But Agnieszka was shaking her head, though her straw-like hair didn't seem to be moving along with it. “No. No. Not that. Like...I don't know what. Dry cleaner place for clothes. Dirty clothes, yes. But this not smell of dirty clothes. In corner. By counter. Where man stand, I think. I don't know.”
“Where what man stood?”
“Bad man. Coppers show me drawing of where all person stand. While hold up. Like sewer.”
“Och,” sneered Fionnuala, “that was just them overalls of yer, what do call him, yer Joe?”
Nurse Scadden sniffed. “I would have thought that smell would've cleared up by that point.”
Fionnuala realized this was true. She had been there the night before, and hadn't smelled the stench any longer. Though that was maybe because Agniezska had cleaned it.
“No. I still smell.”
“Now that ye bring that up, but,” Fionnuala said, “I've smelled some terrible things in me time. Me own cooking at times, if I'm to be honest. The family loo the morning after we've had Indian. Do youse not find it odd yer men had no reaction to the stench?”
There was a vague shrugging of shoulders.
“Och, enough of this!” Fionnuala hadn't wanted to help the traitor, but didn't want to show herself up in the aisles of the Top-Yer-Trolley, screaming out of her like a lunatic. She'd better get it all out now. To protect her reputation around town. Fionnuala was treating the counseling session as if it were a private one between her and Father Steele alone. Certainly, there were other people in the circle with them, but really he was speaking to her and her alone. He only wanted to help her. Only wanted her input. Fionnuala raised her hand and waved it eagerly.
“Ye mind that telly program of our youth? When they showed a clip of a film, then asked questions about it? I used to love that, me. 'What was the number on the door?' 'How many rings did yer man have on, and on what fingers?' 'What was the license plate of the car?' 'How many eclairs was on the table?'”
From the look on Zoë's face, Fionnuala could see the woman didn't know what show she was talking about. Probably not educational, cultural enough, la de dah enough, for the snooty bitch.
“Ye mind the one I'm on about, Siofra, don't ye? We used to watch it together all the time, sure.”
“Aye,” Siofra admitted.
“A whizz at it, so ye were.”
“Aye, you and all, Mammy,” Siofra had to, again, admit.
“Aye, so I was. And I can tell youse all, one sight that won't leave me mind was the balaclavas them hooligans wore for to cover their faces. They'd irregular stitching around the holes for the mouth. And them masks be's from the market stall down the Mountains of Mourne Gate Market, youse know the one, they sell them three for a tenner. Ye'd never find me reaching into me handbag for one. That irregular stitching, all the threads pointing out every which way, always stuck in me craw. Especially when ye consider the perfection of me own work on me sewing machine at home. Did youse all see our Dymphna's wedding frock? Me own creation, so it was. With a bit of help from that Wong woman.”
“Marvelous!” said Father Steele, and he was beaming at Fionnuala with genuine delight and gratitude.
Fionnuala fussily fixed the strap of her top, thinking he was talking about gown, but realized he was talking about the irregular stitching. She scowled, then looked around at the faces in the circle, daring them to outdo her. “C'mon, Siofra! Ye were there and all, and ye've a memory like a steel trap! What sights can ye drudge up?”
“I saw nothing, sure,” Siofra was sad to say. “I was hidden behind the chair, so I was.”
Fionnuala's face said 'how dare ye show me up like this, ye daft wee cunt?'
“But...”
Fionnuala looked at her eagerly.
“But I mind a smell, so I do!”
“A smell?” Father Steele asked eagerly. “What smell?”
All eyes were on Siofra as she revealed, “A whiff of that fancy, och, what do ye call it?” She snapped her fingers as she remembered. “Fahrenheit, ye call it.”
“Aye,” Nurse Scadden barged in, “now that ye mention it, I smelled that and all. Just the faintest whiff, as ye say. But, and I'm an expert in perfumes and colognes, it wasn't the real Fahrenheit. It had some ammonia-like stench underneath. It's that knock-off one they sell at the market and all, along with them masks. Fahrennight, they call it on the label.”
