Sweet Little Lies (Cat Kinsella #1)(80)

“He got his mojo back, I see,” howls Manda, barely able to breathe from laughing.

The Diner’s now Ganleys, a chi-chi little ‘bistro’ with red and white checked tablecloths and paintings of mournful Pierrot dolls gazing down from every wall at our raspberry mille-feuille.

Hazel plonks herself down, shaking her head at Manda. “Shut-up, you. It’s a fucking disaster. Seriously, he only has to sneeze near me and I’m up the pole again.” She picks up the menu, looks around. “Right, I’ve only got twenty minutes, I’m afraid, as per fucking usual.”

Hazel O’Keefe, nee Joyce, doesn’t have long red hair clamped in a ponytail anymore. She’s got a low-maintenance mum-cut and high-maintenance eyebrows, like she had to make the choice between one or the other and drawing caterpillars on her face seemed like the better option.

She also has a slight edge to her. A spikiness that suggests she’s not mad about being summoned to eat French pastries with law enforcement officers in the middle of the day.

“We were just talking about Aiden Doyle,” Manda says to Hazel, which is an out-right lie. We’d actually been talking about Manda’s hair, a lovely rich auburn.

‘Oh yeah? I heard he was back visiting the father over Christmas, all right. I bet he had nice things to say about us, hey?’ She catches my face. ‘Ah go on, what did he say? We’ll have probably deserved it, honestly, it’s fine.’

I give them the short version. ‘Just that you could be a bit harsh sometimes.’

‘Yeah, and the rest,’ says Hazel, hailing the waitress. ‘He was such an oik back then though. Hear he’s a big hot-shot in London now. Hey, d’ya think he’d be in the market for a ready-made family? I could just see me and the kids tearing it up and down Bond Street.’

‘Speaking of London,’ I say, once she’s ordered her hot chocolate. ‘Hazel, do you know if Maryanne knew anyone in London, or even England would be a start?’

‘No. Not that she ever mentioned, anyways, and believe me, she’d have mentioned it. She had these couple of cousins in Chicago and seriously, you’d think she had the freedom of the city, the way she went on about it.’ She sits back a little, rubs a rhythmic hand over her bump. ‘There was this English family in the village around the time she went missing, they were over from London, I think.’

My heart stops.

‘Oh God, yeah, I’d forgotten about them,’ says Manda. ‘See I told you, Cat, she remembers everything. I’m fecking useless. Memory like a goldfish.’

‘What, and you think .?.?.?’ I don’t know how to finish this sentence and I’m grateful when the arrival of Hazel’s ‘chocolat chaud’ forces a brief pause.

Hazel takes a sip, mutters, ‘Luke-fucking-warm as usual. Ah no, I didn’t mean anything by it. You mentioning London made me think of them, that’s all. We didn’t really have much to do with them. The girl knocked around with us a coupla’ times, I think, that was about it.’

Manda nudges Hazel. ‘That’d have been pure Maryanne, though. Decides she likes the accent and then takes off to England without so much as a backward glance.’

‘Ah, you’re such a gom, Mands. Look, Cat – it is Cat, isn’t it? – between you, me and the gatepost, Maryanne was pregnant, and there’s only one reason you go to England if you’re pregnant. I’ve half a mind to pay a visit meself!’

‘You never told this to Bill Swords?’ I say.

It’s not meant to sound like an accusation but Hazel takes it as one.

‘Course I fucking didn’t. You don’t grass on your mates, and anyways, I thought she’d probably be back, so why would I make trouble for her by going round telling people her business?’

‘How are you so sure she was pregnant?’ I keep my voice light, careful not to wind her up again, although I get the feeling Hazel O’Keefe could get wound up by a Buddhist monk. ‘Did she tell you?’

A lightning shake of the head. ‘No. But come on, she’d gone up a cup size in less than six weeks. And I’d caught her throwing up in the Diner a few times’ – she prods the table – ‘in here, I mean, that’s what this place used to be called. She blamed the drink but she wasn’t drinking much either, that’s another thing. I mean, she hadn’t stopped drinking or anything, but she wasn’t getting plastered like usual. I’m telling you, as sure as I’ve a hole in me arse, she was pregnant – fact.’

I don’t disagree. ‘It’d have cost a lot of money though, if she was planning a termination – flights, travel, staying over? Where would Maryanne have got that kind of cash?’

‘She did well on the tips in here,’ offers Manda.

Hazel’s more cynical. ‘Ah, she was fierce resourceful, was Maryanne. Sweet-talked it out of some lovesick eejit, I’d say.’

Blackmailed it?

‘Any ideas on the father?’

‘The father,’ repeats Hazel, laughing. There’s a line of chocolate milk running the length of her top lip – Manda doesn’t point it out so I don’t either. ‘My money’d be on Ryan Roland or Shane Dillon but it could have been anyone, really. She had a thing for older fellas too, so God knows. She wasn’t exactly .?.?.’