One Hundred Names (Special Edition)

thanks. I’m not hungry.’
    ‘You should eat,’ he said, still not looking at her.
    ‘No.’ She felt sick, sick by what she had read, by how she had been lied to, humiliated, by the fact she had slept with Richie. She felt disgusting and used and like she could never trust anyone ever again, and the last thing she wanted was food.
    ‘You need to keep your strength up,’ he said. ‘Or those fuckers will get you down.’
    She sighed. ‘Too late for that.’ She heard her voice tremble; he did too and looked up from the paper. She was thankful his food arrived at that point, though the smell of it made her queasy. A large plate of tomatoes, eggs, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, black and white pudding and enough toast to tile a roof with. The waitress placed it down before him and he finally set his paper aside and transferred his concentration to the food.
    ‘Are you ready to order?’ the waitress asked.
    ‘I’m not eating, thank you.’
    ‘Tea, coffee?’
    ‘Still water, please.’
    ‘And a plate of fruit,’ Archie said, cutting into his sausage. ‘She’ll have a plate of fruit. Fruit stays down okay.’
    ‘Thanks,’ Kitty said, touched by how he cared. ‘I suppose you’re the expert on this.’
    He nodded his head in a horse-trying-to-get-rid-of-a-fly-on-his-nose kind of way.
    ‘What did you want to speak to me about?’
    He didn’t answer, he just shovelled the food in his mouth, massive amounts that puffed out his cheeks and he chewed merely a few times before swallowing. Then he spoke as though she never asked the question. ‘Did you know the guy?’
    She knew who he was talking about straight away.
    ‘An old college friend.’
    ‘Ha. That old chestnut.’
    ‘They did that to you?’
    ‘The entire family. And friends. They know how to catch people out. People who don’t know better. People who aren’t trained in how they work. People who believe what they read. Regular people.’
    ‘I’m not regular people.’
    ‘You’re different. You’re one of them, you weren’t expecting it.’
    ‘I’m not one of them,’ she said, disgusted. ‘Never have, never will. I made a mistake on a story; he did this deliberately.’ Her blood boiled. She really wanted to run from this meeting straight away and confront Richie at his house but she was afraid of what she might do to him. She couldn’t face assault and battery charges on top of everything else.
    ‘You’re angry,’ he said, watching her. Her foot was bouncing up and down; she felt like putting her fist through the wall.
    ‘Of course I’m angry.’
    ‘That’s why I phoned you.’
    ‘You like talking to angry people?’ she snapped.
    He smiled. ‘I wanted to speak to one of them who I knew would never be one of them. That fella, your old college friend, he did me a favour.’
    ‘Well I’m glad he made one of us happy. So you trust me now.’
    He didn’t respond, kept tucking into his breakfast. Kitty’s fruit and water arrived and despite feeling nauseous she picked at it and began to feel a little respite.
    The café door opened and the third customer of the day entered. She was a mousy-looking woman, small face framed with dull brown chin-length hair and a fringe. She was meek-looking, thin and frail, as though a strong wind would blow her over. She looked around the café hopefully, as though expecting to see someone, and then her face fell and she sat at the communal wooden table. Archie actually looked up from his breakfast, took her in, and watched her cross the room and sit down. From that point on his eyes rarely left her.
    ‘Know her?’ Kitty asked.
    ‘No,’ he said bluntly, and turned away to down his tea. ‘So what do you know about me?’
    ‘A lot more than I knew about you on Friday.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘Ten years ago your sixteen-year-old daughter went missing. She was last seen on CCTV leaving a clothes shop in Donaghmede shopping centre. The gardaí issued a search for her, you and the family began a public search and a rather big campaign. A month later she was found in a field. She’d been strangled. Four years later you assaulted and viciously beat a twenty-year-old man believed to have been her boyfriend at the time and you went to prison for four years.’
    There was a silence.
    He chewed on the rind of his bacon, then threw the leftovers down on the plate.
    ‘It was eleven years ago, it was one week before her sixteenth birthday.’ He took a moment to compose himself and when he spoke again