The Make

‘What, George keep a secret? George could blab for England.’

‘He can’t blab now.’

They looked at each other. That much was true. Chillingly so.

‘And maybe he just didn’t get a chance to tell Suze about it before the accident.’

‘I dunno.’

Their starters came – chicken liver pate and Melba toast. Gracie started eating, thinking that life was exceedingly strange. A week ago, the last thing she expected to be doing on Christmas Eve was eating lunch with her estranged husband. But actually . . . and this was the disturbing thing . . . she realized that being with Lorcan felt okay. She hadn’t expected that.

‘I’m going in to see George tonight, and I hope Sandy’ll be there,’ said Gracie. ‘I’d like to talk to her, find out exactly what the deal is with her and George.’

‘The deal is, they met through the escort work and now they’re engaged and George never got a chance to tell Suze.’

‘I dunno.’

‘Will you stop saying that?’

‘She just doesn’t seem like George’s type, that’s all.’

‘Gracie, you don’t have a clue what George’s type is. You don’t even know George now.’

‘Yeah, but I did know him,’ retorted Gracie.

‘People change.’

‘Do they? Really?’ She looked at his face intently. Wondered if that was possible. If what had once been unworkable could possibly ever work out any differently. She thought of Harry, little Harry, who had always been such a delight, and now it hit her how much she had missed him – and George, come to that. Now George was so ill. And Harry, gentle, handsome Harry, was in trouble up to his neck – that much was obvious.

‘So what is George’s type?’ Lorcan asked her.

Gracie shrugged. ‘I don’t think the George I knew could ever be a one-to-one “great romance” sort of person. Even as a kid he was everybody’s pal and nobody’s best friend. He never had any little girlfriends back then. He had friends, male and female. Harry, on the other hand, had proper dates when he was nine, ten years old, hardly out of short trousers. It was hysterical. The girls were practically storming the door to get hold of him. It was a big family joke.’

‘But you haven’t clapped eyes on either of them for nearly fifteen years,’ he pointed out.

‘I know. Maybe you’re right. Maybe George has changed.’

‘Maybe Sandy has changed him.’

‘Yeah, and maybe not.’

Lorcan prodded the pate with his knife. ‘I was right, wasn’t I? Is this crap or what?’

Gracie had to raise a thin smile at that. ‘It’s crap,’ she agreed. And she didn’t have much of an appetite any more, anyway.

Chapter 35

Christmas Eve

‘See? Result,’ said Gracie as she viewed George’s bulging inbox that afternoon.

It was half past three and nearly dark outside. After their mediocre restaurant lunch, she had insisted on coming back to the flat so that she could see if George had mail. Lorcan had insisted he was coming with her, and to be honest she wasn’t sorry about that. The heavy was still outside, sitting in his car. She was protected on all sides, and that was – much against her better judgement – a nice feeling.

‘You know, you’re not supposed to open random emails. Might admit a virus and fuck up the system,’ said Lorcan casually, standing behind her as she sat in front of the screen.

‘So bloody what?’ flung back Gracie, clicking on the first. ‘In the overall scale of things, one fucked-up computer isn’t that important. What is important is finding out what’s been going on with George.’

‘Yeah, but if you balls it up you won’t get any more emails coming through, and if you think you’ll get an IT fixer out on Christmas Eve, you got another think coming.’

‘Shut up, Lorcan.’ He was right of course. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

Lorcan sat down on George’s bed. ‘Anything?’ he asked.

‘Messages of sympathy,’ Gracie frowned, deleting those.

‘Most won’t answer at all,’ said Lorcan, lying back on the bed, arms folded behind his head. ‘I told you.’

‘Shut the fuck up, Lorcan.’

‘I’ve missed this, all the cheery banter. All your sweet little ways. Telling me to shut the fuck up every five minutes. All that marital bliss bollocks.’

Gracie ignored him and kept opening emails.

So sorry to hear about George, they said.

Give him my love, they said, with a smiley face.

Get well soon, they said, with many kisses.

Then she opened another and it was all in huge capital letters, screaming at her from the screen:

WHERE IS HARRY? HE WAS COMING FOR DINNER NEARLY A WEEK AGO, BUT NEVER SHOWED UP. YOU’RE HIS SISTER? IS THAT TRUE? HE NEVER MENTIONED YOU. WHERE ARE YOU? CAN WE MEET UP? OR CAN YOU GIVE ME YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBER? I’M SORRY TO HEAR ABOUT HARRY’S BROTHER. CAN YOU PLEASE GET IN TOUCH SOONEST? I’M VERY WORRIED ABOUT HARRY.

JACKIE SULLIVAN.

‘Look at this,’ said Gracie excitedly, and Lorcan hauled himself off the bed and peered at the screen.

‘Looks like a result.’

Gracie clicked on ‘Reply’ and typed quickly. Then she pressed ‘Send’. She scrolled through the other emails, clicking on and deleting them as she went. Then she went to ‘Old’ and scrolled through those. ‘Sandy sent George a lot of emails.’

‘Well, you’d expect that.’

Gracie opened a few and read them. ‘She’s hellishly keen by the look of these.’

‘You’d expect that too.’

‘Look at this one. Hope you liked the flowers. She sent George flowers?’

‘Well, why not? Equality.’

‘Yeah, but George? He was never in touch with his feminine side. Hey.’ Gracie smacked her forehead. ‘I think I saw those damned flowers. Roses. They were dead by the time I got here.’

Gracie scrolled through a few more new emails and then exited the programme. She pushed away from the desk and stood up.

‘What now?’ asked Lorcan.

‘We wait, and we hope Jackie Sullivan checks her emails more often than I do.’

Lorcan looked at the bed. He looked at Gracie. ‘What we were discussing over lunch,’ he said, and caught her wrist in his hand. ‘We could—’

‘No, I don’t think we could,’ said Gracie, trying to pull away.

‘I think we could,’ said Lorcan, and gave a tug.

Gracie was jerked forward, her knees striking the edge of the bed and throwing her off-balance. She landed half on the bed and half on Lorcan.

‘This is a very bad idea,’ said Gracie as his arms went round her.

He shrugged and held on tighter. ‘Think of it as a farewell bonk,’ he said.

‘How romantic,’ sneered Gracie, feeling more than a bit breathless at this close contact. He was very warm,