The Secrets of Primrose Square

by Claudia Carroll

  A chancer, out to fleece his own father for a few paltry quid in rent, all the while stringing along a vulnerable woman, new to the city and new to the whole concept of online, short-term rentals.

  Bastard, she thought, suddenly fuming all over again and wanting to kick a lamppost on the street, she felt so frustrated. You unimaginable bastard.

  She eventually found the solicitor’s office, which was right in the heart of Temple Bar, near the famous hotel that U2 owned, The Clarence. The street was completely buzzing with after-work boozers who’d spilled out onto the pavements and who all looked like they were out for the night, the twenty-four-hour party people. Such a sharp contrast to how Nancy herself felt.

  She tried her best to cool down a bit as she rang the office doorbell and was immediately buzzed inside. A polite, smiley receptionist showed her to a waiting room with comfy leather sofas and impressively up-to-date magazines dotted about on a coffee table in front.

  ‘Mr Burke will be with you shortly.’ She smiled. ‘And in the meantime, can I offer you some tea or coffee?’

  Nancy said no thank you and the receptionist drifted away, when the office buzzer went again and in walked a guy in his early-thirties, tops, tall and wiry with a hipster beard, a woolly beanie hat and a granddad-style cardigan that looked like it had been foraged out of a charity shop.

  ‘You must be Nancy,’ he said, dumping a heavy-looking backpack beside her and plonking himself down on the sofa opposite her, putting his feet up on the shiny glass coffee table, which only infuriated her even more.

  ‘So you’re Sam Williams, I take it?’ she said, pointedly not reaching out to shake his hand. She didn’t even bother to be polite, not after what the git had done to her.

  ‘Yeah dude,’ he said, making himself at home on the sofa. ‘Ahh . . . well, thanks for meeting me and the old man, I suppose.’

  And there it was, that voice. The same voice that she’d chatted to and laughed with and, God help her, even bonded with over the past few weeks.

  Now that she took a closer look at him, though, she had to admit that yes, indeed, this was the guy whose photos and college graduation pictures were dotted all over the house at Primrose Square.

  Idiot that I was, Nancy thought, suddenly angry with herself as much as with him, forever thinking those bloody photos had been of the homeowner. I’ve been such a trusting, gullible moron, it’s almost laughable, she thought.

  ‘Do you want to know something?’ she said icily. ‘I was actually glad when your father suggested meeting at his solicitor’s office. If this is going to get legal, then be well warned that I’m prepared for a fight. Right now, though, I want to find out exactly what the hell is going on. Why, Sam? Why did you do what you did? Why put me through that?’

  She glared hotly across the table at him, but Sam just shrugged like he’d heard it all before, like he was actually used to conversations like this. As if being hauled over the coals was absolutely nothing new to him. He pointedly ignored Nancy’s question, then took out a packet of chewing gum from his jeans pocket, popped two in his gob and began to chew annoyingly.

  ‘Sam,’ Nancy said in a low, threatening tone, ‘I’m entitled to an explanation here and I’m not leaving until I get one.’

  He didn’t respond, though, so she kept on talking.

  ‘You illegally let out a property belonging to your dad without his knowledge,’ she said, rattling off her carefully pre-prepared speech. ‘You took my money, then you went and invented this whole fantasy life for yourself – that you were some kind of hotshot businessman working out in Shanghai. So come on, Sam. What kind of a sick person does all that?’

  He laughed. Nancy couldn’t believe it, but the guy actually sat back and laughed. Then he looked her up and down, as if he was assessing her.

  ‘Had you fooled, though, didn’t I?’ he replied, squinting at her from the other side of the table.

  ‘That’s not the point!’ she barked back.

  ‘You have to admit, though, it was a good scam while I had it going.’ He shrugged. ‘But then single women generally are an easy target. You take everything at face value. God, I really had you!’

  Now she looked at him in mute shock, stunned at his rudeness.

  ‘Think of it like this, Nancy,’ he went on, sitting forwards and cracking his knuckles annoyingly. ‘I really did you a favour. If nothing else, I showed you to be a little bit less trusting from now on. Less gullible. Plus, you did get to stay in a great house for a few weeks for half nothing. I made a few quid and pissed the old man off at the same time. You won and so did I. Result.’

