The Villain’s Daughter (49 page)

Iris stared at him. ‘Everything’s fine.’

‘Mrs O’Donnell?’ he said, as if Iris’s word could not be trusted.

‘Yes, yes,’ Kathleen murmured. ‘We’re fine.’

‘Let me get you a fresh coffee,’ Noah said to her solicitously, as if she was the victim in all this, and Iris the feckless daughter causing her unnecessary grief. ‘That one must be cold by now.’ Before she could answer he waved at a waitress who brought a couple of fresh cups and a pot of coffee over to the table.

Iris wanted to scream at him to go away, to leave them alone. He didn’t know anything about what was really going on. She felt confused by his attitude. What had she ever done to provoke such antagonism? It had been the same from the very beginning.

The waitress looked over at Iris, the pot poised in her hand.

She shook her head. ‘No thanks.’

‘Thank you,’ Kathleen said to Noah. ‘That was very kind.’

He gave her a friendly smile before he withdrew. It wasn’t a smile that he extended to Iris.

Iris watched as he walked away. She took a few seconds to ponder on the source of his contempt, but then wiped it from her mind. Turning her attention back to her mother, she took a quick breath. ‘So how did my father . . . how did
Sean
. . . find out about the affair?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes.’

Kathleen finally took a sip of coffee. ‘Michael told him. He found out from Lizzie.’

‘Michael?’ Iris frowned. Somehow it wasn’t the answer she’d been expecting.

‘She told him how long it had been going on for. Apparently she’d known for years. If it hadn’t been for that - and for the fact that she told him you were Terry’s daughter - he might have come to me first, talked to me about it. He knew how much it was going to hurt Sean, but what could he do? He couldn’t keep it from him. He was his brother.’

Iris had a flashback to sitting in Michael’s kitchen, drinking the watered down whisky while he told her a story that was full of lies. ‘That’s how he knew Sean was never coming back.’

‘Michael was only trying to protect you. He gave you a version that was credible. I suppose he hoped it would be enough to stop you digging any further.’

Iris tugged at a strand of hair, wrapping it around her fingers. No wonder her mother had made that call to Michael. She remembered seeing the number lying on the notepad by the phone. Kathleen must have been desperate to talk to him, to make sure the truth remained hidden.

They didn’t need to go over what had happened next. Iris already knew about Sean’s response to the revelations - the acquisition of a gun, the robbery, the terrible shooting of Liam Street. But there were still other questions that needed to be answered. She started with the most obvious one. ‘When did Terry get out of jail?’

Kathleen gave a light shrug of her shoulders. ‘I’m not sure.’

Iris didn’t believe her. ‘A week, two weeks? You must have some idea.’

‘I know what you’re thinking, but he didn’t kill Michael. I’ve already told you. He wouldn’t—’

‘How can you be so sure? He had good reason to want him dead. And to want his wife dead too, come to that. If Sean hadn’t found out about the affair, if Michael hadn’t told him, then Liam would still be alive today.’

Kathleen leaned forward again, her eyes full of denial. ‘No, you’re wrong. He promised me. I went to see him in the hospital after . . . after . . .’ A shaky hand rose up to cover her mouth. It was a few seconds before she removed it again. ‘I told him it was over. And it wasn’t Michael or Sean or Lizzie who were to blame. It was only us, the two of us, who were responsible. And me most of all. If it hadn’t been for my cowardice, my mistakes, that poor boy would still be alive. I should have finished the affair before you were born. It was wrong. It was always wrong. I should never have . . . Sean was devastated when he found out. He went out of his mind; he didn’t know what he was doing.’

Iris could see the pain flowering on her mother’s face. She suddenly understood the extent of her feelings of guilt. But that didn’t mean she could forgive her. She was still angry over all the lies, all the deceit. Trying hard to cut herself off from any feelings of sympathy, she quickly said: ‘And what about Lizzie? How did Terry persuade her to keep her mouth shut? Her step-son had just been killed. She knew who’d done it. Michael had told her, hadn’t he? So why didn’t she tell the police?’

