Winters & Somers

by Glenys O'Connell

  “Sorry? You think that's all it takes? Smile that boyish smile and say you're sorry – and everything is all right? How could you! I – I liked you, Winters. And all the while you were thinking…”

  Winters sat stubbornly in his seat, holding on to her admission that she liked him and letting the storm break over his head. When it abated, he said quietly, “Cíara, since the very first day I met you, you've driven me mad. When I saw you dressed like a tramp, cheerfully admitting you were going out to seduce other men, I was crazy with jealousy. I saw you with that guy the other day, and when he hugged you I nearly came over and decked him. You've had me tied in knots from the very beginning. And you kept all these files hidden away, so I never got to read them and find out the truth.”

  “So now you're saying it's my fault?”

  “No, never that. Let's just say the strength of my attraction to you fried my brains. I apologize from the bottom of my heart, and I'm willing to walk right out of here, this moment, crawl on my belly if you want me to – but please, let me just help you solve this case. Then I'll be gone.”

  “Do I get to keep the office furniture?” Cíara asked, with a watery smile. Through her hurt and fury she could see just how he'd jumped to all the conclusions he had. And he'd done it because he fancied her like mad…

  “Okay, Winters. Let's get through this. I want the slug who hurt Margaret Henley. You want the Diamond Darling. Let's do it. And afterwards, well, who knows.”

  * * *

  “So, just what do you know about Anton Wallace?”

  Winters had the good grace to flinch when she gave him the death glare.

  “Hey, he’s our strongest suspect so far…”

  She dragged in a deep breath, satisfied that this was business again. “I was hired by the Walters Agency – in case you don’t know, they’re the most prestigious PI firm in Ireland. Walters wanted to use my, er, special abilities in this case, and promised me some real PI work afterwards.

  “So I only know what Walters told me - that Wallace was engaged to a rich Dublin heiress who didn't trust him. She wanted to see how he behaved when he was let off the leash, and that was all I was supposed to find out. According to Walters, though, his family money is in diamonds, South African, and his pedigree is exemplary. That’s exactly the word the man used.”

  “You sound like you have doubts?”

  “I think Walters talks a good game. But I think this character reference research is probably humdrum, routine stuff to what Walters calls his ‘experienced operatives’. I doubt they would have given it great priority. My instincts about Wallace, from the start, were that something wasn't right.”

  Cíara was pleased to see Winters offer her a little toe-tingling smile and look her in the eye for the first time since Wallace’s name had come between them.

  “So, first off, we're going to do a proper background check on him.” She reached for her phone book and began flicking through her contacts.

  Together they went through all the lists again, comparing names of dinner guests, winnowing out the ones who appeared on each list, then cross-checking each against their alibis for the nights of the robberies. Because she knew all the guests, Cíara was able to give a potted history of each, their apparent financial circumstances, and other details to answer Winters’ questions. She had to admire the skilled way he brought out issues she had not even thought of. It was easy to see why he was such a good homicide cop!

  At his request, Cíara chatted with a few of the Henleys’ social group on the phone, ostensibly updating them on the attack on Margaret Henley but also discreetly fishing in the gossip pond of the socially elite.

  And at the end of it all, one name still stood alone on their list – Anton Wallace.

  “I'm supposed to meet him for dinner tonight,” she told Winters, ignoring his frown. “But I'm just going to check out the business numbers he gave me.” It took a short time on the Internet to discover that the Wallace family were, indeed, big time diamond merchants and an old Boer family of great respectability.

  “Call their London office, ask to speak to Wallace's secretary,” Winters urged.

  Cíara called. The classy English voice at the other end hesitated when she asked to speak to Mr. Anton Wallace's secretary.

  “Listen, I met Mr. Wallace in Dublin, and he asked me to keep in touch on…on a business matter,” she improvised. “He gave me this number so I thought he must be based in London rather than in South Africa.”

