‘Mam is worried sick about you,’ said Gabriel. ‘She was talking about coming down, but it’s been a bit of a struggle for her lately, what with her hip replacement and everything, so I said I’d come.’
‘I called her,’ said Dominique. ‘I told her everything was OK.’
‘Everything isn’t OK,’ said Gabriel. ‘Of course it isn’t. Your husband is missing. There’s trouble at the company. You need support.’
‘Thanks,’ Dominique told him shakily. ‘Greg’s being a great support already. And Emma will be here soon too.’
Gabriel turned towards Greg, who’d stood to one side as brother and sister hugged.
‘Good to see you,’ he said.
Greg nodded briefly. ‘Difficult circumstances.’
‘Yes.’ Gabriel’s voice was calm. ‘Thank you for being here for Dominique.’
‘I’m always here for her,’ said Greg. ‘We all are.’
Dominique glanced at both of them. They were acting like strangers, she thought, although perhaps it wasn’t all that surprising. It was a long time since they’d met. And Greg, knowing about Emma’s unrequited teenage love, had never really hit it off with Gabriel. Besides, he didn’t trust priests, he’d told her. They were too damn sure that they were right about everything. She’d nodded at that. She thought very much the same herself.
‘Would you like tea or coffee?’ she asked them.
‘I’ll make it,’ said Greg. ‘You probably want to talk to your brother.’
‘Thanks, Greg.’ She shot him a grateful look. As she sat down on the sofa, Kelly walked into the room. She was dressed in cargo pants and a sleeveless T-shirt and wearing make-up. She looked at Gabriel in surprise. Gabriel repeated his reasons for coming and she nodded.
‘Mum needs someone else,’ she agreed.
‘And you too,’ said Gabriel. ‘You look tired, Kelly.’
‘I’m fine.’ Kelly twisted her hair into a plait and secured it with a ribbon. ‘I’m going to work.’
‘Work!’ Dominique stared at her.
‘I’m scheduled for the lunchtime show,’ said Kelly.
‘Nobody will be expecting you to go in,’ Dominique told her. ‘And you should be at home with the rest of us.’
‘I know. But I’m going in anyway. I can’t sit around here listening to you and the others fighting. When you have news, you can text me.’
‘We’re not ...’ Dominique shrugged. ‘What if there are reporters trying to harass you?’
‘Hey, Mum, I work in the media.’ Kelly gave her the ghost of a smile. ‘I can deal with reporters.’
Dominique’s faint smile echoed her daughter’s. ‘I’m sure you can. But ...’
‘I have to get out,’ Kelly said. ‘I really do. I can’t sit around all day waiting.’
She picked up her keys and left the house.
‘She’s a credit to you,’ said Gabriel.
‘I did my best.’
‘All anyone can do.’
‘Is there anything you want me to do for you?’ asked Gabriel.
‘I don’t know.’ Dominique frowned. She told him about the visit of the gardai and the missing money, and mentioned the need for her to get some legal advice.
‘Actually, I might be able to help you on that,’ Gabriel told her. ‘I have a friend who works in law. I’ll give him a call.’
‘That’d be great.’
‘Don’t worry, Domino. Between us we’ll get to the bottom of it all.’
As Kelly drove through the front gates, she thought that this must be what it was like to be a celebrity. A cluster of reporters and photographers scattered when she revved up the car and burst on to the main road. She supposed they were probably already writing a story about the spoiled princess of Atlantic View.
At the radio station she was greeted with a mixture of surprise and sympathy. Dan Connolly, the station manager, told her that she was great to come in but that she was part of the biggest story in the area.
‘Local radio, local interest,’ he said. ‘Can we interview you, Kelly?’
‘All right,’ she said, and so she found herself in the tiny studio opposite Mona Corry-Jones, whose mid-morning programme was almost required listening in the region.
‘My father is an honourable, decent man,’ said Kelly in response to Mona’s questions. ‘And if he’s missing, it’s because he’s trying to put a deal together to save jobs and save the company.’
‘Delahaye Developments is already in receivership,’ said Mona. ‘It’s too late to save it.’
‘If anyone can do anything, my dad can,’ said Kelly.
‘Wouldn’t it have been better if he’d stayed?’ asked Mona. ‘Faced the music and tried to assist the receiver?’
‘Probably,’ admitted Kelly. ‘But I’m sure he has his reasons.’
Dominique heard the interview as she drank her fifth cup of tea of the day. Her heart was in her mouth wondering both what they might ask and what Kelly might say. But in the end she thought her daughter handled herself extremely well, and she sent her a text to say so.
The media continued to call the house. There was also another call from Stephanie Clooney, who told Dominique that she’d been asked by some of the other charities to let her know that they’d accept her resignation from their boards; and one from Brendan’s solicitor, Ciara, who said that she didn’t know where he was and that she hadn’t spoken to him in over a week. Detective Inspector Peter Murphy contacted Dominique to ask if Brendan had turned up (would she tell him if he had? wondered Dominique); and Lily arrived at the house looking as though she’d aged ten years since Dominique had last seen her only the week before. Emma, who was with her, stared in disbelief at Gabriel Brady.
‘I thought you were in South America,’ she said.
‘Until last week,’ he told her. ‘I was in London when I heard the news, so I came straight over.’
‘You look well,’ she said after a moment’s pause. ‘Obviously your time away suited you. As do your clothes.’
