time he saw her. In London. Galway. Wherever it happened to be.
She came around in front of him. She was wrapped only in a towel, her shoulders bare. He reached up, touched her, stroked her skin, still without speaking.
‘Please tell me what’s wrong. Are you sick? Is it bad news from home? Your family?’
He thanked her silently for the excuse. He nodded, hoping he could lie convincingly. Another lie. ‘It is. It’s my grandmother. She’s seriously ill.’
‘Oh Joe, what is it? What’s wrong with her?’
His mind went blank. Both his grandmothers had died before he was born, and he couldn’t remember what they’d died from. So he said the first thing to come into his head. ‘Heart trouble. It’s touch and go, they think.’
‘Oh God. Do you need to go home?’
‘I do.’
‘As soon as you can?’
He nodded.
‘Can I ring the airport? Get you a flight?’
‘No, it’s all organised. My flight leaves in three hours.’
Three hours? she thought in disbelief. He was leaving in three hours.
He took her hand, pulled her closer to him. ‘Niamh, I’m sorry. This is the last thing, the very last thing I want to do.’
She didn’t want him to leave her yet either. Not after today. Even before today. But his poor grandmother … She steeled herself. ‘You haven’t much time then. You’d better start packing. Is there anything lean do to help?’ ‘Will you come with me to the airport?’ ‘Of course I will.’
Two hours later they were standing in the departure lounge at Melbourne airport. He’d checked in, grateful that Niamh wasn’t standing at the checkin desk beside him. That might have taken some explanation. Mercy flights home for ill grandmothers weren’t generally business class, he guessed. One more deceit. The past two hours had been full of them. She had stayed in the penthouse suite while Joseph had gone three floors down and hurriedly packed his bags. He hadn’t told her that was where he was going. He knew she assumed he was going to the backpacker hostel down the road. As he handed over his credit card at the reception desk he’d wondered anxiously if he had the money in his account to pay for this any more. Or had Maurice cleaned all that out as well? He’d know soon enough. Now he looked up at the television monitor. His flight was boarding. He turned to her. ‘I didn’t want it to end like this. But can I see you again when you get back to Ireland?’
He’d said it. He wanted to see her again. ‘Yes. Please,’ Eva said.
He smiled at her formal answer. ‘Can you give me your phone number in Galway?’
It hit her then. No, she couldn’t give him her number in Galway. Because she didn’t have a number in Galway. Because she didn’t live in Galway, she lived in Dublin. But he still didn’t know that. And this was absolutely no time to tell him.
She thought quickly. Could she arrange a phone number in Galway? Get it diverted to Dublin somehow? Buy a mobile phone and try and figure out how to use it? Or could she tell him the truth now? I’m so sorry about your grandmother and the fact you have to rush back to London like this but by the way my name is really Eva Kennedy and I work in a shop and live in Dublin and here’s my home number. No, that would be so unfair to him at a time like this.
‘Joe, I’m sorry, I don’t have a phone in Galway. In the caravan. It’s too isolated. But can I ring you in London?’
‘Of course.’ He quickly wrote his phone numbers down and gave them to her.
Eva looked at the piece of paper. Three numbers, work, home and a mobile. She felt like she was holding a treasure map. She glanced at the work number. ‘What’s the name of the company you work for? I don’t think you ever mentioned it.’
It was out before he could help himself. ‘Wheeler Design.’ ‘Wheeler? Your own surname?’ She smiled, trying to lighten the mood. ‘A family company, is it?’ Tell her. Tell her. Tell her. He saw the clock on the monitor behind her. There wasn’t time. And he didn’t want the last thing he said to her to be an admission of lies and half-truths. ‘In a way,’ he said. They stood there, looking at each other for a long moment. ‘I’d better go,’ he said. ‘You’d better go,’ she said. There was just time for one long kiss. Then he went.
Lainey was in the kitchen stirring a saucepan when Eva came home. She ostentatiously looked at her watch. ‘You’ve broken your curfew, I’m afraid. I’m going to have to ground you.’ Then she noticed the expression on her friend’s face. ‘Evie, are you all right? Did you tell him? Is that what’s wrong?’ ‘No. He’s gone.’ ‘Gone? Where?’ ‘Back to London.’ ‘Just like that? Today was that bad?’ She realised Eva wasn’t in a joking humour. ‘I’m sorry. Tell me what happened.’ ‘He got a call from London in our hotel room. His grandmother’s been taken ill.’
