One Hundred Names (Special Edition)

just came across it, and bearing in mind what you’ve been through lately, it reminded me of you.’ She reached into her small bag and retrieved a potted plant. It didn’t make any sense to Kitty at all until she read the label at the side.
    ‘Grow your own luck,’ Kitty read aloud, and started laughing. It was a pot filled with soil with a small pouch of shamrock seeds attached.
    Eva smiled. ‘I hope it works.’
    ‘I hope so too.’ Kitty swallowed hard, thinking of the road ahead of her. ‘Thank you, Eva.’
    ‘I know someone who can help you plant it, anyway,’ Eva added, raising her eyebrows, and the two girls laughed.
    Raised voices coming from the front of the bus averted everyone’s attention. Molly and Edward were at each other’s throats again about a turn that Molly should or should not have taken.
    ‘Oh shit,’ Molly said loudly, looking in her rearview mirror.
    Everyone turned round to see that Molly’s comment had been entirely justified. Coming up the hard shoulder of the motorway was a garda car.
    ‘Maybe it’s not for me,’ Molly said.
    ‘Of course it’s for you,’ Edward snapped. ‘Did you see what you just did?’
    ‘Oh, shut up,’ she hissed back.
    ‘Well, slow down, will you?’ he said. ‘They’re getting you to pull in.’
    ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,’ Molly said to herself, slowing the bus and pulling in.
    The garda came round to Molly’s side of the bus.
    ‘You trying to kill someone back there?’ he asked.
    ‘No of course not,’ she said, her voice gentle. ‘I just got confused which way to go.’
    ‘Driver’s licence, please,’ he said, and Molly rooted in her handbag.
    Please let her have her driver’s licence, Kitty thought to herself, watching the clock. She had to get back to Dublin for her meeting with Pete. She had put it off for long enough, the feature was due to go to print on Monday, which meant she had only the weekend to write it, but not if it couldn’t be approved today. Pete would kill her if she didn’t make this evening. She couldn’t use the guilt he felt against him any longer; it was wearing off.
    The garda disappeared to check Molly’s licence and Edward was back to being Mr Nice Guy with an anxious-looking Molly.
    The officer returned five minutes later. ‘Where’s this vehicle from?’
    ‘St Margaret’s Nursing Home, in Oldtown, Dublin,’ she said, her voice like a child’s. ‘I work there. We’re going back there now.’
    ‘Open up the door, will you?’
    She pulled the lever, not seeming so excited by the idea now, and he climbed on board and took a look at everyone. Everybody was silent.
    ‘Doesn’t look like the regular nursing home clientele,’ he said.
    ‘Ah, yes, well, Birdie here is my patient. I was taking her and her friends on a trip for her birthday. We’re going back there now. We have to get the bus back for the Pink Ladies’ bridge evening so …’
    He looked at her long and hard. ‘This bus was reported stolen yesterday.’
    Molly’s face went white.
    ‘Pardon?’
    ‘You heard me. Know anything about that?’
    ‘No, I mean, yes, I mean, no, we borrowed it for a trip for my patient. We didn’t steal it. I mean, we’re going right back there now.’
    The garda stared at her a little longer in a tense silence.
    ‘Could you step out of the vehicle, please, Ms McGrath?’
    Molly let out a small squeak before Edward stood up to help her off the bus, whispering in her ear something that Kitty couldn’t hear.
    ‘Oh my God.’ Kitty looked at Steve wide-eyed.
    ‘What’s the problem?’ Steve said, unimpressed by the entire thing. ‘He’s obviously just trying to scare her.
Obviously
she didn’t steal the bus. Kitty, why are you looking at me like that? Tell me Molly didn’t
steal
this bus?’
    All Kitty could do was smile at him weakly. She and he had been doing so well.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
    Kitty and the rest of the gang, apart from Molly, waited in a café in Mallow town in Cork, while Molly was inside the garda station being questioned.
    ‘I’m not making this up, Pete,’ Kitty hissed down the phone. ‘Of course, I want to be at the meeting today, but I’m in Cork and there’s no way I can get there by six o’clock. What about tomorrow?’
    ‘No, Kitty. I’m not dragging everyone back in here on a Saturday. We’ve already wasted enough time waiting for your story and we don’t even know what that story is! This is ridiculous. Everything revolves around Constance’s story,