Gabriel glanced down at his jeans and T-shirt.
‘It was a decision I had to make,’ he told her.
‘Better late than never.’ There was a hint of a challenge in her voice.
‘But not easy,’ he said. ‘Not easy at all.’
The decision Gabriel had made, to the absolute astonishment of everyone who knew him, was to leave the priesthood. He told them all that he had been struggling with his conscience for a number of years and that he’d come to the very difficult conclusion that he’d been mistaken in his vocation.
Evelyn, naturally, had been devastated by his announcement. Having a son in the priesthood had always been a source of comfort to her.
‘But what are you going to do?’ she’d wailed as he sat with her in the living room, trying not to look at the photographs of his ordination that were hanging on the wall.
‘I’ve taken a job with UNICEF,’ he said. ‘Working on irrigation projects. I’ll be abroad for a while.’
He’d stayed with a friend in Donegal while he’d been in Ireland but had visited Dominique for two days, explaining that he’d made a mistake about the priesthood and that he couldn’t carry on the pretence any more.
‘Is it because of a woman?’ she asked immediately.
‘No.’ Gabriel was dismissive.
‘A man?’ She looked at him doubtfully, and he smiled faintly.
‘No,’ he repeated. ‘I just realised one day that I did the wrong thing for reasons I thought were the right ones at the time.’
‘What reasons?’
‘I thought I was special. I thought that this meant I was right for the priesthood.’
‘But everyone said that you were a great priest.’
‘I know. I was good at parish work. I liked it. But after a while I realised that I wasn’t being true to myself or to the people around me. I think ...’ he hesitated, ‘I think I needed to belong to something. And I do believe a lot of what the Church teaches. I believe that it works for good in many, many places. I know that there have been scandals. It’s not because of them that I left. It’s because of me.’
‘You’ve wasted a lot of your life.’
‘Not wasted.’ He smiled at her - the smile that she’d always called his priest’s smile. Half knowing, half accepting. But not a priest’s smile, she realised now. Just Gabriel’s normal smile. ‘Not wasted,’ he repeated. ‘I liked the studying. I liked the work. But I was mistaken about the rest.’
Dominique said nothing. It was the first time in her life she could remember Gabriel ever admitting to being mistaken about anything.
Greg spent a lot of his time on the phone trying to find out exactly what the receivership meant for Dominique and Kelly, and what was going on with the Barbados money.
‘I knew nothing about Barbados,’ said Dominique. ‘Other than that he was raising funds for it. But I’ve no idea what the project was.’ She shrugged helplessly. ‘I’ve no idea about any of it really. I should have listened a bit more. I used to know everything that was going on, but as the company got bigger and bigger, it all seemed to be so complicated, and there were advisers and accountants and lawyers and everyone else, so . . . I stopped asking. But I should’ve asked. Then I’d be able to tell you all about bloody Barbados!’
‘It’s the worst part from Brendan’s point of view,’ Greg told her. ‘He raised a lot of money from people in the area and at the moment nobody can account for it.’
He then reeled off a list of names that left Dominique white-faced.
‘And what’s the worst part from mine?’ she asked. ‘Given that robbing our neighbours sounds like the absolute worst that could happen.’
‘Well ...’ Greg looked uncomfortable. ‘The bank can’t give you any money out of Brendan’s accounts. Most likely it will break up the company and sell it. And it can repossess the other properties too.’
‘But not our house?’ Dominique looked anxious. ‘Surely they can’t take our house.’
‘There’s a mortgage on it,’ said Greg uncomfortably. ‘I don’t think they’d want to turn you on to the street or anything, Domino, and there haven’t been any defaults on your payments yet, but obviously there will be and that could be a problem.’
‘And the others?’ She pressed her fingers to her forehead. ‘Oh, Greg, I know it sounds mad for me to be asking about my houses as though I’m a property mogul or something, but ... Is there a mortgage on Mount Merrion? And the apartment in France?’
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘Gabriel’s friend gave me the name of someone in the city. We’ll contact him now. You need someone working for you, looking after you and Kelly.’
‘Brendan always looked after me and Kelly,’ said Dominique disconsolately. ‘He . . . he ...’ She blinked away the tears that threatened to fall. Then she got up and walked out of the room, banging the door behind her.
Chapter 18
People were looking at them with undisguised interest, Kelly realised as she sat in the city coffee bar, sipping lattes and nibbling on warm muffins with Alicia and Joanna. The other customers were actually prodding each other and pointing towards them as though they wouldn’t notice. And every so often a burst of raucous laughter would erupt and Kelly would wonder if it was directed at her. In the week since her father’s disappearance, the story had stopped being national news, but it was still a hot topic locally and there was a lot of anger over the collapse of the company. Not just from the people who’d lost their jobs, but from others who felt that Brendan had given the community a bad name. The other issue was the missing Barbados money. Kelly was absolutely convinced that her father wouldn’t have stolen it, but she knew things looked bad for him. People would ultimately forgive the failed company, she thought. But they’d never forgive him if he’d simply robbed them.
At work, Kelly’s colleagues were outwardly friendly but, since her interview, the station had also run a short piece on the rise and fall of Delahaye Developments, which had included a fairly unflattering profile of Brendan and had called Dominique a glamorous socialite as though she’d never done a day’s work in her life. And although they’d said that it was nothing personal, Kelly had been angry and hurt by the piece. She’d felt like walking out, but then decided that that would be giving in.