“C'mere,” Siofra was saying, “I went down there the other week to nab some of that Justin Bieber scent. Girlfriend, it be's called. Though they probably call it Grilfreind. They was all out, but. I'm just thinking....doesn't that be the same stall?”
“Aye,” said Nurse Scadden. “Now ye mention it, them scents be's next to the football scarves, and beyond the football scarves, there be's a pile of them balaclavas. Three for a tenner, just as ye said, Mrs. Flood.”
“Aye,” Siofra said, “and it also sells—”
“Och! Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Fionnuala almost fell out of her chair. All eyes turned to her. “Now I mind! Something seemed familiar about yer man with the pitchfork. The one what forced me to open the till. Preying on me mind, so it's been. I understand now, but. It was yer man's trainers! Last summer, mind, Siofra,” she turned to her daughter, eyes bright, “I picked up a pair for our Padraig. Reeboks, they was meant to be. The stripey things on them, but, was apparently the wrong way round. I don't know if they went up when they should've gone down, or forward when they should've gone backwards, but—”
“Reedocks, they call them at that stall.” Nurse Scadden apparently shopped there often.
“Aye, I suppose so. I gave them to our Padraig. The ungrateful wee shite flung them back in me face, but, yelling nonsense about laughing stocks and his mates. As if that deranged terror has any! I marched back down to the market for to get me money back, but yer man was having now of it. Claimed he'd never set eyes on me in his life. Demanded to see me receipt. I ask ye! As if them ever hands over a receipt! Sure, they've no tills in sight! Where's a receipt meant to materialize from?”
“Shocking!” said someone in the Ming contingent.
“Disgraceful!” said someone else.
Inside the closet, Inspector McLaughlin rubbed his hands together against D'Arcy's shoulder blades with glee. Result! Result! And result! Just as he had expected. The people of the Moorside wouldn't talk to him, but they had plenty to say among themselves. Pressed against the door, D'Arcy didn't rub her hands. For two reasons, because she didn't have room, and because it hadn't been her plan. Perhaps that promotion to DI was a bit farther away than she had been anticipating.
Fionnuala had been noticing the Ming contingent getting more and more agitated, nervous, exchanging frequently more alarmed looks between themselves. She wondered what that was all about. She tried to smile in a friendly manner at Zoë, but not only was the woman still not looking at her, she wasn't participating as they were all meant to. The woman didn't even seem to be there at all. Fionnuala felt a flash of anger. Did the woman think she was above all this? Because she was rich? Protestant?
Father Steele was babbling on, “About this stress youse're all feeling...people react in different ways. For example, have any of youse noticed anybody ye know, related to the hold up, I mean, flashing more cash around than usual?”
They all looked around the circle, considering, thinking back. There was silence in the room. It went on for a few moments.
“Dear God in Heaven above!” barked out Keeva. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph and all the saints! I kyanny believe it! Save us all, heavenly Father! I...I...I know who did it!”
All heads had whipped in the direction of Mrs. Ming's spinster sister.
“H-he came into the house yesterday with...with...” Her withered lips struggled to get the words out. “A coffee...from Starbucks! And...and...a large one!”
A gasp of surprised horror arose from all, except Zoë. Her face, which was rather expressive, seemed to say, ‘I had to think long and hard about the pricing of the cappuccinos
and lattes at White. What Starbucks has done to coffee! Overpriced it, out of reach of the regular man. And more, her face seemed to continue, I, myself, of course, think nothing of handing over the better part of an hour's wage for most of the people I'm now sitting amongst for a cup of coffee, and not even a fancy one like a caramel macchiato, but just a regular old coffee. What would they think of me if I revealed how much I had handed over for that double espresso in Milan two months ago?’ Then her face looked a bit embarrassed.
And then, while Zoë's face was doing all this, alive for the first time since she had walked into the parish center, Keeva told them all who she knew, just knew, she could feel it in her bones, who had done it. And why it had been done. They listened in disbelief. And screamed when the closet door burst open and McLaughlin and D'Arcy descended upon them all.