Kathleen’s expression instantly changed, her face taking on a harder look. ‘I’ve no idea what Michael told you, but Lizzie wasn’t what you’d call the sentimental sort. Or the motherly sort. She had her own agenda. She saw an opportunity and grasped it with both hands. If there was one thing she dreaded, it was Terry leaving her. She could put up with his infidelity, his lies, but not a divorce. She’d sacrificed too much to let him just walk away.’

‘Yeah, well she had every reason to be resentful. You’d been sleeping with her husband for the past ten years.’

Kathleen blushed again. ‘I’m not trying to excuse my own behaviour, but hers wasn’t exactly praiseworthy either. She knew how it would look if it all came out - how his kids would react, how much they’d hate him. And she realised that she’d finally got the hold on him that she’d always wanted. She said she’d tell the boys that what he’d done - what
we’d
done - had been the cause of Liam’s death. They’d never forgive him for it. She said she’d shout it from the rooftops unless he agreed to stay with her.’

‘And so he dumped you,’ Iris said.

Her mother shook her head. ‘No, he was prepared to risk all that, to take the chance on his boys possibly hating him forever if we could still be together. But it was impossible, wasn’t it? After what had happened, we could never go back there. It was too late.’

‘And so you just took off, ran away.’

‘There wasn’t anything else I could do. He found us of course - eventually. But I wouldn’t change my mind. I begged him to leave us alone, to let us get on with our lives. We’d caused too much damage. It was over between us.’

‘Except you still had his daughter.’

‘You might not believe this,’ Kathleen said softly, ‘but he
did
love you. He loved you enough to let you go.’

But Iris wasn’t having any of this romantic claptrap. ‘Well, at least it saved him the cost of maintenance.’

‘You’ll never know what it cost him,’ Kathleen said sharply.

Iris stared at her mother across the table. ‘God, you still love him, don’t you?’

‘No.’

But Iris had seen the way the two of them had been talking when she’d come out of the Dog that afternoon. She had seen the way they’d been standing too close to each other. It had all been in the body language. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘If you want to know if I still have feelings for him, then yes, of course I do. He’s your biological father. If it hadn’t been for him, you wouldn’t even be here.’

There was a short silence.

Iris became aware of the bar again, of the people in it, of the music that was playing. All the other lives that were going on around her. A girl in a very short skirt slid by the table and went into the Ladies.

‘Are you in love with Guy?’ Kathleen asked.

Iris frowned. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Sometimes love makes us do stupid things, things we can spend the rest of our lives regretting.’

Iris had heard enough. She got to her feet and looked down on her mother. ‘Actually, if you want to help there is something you can do.’

‘Anything,’ Kathleen said eagerly.

‘Tell Terry Street to stay away from me. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to talk to him.’

‘But—’

‘I mean it,’ Iris said. ‘He’s nothing to me. I won’t ever acknowledge him as my father.’

On Monday morning Iris was back at her desk at Tobias Grand & Sons.The shock of discovering who her real father was had still not worn off - she wasn’t sure if it ever would - but she couldn’t put her life on hold. The busier she kept, the less time she’d have to think about it. She was hoping her mother had made that phone call and that Terry Street was clear on where he stood: she had no intention of ever seeing him again. She might be his daughter, but there weren’t going be any happy reunions. The knowledge that she was related to him still made her shudder. What would she have done if it hadn’t been for Guy? Fallen apart, she thought. It was only his love and support that was keeping her going.

Gerald Grand walked past her and nodded. ‘How are you today, Iris?’

‘Bearing up,’ she replied politely. She had to prove that she was capable of doing this job if she wanted to hold on to it. Gerald’s sympathy for her recent loss wasn’t likely to last very long.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘erm . . . good, very good.’

