Pussy Willow and the Pleasure Palace of Peachy Stuff was her first book.
Oh, yawn! Keeley had heard, seen and read it all before. The shelves of her local charity shop were groaning with unread copies (many of them hardbacks intended for review and donated by Keeley) of novels, cookbooks and memoirs by former actresses, models, columnists and TV personalities, all desperate to take advantage of their waning celebrity status and make a few bucks before they sank without trace beneath the public radar. Once they dipped below number ten in the search engine’s ranking, they were bollixed. Something told Keeley that, since Ophelia Gallagher’s main claim to fame was her illustrious surname, the former actress’s season in the Google sun was a particularly limited one. Why bother extending the poor creature’s shelf life by wasting a precious ‘Epiphany’ on her and her children’s book, when there were hundreds of more worthy wannabes queuing up to be interviewed?
And yet, and yet . . . something about Ophelia Gallagher intrigued Keeley. Why had she written a children’s book when she had no children? Why hadn’t she written a novel or a cookbook or an autobiography? Why hadn’t she divorced the drunken husband and penned a kiss-and-tell, warts-and-all memoir? Why hadn’t she designed a clothing line, or launched a signature scent?
Keeley picked up her phone and dialled the publishing house. Within minutes she had been put through to the publicity department, and secured an ‘at home’ interview with Ms Gallagher, which she arranged to dovetail neatly into her westward itinerary. The Crooked House was just off the N6, on the way to Lissamore.
‘Wouldn’t it be more convenient for you to meet in a hotel?’ the publicist had asked. ‘No,’ said Keeley. ‘It’s always more interesting to talk to someone on their home ground.’
It was true. Interviewees were always more relaxed in their home surroundings. A relaxed Ophelia would be an Ophelia with her defences down. And that was just how Keeley wanted her.
Chapter Four
Cat sat bolt upright. Since the night of the fire on the houseboat, she had trained herself to be vigilant against the tiniest sound. The brush of a moth’s wing against glass, the plash of an otter in the bay below, the scarcely audible whine of a mosquito was sufficient to wake her now.
Someone was in the house. Staring into the darkness, Cat tried to locate where, exactly. Downstairs. Footsteps were crossing the cavernous expanse of the hall. She listened harder, alert as a leopardess. The creak of that unoiled hinge told her the intruder was in the kitchen; the echoing drumbeat of her heart was signalling fight or flight. Sliding herself from the cocoon of her sleeping bag, Cat reached for her sarong and wound it tightly around her. Then she moved on silent feet to the top of the stairs. A light moved in the darkness below . . . a torch? No. By the greenish tinge to the illumination, Cat could tell that it belonged to a mobile phone.
‘Dad?’ said a male voice. ‘About fucking time. I’ve been trying to get through for ages. Yeah . . . I’m in Lissamore. No – it was too late to call in on her. I’m in Coral Mansion. I can’t tell . . . there’s no electricity: I’ll have to wait until morning to do a recce. But I’ve a feeling you’ve had visitors. Squatters . . . yeah.’
On the landing, Cat froze. Then she lightly retraced her steps back to the room in which she had set up camp and reached for the Swiss Army penknife that she always kept by her while she slept, cursing her stupidity when she realised she’d left it below in the kitchen. Grabbing her phone instead – her lifeline to Raoul – she moved out onto the balcony. A flight of steps took her down to the garden. Here, by the disused pool on the patio, she hunkered behind an overgrown shrub, and sucked in a couple of deep breaths.
Stupid, stupid Cat! Why hadn’t she had her things packed and ready for a quick getaway, the way she usually did? Why had she left her laundry strung up on towel rails in the bathroom? She was normally so careful about being on the ball. Now here she was in a garden at midnight, half dressed and horribly vulnerable. And Cat hated feeling vulnerable! She wished she hadn’t left her Swiss Army knife in the kitchen. Her Swiss Army knife felt good in her hand: even if she had no intention of using it, it lent her an air of bravado she did not necessarily feel.
Through the big picture window overlooking the patio, she saw that the trespasser had moved into the sitting room, and was starting to light candles. He must have found the supply she’d left in the kitchen. The kitchen and the room where she slept were the only rooms in the house in which Cat ever lit candles, since those windows could not be seen from the road. She’d learned to negotiate her way through the house in the dark, like a feral creature. The sitting room, however, was her daytime lair: she used it as a studio, and the paintings she’d made were taped to the walls.
Cat watched as the figure moved around the room, planting candles on mantelpiece and window ledges. She was freezing now: the wind was up, and it had started to rain. Perhaps she could slip back to the bedroom, quickly help herself to some clothes and her sleeping bag and leg it out of there? But leg it where, exactly? To Raoul’s place in Galway? To the Crooked House? To that hellish gaff she’d spent a night in last week – the one with the junkyard out back, and the rats?
She would feel at home in none of these places: there was nowhere in the world that was home for Cat. She felt a rush of helpless rage as she stood there in the chill night air, watching through a window as this . . . this interloper took possession of her space.
But hey! There was something familiar about the inter-loper, now that she saw him by the light of half-a-dozen candles. The last time she’d seen him, hadn’t he been all bathed in the golden glimmer of candlelight? It had been at the wrap party of that film she’d worked on – The O’Hara Affair. He’d had a gig as a stunt double and, that night at the party, Cat had decided on the spur of the moment that she’d wanted to get to know him. His name was Finn, she remembered. They’d shared a dance or two, then a bottle of wine and a laugh and a drunken snog. Later, they’d swapped phone numbers . . . and had never seen each other again because the number Cat had given him was bogus. Cat was careful about letting anyone have her number.
And yet, and yet . . . he was cool, Finn Byrne, wasn’t he? He’d be cool about the fact that she’d been squatting in his house – she knew he would. He was a scuba diver, and divers were laidback individuals. Maybe he’d even allow her to stay on until she got herself sorted with money and somewhere else to live? What the hell – she hadn’t much choice. She had no choice. She looked at the phone in her hand, then scrolled through the menu until she found Finn’s number. Clicking on the cursor in the text message box, she thought for a moment or two, then smiled. Help! she entered in the blank space.
Beyond the glass, she saw Finn take his phone from his pocket, and consult the screen with a perplexed expression. Seconds later, she received the following message.
Who is dis?
I am an orfan of da storm i need ur help luk oot ur windo.
It took ages for her to compose the text, but it was worth the effort. If Cat hadn’t been so cold, the look on Finn’s face might have made her laugh. Approaching the big window that overlooked the bay, he placed the palms of his hands against it and squinted through cautiously.
Rong window, texted Cat. Try da other 1.
He turned and looked over his shoulder, out over the black expanse of the patio and the derelict swimming pool.
Ur gettin warmer but im not its freezin out here.
Finn looked really spooked now. Feeling sorry for him, Cat pressed ‘Call’.
‘Who the hell is this?’ he said, picking up.
‘I am the Cat who walks by herself,’ Cat told him in her growliest voice, ‘and I wish to come into your house.’
‘Look, I don’t know what you’re playing at, but—’
‘Oh, Finn! Let me in!’ she wailed. ‘It’s me – it’s Catty! I’ve come ho-ome. Please let me in.’
‘You are fucking barking, whoever you are.’