After the revelation, and after the coppers had fled to make the arrest, Fionnuala excused herself to go to the restroom, and then Zoë decided to follow her, but Zoë would soon be in for a shock, as there was no partition between the toilets in the ladies' at the parish center.
Just beyond the betting shop outside, there was a scuffle. A passing observer would have seen Maureen's cane clatter to the sidewalk, heard Padraig's sardonic laughter and the clapping of his hands, as Dymphna and Rory fought to be mindful of the old woman's age while dragging her away from the entrance to St. Fintan's. It was madness to unlock the wrath of Fionnuala and set it free on Earth, they told her. The messenger always got shot, they tried to explain. And, finally, Maureen came around to their way of thinking. At least that's what Dymphna and Rory hoped. Maureen, Padraig, Dymphna and Rory went to the Kebabalicious to talk it through instead. Maureen ordered the Cow-A-Licious, Padraig a chocolate milkshake. The other two shared a small portion of chips. They talked.
Two months later, Father Steele, due to extreme lack of confidence in him by his parishioners, and official complaints lodged by members of other parishes, was transferred to a village in Scotland.
CHAPTER 28
“Two tribes!” roared Jeremy Trellis into his microphone from the passenger seat of a helicopter. “Fourteen tribe mates! Forty days! Four and a half thousand miles away from home! Who will be this year's Safari Millionaire? Coming to you this season from Macapà, Brazil!”
Bridie looked at Damien sharply. Brazil?! He had told her he was in Amazonia!
Jeremy was the host or the MC, or whatever he was called, Bridie wasn't really sure. The man who was in charge of the show, the man who refereed the challenges, and, most importantly, read out the votes at the end of the show every week. Who would be letting viewers know which of Damien's competitors had just lost their chance of becoming the Safari Millionaire.
Behind Jeremy on the screen was a shining ocean. And the mouth of a huge river. And a jungle that seemed to gobble it up from all sides. The camera zoomed down upon two canoes. Then it focused on the women's canoe...
Damien sat on the opposite end of the sofa in a fog of cigarette smoke, hunched forward, every muscle tense, tittering oddly, chain-smoking, leg jittering up and down in an incredibly annoying manner, eyes boring into the screen. He gulped down more drink. It was as if Bridie didn't exist.
Now the men's canoe...
The other six looked like weight lifters and rugby players. They were handsome and tanned and their teeth were white, which Damien's most certainly weren't. Their muscles bulged under their t-shirts and they were all laughing and grinning, having a grand old time. At the first glimpse of Damien and his alabaster face on the screen, the same horror-stricken one gripping the oar they had showed on the trailer, Bridie bit into her cushion to quell her screams of excitement. Damien had instructed her very sternly that he wanted to concentrate on the show. He didn't want her babbling her usual inanities on and on while it was broadcast. If she didn't behave herself, he had said, he would lock her out of the sitting room and watch it on his own. Lock her out of her own sitting room! While he was watching her TV! But she had to put up with it.
Bridie's heart swelled with love as her eyes swept over the image of her lovely Damien on the screen, oh, wait! Now he wasn't there any more. The opening credits were showing, the usual bongo music playing, this season with a bit of samba thrown in. The camera was focusing on some monkeys jumping from vines, and the teeth of a snapping alligator, a giant armadillo lumbering across the jungle floor, and an anaconda gobbling up one of those huge-headed rat-like creatures. Bridie had finally scoured the TV screen that afternoon so they could see everything perfectly.
And she had cooked Damien's favorite for the viewing. Lasagna. Home-made. Though, actually, she had just gone to the Top-Yer-Trolley and bought one of their frozen ones, along with some special mince, ground beef. Damien couldn't stand it when she cooked from frozen, and, given her size, it was obvious she was a connoisseur also, so to ensure he didn't clatter her, and to make the taste better for herself also, she had half-cooked the store-bought lasagna while she browned the beef in a pan and added some fresh basil, chopped parsley, onion and a few fennel seeds, and, making sure Damien was still out of the house, she had taken out the half-cooked store-bought lasagne out of the oven, lifted up the layers of pasta, and spooned her own creation inside. He would be too busy staring at himself on the screen to even notice, anyway. So she had hoped.