Iris returned to her work. Although she was trying to concentrate, her mind kept wandering. She returned over and over again to what Michael’s motives had really been in telling Sean about the affair. Was it possible that they’d been less to do with brotherly love and more with self-interest? Michael had always had a strong attachment to Lizzie Street; by spilling the beans, he may simply have been hoping to split the two marriages up. If Terry left Lizzie for Kathleen, then Lizzie would be free to be with someone else. But then again, could she really believe that he’d be so selfish? And would Lizzie have been interested anyway? Iris didn’t want to think badly of him, but when Michael had revealed the truth all those years ago he had set in motion a chain of terrible events, the repercussions of which were still being felt.

Iris gave herself a mental kick. No matter what Michael had done, no matter what his motives, there were only two people who were ultimately responsible for the mess that had ensued - her mother and Terry Street. It was
their
selfishness, and theirs alone, that had ruined the lives of so many other people.

At ten to eleven, William came out of his office and placed some papers on her desk. ‘Good news,’ he said. ‘It appears that our longstanding resident Mr Hills is finally leaving us.’

Iris looked up at him, surprised. The last time she’d typed up any correspondence on the matter, mother and son had still been at loggerheads. ‘How on earth did that come about?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ he said, ‘although I did have a conversation with the son on Friday. It seems he’s reconsidered and has now agreed to his mother’s wishes that the body be returned to Ireland.’

Iris smiled. ‘And that had nothing to do with your powers of persuasion?’

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ he replied modestly. ‘Actually, there’s quite an interesting story behind it all.’ William, clearly in no hurry to get back to work, leaned against the corner of the desk and folded his arms. ‘It seems that Connor Hills was born in Kellston, lived here for the first thirty-odd years of his life, but then moved to Dublin. He set up an import and export business, got married, had a family and then twelve months ago came over on a visit with his wife to see their oldest son. The boy’s at university in London. There was nothing unusual about the visit - they’d been here a few times before - but on this occasion Connor stayed on, claiming that he wanted to look up some old friends. There wasn’t a problem at first but, as the weeks went by, the phone calls gradually became less frequent and then he just disappeared. The family alerted the police, but of course a man who chooses not to return to his home isn’t exactly top priority.’

‘And then?’ Iris said, her curiosity roused.

‘Well, eventually the son tracked him down, living rough near Kellston Station. That was about three months ago. And that’s where it all gets even odder. He said his father was perfectly coherent, if not entirely clean, but that he made him promise not to tell his mother where he was. Connor swore he’d disappear forever if he broke his word or if anyone else came sniffing round.’ William paused, reflecting perhaps on his own recent difficulties. ‘Maybe it was some kind of breakdown.’

‘And the son agreed to keep quiet?’

‘Yes. The two of them were close and he made the decision, rightly or wrongly, to do as his father asked. He was hoping he could talk him round, persuade him to get some help if nothing else. He wanted to tell his mother, of course he did, but he knew she’d be on the next flight over. So instead he went to see him every day, took him food and blankets, and tried to find out what was going on. And then one morning he arrived and he wasn’t there. He asked around and eventually discovered that his father had died the night before. Apparently it was a heart attack. There were no suspicious circumstances.’

Whilst William had been relating the story, Iris had started to experience one of those weird tingling sensations on the back of her neck. She knew it was ridiculous, but the story was beginning to echo parts of her own past. ‘So why all the fuss about where he was going to be buried?’

William gave a sigh. ‘It was something his father told him. During one of their conversations, Connor Hills had said that he wanted to die in Kellston, to be buried here. He was quite insistent.’

‘Did he explain why?’

‘Not exactly. He just said that this was where he belonged, that he should never have left.’

‘How old is he? The son?’

‘I’m not sure. About nineteen, I think.’

Iris frowned. ‘So how can he afford a lawyer at that age? He must have been racking up the legal fees over the past few weeks. You said he was a student, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, but he doesn’t seem to have any money worries. Mr Hills, it appears, left him well provided for.’

Iris thought about the cash Sean had taken from Terry Street’s house. Michael had said it was only a few thousand, but had he been telling the truth? Maybe it had been a lot more than that. Enough perhaps for Sean to change his identity, set himself up in a nice little business in Ireland . . . and leave his kids a tidy inheritance.