  “Just hold on, please.” Another English voice, middle-aged male this time, came on the line. She ran through her spiel again. There was a silence at the other end, then the man said “Are you the Press?”

  “No, I'm not,” she snapped.

  “I'm afraid all inquiries about Mr. Wallace Junior must be made through our headquarters office. Here's the number. Please feel free to call there.” The voice reeled off a series of numbers, and hung up.

  She dialed, and muttered a nasty phrase under her breath. Winters focused on her immediately – not that she hadn't already been the centre of his thoughts. Particularly as he imagined her having dinner with Wallace…

  “What's come up?” he asked, trying to sound casual.

  “All I get when I dial the office number on Wallace's card is an answering service. I can't help thinking that a big company like Wallace International would have something a little fancier. Although he told me they don’t have a Dublin office yet.”

  “Did the London office give you another number? “

  “Yeah, the one for their South African home office. I'll see where that gets me.”

  Winters leaned over and flicked the button for the speakerphone just as the line at the other end was answered. A woman with a strongly accented voice asked politely how she could be of help.

  “I'm trying to contact Mr. Anton Wallace, and I thought you might be able to give me his cell phone number.”

  There was a pregnant silence at the other end of the line. Then: “Could I ask what this is about?”

  “I'm calling from Dublin. I met Mr. Wallace at the jewelers’ convention in Waterford a few days ago, and we arranged to meet…er, a business meeting. Unfortunately, something has come up and I don't want to inconvenience him by not showing up. But the number I have for him….”

  “Please wait one moment. I'll see if someone can help you.”

  Lines clicked and snapped over the intervening miles of land and ocean, and then a masculine voice asked crisply, “Who is this?”

  “My name is Cíara Somers. I'll give you my office number. Now, whom am I speaking to?”

  “This is Peter Wallace. Anton's – father.” Cíara shot a puzzled look at Winters. “Could you please explain your business?”

  So she explained again, sticking to the story of meeting Anton Wallace at the jewelers’ convention and the arranged business date. “I can't get there, and I don’t like to have him show up without knowing. The answering service seems unreliable, so I was trying to get his personal number as I need to contact him…?”

  “I am afraid that's quite impossible.” There was no mistaking the mixture of emotions in the voice. “I don't know who you are, Ms. Somers – if that is your real name. I will be making inquiries about you. I will call you back.”

  Cíara gave him her number, and that of the local garda station where several people could verify her credentials. Then they waited for what seemed an age but was actually only a few minutes. Both of them jumped when the telephone shrilled.

  “I am afraid you – and we – may have been the victims of a cruel hoax,” Wallace senior said without preamble. “You did not meet my son in Waterford last week. You see, Anton has spent the last ten months in a clinic, recovering from a heroin addiction that nearly killed him.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. Then with a sigh, Anton Wallace's father continued. “We've kept this a family secret. Anton did spent much of his life at boarding school in England and has not been active in
the business, so it was easy for us to keep this information from everyone except the immediate family and one or two people in the company who needed to know. He's had this problem for years, and then the inevitable happened. He got some cocaine that was too pure, and went into cardiac arrest. He was fortunate enough to receive immediate medical attention, but he may have long-lasting health effects. Possibly brain damage. We are hoping and praying that my son will have a chance to get his life back on track. I must ask that this information remain confidential.”

  “If this is true, Mr. Wallace, then I have to tell you that someone has been masquerading as your son in order to get into the upper strata of wealthy society here in Ireland. This man may well be involved in criminal activity. I am going to the police – but you'd better do whatever you can to cover things from your end.” She thought it only fair to give the man a warning.

  “Thank you for this information.”

  The phone at the other end was put down abruptly, but the pain in the man's voice seemed to linger in the room with them.

  They both stared numbly at the telephone for several moments.

  “So, it looks as if Wallace is a fraud,” Winters said. “It shouldn’t be too difficult for Bill to check on this information.”

