The Tour (22 page)

Dorothy walked down the corridor to Interview Room 1 and, once more, sat into the chair that was bolted to the floor. A woman of about forty sat opposite her. She seemed very efficient and spoke in a clear, concise way.

‘Ms Crane,’ she began, ‘my name is Lucinda McAuliffe and I have been engaged on your behalf by a Mr Conor O’Shea. The Sergeant on duty told me that you were arrested today on a charge of assault causing grievous bodily harm to a Ms Juliet Steele. Is that correct?’

‘Yes,’ Dorothy replied barely audible.

‘OK, can you tell me what happened in your own words? Take your time now and try to be as detailed as possible,’ she smiled kindly at Dorothy.

‘I… I… was in the park. And I was looking for fungi. I collect them you see, and dry them. I have lots of display cases at home with examples of rare fungi from around the world.’

If Lucinda McAuliffe thought this was an unusual pastime, she gave no indication of it.

‘I had had an argument with my roommate earlier this morning. Something silly, so when I was walking in the woods, I decided to go back and make amends. Well, I went back to the hotel to find Juliet…and I saw her go in to Anna’s room – that’s another one of the group. Anyhow, we had words and she fell and banged her head.’

Lucinda looked impassively at her client.

‘OK, Ms Crane,’ she said ‘The thing is, there’s a witness to say you assaulted Mrs Steele and that it was your repeated and forceful pushing, while screaming at her in anger, that caused her to fall backwards and hit her head on the bath, as a result of which she was rendered unconscious. The emergency services were then called and she was taken to hospital, where she is recovering from her injuries,
thankfully
,’ she added pointedly.

Dorothy stared insolently at her solicitor. ‘Is that what happened Ms Crane?’

‘Well Anna Heller would say that wouldn’t she. She and Juliet are thick as thieves’, Dorothy snapped.

‘I must advise you that to offer a plea of not guilty when there is a consistent and compelling evidence to the contrary will not serve you well in court Ms Crane. Now, do you want me to represent you or not? Because if you do, I suggest you begin by telling me the truth.’

Dorothy felt trapped.

‘Now if you could begin again and tell me in as much detail as you can what happened exactly. Please begin by giving me some background to your relationship with Mrs Steele. I understand she is to be discharged from the hospital tomorrow and therefore may be called to give evidence at the hearing. Generally, a case like this could take some time to get to court, but I think the judge may wish to hear it sooner rather than later, given that you are all on vacation and Mrs Steele and Mrs Heller will want to fly back to the United States, as scheduled.’

‘As indeed will I,’ spluttered Dorothy. ‘Well simply put, what happened was this. Juliet has been behaving irrationally since we left the United States; she is obsessed with her dead husband and talks about him incessantly. She verbally assaulted me this morning for no reason whatsoever; I can only assume she is unhinged. I did not react to her outburst but simply left for the National Park. As I walked, I was becoming increasingly concerned about Juliet in her distressed mental state and so I decided to return to the hotel. To ensure she was alright. There is no telling what that idiotic woman would do. I saw her and Anna Heller in Anna’s room and I approached her. Again she became almost hysterical and as I was trying to calm her down she was walking backwards into the bathroom and she fell and bumped her head slightly against the bath.’

Lucinda held her client’s gaze. ‘Your repatriation is entirely dependent on the outcome of the hearing so what happens next remains to be seen Ms Crane. Assault is taken very seriously in the Irish courts, so it would be foolish to underestimate the severity of the situation. Now I will be in touch as soon as I get a time for court tomorrow.’

Lucinda began to gather her papers and put them in her briefcase.

‘Em, there is one other thing,’ Dorothy began. Lucinda raised her eyebrows.

‘You see, I may, inadvertently, have given the detective the impression, that I em…that I…’

‘That you what?’

‘That I was offering him a bribe,’ Lucinda sat down again.

‘How exactly could the detective have got that impression?’ she asked in a measured tone.

‘I may have said something along the lines of an arrangement…for money…and used notes...’

Lucinda’s tone was icy.

‘Ms Crane, tell me honestly. Did you or did you not, offer a financial bribe to a member of the Gardaí?’ ‘I think I did’ Dorothy replied in a small voice.

‘Well then Ms Crane, that certainly puts a different complexion on your situation. Bribing, or attempting to bribe a member of An Garda Siochána brings with it a criminal conviction, often a custodial sentence and a very hefty fine. That was a very foolish move on your part Ms Crane.’

