Authors: Glenys O'Connell
Winters
grinned. “Them's the breaks. Good luck with it, Bill. I’m off back to
Waterford. My agent's buying me dinner at a classy hotel then tucking me up
with my laptop in a cozy little cottage before she flies back across the
Atlantic.”
Bill
raised an eyebrow. “Isn't your agent the same woman who…..”
“Yes, but that was a long time ago and we're
purely business now. At the moment, I'm footloose, fancy-free and ready to
devote myself to 100,000 words of fiction.”
“Yeah, right, I know you, Jonathon. A few weeks
out in the boonies down in County Waterford and you'll be begging me to let you
help with the Diamond Darling,” Bill challenged.
“If
I want to know more, I’ll buy the newspapers,” Winters retorted. “Remember me
to Sórcha. I’ll see you, her and the two babes on Wednesday before the
libraries conference starts. Though God alone knows how they persuaded me to
speak at that!”
“Come
on, man, you know you love the adoration,” Bill replied, disappointed that he
hadn’t been able to recruit Winters in the hunt for the jewel thief. “Just
remember when you’re out at those posh dinners and cocktail do's, to keep an
ear to the ground for anything about our jewelry loving friend!”
“Yeah,
right.”
“Hello,
my name's Cíara Somers and I make my living seducing other women's partners!”
Cíara grinned, picturing the words alongside a many-times magnified likeness of
herself, emblazoned in great style in the advertisement strips along the sides
of Dublin buses.
Drawing
up imaginary advertisements for her business was great fun but it wasn't
getting the task in hand done, and hadn't Sister Rosalie always told her she
was hopeless for getting the task in hand done? Whatever would the reverend
mother think of her now?
She sighed, tapping a yellow pencil against her
teeth and gazing at the computer screen. Even though she'd been doing this
'specialized' private investigative work for a while, she still found it hard
to come up with a tactful way of breaking the news to women that the men they
loved weren't to be trusted.
At the back of her mind she always wondered why
the women who hired her to tempt their men bothered. After all, if a woman
couldn't trust her lover unconditionally, it was hardly worth bothering to continue
the relationship, was it? She sighed again.
But the work did pay pretty well, all things
considered; even if it wasn’t quite what she’d intended to be doing when she
opened up the Somers Private Inquiry Agency. But being a private detective was
a tough job with a lot of competition. There were already several established
agencies with skilled operatives in Dublin and when she had first hung out her
shingle the clients hadn't exactly beaten a path to her door.
In her more pessimistic moments she thought
she'd made a big mistake in kissing a good, solid administrative job goodbye
and sinking her savings into this tiny rented office. But a quick sense of
satisfaction turned up the corners of her mouth as she smoothed her hand over
the stack of file folders on her desk.
Ah, yes, things had changed.
Three months
into her new career her bank account had been horribly depleted. She’d had just
two clients.
One, a little old lady whose
cat was missing; the other a sharp-tongued middle-aged matron who’d suspected
her husband was cheating on her.
Cíara found the cat at an Irish Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' shelter; and she’d become a heroine to the
lonely old woman.
The other client had not been thrilled at having
her suspicions about her philandering spouse proven correct and she’d paid her
bill reluctantly, treating Cíara to the same well-bred look of contempt that
she'd probably turned on her husband for the past twenty years or so.
But the case had given her that Great Idea. It
had tickled the back of her consciousness for a while, because she really
hadn't been sure that she had what it took, or even how to go about finding
clients. But word had gone out and the clients came, first in a trickle, then
in a deluge that had amazed her.
A discreet knock at the door brought her back to
the present and her next appointment of the day.
She couldn’t pretend she liked the balding,
beer-bellied man who prowled into her office, looking at the Spartan
furnishings with a faintly derisive twist to his mouth. But if E.P. Walters,
vice-president of the renowned Walters and Reilly Investigative Agency, was
about to offer her work, then by God, she’d manage to eat humble pie. Every
crumb. Her heartbeat speeded up in anticipation.
Was this the break she’d been sweating for? A
real detective job?
“So,
er… may I call you Cíara?”
“Certainly.”
She’d almost added ‘E.P.’ then thought better of it, remembering the humble
pie, and said simply: “Mr. Walters.” He cast her a dry look as if he’d read her
thoughts and wanted to smile but his facial muscles had forgotten how. He
sighed theatrically.
“We
find ourselves short of manpower right now, too much work on the books. Lot of
clients want us to stop this Diamond Darling fella, you know? Can't rely on the
police to do their job these days. And I have a case that calls for a…er…
specific type of agent.”
Why was the man avoiding looking at her? The
‘Views of Beautiful Ireland’ calendar on the wall above her desk couldn’t
possibly be this riveting. She suddenly had the feeling that this slice of
humble pie might well mess up her digestive system.
“What kind of agent?” she asked. If Walters
heard the suspicion in her voice, he give no indication.
“What do you think of divorce?”
Cíara gaped. Whatever was the man talking about?
Divorce was still a controversial subject in modern-day Ireland but she'd be
damned if she’d let political correctness rip away a meal ticket.
“I think it's something to be avoided – but I
don't think people should stay together when it obviously isn’t working and
everyone is unhappy,” she hedged.
Walters breathed deeply, a sound suspiciously
like a sigh of relief. “So you'd agree that a woman should do whatever she can
to make sure her marriage will last? Isn't that part of what your specialty
consists of?”
“If you mean do I see if a man is likely to be
led astray, yes, that's my specialty.” Irritation colored Cíara’s voice.
