LITMIR.BIZ

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walked on, letting the answerphone pick it up.

      ‘Oh damn, it’s the machine again,’ said a shaky girl’s voice. Then: ‘I don’t even know if I’ve got the right number. I’m trying to reach Grace Doyle. About her brother.’

      Gracie stopped walking. She stood there, staring at the phone like it might bite.

      Pick it up, idiot.

      But she didn’t want to. She was tired, it was the middle of the damned night, and she was not in the mood to hear more bad news. She slipped off her coat, tossed it on to the couch. Kept staring at the phone.

      ‘I knew she wouldn’t phone you, so I thought I’d better. I’m Sandy. George is really bad. And it’s only right that you know, in case . . .’ The voice broke as the girl suppressed a sob. ‘Anyway, I just thought you should know. If you want to phone me . . .’ She rattled off the number.

      Gracie walked over and picked up the phone. ‘Hello,’ she said.

      ‘Oh! You’re there. Is that Gracie? George’s sister?’

      ‘Yeah, that’s me. How do you know George?’

      ‘I’m his fiancée.’

      ‘Oh.’ She hadn’t known that George had someone in his life. She knew nothing about the family she’d left down in London, her dingbat mother and her two brothers; and that had – until now – suited her just fine.

      ‘Did the police contact you?’ asked Sandy.

      ‘They did, yeah,’ said Gracie.

      Silence hung between them. A waiting silence, in which the girl was obviously expecting Gracie to make sisterly noises, express concern. Gracie thought about it and realized that she did feel concerned. That annoyed her. She hated Christmas and she hated this; renewing contact with her family was not on her agenda. She was hoping for a quiet time over the festive season, then in early January she planned to take off – alone – for her annual two weeks in Barbados. She’d worked hard all year without a break, and she had been looking forward to a little downtime.

      But now, this.

      ‘Well,’ said Sandy lamely, finally breaking the silence, ‘I just thought you should know. That’s all. And Harry’s just vanished, taken off somewhere, no one knows where.’

      Gracie’s attention sharpened. ‘What do you mean, Harry’s vanished?’

      ‘Well . . . he has. He’s just gone.’

      Gone where?

      ‘Have you . . . have you got your mum’s phone number . . .? Maybe you’d like to call her?’ asked Sandy when Gracie didn’t speak.

      Yeah, and maybe not, thought Gracie. ‘I’ve got it here somewhere.’ She didn’t think she had. She thought – hoped – that she’d lost it.

      ‘I’ll give it to you, just in case,’ said Sandy. ‘You got a pen . . .?’

      ‘Sure,’ said Gracie, and stared at the wall, not listening, as Sandy gave her the number.

      ‘I think maybe you ought to call her,’ said Sandy.

      And I think maybe you should fuck off.

      Too much dirty water had flowed under the bridge for her to even contemplate getting in touch with her mother again, however dire George’s situation might be. Would George’s condition really be helped by her turning up in London to sit by his bedside? Answer: no.

      Her dad had been cool and controlled – like her – but her mother Suze had always been almost laughably hyper-emotional, big on pressing panic buttons and beefing up any bad situation. Gracie knew she could bust a gut, get down there, but then guess what? Everything would be fine. And why should she? They’d never given a shit about her.

      No.

      Fuck them.

      But even as she thought that, she could hear her mother’s final words to her. You know your trouble, young Gracie? You’ve got a damned calculator where your heart should be.

      And what about Harry? Where the hell had he got to? She thought about that. He was probably upset about George and had taken himself off somewhere to brood. Harry and George had always been close to each other. Once, they had been close to her too.

      ‘Well . . . I’d better go,’ said Sandy.

      ‘Yeah. Thanks for calling,’ said Gracie. And don’t for God’s sake call again.

      She hung up and stared at the phone for long moments. She felt annoyed and tainted, as if she’d been touched by something unpleasant. Then she dialled out. Brynn picked up straight away.

      ‘Hello?’

      ‘Did you give a girl called Sandy my number?’ asked Gracie, breathing hard.

      ‘She phoned just after you’d left. Said it was urgent family business. Normally, of course, I wouldn’t give out your number, but after the cops called about your brother and—’

      ‘Never give out my number. Not to anyone. Got that?’

      ‘But she said she was his fiancée.’

      ‘I don’t care if she’s Nefertiti, the last of the sodding pharaohs, I don’t want my private number given out.’

      ‘Okay, if you say so.’ He sounded surprised and hurt. Brynn was her ally, her number one man; she never shot her mouth off at him.

      ‘I do say so. Remember it.’ Rattled, Gracie slammed the phone down.

      Then she went into the bedroom, stripped off, pinned her hair up and headed for the en suite to shower the day away. She stood for a long time under the soothing heat of the needle spray, her mind blank; then she soaped up, rinsed and dried off, pausing before the big slab of mirror to brush out her hair.

      Gracie stood there for a moment scrutinizing her reflection. She looked tired, but otherwise not bad. As always, she wished she was half a stone thinner and half a foot shorter, a little less statuesque, but there it was, shit happened. She was more Jessica Rabbit than Kate Moss, but so what? She had the luminous white skin that went with being a redhead, and a thoughtful don’t-fuck-with-me expression in her cool grey eyes. She had long since developed a style all of her own and she knew how to present herself to the world – mostly in neutral-toned crisply fitted shirts and sharply tailored suits. She had large breasts – all her own – a small waist, and richly curving hips. Definitely not Kate Moss.

      ‘Ah, you’ll do,’ she told her reflection, and slipped on a cosy grey cashmere vest and pants before heading for the kitchen to stare in the fridge.

      She hadn’t eaten since early afternoon and now she was hungry. There was some pasta there, and a little tomato sauce. She’d heat it up, eat in front of the TV with a glass of wine, and she wouldn’t think about her estranged family, not for an instant. She put the pasta and sauce in a pan and a plate in the oven to warm, then went over to the door and picked up the post. She took it back into the kitchen and put it on her tray with a knife and fork, a bottle of wine and a glass, salt and pepper.

      When the pasta was done, she took the tray into the sitting room and aimed the remote at the TV, settling down with a sigh. She ate her meal watching the latest disasters in the world on the twenty-four-hour news channel, sipped the wine, and began to feel almost human again.

      She reached for the post and started to sort through the junk mail and the bills. She spotted something that looked vaguely official – and then the name jumped out at her. Her stomach clenched, the pasta swirling in her guts, and for an uneasy moment she felt as if she might throw it all back up again. It was from a county court, and there was the name, the one she always half expected to see or hear but rarely did, these days. She had stopped using that name soon after the separation.

      Connolly.

      And there was his name too. Lorcan.

      Shit.

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