Chapter 43
“No,” Therese said quietly. “No children. I’m an actress, you see, and I’ve been sort of a vagabond for years now, which is no way to raise a family.”
Esme nodded and sliced a piece of cheese and pressed it to a cracker. She handed it over to Therese, who took a bite. She looked up to see Esme studying her.
“You’re a somewhat attractive girl,” Esme said. “No handsome gentlemen pursuing you for marriage?”
Somewhat attractive? Therese almost choked on her cracker. The woman was a master at underhanded compliments. But something about this exchange with Esme, who’d been a stranger until just this week, seemed to unblock something inside her.
“There was a man. His name was Bean. We met in New York. I was in an off-off-off-Broadway production of Barefoot in the Park. Bean was the stage manager. I’d always had a policy against dating actors and coworkers, but that one time, I let my guard down.
He was funny and kind. I’d been sharing a walk-up studio apartment in Brooklyn with three other girls, but we had a falling-out and I needed a place to land.
Bean had a rent-controlled apartment in the Village, and his roommate had just moved out, so he invited me to move in with him. ”
“Bean? Odd name for a grown-up,” Esme commented.
“Childhood nickname that stuck. And actually, I never did know his real name.”
Therese wished she had something to drink. Not the sickly sweet Orangina her hostess favored. Maybe a shot of whiskey, or even better, tequila. But there’d been no sign of other liquor in the cabinet where she’d found the gin.
She plowed ahead with her story. “We were careless, and I got pregnant. I’d just gotten a callback for a part in a new cable series.
I would be playing a Vegas cocktail waitress, wearing a skimpy low-cut top and short skirt.
How could I pull that off if I was pregnant?
My breasts swelled two cup sizes almost overnight.
More importantly, I had no money. No insurance.
America’s not like it is over here. There’s no NIH. ”
Therese helped herself to another cracker and bit back tears at the memory of her predicament.
“Bean, he was an okay guy, but he had his own issues. He was a gambling addict. I mean, he’d gamble on anything. Horses, pro football, Formula One racing, you name it. He told me once that he’d even bet on the winner of the Pillsbury Bake-Off. Definitely not father material.
“So … I called my mom. I lied, told her I had to have emergency surgery to remove an ovarian cyst. Mary Helen was a pretty strict Catholic, but she sent me the money, almost six thousand dollars, without question. I’m pretty sure she guessed what was really going on.
I went to Planned Parenthood, and that afternoon, my dilemma was solved. ”
Esme didn’t look shocked. “We’re not so different, you and I.”
“Maybe,” Therese said. “Afterward, the miscarriage, did you feel guilty?”
“No,” Esme said without hesitation. “I felt relieved. And you?”
“I think about it every time I see someone holding a new baby. And I feel guilty. I’d like to have kids, someday, when I have a partner I can depend on and a more stable life.”
“How stupid,” Esme said impatiently. “Children are a nuisance. They’re noisy. And sticky, and selfish. I count myself lucky not to be bothered with them.”
And just like that, Therese thought ruefully, their tender bonding moment had evaporated.
She glanced at the kitchen window. The sun was getting lower, the afternoon fleeting. She needed to get this conversation back on track.
“Tell me what happened after the robbery. The other night you said the fourth man, the lookout, was killed when he got in a shoot-out with the police. Was that your Mick?”
“He was never my Mick,” Esme said coolly. “But yes, that was him.”
“All the rest of your father’s art collection was recovered. Except for the portrait. What happened there?”
“All of the paintings were supposed to end up at the mountain house where Starr and Dwyer were hiding. But they didn’t all fit in the trunk of the getaway car.
When they got back to the cottage, Starr put the portrait in the trunk of the car Mick was driving, for safekeeping.
He’d driven back to Dublin that night, I forget why, it’s so long ago.
And then we got the word that Dwyer’s wife had informed on them, and they’d been captured by the Gardai.
Mick panicked. He gave me the portrait and told me to hide it, then he went out and stole another car and got himself killed. ”
Therese was stunned at the casual way Esme described her lover’s demise, but also at the revelation of the portrait’s fate.
“You’ve had the portrait? All this time?”
“Yes,” Esme said.
“But why not return it to your father? Why risk getting caught with it and having your cover blown?”
“I always rather admired that painting. There was something about Lady Geraldine, don’t you think?”
