Sylvia slips off her coat and sits on the sofa between Amanda and Lar. She dismisses the newspapers one by one, until she comes to Capital Eye. A revenge kidnapping? Amanda huddles away from the chilling possibilities this question mark suggests. She wants to curl into a ball, as hedgehogs do when predators are near.
Despite robust denials from Superintendent Burns at yesterday’s press conference that no link has been established between the disappearance of missing schoolboy, Marcus Richardson, 4, and the notorious Shroff gang, Capital Eye has received information that suggests otherwise. It has emerged that the boy’s father, media mogul Lar Richardson, 64, is planning to feature an in-depth investigative report on the gang’s drug activities on LR1’s popular Behind the Crime Line programme.
A source close to the gang believes that LR1’s chief crime correspondent, Eric Walker, 33, has been involved in a covert surveillance of the gang’s Spanish activities.
When approached by Capital Eye, Walker was not available to comment about his recent trip to Spain. Flight details acquired by this newspaper verify his presence in Malaga at the same time as members of the Shroff family were together at their luxurious villa overlooking the Mediterranean coast.
But Walker arrived home from Spain a day earlier than planned. Did the Shroffs became aware of his location? Did their tentacles stretch from the Costa del Sol to Dublin and is it possible that an innocent child has been taken in a revenge kidnapping?
Lar presses his hand against his chest, his breathing short and loud. ‘It would make sense if the Shroffs demanded Marcus’s release in exchange for us dropping the investigation,’ he says. ‘But, if that’s the case, we should have heard from them by now.’ He frowns, puzzled, and turns to Amanda. ‘I wasn’t aware that Walker came home a day earlier than planned. Were you?’
‘No, I wasn’t.’ She needs to kill his suspicion before it has a chance to seed. ‘Knowing Eric’s work ethic, I’m sure he’d a good reason for doing so. We’ve no proof if any of this is true. Insinuations, that’s how Capital Eye develop their stories.’
‘You speak from experience, of course.’ Sylvia crosses her slender legs and taps her fingers against the front page. For an instant, it’s out there in the open, the hostility Amanda believes lurks beneath the publicist’s composure. It flares her nostrils, ripples lines across her forehead that quickly vanish and could have been imagined. Amanda stands, unable to bear such close proximity to her. Shades of the past are a distraction when all her energy has to be centred on one thing. Can this story possibly be true? She’s spoken twice to Eric since Marcus’s disappearance. Factual conversations about his contact with his Shroff source. Each time he was adamant that the gang had nothing to do with Marcus disappearing. But Barbara Nelson knew about his investigations into their activities. Somehow, she has acquired his flight details. Amanda moans aloud as she imagines Marcus in a basement, bound and gagged by Billy Shroff or one of his brothers.
‘Name your enemies,’ said Sergeant Moore on the day Marcus disappeared. Amanda had told her about the bullet, the talcum powder, the threatening voice that warned her she was always within eye range. Her encounter with Billy Shroff in her car. The card with the white cross and the sensation that can suddenly come over her, as if someone is behind her, watching her back, waiting for her footsteps to falter.
‘I’ll ring Walker now.’ Lar picks up his phone and hits Eric’s number. ‘Find out what the hell is going on.’
When Sylvia leaves, Amanda enters her home office and switches on her laptop. Names she hasn’t thought about in years appear on her screen. What was her impact on their lives? Had she been a fleeting irritant or an open abscess? Nathan Travers? A politician with an illegal offshore bank account, his political aspirations wrecked by black ink and a brash headline above Amanda’s byline. She recognises another name. A wife who blamed her for the heart attack her husband suffered after Amanda doorstepped him at his son’s graduation to ask why he was laundering money for a terrorist organisation. She looks at the photograph Shane took of Killer Shroff outside a church. Surrounded by little girls in white dresses and parasols, Killer was holding his daughter’s plump hand. Her other hand hid her face, as if she already knew that every occasion in her young life would be blighted by either press or police. Elizabeth Kelly… the photograph Shane snatched of her following her son’s coffin from the church. And, at her own funeral such a short time later, the photograph of Karl Lawson embracing Dominick’s wife.
She stares at Selina Lee’s beautiful, battered face. Amanda, who had spent her childhood witnessing violence, should have been shocked by the brutality inflicted on her. Instead, she had been in a fever, demanding information on Karl Lawson, convinced she was on the edge of breaking the most important story of her career. She failed to hear, or chose not to hear, the tremor in Selina’s voice. It has taken her until now to understand that terror has no circumference, no time limit. And Constance’s parents – oh Jesus, what must they have endured? And him also… Vengeance is mine, he had said at Elizabeth’s funeral; and with that quote comes a thought that is too preposterous to even consider. But all these names must be considered as potential enemies and handed to the police.
Lar opens the door and closes it quietly behind him.
‘Did you find out why Eric came home early?’ Amanda clenches her feet to prevent them tapping against the floor.
‘His father was unwell,’ Lar replies. ‘Seems he suffers from angina. Eric reckoned he’d enough research gathered to move the investigation on to the next stage.’ Nothing in his tone suggests disbelief. He’s convinced the report in Capital Eye is pure speculation. Apparently, the Shroffs had no idea he was investigating them or that we are planning an exposé on their operations. Now that they know, Eric is terrified they’re going to come after him.’
She understands what that means. Eric will have to handle his own fears. Her nightmare allows no room for passengers. Shearwater is under siege. More reporters will soon arrive, lured by the sweetness of the Shroff angle; honey to a bee.
Lar stands behind her and massages her shoulders. ‘I’ve been harsh with you,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry.’
He is not used to apologising and, although it is a small effort, she stores it for comfort.
‘We need to be strong for Marcus,’ he says as he digs deeper into her flesh, trying to unknot the tension from her neck.