  ‘I do not believe what I’m hearing,’ she said, shaking her head in shock. ‘You’re actually proud of yourself! Do you know, I’m glad we’re seeing a solicitor now – they’ll throw the book at you.’

  ‘If you knew the old man like I do,’ Sam said, ‘then you’d have done the same, believe me. And just so you know, I won’t be meeting with any solicitor today – are you kidding me?’

  ‘Then what are you even doing here?’ Nancy spluttered. ‘Why bother even coming in the first place?’

  Sam Junior just sat back, put his hands behind his head and looked up at the ceiling.

  ‘To give the old man a piece of my mind, I guess,’ he said eventually. ‘It’s either see him here, or not see him at all. That’s the way the miserable bastard operates. He’s around for about two weeks of the year and that’s it.’

  ‘That’s your father you’re talking about!’

  ‘My dad?’ He snorted. ‘That’s a laugh. He shafted my mum and, after the divorce, she ended up with a paltry settlement, while he jets around the world and only stays in five-star hotels. Meanwhile, my mother is left in a one-bedroom apartment in the back arse of nowhere, with barely enough dosh to eke out from one end of the month to the other.’

  ‘That still doesn’t justify what you did to me!’ Nancy screamed at the git, furious at his total lack of remorse.

  ‘Oh doesn’t it?’ Sam replied coolly. ‘Our family went from living in a huge house in Foxrock, with a swimming pool and a tennis court, to having virtually next to nothing as soon as the folks broke up. Because that’s my dad for you: the most tight-fisted arsehole this side of a Charles Dickens novel. So I learned to shaft him every way I could and every chance I could get. That arsehole can consider it payback for breaking up our family and shitting on us from a height. Good enough for him, if you ask me.’

  Nancy shook her head in disbelief, too shocked to even answer. Turned out she didn’t need to, though, because just then the door buzzed again, and Sam Senior himself was ushered in, all red-faced and puffing, laden down with a briefcase and files.

  ‘Miss Thompson,’ he said, with a curt nod at Nancy, pointedly ignoring his son, who just glared up at him.

  ‘Mr Kelly is still in court and is slightly delayed,’ the receptionist came over to say, all apologies, and kowtowing so much to Sam Senior that Nancy guessed he was a much favoured client.

  ‘Well, I don’t have a huge amount of time for this,’ Sam Senior replied, ‘as I have a business dinner later, so hopefully we won’t be delayed for much longer.’

  ‘Typical,’ his son muttered under his breath. ‘Do you hear that? That’s fucking typical.’

  ‘I do hope that my son has apologised to you?’ the dad asked Nancy, sitting down as briskly as if he was chairing a business meeting.

  ‘No,’ she answered truthfully, ‘as a matter of fact, he hasn’t.’

  ‘Sam,’ father said sternly to son. ‘What did I tell you? You’ve behaved abominably to this young lady and the least you can do is say that you’re sorry, while yet again, I’m forced to clean up another mess of your making.’

  ‘Oh, just listen to yourself,’ Junior replied, picking up his backpack and getting up to leave. ‘You sanctimonious git. So I tried to make a bit of money on the side for myself. Ever ask yourself why? And if this would have anything to do with the fact that it was this, or else starve?
Besides,’ he added, ‘this was a victimless crime. I made some cash out of a house you left empty, Nancy got somewhere to stay, and you were none the wiser. Now get over yourself, Dad. If you really cared about your family, maybe you’d provide for us so that I didn’t have to do shit like this to get by.’

  With that, he stood up, stormed out of the office and took good care to slam the door firmly behind him. He left his dad so puce in the face, Nancy actually worried the man would have a stroke.

  ‘So now you see, Miss Thompson,’ Sam Senior said, fingering at the collar of his shirt and sweating profusely, ‘exactly what I’ve been putting up with for years now. May I just point out that Sam Junior is twenty-nine years of age and, since he left college, he has yet to hold down a single job? He talks about being an entrepreneur and yet refuses to do any actual work to achieve this goal. Instead, I’m an ATM machine to that young man, I regret to say. I’ve backed his more harebrained schemes time and again, and inevitably I end up bailing him out.’