  “And I'm making a pretty fair guess at something else.” Cíara reached for the telephone and punched in the number for Jury's Hotel. Speaking to the headwaiter, she asked if Mr. Anton Wallace and his party had arrived yet for dinner. They had reserved a table. Thanking the man, she put down the telephone.

  “I'm already half an hour late for my dinner date – and Wallace hasn't shown up yet, either. You know what I'm thinking?”

  Winters swore. “You're thinking maybe you've been set up?”

  “That's right. I'm thinking that maybe I'm supposed to be cooling my heels with a nice bottle of Chablis at the restaurant, waiting for Wallace to show up and fending off the pitying looks of the waiters, while my poor little flat is being robbed.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Her cell phone bleeped as they roared across town in Winters' truck.

  The number that came on her screen was Mary Margaret's, but the whispering voice at the other end was so low it was hard to hear. “Say that again?” Cíara said, her heart thumping. Then, to Winters: “Step on the accelerator – Mary Margaret's in the flat to get her stuff – and someone's breaking in!”

  Visions of her pregnant friend suffering the same treatment – or worse – as Margaret Henley, if the burglar discovered her, made Cíara sick with fear. Leaning forward in the seat, her own foot pressed an imaginary accelerator as Winters wove in and out of the gathering evening traffic. She tried to move them forward with sheer force of will. Seeing the tense lines of her body, Winters leaned over and squeezed her clasped hands. The grateful glance she gave him in reply made his heart thump – and the moment's inattention earned him a few pithy words from a taxi driver who was cutting in ahead of him.

  They parked in a side street leading to the green in the center of the square of Georgian houses. She pulled off her strappy high-heeled sandals and threw them in the back seat of the truck as she prepared to follow Winters silently down the street.

  “Where would your bathroom be?” he asked her quietly when they reached the front of her house.

  “Winters, this is hardly the time – oh, I see. The bathroom for my gaff would be around the side. I did leave it open – but just a crack.” She followed him and, looking up, they saw the small frosted glass window now stood open to its widest point. A drainpipe passed by a convenient foot or so from the window, and they caught the glimmer of a flashlight in the darkness inside.

  Swinging around the back of the house, they crept in through the small back room that was used as a laundry for all seven flats in the building, into the main hallway, and up the stairs. Cíara's heart was thumping madly and once more she was glad of Winters' solid presence, this time ahead of her and between her and whatever lay ahead.

  She muttered a curse as she fumbled with the keys, and Winters took them from her, holding the jingling keys quiet in his big palm as he inserted the right key into the lock. It opened with a contained click! And they slipped inside.

  At the same moment a dark figure came out of Cíara's bedroom, holding a small torch shielded in one hand. The other hand was rifling through the meager contents of Cíara's jewelry box,

  “You dirty bollox! Did you really think you could get away with this!” she roared, launching herself forwards. She was caught in strong arms and flung backwards, only saved from a fist in the face by Winters' intervention as the big man put himself between her and the Diamond Darling.

  There was a loud thud as the two men crashed to the floor, Winters grunting when the old wound in his leg streaked pain as he hit the floor. Then Cíara saw the Diamond Darling turn the heavy mahogany jewelry box into a weapon, slamming it against Winters' temple.

  Cíara flicked on the room light to see Winters lying dazed on the floor as the slight, black clad figure stood over him preparing to land another blow. Her vision blurred with grief and fury at the thin line of blood on Winters' face and she launched herself at his attacker.

  “Take your miserable junk!” The intruder screamed, tossing the contents of the box in Cíara's face as he retreated towards the back of the flat. She went down on her knees beside Winters, pulling his head into her arms.

  “My God, Winters, are you dead? Please be breathing – I didn't mean all those horrible things I said,” she muttered, rocking his prone body. And rejoiced in the unbelievable sense of relief as his eyes opened.