The empty plates were on the coffee table in front of them. And the first of the three bottles of champagne, but not champagne, because it hadn't been made in that region of France, so it was just sparkling wine. They had toasted right before the show started and were drinking it out of tea cups because Bridie didn't own champagne flutes. Who did? She knew he had bought it with her credit card, but it was the thought that counted. It was the biggest celebration of his life. Of both their lives.
Now there was a commercial for panty liners.
“I'm warning ye now,” Damien said, his head whipping around as he lit another cigarette and acknowledged her presence for the first time since 7 PM, eyes glimmering strangely, though maybe that was the sparkling wine, “there's an event coming up now when yer man's addressing us all that I don't want ye cackling yer witch-like laughter at. Ye know what'll happen to ye if ye do.”
She did. This was a different viewing experience to what she had imagined over all those months. Damien had already beaten her over the lasagna, and she didn't want another clattering. As she massaged her aching stomach, she parted her lips, then shut them quickly, wondering if she were allowed to speak during the ad breaks. He hadn't laid out exact rules.
“What's up with ye, Helen Keller? Have ye lost yer tongue?”
“A-am I allowed to speak, then?” Bridie chanced. She shrunk into the back of the sofa, hoping a fist didn't fly across the length of it into her gut again. Sometimes he mistook her tone for sarcasm when it wasn't.
“Ye're allowed to get yer fat arse into the scullery for to get me another bottle.” He drained the last the wine. Bridie had only had half a cup.
She scurried off and did as she was told. The popping of the cork during the deodorant ad didn't have the celebratory tone it should have. It sounded more like a punch.
But “This is terrible exciting, hi,” Bridie bubbled as she poured. Damien always told her she was too negative about everything. So she had to be upbeat. And, really, she was. She had been looking forward to this day for so long. If only Damien would calm down a bit. But she understood. It must be very stressful for him to be broadcast to millions on the telly like this. He was feeling insecure. Putting on a hard man front. He'd make up for it later after this first show was over. He'd calm down, and be her loving Damien once again. The thought of this made her smile a genuine smile. After they toasted again, she placed a hand on his arm. “Ye looked so brave in the canoe. I kyanny wait to see ye in action the rest of the show.” He tensed and jerked his arm away. He eyed her as if searching for that sarcasm, but it seemed he couldn't find it. The scrawny neck that struggled to support his huge head darted out and his lips pecked her on
the cheek.
“Ta for that, love,” he said.
Bridie beamed as she gulped down.
“Ohhh!” she exclaimed gleefully, “I already hate all them men on yer tribe! All brawn, no brains!”
“Silence!” Damien barked. “It's back on!”
He slid back down to his section of the couch.
The two tribes, men on one side, women on the other, were standing on the shore of what Bridie guessed was the Amazon. Vines were hanging all around them, and massive leaves surrounded their sweat-drenched bodies. They already looked exhausted and filthy, though Bridie guessed all they had done since the ad break was get the canoes to shore and climb up to where they were now. Damien looked like he must have slipped in the mud on the way up. His shorts were caked with it, and it looked like he had shite himself, but the wrong way around. Bridie stifled a giggle.
Jeremy was blathering on about the rules of the game, then pointed in two opposite directions, telling them where their respective camps were. He handed out maps to get to them there, then handed out their tribal buffs.
Damien's six tribe mates towered over him. He looked like a child stood beside them. Bridie felt protective. How was he going to outlast these six muscular Alpha males? But she knew the game was also social and strategic. And her Damien was friendly and clever. He'd find a way.
At least he was in a separate tribe from those girls. The camera was lingering on them. Bridie hated them all. Big tits, shapely hips, pouty lips, two blondes, two brunettes, two redheads and an Asian. Well, the Asian was okay. Perhaps she'd allow Damien to have an alliance with her. No matter how desperate for sex he got out there, he would push her away. She was sure.
Static Cling (The Irish Lottery Series Book 5) Page 29
