‘How’s it going downstairs at Help the Aged?’ said Poppy to her mother.
‘Great,’ said Callie. ‘We’re not that old, you know.’
‘Says you, Ms Fifty!’ taunted Poppy. ‘If I was fifty, I wouldn’t let people know and have a party.’
Callie grinned and she and Brenda exchanged another glance. Brenda knew quite well that Callie hadn’t really wanted this party. Mind you, Brenda wasn’t too keen either. She didn’t like the sort of parties Jason gave. Someone would undoubtedly set up shop in one of the loos and do lines of coke, which both Callie and Brenda disapproved of.
Brenda opened the door for Poppy and let the two teenagers go up to Poppy’s huge bedroom where three other girls were waiting.
‘Is she all right?’ asked Callie.
‘Behind the sniping, she’s in brilliant form,’ said Brenda. ‘Stop worrying about her. You’re a good mother, enough already. D’ya want a cup of tea or do you have to go back down to party central and schmooze?’
‘I’d love one,’ said Callie, sitting down on one of the kitchen stools. ‘It’s full of people I don’t know and you know how hopeless I am with names. I’m calling everyone “darling” out of desperation. I honestly have no idea what Jason said to that party planner, but for every four people I know, there are another twenty-five I’ve never seen in my life. And they’re not just people Jason’s trying to impress – they’re supposed to be there for me. “An aspirational guest list”, as the planner said,’ Callie finished.
‘You should have put your foot down about going away for a nice weekend instead,’ Brenda pointed out. Brenda had very firm views on how everything should be done and on how Callie should deal with Jason.
Brenda and Jason had a love/hate relationship. They were like scorpions in a brandy glass – circling, each with their stinging tail arched. Jason knew the house would not run like clockwork without Brenda and he knew that his wife both loved and would be lost without her. However, Brenda did not do deference and Jason liked deference from the people he paid.
He pretended to laugh when Brenda called him ‘the master’ out of mischief, but secretly, both she and Callie knew it drove him mad.
‘The party will be over eventually.’ Callie looked at the kitchen clock. ‘Only another few hours to go. By then the stragglers will be so drunk, nobody will notice that I’ve gone to bed.’
Brenda laughed. ‘You hungry? Bet you haven’t eaten. I’ve got some more of the caterers’ desserts in the fridge. Tiny chocolate things that look as if fairies made them and elves decorated them. Hold on.’
One of the waitresses appeared.
‘Mrs Reynolds, there are some . . . er, people at the door for your husband.’
Brenda and Callie exchanged confused glances. Anyone with an invitation to the party would just come in, having cleared the very heavy security on the gate. Anyone without an invitation would have been sent packing.
‘I’ll go,’ said Brenda.
‘Er . . .’ The young waitress shuffled a bit. ‘They asked specifically for Mr Reynolds, but we can’t find him so they asked for you next,’ she said, eyes on the floor.
‘It’s the staff of Tiffany’s,’ joked Brenda. ‘Go with her,’ she told the waitress, ‘in case she needs help carrying the loot or if it’s Aerosmith come to do a special birthday gig and she faints.’
Callie laughed out loud.
They were waiting in the hall, not Aerosmith, but about seven men and one woman, some in police uniforms and some in plain clothes. Callie’s hand flew to her throat.
Ma. Aunt Phil, Freddie, she thought.
She’d walked out of her old life a long time ago. Twenty-five years since she’d left Ballyglen. Ten years since she’d seen her mother, Pat, her aunt, Phil, or her brother, Freddie. Ten years since the huge argument. What might have happened to them?
‘Mrs Reynolds?’ said a man of her own age; tall, lean, with glasses and an intelligent face.
‘Yes,’ she replied, feeling weak.
‘Detective Superintendent John Hughes of the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation. We’re here to speak to your husband and we have a warrant to search your house.’
He handed Callie a piece of paper but she didn’t take it.
She stared at him, not understanding.
‘This . . . this is my party,’ she stammered, looking around at the waitress, now rapidly disappearing.
Callie saw the hall filled with flowers and giant lit candles, all perfect scene-setting for the modern art that hung on the walls.
Relief returned. Not her family.
‘It’s my fiftieth birthday party. My husband is a businessman, Jason Reynolds. You obviously have the wrong house.’
She waited for the detective to say something about it being a mistake, but he gestured to the pieces of paper.
‘It’s not the wrong house,’ he said and there was something about his voice that made Callie feel more frightened than weak.
She looked at the first piece of paper for an address and saw it all printed perfectly before her: their address, Jason’s name. She’d never seen a search warrant before and it looked so ordinary: ordinary and dangerous. She felt her legs shake the way they’d shaken when she first stood in front of a camera, before she’d learned to handle her nerves and the anxiety.
‘Where is your husband?’
‘Downstairs,’ said Callie. ‘We’re having a party . . .’
‘The guests need to go,’ said the detective.
‘What?’ asked Callie. She knew she sounded stupid but her brain, normally sharp, had hit slow-motion. ‘No, really,’ she said again in desperation, ‘there must be some mistake, you are in the wrong house, you can’t be talking about my husband.’
‘Jason Reynolds,’ said the policeman. ‘That’s your husband’s name?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you are Claire Reynolds?’
Callie nodded. Nobody called her Claire anymore, not since she had turned into Callie years ago, when she’d sloughed off her past and turned into someone totally different.
‘We need to locate your husband.’
‘Why?’
The detective looked at her slowly and she thought she could see pity in his eyes. ‘To help us with our enquiries,’ he said smoothly, which she felt was not the whole truth. His men began to move, some downstairs.
‘Does your husband have an office here?’ asked another man.