  * * *

  Winters was dead. He knew he was dead, because he was in heaven, his head cushioned on the breast of an angel. An angel who as calling his name, with tears in her eyes. An angel who said she loved him and regretted all the evil things she'd wished on him…an angel who looked just like…Cíara?

  Reality hit home. Winters sat up with a suddenness that made his head spin.

  “You're all right? You gobshite, I thought you were dead!” The angel yelled.

  Winters clutched his head. “Please don’t shout,” he tried to speak softly, but his own voice echoed loudly in his head. Then a dark figure sprinted from the back of the flat, making for the only door after a fruitless search for an exit.

  Cíara jumped up. “We've got to go – he's getting away.”

  Winters swore as reality flooded back into his consciousness. He staggered to his feet, head reeling, and for an awful moment he thought his injured leg would not hold his weight. Cíara was ahead of him, barreling through the open door.

  The Diamond Darling, the thug who'd thumped her grandmother and stood her up, was not going to get away lightly. But she had to admit it was comforting to have Winters bounding along behind her. For a moment there, when she'd thought he was dead, nothing else had really mattered. Not even revenge on that lying pond scum Wallace.

  “Hey, Buddy, look where you're going…” Smokey's words were cut off with a loud oof! as the diamond thief shoved him aside on the narrow passageway. But Small Eddie was right behind and grabbed the fleeing figure with a roar.

  “Nobody pushes my friends around like that, Mister. Say you're sorry!”

  “Small Eddie, hold onto him!”

  “I'm sorry!” came the desperate voice of a thief struggling to escape. Small Eddie looked up at Cíara and Winters as they tore down the stairs. For a dreadful moment she thought he'd let his captive go. “Small Eddie, he hit me!” she yelled.

  Outrage flitted across Small Eddy’s usually laid back features. “You hit this lady? You good for nothing…” and he tightened his grip on the struggling thief's collar, shaking him like a terrier with a prize rat. The black headgear slipped off, showing Anton Wallace's red and furious face.

  It was all over. Except for one missing piece. Where was Mary Margaret?

  Panicked, Cíara called her friend’s name and emerged from her hiding place in a tiny hall closet and, dishevele
d and furious, and proceeded to give Wallace a piece of her mind.

  “What's going on here, causing such a commotion?” Granny Somers demanded as she was dragged down the hallway by The Dog, who sensed trouble and promptly sank his teeth into Wallace's leg.

  Winter's caught Cíara's eye, and returned her grin. He pulled out his cell phone and punched in Garda Bill O'Malley's cell phone number.

  “Bill? Can you get over here to Cíara's place? We've got a burglar.”

  Bill whistled. “The Diamond Darling?”

  Winters was grinning as he replied. “Yes, I think that might be the one. And you'd better get a move on – I'm not sure how long I can keep Cíara and Mary Margaret and Granny Somers from killing him...”

  EPILOGUE

  Everything happened in a blur after that.

  Bill arrived with full Gardaí back up and arrested Anton Wallace – and almost arrested

  Granny Somers, Small Eddie, Smokey, Margaret Mary and The Dog for obstructing police – they all wanted a piece of the Diamond Darling.

  Next came hours of questioning at the police station as Winters and Cíara, in separate interview rooms, explained how they had caught one of Dublin’s most notorious thieves of modern times.

  Then there was the waiting, as police in Ireland and in South Africa connected the dots to discover who the Diamond Darling really was. It turned out he was a former druggie friend of the real Anton who had seen his opportunity to use his knowledge of the Wallace family and of diamonds to get into the confidences of wealthy upper crust people and steal a fortune.

  Cíara got a phone call from Mr. Walters, full of praise for her detective work, along with a self-serving suggestion that he had in some way pointed her in the right direction. She bit her tongue on a scathing reply, and the man told her he would be by to see her and offer her some honest detective work through his agency.

  “That’s nice,” Cíara told him sweetly. “Do make an appointment, though – our telephone has been ringing off the hook since the news media got hold of the story.”