  ‘Ooo-kaay,’ Nancy said, feeling like she’d somehow got caught in something with roots that went scarily deep. The two of them should be telling this to a family therapist, she thought, not to me.

  ‘Oh, you name it,’ Sam Senior said wearily, pulling away at his collar again to loosen it, ‘and my son has tried and failed at it. His bespoke cupcake business? Cost me a fortune in the debts he ran up. Same with his online business to deliver vegan, gluten-free, sugar-free food. No matter what I do, it’s always the wrong thing. My son would have you believe that he lives the life of a pauper, whereas in actual fact, I give both my children a very generous monthly allowance.

  ‘Anyway,’ he added briskly. ‘I’m sure none of my family squabbles are of any interest to you, Miss Thompson.’

  Nancy didn’t get a chance to answer him, though, as next thing, the receptionist was politely telling them ‘Mr Kelly is ready to see you now.’

  They both stood up and were ushered into a dark wood panelled office, with legal tomes groaning down from every available bit of shelf space. The solicitor was bald and bloated, introduced himself as Eugene Kelly, shook Nancy’s hand politely and appeared to be on the best terms imaginable with Sam Senior, as the pair of them chatted away about golf handicaps.

  ‘So,’ Nancy said, taking a seat and taking control, utterly determined not to let anyone lose sight of why they were there in the first place. ‘We have a big problem here, gentlemen. And my question is, what do we do to resolve this?’

  A pause as both men sat down and Sam Senior opened up his briefcase, shuffling about inside.

  ‘If I may be so bold,’ he said, ‘I have a possible solution.’

  ‘Fire away,’ Eugene Kelly said, with a wave of his hand.

  ‘Here’s what I propose. With your approval, Ms Thompson,’ he said with a little nod at Nancy, ‘I’ll give you another week at the Primrose Square property to gather up your things. Then, as recompense for the inconvenience, I’d like you to accept this.’

  With that, he made a big deal of fishing around in his briefcase, before producing a crisp brown envelope.

  ‘It’s the rent you’ve paid since you moved in,’ he explained, as Nancy looked at him, dumbfounded. ‘I thought seeing as how you leased the property under false pretences, the least I could do was to make sure you weren’t left out of pocket as a result.’

  ‘If you think this is about money,’ Nancy replied calmly and clearly, ‘then you’d be quite wrong. False representation is a serious offence and I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I won’t be bought out of this.’

  ‘My client,’ Eugene Kelly said to her, ‘is making you a generous and fair offer here. You’d do well to consider it, madam. He is the legal owner of the property, after all – I myself can vouch for that.’

  ‘But you can’t just throw money at the problem and hope it’ll go away,’ Nancy spluttered at them both. ‘It’s not good enough. You need to think about what your son did to me. And ask yourself why.’

  ‘So how do you suggest we resolve this?’ Sam Senior asked.

  ‘There’s a cash offer on the table for you right now, Ms Thompson,’ Eugene said. ‘If money won’t fix this for you, then what will?’

  Nancy sat back and folded her arms, refusing to be intimidated by the pair of them and their chummy, Tweedle-Dum, Tweedle-Dee act.

  ‘I’ll tell you exactly what I want, gentleman,’ she replied coolly, to stony silence around the room as both men just looked at her.

  Susan

  From the journal of Susan Hayes

  Oh my darling, where do I begin to write this?

  I’ll start with a Friday night. Just like any other Friday night in our house, when your dad was home. Except that I’d let you go to that infamous party, on the strict condition that you were waiting outside on the stroke of midnight for us to pick you up. But you rowed bitterly with me over even that small condition, didn’t you?

  ‘I’m almost eighteen, Mum! When are you going to stop treating me like a bloody child?’

  ‘I’ll start treating you like an eighteen-year-old when you start acting like one!’ was my retort, and round you and I went over and over again.

  But that Friday evening, with you safely off at the party, ended up being a perfectly peaceful, normal night. Frank and I let Melissa stay up to watch The Late Late Show, we’d lit the fire in the living room and we even ordered in a takeaway, as a special treat because he was home.