Dorothy did not like the woman’s tone. Furthermore, the pressure of the situation was now beginning to overwhelm her. ‘Well you hear of it don’t you, in countries like this?’ she spat, ‘where the police are corrupt. How was I to know he wouldn’t take it? I mean I thought it was probably common practice here.’

Lucinda prided herself on her professionalism in dealing with even the most unsavoury of characters, but she was rapidly losing patience with Dorothy Crane.

‘Evidently, your opinions of the Irish people and of our justice system leave quite a bit to be desired. I would, however, caution you to resist the urge to display such attitudes tomorrow, or you may well risk adding contempt of court to your list of problems. In the meantime, I will file a defence and request bail. You will have to surrender your passport to the court if, and it is by no means a guarantee, they grant bail. I must warn you Ms Crane that the judiciary in this country takes a very dim view of those who feel they are above the system, so the best attitude to adopt is one of humble apology. Unfounded and unsupportable assertions that the system is corrupt will do nothing to help your cause. Goodnight.’

Dorothy was left sitting on the bolted-down chair as she watched the retreating back of her one and only hope of rescue from his horrendous situation. The female police officer brought her back to the cell and handed her a single blanket and a sheet. As the door of the cell slammed behind her, the young woman said, ‘I’ll be turning the light out in ten minutes, so better get organised.’

And so, Dorothy Crane PhD arranged the sheet on the bunk which was secured to the wall and lay down to spend her first night in custody.

Chapter 23

Patrick lay on his back contemplating the peeling ceiling, feeling a contentment the likes of which he had never previously experienced. This house sure was in need of some attention, he thought. His apartment in Boston was built in the 1970s and was looked after by a maintenance company, so he rarely got a chance to do much DIY. As a kid he had enjoyed helping neighbours fix things up, but that was in the days when people actually fixed things rather than throw them away and buy new stuff.

The sound of Cynthia stirring brought him back to the present. He looked down at this extraordinary woman nestling on his shoulder. She moved closer to him, sighed and then fell back asleep. She was exhausted because they had stayed awake most of the night discussing their future. OK, he knew things were happening fast, but he had no doubts.

Patrick had never previously understood why women wanted to call sex making love, but now he completely understood. He also knew he had finally come home in every sense of the word. He decided to tender his resignation that very day and, apart from a quick trip back to Boston to sell his apartment and tie up some loose ends, he was moving to Ireland.

They would get married here and live out their days together in this beautiful place, his homeland. Cynthia had told him that she had inherited her late uncle’s house, so maybe they could fix it up and live here? His pension would be enough to allow them to live comfortably, and maybe they could invest the money from the sale of his apartment in her horse breeding business. Cynthia certainly seemed to know what she was about in that department, and Patrick was excited at the thought of learning something completely new.

Never in a million years had he envisaged anything like this happening. The way he had imagined Ireland had been all wrong. He found no kindred political spirits, no sense of outrage at the years of British oppression. Instead, he had found something profoundly better. For many years, he had harboured hopes of meeting someone, settling down and all that, but as the decades passed, such a possibility seemed less and less likely. He never knew why exactly, and he just accepted that he was just not the kind of guy women wanted.

Sitting with Cynthia in the courtyard café yesterday, he felt like he was living a whole lifetime in one day. They had talked about work, friends, God, crime and punishment, Irishness and anything else that occurred to them. Never before had he felt so uninhibited with anyone. Sure, everyone saw Patrick as the big loud Irish-American, but underneath all the bluster he knew he was a shy man, especially when it came to the opposite sex. He had been burned in the past and his self-confidence in relation to matters romantic was zero. His sexual experiences had been a catalogue of disasters. He recalled some truly horrendous dates that had ended in embarrassment, with women saying not to worry, it was common, it happened to lots of guys. But Patrick knew they didn’t mean it and that he wouldn’t be hearing from them again. He got so nervous he just couldn’t perform and most women took it personally. The result was he avoided the entire sex thing altogether. That was the thing about Cynthia though; it’s as if she wasn’t a woman, well obviously she was a woman, but she wasn’t like any other woman he had ever met before. He could talk to her. As the afternoon turned to evening she fixed him with a stare.

‘Must you go back to the tour tonight?’

