One Hundred Names (Special Edition)

supporters had quickly exited the courtroom and spilled onto the street to give interviews to the press, and to heckle the
Thirty Minutes
team. She could hear them behind her hurling abuse and insults, and the journalists who were looking for a comment were trying to raise their voices above the tirades. The cars going by on Inns Quay slowed to watch the commotion, to see who was being surrounded by the media, literally being pressed by the press. Squashed and squeezed, drained and demoralised, everything being taken out of her, Kitty reflected that this was what she had done to Colin Maguire, as the reporters bumped against her, trying to keep up with her pace. Kitty kept on walking, one foot in front of the other; it was all she could do.
Chin up, don’t smile, don’t cry, don’t fall, walk
.
    Once they’d entered their solicitor’s nearby offices and had escaped the reporters, Kitty dropped her bag to the floor, leaned her forehead against the cold wall and took deep breaths.
    ‘Jesus,’ she gasped, feeling her entire body flush with heat.
    ‘Are you okay?’ Donal asked gently.
    ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry about this.’
    She felt a light pat on her back and was grateful for his support. She had caused this and he was perfectly entitled to have a go at her.
    ‘This is absolutely ridiculous,’ Paul raged to the solicitor in the next room, pacing before his desk. ‘Four hundred thousand euro,
plus
his legal fees. This is nothing like you said it would be.’
    ‘I said it
might—
’
    ‘Don’t you dare backtrack now,’ he yelled. ‘This is appalling. How could they do this to us? We’ve already apologised. Publicly. At the start of our show on February the eighth. Four hundred and fifty thousand people saw that we apologised, that we acknowledged he was not guilty,
millions
more saw it on the internet and God knows how many more after today. You know, I bet we were set up from the start. Those two women, I bet they and Colin Maguire are in on it together, and they’re getting a cut of that money. I wouldn’t be surprised. Nothing would surprise me now. Jesus. Four hundred thousand. How am I supposed to explain this to the Director-General?’
    Kitty removed her forehead from where it was resting against the cool wall of the corridor and stood at the door of the solicitor’s office. ‘We deserved it, Paul.’
    There was a silence and she heard Donal’s intake of breath behind her. Paul spun round and stared at her as if she was nothing, which was a certain amount more than she felt right then.
    ‘We ruined Colin Maguire’s life. We deserved to hear every single word they said in there. We shouldn’t have made such an enormous mistake and now we have to take responsibility for our actions.’
    ‘
Our
actions? No.
Your
actions.
You
ruined his life, I was just the idiot who assumed you had done your job properly and had actually done your research. I knew we never should have given you this story. Mark my words, the network will never hire you again, do you hear me, Kitty? You don’t know the first thing about covering a bloody story,’ he yelled.
    Kitty nodded and backed away. ‘’Bye, Donal,’ she said quietly.
    He nodded, and she left the building through the back exit.
    She was afraid to return to her flat for two reasons. She wasn’t sure if the court’s decision would fuel the attacks on her home or if they would die down now that Colin had been further vindicated and financially awarded. The other reason was that she was afraid to be alone. She didn’t know what to do; she couldn’t spend another moment thinking about this, beating herself up about it, but she didn’t feel it was right not to either. She deserved to be punished, she needed to wait out this feeling of absolute shame. She retrieved her bicycle from the backstreets of the Four Courts and headed in the direction of Constance’s home. Paul may have accused her of not having the first clue how to cover a story but she knew someone who did know, and perhaps it was time to start learning again.
    Constance and Bob’s home was a basement apartment in a three-storey Edwardian house in Ballsbridge, the rest of which housed the magazine. The basement flat had over the years become an extended office, which they shared and lived in together and had done so for twenty-five years. The kitchen, never used as they ate out almost every night, was hidden beneath the clutter of memorabilia and