning transatlantic the next day,’ he explained to me when we eventually did get to talk. ‘So I really had no choice but to hightail it back out to the airport hotel with the rest of the crew once it started to get seriously late. The Shelbourne bar had closed up for the night and you weren’t answering your phone, which I totally understood. After all, how could you possibly?’
So in other words, Andy did exactly what I’d have done myself under similar circumstances: he called it a night. And ever since then, he and I have agreed it’s nothing more than another postponement, a tiny blip to be overlooked and no more.
He called me last night by the way and we’re all systems go for date night, take three. It was past 1 a.m. when he rang and he woke me up as it happened, but how could I have possibly minded? These days, I was even sleeping with the phone to hand, just in case he called. Which he always does; I could nearly set my watch by him. And these late-night natters are fast becoming my very favourite part of the whole day. Long, lazy meandering chats where the two of us talk late into the night, taking the world apart and somehow just setting it all back to rights again.
‘Hi!’ I said, hauling myself up onto one elbow and sleepily reaching out for the bedside light.
‘Just checking that you’re OK, honey. How was your day?’
Oh God, I thought, the fact that a gorgeous man cares enough to call me up and ask how my day has been is just amazing. And right now I don’t care what anyone else says. There’s nothing ‘virtual’ about this, I’m actually starting to feel like I’m in a proper relationship here. Andy is in touch with me throughout the whole day, all day every day. His is literally the first voice I hear every morning and the last I hear at night. At any given moment during the course of the day, I could tell you exactly where he is, what he’s doing, and vice versa. For feck’s sake, if this isn’t a fledgling relationship, then what is?
‘OK then, Holly,’ Andy drawled on as I cradled the phone tight to my ear, drowsily snuggled up under the duvet. Half wondering if he was doing exactly the same thing right now, then reminding myself that it’s only about seven in the evening his time. Hardly.
‘What do you say to third time’s the charm?’
*
Anyway, I’m at the bus stop after work in the pitch-dark and freezing cold and right ahead of me there’s a little girl holding her mother’s hand. She’s about eight years old and she’s happily yabbering away about Santa Claus, who I gather they just went to visit at his grotto in town.
‘… And Santy said that if I was really, really good, I might get a bike for Christmas!’ she’s saying to her mum, all animated and giggly. ‘A pink one, with a basket and tassels on it and everything!’
‘Yes, pet, but you have to be a really good girl,’ her mum says distractedly, as she searches for change in her pocket for the bus fare.
‘I will be, Mommy, I promise! I’m gonna be the best girl you ever seen!’
But I consciously don’t tune into any more. Can’t. I even get wobbly at hearing just this much and in spite of myself the tears start to well.
Suddenly I find myself thinking back to another little girl and another mother, all those years ago.
But then I regroup. Focus on the positive. Force myself to look forwards at all times. Remember that in Andy I’ve got the best Christmas distraction imaginable on the go, and isn’t that a minor miracle sent by angels, this time of year? Andy McCoy can only be a bonus in my life, I remind myself.
As is just about any diversion this time of year.
*
First sign something serious is up when I eventually do get home. The sound of Joy and her fella Krzysztof talking low and intense to each other when I finally get in the hall door, followed by an immediate stony silence the minute I bang the door shut.
Very bad sign. Means that the pair of them can only have been talking about me, then instantly shut up the second they heard my bag being dumped on our tiny hall floor.
‘That you, hon?’ Joy calls out to me, and am I imagining it, or does she sound just a tad too over-bright?
‘Ermm … yeah!’ I yell back, with just a tiny worry knot starting to form right in the pit of my stomach. ‘Everything OK in there?’ But the very minute I walk into our TV room, I can already see the answer to that one writ plain and large.
No, a single glance tells me. Everything is most definitely not OK. The pair of them are standing side by side, Joy all tense and awkward, while Krzysztof looks like he’d rather be anywhere else except here.
