"What do you mean?"
"There's nothing to tie him in with any of it. The entire thing was engineered by Don Richardson." "Any luck finding Ella, Nuala?" Frank said when he came in.
"No." She was sullen.
"Well, you can thank your stars that someone's prepared to go and look for her. Mike Martin phoned. He's found her, wining and dining in Stephen's Green with an American. Staying with him in the hotel there, even. Didn't take long for her to get over her grieving."
"Frank, listen to me."
"No, why should I? You listen to me. My brothers asked you to do a simple thing and you wouldn't do it. You know how much we owe them and this was one occasion when you could have done a little digging . . ."
"I did do a little digging, and they won't like what I found. Not
one bit. And if we don't stop hounding Ella everyone will know. Including Carmel, for God's sake."
"Know what?" Frank was confused.
"Know what your beautiful brother has been up to ..."
"You mentioned Carmel."
"Yes, I mentioned Carmel, because your brother Eric, if you remember, is her loving, faithful husband. She would be most interested in knowing what he was up to on our wedding day. Our own wedding day, I tell you, Frank."
She saw from his face that the escapade with Deirdre did not come entirely as a bolt from the blue to Frank. "Oh shit," he said.
"Precisely. And you knew, you knew about it, didn't you? Very funny, all lads together. Well, let's see what Carmel says."
"You're not going to tell her?" Frank was fearful now. Carmel was the most fearsome of the sisters-in-law.
"I hadn't intended to, but believe me, Deirdre will if anyone goes near Ella."
"It will implicate Deirdre too, of course," Frank began to bluster.
"She doesn't give a damn if she's implicated or not. And indeed if I thought that this is the kind of thing that you go along with, I'd damn well tell Carmel myself."
"Nuala," he begged. "You know I've never looked at another woman in my whole life. You know that, don't you?"
"No, I don't know, but I'm sure your brother will know and will tell me all about it when he has had to face Carmel in full flow," Nuala said. Ella tried to take it all in. No mention of Ricky Rice in the company that bore his name. "Is there something missing, something we just haven't been able to access?"
"I can't see it."
"But the very name of the company even? Somewhere in there it must show it belonged to Mr. Rice."
"That's all here. Look," Derry said, scrolling down. "Three years ago there was a deed transfer. Rice gave it all to Richardson. It was witnessed. It's registered. The entire company belonged to Don Richardson."
"But why did his father-in-law run away with him, then?" Ella felt her head spinning.
"Maybe it was a set-up. If it all hit the fan, the father-in law could run with them. If it cleared, well and good, and the father-in-law could walk home free as a bird. An older man, he might have stronger roots in Ireland."
"And his daughter, didn't she have shares?" Ella could barely speak.
"Not that it shows here." Derry shook his head.
"So they can all come home now? Now that Don's dead."
"Well, Lord, Ella. I'm no expert on all this, but it appears to me from reading this for the last two hours that they could. In terms of not being held responsible."
She was silent.
"They may not want to, of course," he said hesitantly.
"Derry, I don't feel very well. I don't think I could go back to Tara Road tonight. Would you mind very much if I stayed here?"
"Not at all. I was going to suggest something along the same lines," he said.
"You were? Good. Then I must ring my parents. Do you mind?"
She spoke in a matter-of-fact voice to her mother. She was going to spend the night in the hotel. There was a lot of work to be done.
"Your mom okay with that?"
"She hasn't been okay with anything I've done for two years, but she didn't make any fuss," Ella said. "That was Ella," Barbara reported. "She said we were not to wait up for her. She's going to stay the night in the hotel. They have a lot of work to do, apparently."
I see," Ella's father said.
"Don't be like that, Tim."
I'm not being like anything. She's a grown-up woman. She's free to do whatever she wants to." But he sounded tight-lipped.
"All I'm saying is that if you'd been talking to her, you'd have felt the same. This isn't anything like the last time. It's not a romance. I have an intuition about it."
I'm sure you're right. Neither of us had much intuition about anything last time round." "Should we order more coffee and maybe some dessert? You know, to keep us going "while we work things out."
"Yes, that sounds fine." Ella sounded vague and distant as if she had forgotten what coffee was. "What things do we have to work out, exactly?"
Derry walked around the room for a bit, trying to find the
words. For the first time since she met him, he seemed unsure. When he was speaking about his Foundation, about Kimberly, about his work, about his hatred for his father, he had been definite. But now he was searching for a way to say what had to be said.
"Like whether you take the bank drafts for your father. Like whether you should hand this machine in."
She watched him objectively. A big, square man in his shirtsleeves. Someone so well-known that even Harriet and her friends had heard of him. Tired now, much more tired than he had been earlier. Those lines etched on his face, as if they would never leave.
"What do you think I should do, Derry?" she asked.
"No. No way. It's your call, Ella. I only skimmed the surface, to identify what you have to do."
"Do I have to do these things now?" She knew she looked piteous, putting off the decision.
"Sooner rather than later, I'd say, since you asked me." His face was worried.
"Why? It's been going on for months. Why can't we wait a little longer?" She looked at him hopefully.
"Because of that guy down in the bar pushing us around, for one thing. Because of your friend with all the brothers-in-law, for another. Because people know you have this and they want to know what's in it, and to get their hands on what they can."
"I'm not ready yet to make up my mind," she said.
"As I said, it's your call."
He went to the phone and ordered the coffee. She sat there and watched the traffic of Dublin swirl around Stephen's Green.
And then they talked about other things. She told him about her driving test and how she must have been the only person in the world to drive into a motorbike three minutes after she set off. The examiner had said it was entirely the biker's fault and that Ella had been cool and responsible throughout.
Derry said he didn't remember how he learned to drive. Possibly when he was about twelve. It could have been a friend of his father's who taught him. He had often driven his father's van home when the man had passed out.
He asked Ella what else had happened in her odd and restless day. She told him about her lunch with Deirdre, and about the planned lunch party to meet him on Sunday, and the news that the marvellous twins from Hell would be there.
He wondered were there any hints about handling them.
"Tell them nothing about yourself," Ella warned him.
"I'm good at that," he admitted.
"You are, too," she said, smiling at him.
Tm sorry. Does that make me some kind of a pain?"
"No, not at all. We're all so blabbermouth here . ,. telling everything. You're a refreshing change, keeping yourself to yourself."
"Ask me anything, Ella, and I'll answer."
"No, of course I won't."
"I want you to. I want to be free and open and say what I mean. I've not been that for a long time."
"Can it be about me and not about you?"