  I’d got a bottle of wine to have with dinner, but your dad would only drink water, as he’d volunteered to go and pick you up on the dot of midnight, as pre-arranged – and you know what a stickler he always is for punctuality. Meanwhile, I’d had a glass of wine and was dozing away on the sofa, with Melissa cuddled tight into me.

  Just your common or garden, regular weekend night.

  Until my mobile rang on the sofa beside me, that is, instantly shattering the peace. I was half asleep, so your dad got to the phone before I did.

  ‘It’s after eleven at night,’ he said, as he went to answer. ‘Who calls at this hour on a Friday evening?’

  My blood froze. And in that moment, I knew, the way a mother just knows. Something had happened. Something very, very bad had happened.

  Oh Ella. So much after that is a blur.

  I remember the frantic scramble to the hospital, where the ambulance had taken you. Melissa’s terrified little voice, as I took her to Jayne’s and begged her to babysit for me.

  ‘But Mummy, what’s wrong? If something has happened to Ella, why can’t I come with you? I could help!’

  Not being able to park at the hospital. Cursing and swearing at Frank as he drove around and around looking for a stupid free parking space, then jumping out of the car and running inside, abandoning him.

  The A & E, so packed and crowded that night the poor staff were almost operating under World War One field hospital conditions. Demanding to see you, insisting on it. Then a frazzled, concerned-looking nurse telling me they were so sorry. They’d done everything they could for you, but it was over. You were gone.

  And that’s when I started screaming no. No, no, no, no, no.

  I cried out, ran at them, took a hold of your chest myself and almost broke your ribcage, trying to force your heart to beat again.

  ‘Come back to me, Ella,’ I kept yelling. ‘Come back. It doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do – I’m here and I love you and I always will.’

  You never heard me, though, did you, my darling?

  The rest is all jumbled up in my mind, jagged and incoherent. Your dad and I being brought into a small, private room away from the busy A & E. Being told the worst. The very worst any parent can hope to hear.

  MDMA. A small enough dose and you’d probably have been fine. But you never did anything by halves, did you, my baby? You’d taken a lorry-load of the shit, it seemed, and what made it fatal was that it appeared to have been cut with toxins too horrible to contemplate.

  ‘We’ll send her samples off
to the lab for tests,’ an exhausted-looking junior doctor was saying. ‘It could have been cut with anything. Rat poison, anything. We see this kind of thing far too frequently. But please know that we did everything we possibly could.’

  Your dad, stoic and stiff upper-lipped – the way he always is when faced with bad news. Army training dies hard.

  But I was different. I stormed, raged, almost had to be restrained.

  ‘No, you didn’t do everything you could!’ I kept screaming, again and again. ‘Because if you did, she’d be sitting up in bed now, with a headache and a pumped stomach and story to tell. And instead she’s . . . she’s . . . ’ I couldn’t say the words, though, so I just roared and shouted at anyone till everything went dark. It was only afterwards I learned they’d had to sedate me.

  The rest was chaos, then and now. They wouldn’t even let me take your poor, broken little body home; instead there had to be a full post-mortem before the funeral. Your funeral! Oh Ella, I could barely stand, I was so lost and out of it by then. I remember the house on Primrose Square being stuffed to the gills with neighbours and friends and family from all over and being barely able to make eye contact with any one of them.

  Then an inquest followed – more days of torture as we sat in a family courtroom and the full details came out. Everything you’d put into your poor little body that night – and who’d given it to you in the first place. Josh Andrews’ name was mentioned time and again. He swore he had nothing to do with it, but I knew better, didn’t I, my love? So I pressed charges, in spite of everyone telling me that I was wasting my time. Somehow, the inquest let him walk free, but still I wouldn’t let it drop. Not until I got justice for you, in your name, my darling.

  I started going to the police, time and again, till they told me there was nothing more they could do. ‘Your daughter’s case has been thoroughly investigated, Mrs Hayes,’ they kept telling me, ‘and we’ve been completely open with you about the findings.’

  ‘It’s time to let go,’ your dad said to me, and I swore, the row we had as soon as the words were out of his mouth must have terrified the neighbours. But I was incandescent by then, incoherent with rage and grief. So I took the fight right to Josh Andrews’ doorstep. It was like a mantra with me; I can never forget what that murdering bastard got you into, I kept saying. And so neither will he.