Did I tell you about Krzysztof? He’s from Poland, he works in security and I swear if I were a criminal, just the very sight of him would be enough for me to voluntarily turn myself over in floods of tears, no questions asked. The guy stands a strapping six feet four, weighs in at over fifteen stone and has absolutely no neck at all; he’s just a big baldy head, then shoulders. Works out every day and I’ve actually had to ban Joy from describing what he looks like in the buff as, let’s face it, there is such a thing as showing off. Hugely protective of Joy and by extension of me as well, bless him.
‘Have a seat,’ says Joy, rushing to clear a pile of clean laundry off our threadbare sofa. Then adding, ‘So, so, how are you then, lovie? Had a good day?’
And there we are, yet another warning bell. Joy and I never ever ask about each other’s days. We are, in fact, the flatmates who laugh at people who do that, and refer to them as Stepfords.
‘My day?’ I say, glancing from her overstretched smile to the worryingly concerned way Krzysztof is looking at me. ‘It was … ermm … OK. You know, busy. Normal.’
‘Great! Fantastic!’ she says over-eagerly, then patting the sofa adds, ‘sit down! Come on, you must be wrecked … you need to put your feet up.’
OK, so my first thought is that I’m being hijacked yet again about my plans for C-Day; that this is a kindly intervention to try to cajole me into spending it with Joy and her family. So I perch gingerly onto the only square patch of our sofa now not covered in spandex leggings and unmentionables freshly out of the washing machine. Then I take a moment to glance worriedly from one of them to the other. But neither of them wants to be the first to speak, which is odd, to say the least.
‘Guys,’ I say, as the pair of them stare down uncomfortably at me, standing stiffly side by side at the fireplace, like they’re posing for a his n’ hers Christmas card photo. ‘Would you for feck’s sake just tell me what’s going on here? Because if this is about C-Day, then I’m really sorry, but …’
‘It isn’t,’ says Joy.
‘Then what is it?’
‘You have drink first,’ suggests Krzysztof, and Joy immediately chimes in, ‘A drink! Fantastic idea. Little glass of vino, hon?’
So now worry is working like yeast on my mind and I’m honestly about to screech at the pair of them unless someone tells me exactly what it is that they know and I don’t.
A glass of white wine is thrust at me, which I dump on the rug beneath me and ignore while Joy finally starts to open up, warbling and fumbling her words the way she always does whenever she has something unpleasant to get off her chest.
‘Thing is, sweetheart,’ she says nervously, glancing over to Krzysztof, who I catch giving her a tiny nod of support. ‘We both kno
w how excited you are about this Andy what’s-his-name …’
‘McCoy,’ I mutter under my breath, as the hard knot of nervous tension right in the pit of my stomach now starts to solidify.
‘… And we both know how disappointed you were when it didn’t work out the last few times you arranged to meet …’.
‘But just you wait and see,’ I tell her stoutly, ‘he’ll be here tomorrow evening in this very apartment, so then you’ll get to meet him for yourself. It’s all arranged. As soon as he lands into Dublin, he’s going to check into the airport hotel, then he’s going to get a taxi straight round here so we can have dinner together.’
He and I have chatted about it so many times by now, I feel I could start cackling like a baddie in a panto and saying, ‘What could possibly go wrong? Mwah-haaa-haaa-haaaa!’
‘Well … that’s just it you see,’ Joy says gently now, coming over to perch on the arm of the sofa beside me and leaning down to squeeze my hand. ‘Supposing there’s a very good chance the same thing will happen all over again tomorrow? Suppose this guy – whoever he is – has been lying to you all this time?’
‘I don’t get it! What are you saying?’
‘Thing is,’ she added a bit shiftily, ‘I asked Krzysztof to investigate him a bit – purely to protect you, that’s all …’
‘You did what?’
‘Now just hear me out! Turns out I was absolutely right to, because Krzysztof was able to find out something about him and, you see – maybe – this person isn’t what he seems to be at all.’