Patrick didn’t dare think what he half hoped and half dreaded she was suggesting.

‘I’m on vacation,’ he smiled ‘I can do what I want.’

With that she seemed to take a deep breath and said: ‘I hope you won’t imagine me forward, Patrick my dear. I’m afraid I’ve rather lost the touch of wooing, as it were. Not sure I ever had it actually. How and ever, I want to say this. I have never met anyone like you, and although I only know you a very short time, I feel, well, rather taken with you actually. Normally, I don’t speak like this. Well, normally, I don’t meet anyone with whom I feel any desire to speak like this. But what I am trying, albeit rather clumsily, to say is that, I like you Patrick, quite a bit in fact, and I don’t want you to walk out of my life now, just when we are getting to know each other. So, perhaps, do you think you could, or would like to… possibly… stay? Here? Well not exactly here in this café, but here in Ireland. With me. For a while or…?’

Patrick’s life suddenly, for the first time in fifty-six years made sense. He knew why he had been put on this earth. Never before in his dealings with women had he been confident to take the initiative, but this was different. He stood up and took Cynthia’s hand and led her over to the sunny side of the old house. As they walked, he slipped his sovereign ring off his little finger and put it in his pocket. Then he stopped, and looking deep into Cynthia’s eyes, he said:

‘Cynthia, I don’t know what’s happened to me, but today is the best day of my life so far, bar none. You think you’re bad at this romantic stuff? Well, let me tell you, I am a whole lot worse. I have never managed to keep a relationship going longer that three dates, but with you it feels so different. I don’t know what you are talking about most of the time, and you kinda mystify me, but I know one thing. I love you, and now that I know you I can’t ever imagine being away from you, even for a second.

‘I always thought that this love at first sight was a crazy thing made up by people who wrote dime store novels and schmaltzy movies but it’s not. It’s happening to me, and to you too I hope. So, I can’t think of any reason why we should waste one more second of this life apart. I don’t have much, but what I have is yours. You are beautiful, amazing, funny and kinda crazy and I love you so much I can’t even tell you.’

He held her hand and dropped onto one knee. Taking his ring from his pocket he said ‘Cynthia, will you marry me?’

Cynthia’s eyes filled with tears and, as she put on the huge ring on her finger, she said, ‘Yes I will. Right now if possible.’

There have been many great kisses in history but everyone who stood in the courtyard that day and cheered for the happy couple was sure that Patrick and Cynthia’s embrace was the most passionate they had ever seen.

They left the café, having drunk the bottle of champagne that Charlie had insisted on opening, and they headed for Cynthia’s uncle’s house near Kinsale. As they walked into the large, dusty hallway, an ominous scurrying could be heard as the rodent population made way for the guests.

Cynthia put her arms around Patrick’s waist and looked him in the eye, which she could easily do, as she was almost as tall as him.

‘Patrick, is this really happening? I am having to pinch myself to believe it. You see, I invited you here but… I must admit to you now that I didn’t really have a plan when I did. The thing is you see that I…’ Cynthia blushed a deep red.

‘I suppose one had better be honest…I did have a rather misguided affair many years ago as I told you, but it was never well…properly…consummated as it were. I have never been with well...a man... before. Well, I mean I have been with men, in their company as it were, but not in the…in the sort of…well…bed sense…if you understand me and so I am not sure what …if indeed anything…one is actually supposed to do… oh Lord, you must think me ridiculous,’ she finished in a state of acute embarrassment.

Patrick for the first time in his life felt no anxiety. ‘Cynthia sweetheart, I am so honoured that you would consider me at all. Let me tell you something. I’ve spent the past forty years or so terrified of girls. I was scared that I couldn’t live up to their standards and have them screaming with multiple orgasms or whatever it is guys are supposed to do. Hell, I even bought a couple of women’s magazines over the years to try to figure out what they wanted from me. The results were nothing less than disastrous I gotta tell you. In the end, I just gave up. It seemed I either came too soon or else couldn’t get it up at all. I was a mess. So, the last time I was in a potentially intimate situation with a woman was some time in the 1980s, and after that terrible experience, I swore off sex for good. So here we are. You may not be any Mata Hari but guess what? I’m no Casanova either but it’s just us here. Nobody’s taking notes or making comparisons. So what do you say we just go upstairs and relax and talk and see what happens? No pressure OK?’