Out loud, I say, ‘Yeah. Fine.’
I’m careful to arrive at Sips a full thirty minutes after the advertised start time.
I want everyone to be inside before me, ideally, so there’s some semblance of a crowd.
The windows of the cafe are dark; a chalkboard sign warns that it’s closed for a private event.
I can hear a hum of voices coming from the back of the building.
My chest tightens as I go to open the door – which swings open before I can touch it.
‘You came,’ Alex says, smiling. ‘I was hoping you would.’
I try to smile back and step inside, joining him in the gloom.
The interior of the cafe is your standard rustic, slightly Scandi-looking coffee-shop aesthetic, complete with houseplants, communal tables and But first, coffee stencilled on the wall.
It’s not very big and, aside from us, it’s empty.
Through the open door at the rear, I see a crowd gathered outside.
I wonder if Alex has been standing in here the whole time, waiting for me.
‘Is everything OK?’ he asks.
I think, No, nothing is. Two hours ago I broke and called Nicole, who explained that she was trapped in a chain of waiting.
She’d called Niamh, who’d had to call her husband because he was away at a work thing, and then he’d called someone, who’d called someone else, who’d then called someone else.
Now, each of them was waiting for their someone to call them back.
The problem was that at least two of those someones were thousands of miles away, so it wasn’t going to happen tonight.
There was nothing to report from any closer to home. Erin hadn’t been back to Ireland since before the pandemic, apparently. Five or six years ago, now.
Out loud, I say, ‘Yeah. Fine.’
‘So, who is he?’
‘Who?’ I ask, even though I don’t have to.
‘The guy I saw trying to get into your house. Who was at your house again this morning.’
‘Oh’ – I wave a hand – ‘that was all just … a misunderstanding.’
Alex looks dubious. ‘Your house getting trashed was a misunderstanding?’
‘No, no. That wasn’t him. Look, can we just not talk about this tonight? I really need a break from everything. Like you suggested.’
I feel a twinge of guilt, using that to change the subject.
But he nods. ‘Of course. By the way, I didn’t say anything to Soph. And I don’t think she knows about … you know. What you told me. Garda Murphy called to tell her that you weren’t a squatter, that you were rightfully at that address. But she didn’t give her any other information.’
That’s something, I suppose.
‘But, ah …’ He flushes slightly. ‘What am I calling you tonight?’
‘Hannah,’ I say.
‘Are you sure?’
I nod. I am. If only because there’s too much else going on inside my head to have to keep a lie straight, too.
Alex is studying me. ‘Are you all right?’
‘No,’ I admit. ‘Not really.’
‘Don’t worry. Everyone’s really nice. And don’t forget, this is my first time Dundrumming too.
’ He smiles at his own joke and I desperately wish that a little social anxiety was all I had to be worried about.
‘Come on.’ He lightly presses a hand into the small of my back, gently steering me towards the rear door. ‘Let’s get a drink.’
Sips’ outdoor space isn’t huge but it’s lovely.
High walls rise around it on three sides, but they’ve been dressed with trellises threaded with what I presume are fake leafy vines.
It isn’t fully dark yet, but it’s dark enough for the canopy of fairy lights to glow above our heads.
There are heaters, unobtrusive music, and maybe sixty or seventy people huddled in groups, talking and laughing and holding paper cups.
Plus one fluffy little dog the colour of apricots, darting underfoot, ignoring any and all attempts to pet him.
I scan the faces, but I don’t see Annalise.
Abruptly, Sophie appears in front of us.
‘I’m glad you came,’ she says to me.
I think, Someone should tell your face. I say, ‘So am I. Thanks again for inviting me,’ and hope that my face agrees.
‘The prosecco is that way,’ she says, pointing. ‘And the food is coming soon.’ Then she gives Alex a look as if to say, See? I’m being nice, before she disappears again.
‘You’ll be BFFs in no time,’ he says, grinning.
‘We might be. I’m going to sell the house after all.’
‘What? Really?’
I nod. ‘But add it to the list of things I don’t want to talk about tonight.’
We collect two cups of prosecco and start a circuit.
This may be Alex’s first one of these, but he already seems to know everyone, and everyone appears to be delighted to see him.
I’m introduced to various people whose names and faces find no purchase in my head, but who are all very nice and very friendly.
No one remarks on how the woman at 1 Delaney Row has gone from Ellie to Hannah in the space of five days, or asks me about why the guards visited twice in the same period.
An hour in, I start to think that Annalise isn’t coming.
But so long as I’m here, I’m not alone in my house.
I eat half a dozen tiny, delicate things that I cannot identify, slip the dog two cocktail sausages and let the bubbles in three paper cups turn my cheeks red.
I hover on the outskirts of conversations about bike lanes, interminably red traffic lights and the proposed (and opposed) development of the Central Mental Hospital.
Alex doesn’t leave my side. In all conversations, he’s beside me, nodding and saying things like, ‘Exactly,’ and ‘That’s just it,’ which alleviates the pressure on me to join in.
At some point – halfway down my third drink – what I’m actually doing here starts to slip from my grasp.
Not just my plan to confront Annalise, but everything else, too. Jason. The house. What did or didn’t happen there. And it doesn’t fall; I let it go.
Because it feels good to.
Because it’s nice to just be a woman holding a paper cup of prosecco in the courtyard of her local cafe on a Thursday evening, chatting to her neighbours.
To pretend to be.
‘You’re smiling,’ Alex says, handing me a sweating bottle of beer. He already has one. ‘They’re on to the supermarket own-brand bubbly now,’ he whispers conspiratorially, ‘so I think for the sake of our tomorrows it’s time to change tactics.’