I pull my hand away instinctively and look from her to Krzysztof and back again.
‘And you did this behind my back? Without even telling me?’ I half-splutter at both of them, utterly stunned at the deception.
‘Is for your own safety,’ says Krzysztof firmly. ‘That’s all. Because I no like sound of this man, not one bit. Right from start, this pilot guy give me bad feeling here,’ he says, thumping his huge chest.
‘So … what exactly are you trying to tell me?’ I ask, my voice sounding a bit high-pitched now with anger and frustration. ‘Are you going to say that it turns out Andy has three wives and is a practising Mormon with seventeen kids all living in a commune somewhere out in Utah?’
‘No!’ Joy says nervously. ‘Nothing like that at all. It’s just that … well, you see …’.
She trails off here, so I glance up to Krzysztof, who’s now looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. I even catch him looking longingly at his mobile, hope writ large on his big, craggy face that it’ll ring and it’ll be some kind of work emergency so he won’t have to deal with any of this emotional shite.
‘Is not good news,’ he eventually says calmly and evenly, and if nothing else, I feel a surge of relief that at least he’s coming straight out with it.
‘Tell me,’ I ask him, voice sounding a bit hoarse now. ‘Tell me everything that you’ve found out.’
‘OK, first thing,’ says Krzysztof, arms folded awkwardly, looking guilty as hell. ‘When you were at work the other day, you left your iPad at home.’
I can see what’s coming next and am too shocked to even answer.
‘And you see, we were both just so worried about you,’ says Joy. ‘All of this time you’ve been spending on this virtual relationship is crazy!’
‘That’s for you to say?’ I snap back. ‘Joy, I’m a grown woman, I know exactly what I’m getting into!’
‘Please just hear me out,’ she says worriedly. ‘Anyway, I know it was very wrong of me, but I showed Krzysztof some of the email messages between you and this Andy guy …’
‘I don’t believe this …’ I say, white-faced. ‘Do you realize what a violation of privacy that was? Why didn’t you both go through my knicker drawer while you were at it?’
‘Holly, will you just listen! We did this for you!’
‘So what exactly did you do?’
‘Well,’ she says in a small voice, ‘I may have asked Krzysztof to run some background checks on him …’
‘… Was very easy for me to do this,’ says Krzysztof. ‘I have many, many contacts in cybersecurity. Have contacts in the police too and they owe me lot of favours.’
‘So you digitally spied on him?’ I ask, coldly furious.
‘Everyone do it now,’ he says firmly. ‘Facebook do it. All social media do it, even governments do it. All I needed was this guy’s email address and phone number he gave you, which was on email. Then I just needed a few days, that’s all it took.’
‘Jesus,’ I mutter weakly. ‘I cannot believe you pair!’
‘Will you at least just hear him out?’ says Joy.
‘Tell me. Whatever it is, just tell me.’
‘I ask my contact to trace this guy’s computer’s IP address,’ says Krzysztof. ‘That’s unique address all computer system in the world have. IP address allows me to track computer or laptop very accurately.’
‘And?’
‘This guy tell you he live in Atlanta, Georgia? In American South?’ he asks.
‘Yes, we’ve talked about it loads of times. It’s where most of Delta’s crew are based.’
I just catch the worried look Joy throws up to Krzysztof and suddenly it’s like no air in the room moves.
‘But is not true,’ Krzysztof goes on. ‘Cannot be true. The computer that’s been used to message you has been traced to Manhattan, New York.’
‘What did you say?’ I ask, head swimming. New York? Manhattan?
‘There’s no mistake, hon,’ Joy says soothingly. ‘Krzysztof’s contact even ran a check on the mobile phone number that Andy gave you …’
‘And?’ I ask impatiently.
‘We triangulate the phone, to pinpoint exact location,’ Krzysztof goes on, picking up the thread. ‘And the phone also we trace to New York. Again, Manhattan. Closest mast is on Upper West Side. Is for definite. My friend is very senior in police investigation unit. Never make mistake.’