“Agreed. I’ve stared at that painting my whole life. I used to make up stories about her when I was a little girl.”
“She has that elusive, sort of bemused expression, as though she’s just heard a witty story, that makes her seem human,” Esme said. “Besides, I was aware that the painting was insured. Papa got a nice payout, and he was none the wiser.”
“Where did you hide her?”
“Upstairs, in my washroom. I’ve been something of a recluse since I moved here, into the cottage.
I don’t have visitors, certainly not ones who’d venture upstairs.
Seeing her there every evening as I had my bath, and every morning as I scrubbed my teeth, it struck me as my own private joke. Which I quite enjoyed.”
“Then why sell her now?”
“Jokes are amusing, but they don’t pay the bills, do they?
The taxes and upkeep on this cottage are prohibitive.
Last year I had to replace the roof, and this year, I needed a new boiler.
My Land Rover was dying too. Everything all at once, it seemed.
It was time. I had an old friend from my London days.
Her son is an art dealer. He made the arrangements for the sale.
I must say, I was shocked at the amount of the winning bid.
Of course it was whittled down extensively once I paid my art dealer, and the auction house took their commission. But still, all in all, I was pleased.”
Esme finished her drink and stubbed out her cigarette on the plate.
“Any more questions?”
“I don’t know what to say,” Therese admitted. “Maeve and I suspected that you must have had some kind of a connection to the IRA heist, especially after she met Starr’s son, but I never dreamed that you would just admit to all of it.”
“Why not? This is a secret I’ve carried around for more than fifty years. Everyone connected to the original crime is dead. It feels … freeing to speak about it finally. And do you know why I feel that way?”
“I can honestly say I don’t.”
“All my life, because I’m a woman, everyone underestimated me.
My teachers at boarding school; my so-called husband; my lover; my parents, especially my father; and my brother, everyone really, overlooked and misunderstood me.
But the joke is on them, isn’t it? I’ve outlived them all, and on my own terms.”
Therese had no comeback for that. Just one more question.
“What about your husband? I know you use your maiden name these days. But what happened to him?”
“Poor dear Sheff,” Esme said. “Papa was resolutely opposed to allowing me to divorce him, until Sheff got careless. There was a police raid at one of those clubs he frequented, and he was arrested. Not even the combined pressure of his father and mine could keep it quiet. It was in all the London papers, quite a scandal at the time. So, I got my divorce and Sheff did some time in prison, and after he was released, he proceeded to drink himself to death. A shame really, he was only forty-two.”
Esme began to stand up, and Sinead scrambled to the floor. “This has been an interesting conversation, dear, but I find myself unaccountably fatigued. You can show yourself out, can’t you?”
“Yes, of course.” Therese was still half-dazed by the intensity of the afternoon’s wide-ranging conversation, but her curiosity still wasn’t completely satisfied.
“Esme, aren’t you even a little nervous about the implications of what you’ve just admitted to me?
You were an accessory to the robbery at Tarrymore.
You conspired with the IRA. Your lover died, and the others went to prison.
And you’ve just defrauded an insurance company to the tune of seven figures. ”
“Not concerned at all. I’m an old lady. When you’re my age, people believe you’re a helpless, drooling idiot.
Look at me.” She gestured at her grubby attire.
“Who’s going to believe that I helped mastermind a robbery or did any of those other things?
And certainly you’re not going to tell anyone, are you? ”
She fixed her guest with that icy blue stare, the one Therese had begun thinking of as the Rossington death stare.
“Thank you for the drink,” Therese said finally. “And the enlightenment. Just one more question, then I really will leave you alone.”
“Anything to be rid of you,” Esme said.
“Be honest, please. Who do you really think killed Lady Delia?”
“That again? You really are like a nasty little terrier with a rat between its teeth, aren’t you?”
“I’ve been called worse,” Therese said. “Please? Maeve and I leave for home in three days. It’s the last piece of the puzzle.”
Esme leaned unsteadily against the kitchen counter.
“Not that it matters, but I doubt it was my father. Papa could be awful in many ways, but he hadn’t the stomach for killing, wouldn’t even shoot a rabbit causing havoc in the garden.
I suppose Uncle David could’ve killed her, but if you must know, my money’s always been on my grandmother.
She was not a woman to be crossed, under any circumstances.
” She straightened her shoulders. “Papa used to say I was Fiona made over.”