Lainey ignored the news about the grandmother. ‘Hotel room? I thought you were on a picnic?’
‘The weather was so bad, we went to that big hotel in St Kilda instead.’
‘That beachfront hotel? What’s a backpacker doing staying there? You’re sure it wasn’t one of the groovy backpacker hostels?’
Eva was in no mood for Lainey’s suspicions. ‘Yes, Lainey, I’m sure. It was that hotel. The penthouse suite. And he paid for it with pure cocaine.’
Then she burst into tears.
Kate was waiting at the arrivals gate at Heathrow when Joseph came out. ‘Rosemary told me which flight. I wanted to meet you.’ ‘I’m glad you did.’ She looked at him intently. ‘And are you all right?’ He knew she was talking about Lewis, not Maurice. ‘I’m more than all right. How are you?’ ‘Is that a how are you or a how are you?’ She tried to smile but suddenly started to cry. She put her arms around him and hugged him close to her. ‘I’m so sorry, Joseph. We’re both so sorry. For not telling you the truth about what happened. For not telling you about Alexander.’ He was fighting tears himself. ‘I know that. I know that now. It’s okay. Really. It’s okay.’ And it was, he realised as he stood there, comforting her. It wasn’t perfect. He wished it could all have been
different. All of it. But this was where they were now, and he knew they would be okay.
They talked more about his visit to Lewis as Kate drove him to his office. ‘He said you had a friend with you.’
Joseph gave a half-smile. ‘Yes, I did.’
Kate waited for him to say something more. When he didn’t she looked over at him quickly. ‘Lewis said she was lovely.’
‘She is.’
‘She’s Irish, I believe.’
‘That’s right.’
Kate laughed. ‘You’re not going to tell me anything else, are you?’
‘No, not just yet. So what about you? Are you still planning your trip to Australia?’
She nodded.
‘It’s a beautiful place. You’ll like it there, I think.’
‘Yes, I think I will.’
Rosemary was waiting in the Wheeler Design offices for him. So was the auditor, and two detectives. Joseph wondered for a moment if this was some sort of jetlag hallucination. He blinked. No, it was real. He accepted the big cup of coffee Rosemary was holding out. ‘So tell me, is it as bad as you thought?’
The auditor answered him honestly. ‘It’s worse.’ Five hours later he knew most of the facts. It had been going on for nearly two years. Maurice had indeed used every trick in the book - not just the false invoices and separate bank accounts, but a complex web of shelf companies and offshore accounts as well. Rosemary tried to console him. ‘It’s not your fault, Joseph. Maurice was very clever. And he had sole responsibility for the finances as well. It was easy for him.’ Joseph knew it was his fault. He was the one who had given Maurice that responsibility. He was the one who had only half listened during Maurice’s financial reports. ‘Maurice, that’s what I hire you for.’ His words kept coming back to haunt him. No wonder Maurice had always been so cheerful. He had been happily salting away thousands of pounds each month. Building a nice nest egg for himself, and slowly ruining Wheeler Design at the same time. The auditor was blunt. ‘All the royalty agreements he set up for you when your designs were sold to manufacturers are still intact. He didn’t touch those for some reason. They could cover your overheads - the rent here, your operating costs, the wages for your designers, Rosemary’s wages.’ He nodded in Rosemary’s direction. ‘So, plainly speaking, Mr Wheeler, you are still a wealthy man. Not in
the poorhouse yet. But it’s the capital that’s gone. Your savings, if you like.’
‘The property portfolios? The shares?’
‘Did you ever notice they’re not actually in your name?’
‘Maurice said it made more sense tax-wise to put them under other company names …’ He stopped there. Yes, of course that would have made more sense to Maurice.
‘You may get them back. We may be able to track him down. It just depends how far he’s got and how much unravelling of all your accounts we need to do when we do find him. And not just yours. You’re not the only client he’s stolen from, of course.’
‘So what are my options?’
‘As I said, you still have those royalty cheques coming in. It’s really your decision what you do. You could just close the company down, of course, that would be the most drastic measure. But I think you could trade through it. It’s a matter of checking your overheads - the rent of these offices, for example. You may find it makes more sense to move. You have enough in the short term to cover any money outstanding to creditors, suppliers, and the like. And your employees’ salaries and entitlements. I understand from Rosemary that the other designers are all on contract, is that right?’
Joseph nodded. ‘We’re nearly at the end of a project. Two or three more weeks.’