We clink the bottlenecks.
‘Sophie just really wanted to buy your house,’ he says then.
‘Alex, I told you, I really don’t want to talk about—’
‘No, no. Sorry. I’m not. I just mean … my sister is nice, really. Well, she can be. You know, she pays for all this? Out of pocket? And she does it every year. Twice – every October and every May. They’ve tried a couple of times to, like, take up a collection, but she won’t have it.’
‘That is nice,’ I admit.
‘I mean, is she also guilting everyone who comes and drinks her prosecco and eats her food into coming back to pay for coffee and a pastry? Of course she is. But still.’
When I laugh at this, Alex looks inordinately pleased.
‘I’m really glad you came, Hannah.’
I can feel his eyes on me, but also something that stops me from looking up at him to confirm it.
‘Well, I really appreciate your non-judgemental befriending of the area’s recently released convicts.’
Now, he laughs. ‘I do what I can. And I have to do something with my time, don’t I?
After all, I’m not only – what did you call it?
– aggressively helpful? But I’m aggressively underemployed, too.
I’ve time to kill.’ Alex clears his throat.
‘Lots of time to, you know, go to the cinema. Dinner. Even IKEA, sometimes.’
I make a face. ‘IKEA?’
Reacting to that is easier than acknowledging what he’s really just said.
Easier for me.
Better for both of us, in the long run.
‘Yeah,’ Alex says. ‘Everyone goes on about the meatballs and the cinnamon rolls, but have you had the Daim-bar cake? That shit is life-changing. And yet no one ever talks about it. Why is that?’
That’s when I see them, over Alex’s shoulder. Standing in the rear corner, close together, talking furtively.
Arguing, it looks like.
Steve and Annalise.
Alex is still talking but the volume of his voice is fading. So is everyone else’s. The soundtrack to the party gets turned all the way down as the hammering of my heart gets louder and louder.
Steve and Annalise know each other.
How? Was he who she’d meant to send that message to? Was Steve every one of my intruders?
Annalise sees me first. Keeping her eyes locked on me, she says something to Steve. Then he turns and looks at me too.
Annalise says something else. He nods and starts moving towards me.
The aftertaste of the beer turns to acid in my throat.
Whatever it was I was feeling earlier – that spiky determination, that manic bravado – it’s abandoned me.
Maybe I’ve drunk it away, overridden it with the warm, loose feeling of alcohol flooding my veins.
Or maybe it’s been vaporized by the revelation that this confrontation, if it happens, will be two against one.
And I don’t know what the other two are doing, who they are, what’s happening here.
I don’t know what brand of danger this is.
I feel a grip on my arm: Alex, trying to get my attention. When I look at him I see concern, and that his mouth is moving.
‘Sorry,’ I say, coming to. ‘The bathrooms?’
Alex points into the cafe. ‘Everything all right?’
I hand him my beer and go, leaving Steve somewhere behind me. I have to dart and weave through the tight crowd, mumbling apologies as I go. I don’t look back. I don’t plan to stop at the bathrooms. I’m getting out of here. But just as I reach the door that will lead me back inside—
A hand on my arm, stopping me. Pinching me.
Annalise.
‘What—?’ I start to say.
She takes her hand off my arm and jabs it painfully into my side, pushing me through the door and into the dark cafe.
Annalise whips her head around, checking – I think – that we’re alone before she demands, ‘What were they doing in there?’
‘Who?’ I say. ‘Where?’
‘Don’t play dumb. Those eejits you let in your house today.’
‘Those … You mean Steve?’
‘He isn’t one of them,’ she snaps.
But he is, and he was there with them, so why is she asking what they were doing?
‘I saw your message,’ I say. ‘The photo of my kitchen you took on Tuesday night. I saw it before you deleted it. Too far, we need to talk. Who were you sending it to?’
Something unreadable flares across Annalise’s face.
‘This isn’t your business,’ she hisses at me then.
‘It’s my fucking house!’
‘Oh, we know it’s your house. Don’t we just! But unfortunately there’s nothing we can do about that.’
‘You’re trying to get me out. I know you are. Well, guess what? Your plan worked. I’m leaving. I’m selling it.’
Annalise shakes her head at me, as if what I’ve just said is inexplicable.
‘What you don’t seem to understand,’ she says, ‘is that I’m trying to help you.
You need to stop digging. Do you hear me?
Stop digging. Stay away from those idiot murder men.
And don’t be letting the Gardaí in whenever they feel like knocking on your door.
This is bigger than you. This isn’t even about you.
’ She exhales. ‘We don’t want you to leave. You need to stay.’
I can’t make any sense of this.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask pleadingly. ‘What is this? I really don’t understand—’
Annalise lurches forward, grabs my shoulders.
‘And that’s a good thing,’ she says, shaking me. ‘You should be grateful that you don’t.’
A sudden blast of chat and music: the door leading back out to the courtyard, opening.
Alex comes through it, and I can tell by his face that something is wrong.
Badly wrong.
Wordlessly, he hands me his phone. On screen, I see that someone – no username, no profile pic, just a phone number ending in 333 – has posted a link to the Dundrummed group.
I’m vaguely aware that there are already many reactions and comments, but I can’t take my eyes off the link’s preview image and text.
It’s the headline from a news report, almost ten years old.
A picture of me, handcuffed, being helped into a van by Gardaí.
Dublin retailer described as Shreddr co-founder’s ‘mistress’ arrested on attempted murder charge.