‘I’m sorry,’ said Rufus, shaken. That she had been through such a hell appalled him. He wished he had known. Wished there could have been something he could have done to help her. But the façade of family life had been so smooth, so polished. And beneath it – chaos.
‘Ah.’ She shrugged again, poured more whisky. ‘It doesn’t matter. All gone. All done and dusted.’
‘I want to kill him,’ said Rufus.
‘Too late,’ said Orla.
‘Maybe I could catch up with Pat.’
She shook her head. ‘No. I think he’s gone too.’
So they had escaped their punishment. Meanwhile Orla was having to live with their crimes every day of her life. It must have been such a comfort to her, to have Redmond at her side, understanding, knowing the hell they’d both lived through. And now she’d lost him. No wonder she kept painting those mad pictures of him in her studio.
‘You must miss Redmond an awful lot,’ he said.
‘I do. Every day. We had a good life in London for a while,’ she said, her eyes misty with remembrance. ‘We ran the manor, the two of us. After Tory was gone.’
‘I know.’
‘Still, there’s one thing that gives me comfort.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Knowing that we finished off that bitch Annie Carter. Too bad we didn’t kill her sooner, before her Mafia friends organized the plane crash, and I lost Redmond.’
Rufus frowned. What was she talking about? ‘When was this – what year?’
‘Nineteen seventy,’ said Orla. ‘I’ll never forget it.’
But he’d seen Annie Carter long after that, when he’d been working in London’s East End.
‘Orla,’ he said, dry-mouthed.
‘Don’t worry, Rufus. I’m still alive, aren’t I? Feck them all. I’m alive, and they’re gone, Annie Carter included.’
‘She’s not.’
Orla’s hand paused halfway through bringing the glass to her lips. Her eyes met his.
‘What?’ she said.
‘She’s not dead, Orla. Annie Carter’s alive.’
Orla could only stare at him.
‘What did you say?’ she asked at last. All the colour had drained from her face, leaving it sickly pale. Her green eyes were huge as they stared into his.
‘I said she’s alive. I swear it, Orla. She’s alive.’
Orla was shaking her head. ‘No! That’s not possible…’
‘Possible or impossible, it’s the truth. She was in London and she was alive. I saw her myself at one of the clubs there. It must have been back in seventy-three or four.’ Rufus looked at Orla. ‘How could you not know this? Surely you have contacts…?’
Orla sat a long time in silence, trying to absorb this shattering news. Annie Carter, alive? Alive, while Redmond was dead?
She was clutching at her head, shaking it. ‘No, no…’ she moaned.