‘That’s lucky. And I also understand from Rosemary that you’ve been offered a consultancy in Canada. That may be another stroke of luck, in fact. You’ve accepted it, no doubt?’ ‘No, I haven’t.’ The auditor went back to his notes. ‘Well, when you do, you may find that the best option, payment wise, just to get you through the initial period, might be to’ Joseph interrupted. ‘No, I won’t be accepting the Canadian offer.’ ‘You won’t?’ ‘No.’ ‘Oh. I see. You’re going to do something else instead?’ Joseph realised right then that he was. And he knew exactly what it was. ‘Yes, I am.’
It was nearly eleven o’clock by the time Joseph got home. He was desperate for sleep. The figures on the paperwork the auditor had been showing him had begun to swim in front of his eyes. He couldn’t take in any more, between the jetlag and the shock of it all still. He wanted to sleep. But he wanted to make a phone call first.
In Melbourne Eva put down the phone and came out onto the balcony. Lainey looked up from her deckchair. ‘So? Any news?’
‘His grandmother is much better, so that’s a relief,’ Eva said as she sat down on the wooden bench. ‘But it sounds like he’s walked into some crisis at work that’s worrying him just as much. They’ve discovered the accountant was fiddling the books for the past two years, maybe more. Creaming off all the profits. And now he’s done a runner, with hundreds of thousands of pounds.’
Lainey frowned. ‘He’d been doing this for years and Joe’s boss didn’t notice?’
‘No. He didn’t suspect a thing, Joe said.’
‘What sort of eejit is this boss?’
‘He didn’t really mention him, but he sounded very tired. He’d been in there for hours going through the paperwork.’
‘With his grandmother lying sick in hospital?’
‘His grandmother is fine, Lainey. This problem with his boss seems to be what’s really worrying him.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard those Colombian drug lords are a worry to work for.’
‘Would you give that drug stuff a rest? Please?’
Lainey winked over at her. ‘Only joking, really.’ Was she though? Lainey wondered. Perhaps her suspicions had all been unfounded. Maybe Joe was everything he seemed. Just a nice ordinary designer
having a nice ordinary holiday in Australia until his nice ordinary grandmother had fallen ill. Forcing him to leave the penthouse suite of one of Melbourne’s most exclusive beachside hotels to rush back to London. Where his grandmother miraculously improves, just as hundreds of thousands of pounds go missing from Joe’s workplace … Stop it, Lainey, she thought. But she couldn’t help herself. She just didn’t take anyone at face value. That’s why she was so good at her job. People didn’t get away with anything when she was around. But she supposed a real drug smuggler wouldn’t have rung Eva from London the way Joe had done. A real drug smuggler would have slipped away never to be heard from again, surely? And a drug smuggler wouldn’t have had this effect on Eva, would he? Since that day in the hotel room she had been practically glowing with happiness. She hadn’t given many details, but whatever had happened had been lovely, Lainey could tell. This was certainly no holiday fling. A shame Eva hadn’t managed to tell him the whole truth yet, Lainey thought. But she’d made a start on it at least, by the sound of things. And it seemed Joe hadn’t minded that she hadn’t sung with Enya or done a sculpture for Bono. That was good. She wondered what he would think when he learned Eva’s name wasn’t Niamh, though. And that she didn’t live in Galway. And that she worked in a delicatessen …
Lainey decided to keep her thoughts to herself and her mouth tightly shut. She didn’t want to jeopardise her friendship with Eva, after all. Let some man come between them again.
She stood up. ‘Come on, Evie, let’s go for a drive somewhere. You’ve only got a few days left here, no point wasting them hanging around here. Are there any more cafes you want to visit?’
‘No, that’s it for me and work. It’s holiday time now.’ Her notebook was filled with sketches of how Ambrosia might look. Suggested menus. Even the lettering for the sign. All she needed to get started. ‘What I’d really like to do is take you out to lunch somewhere. Somewhere very smart. Your choice. The best place in town, if you like.’
Lainey smiled. ‘What a brilliant idea. I’d love that. Have you noticed what you’re doing, by the way?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Look down.’
Eva did. Rex was lying in the sun beside her, and she was patting his little head. She shrieked. Rex leapt in fright.
Lainey roared laughing. ‘We’ve a way to go yet, I think.’
Three days later Eva and Lainey were standing in the departure area of Melbourne Airport. Eva hugged her. ‘Thanks, Lainey. For everything. For more than you know.’