“I'm only bringing this up because we have a
client, a wealthy heiress from an excellent family, who is about to embark on a
marriage to a young man from outside her own social and cultural circle.
“This young man is handsome, indeed, and could
have his pick of any girl in Dublin or beyond. He's from a South African
family, highly respectable, but something of an unknown quantity to our own
social strata. He’s sworn his love to this young woman – who is, God bless her,
somewhat homely.”
“That’s
a heart-warming story,” she said. “There’s hope for the rest of us. But just
where…?” Walters ignored her and ploughed on
“My client may be rich, she may be in love, but
she’s not stupid. She wants to know if her fiancé is serious about her, or if
he’s just after her money. This young man appears to be of excellent family, as
I said. I had an agent check them out. But there is no doubt that my client is
considerably wealthier than her fiancé is likely to be for some time and, in
order to avoid the unpleasantness and cost of a divorce, she wants to know how
he would react to, shall we say, temptation.” Walters spoke quickly, getting the
words out as if they had an unpleasant taste.
So that's where this was going!
She sighed.
Walters cracked what she thought was meant to be
a friendly grin, but it didn't work on his hangdog face. She returned his look
without even attempting a smile; already sure she knew what was coming.
Disappointment gnawed at her.
“Tell me, Cíara, if you were a wealthy heiress,
would you still be sitting here in this office?”
Her
eyes widened at the change of subject, wondering just what this man knew about
her. “I doubt it,” she answered his question honestly.
If she were a wealthy heiress with access to all
that money, she’d be sitting in a much plusher office for starters – maybe on
the top floor of some building on Grafton Street, or overlooking St. Stephen's Green.
“No,
you’d want to enjoy your privileged life.” Walters voice cut into her pleasant
daydream.
“I
guess so. Mr. Walters, where is all this going?”
“Ah,
direct, to the point. I like that. Too many people waffle, you know. They can't
come out and say what they mean….”
“That’s
right,” she said, and hid a grin at Walters' sudden suspicious frown.
“You've
built up a certain, er, reputation, in some circles, for – well, specialist
activities.”
Why, the man was positively leering!
Any more and she'd throw him out of her office,
respected agency or not!
“We may as well cut to the chase, Mr. Walters.
I'm way out ahead of you. Your client wants to know if her fiancé could be
lured away by another woman when her back is turned, or if it's safe to let him
off the leash once in a while.” Walters gave a whooshing sound that Cíara
interpreted as a sigh of relief.
“Well, well, it seems as though we could do
business together. We have, of course, already checked out the young man's
family.” Walters raised an arrogant eyebrow. “They are highly respected in the
South African diamond trade. But what our client wants to know is: Would he
take up with another woman if the opportunity arose?”
“Isn’t
that something like entrapment?” She'd had uneasy feelings about this before,
but had smothered her doubts by rationalizing that her work was a service to
the women who'd hired her. She'd thought of asking a solicitor for an opinion,
but nixed the idea on the grounds that what she didn’t know couldn't hurt her.
“Not
at all,” Walters went on, struggling to be delicate. “Regrettably, wealthy
young men, or young men married to money, tend to attract a lot of predatory
women. My client wants to know if her young man will be up for that – if he
will remain faithful to their marriage vows.”
“Mr.
Walters, are you saying you want me to go out and try to seduce some poor young
fella, to fulfill some wealthy neurotic’s….” Cíara’s voice carried her
disappointment.
Gee, she'd been hoping for real detective work!
But Walters misread her tone and defensively held
up a hand. “I know how it looks, Cíara, but let me assure you this is not an
unusual request to come into a private detective’s office. You know that from
your own, er, clientele.
“People are insecure – neurotic, if you prefer.
They want to believe that they are loved – but occasionally they fear their
loved ones aren't all they’re cracked up to be. If this lady knows that, just
once, an attractive woman has approached her fiancé and he refuses, she’ll live
happily, at least for a while. And if the client’s happy, we’re happy. And
believe me, you’ll be happy with the paycheck.” He tapped his chin with a bony
finger speculatively. “And it could lead to other work.” He added the lure
almost as an afterthought.
Her
thoughts whirled with the panicky feeling that she was becoming typecast,
doomed forever to roam the nightclubs trying to pick up other women's strays,
and would never have the chance at some real hot cases. She already had to keep
the actual nature of her work hidden from prying eyes – most specifically,
Granny Somers and the Henleys.
Maybe the whole thing really was sleazy. Maybe
she should shut down the agency and go sling fries in a burger joint. But then
a vision of rent checks returned by the bank, closely followed by images of a
new career as a beggar on O’Connell Bridge, slipped into her mind, like a sea
fog wafting in from the river Liffey and her honorable intentions dissipated.
“As
you say, I have a reputation in certain areas. I'd be willing to take this job
on. But only on one condition.” Judging by the way Walters was pirouetting
around her office like a Victorian lady afraid to muddy her skirts, it was
probably a safe guess that this particular heiress had some kind of hold on him
and he was desperate to please her.
“And
what would that be?” The man's little piggy eyes turned hard.
“That
you use the Somers Private Inquiry Agency for more serious work in future.”
Walters looked as if he were going to laugh out
loud. Certainly, he went an interesting shade of red. But he controlled
himself –
the man must be really desperate
- and nodded.
To actually
speak the promise aloud would probably choke him,
she thought.
“Okay,
I’m willing to approach the man, have a drink with him maybe, chat a little to
see how far he’s looking to go – but that is all that I’m willing to offer!”
she said firmly.