My head is swimming and I’m still trying to process what it is they’ve done and what they’re both trying to tell me.
‘I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason for this,’ I fire back at them. ‘Chances are this is all just some kind of a big misunderstanding. I mean, Andy is a pilot and he’s always criss-crossing the States.’
‘Is no misunderstanding,’ says Krzysztof. ‘Is for definite.’
‘Well let me at least talk to Andy and see what he’s got to say about all this!’
‘Which brings us to the other thing we’ve been trying to tell you,’ says Joy, very gently. ‘It seems that … well …’
‘Joy please! I’m on the edge of my seat here, will you just give me the last sentence first?’
I know I sound rude and ungrateful when they’ve only gone to all this bother out of concern for me. But by now my throat is dry, my nerves are shot and I just have to know everything. Good or bad.
‘My friend in the police also make call to Delta personnel department,’ says Krzysztof, ‘and they have no record of a Captain Andy McCoy working for them and never had.’
‘What did you just say?’ is all I can ask, stupidly.
‘We make calls to Radisson hotel at Dublin airport too,’ Krzysztof goes on, sounding a lot more gentle now, like he hates giving me this news, yet knows he’s only doing the right thing. ‘Where this guy told you he stay, yes?’
‘Yeah, the Radisson, that’s right.’
‘Well, my contact tell me is very true that Delta crew stay there if they need to overnight in Dublin …’
‘You see?’ I want to yell at them, ‘then at least that part of the story holds water!’ but I don’t get the chance.
‘… But it seems that they had no Andy McCoy staying last week,’ Joy picks it up for him. ‘On the same night you were supposed to meet in the Shelbourne in town. I don’t know where the guy was, but he certainly wasn’t where he was telling you, hon.’
‘Phone calls he made to you from that mobile most definitely came from Ne
w York,’ says Krzysztof. ‘All of them. Has he ever Skyped you? Face-to-face live chat, like genuine person would?’
‘Well … no, never exactly face-to-face,’ I say in a tiny voice, for the first time actually starting to have doubts. I don’t say this aloud, but the truth is Andy and I have never had a live face-to-face chat at all. He always calls my mobile from his; he’s never on his computer. I put this down to the fact that he’s forever in some far-flung corner of the globe when I do hear from him, so it’s just easier for him to talk from his mobile. But now that the hard, cold facts are staring me in the face, it all just seems so crushingly bloody obvious.
I slump back against the sofa now, in utter, defeated shock.
‘So … you’re saying that all that time … when Andy kept messaging me and calling me to say he was patiently waiting on me in the Shelbourne … he was never even on the same land mass as me?’ I ask numbly, now feeling exactly like someone in a car crash where the car is spinning wildly out of control and all you can do is wonder when the nightmare will be over.
Not quite yet, it seems.
‘I’m very sorry to give bad news,’ is all poor Krzysztof can say sheepishly.
‘Look I know this is a bitter blow,’ says Joy, ‘but aren’t you better finding out sooner rather than later? I couldn’t bear to see you getting all excited about tomorrow night only for the exact same thing to happen all over again.’
‘Tomorrow,’ is all I can repeat. Tomorrow …
‘Holly, I’m so sorry for what we did,’ says Joy, ‘but wait and see; whoever this weirdo is, he’ll cancel on you yet again. You’ll be all excited and looking forward to it and then, at the very last minute, there’ll be some catastrophe that he’ll ring as late as possible to tell you about. Mark my words. Just wait and see.’
I look back to Krzysztof, who just nods along.
‘He will cancel,’ he says. ‘Writing is on wall.’ Then he adds helpfully, ‘I have many more contacts. You want, I have him roughed up for you?’
I know he only meant it as a joke to lighten things, but right now, I’m far, far beyond smiling.
Meet Me In Manhattan Page 9
