One Hundred Names (Special Edition)

NINETEEN
    With less than a week to Pete’s deadline, and no more leads, Kitty was conscious of a mounting panic. A phone call to Archie established that he was not familiar with any of the names on the list. He impatiently snapped ‘No’ after each name she called out and informed her time and time again he didn’t know the names of anybody whose prayers he heard, and she managed to reach reading out only as far as number eight before he hung up on her. Being realistic, if you could be when dealing with the issue of a man who believed he heard prayers, if it was possible he could have heard the prayers of each person on the list and simply not know it, then how could Constance possibly know? The answer was, she couldn’t. The link between them did not lie in him hearing their prayers.
    Kitty needed to meet more people. She needed more clues. She sat on a step in Temple Bar Square and rang name number four on her list.
    ‘Mr Vysotski, my name is Kitty Logan, I write for
Etcetera
magazine and I’m contacting you regarding—’
    ‘You received the press release?’ a man with a foreign accent shouted excitedly down the phone.
    ‘Excuse me?’
    ‘The press release. We sent it on Friday. I am so happy you received it. You will come to our press conference?’ He was so eager, so excited, talking a mile a minute, that she had to smile.
    ‘Yes, Mr Vysotski, but—’
    ‘Call me Jedrek, please!’
    ‘Jedrek. Where is your press conference?’
    ‘It was on the sheet! Today at noon! Erin’s Isle GAA Club. Don’t miss it now, will you?’
    ‘I won’t. I won’t miss it.’
    ‘You promise? We’ll have cakes and tea. It will be nice, yes? Mrs Vysotski is the most excellent baker.’
    ‘I’ll be there, Jedrek.’ She hung up, excited about her new intriguing addition to her growing list of quirky characters.
    Kitty had a dilemma on her hands. She had made an appointment to meet Eva Wu at a brunch in the Four Seasons where Eva was to meet George Webb’s family for the first time at a pre-wedding family meet and greet. Eva or Jedrek …? Eva or Jedrek …? She quickly made the call and let Eva Wu down for the second time. Then she took out the business card that Sally had given her. She dialled the number and waited.
    ‘Hello. I’m calling about the teaching position for Television Presentation. My friend Sally Collins told me to call you …’
    Kitty arrived at Erin’s Isle GAA Club at twelve fifteen, fifteen minutes late for the press conference. She was anxious travelling through Finglas, Colin Maguire’s home turf, and kept her head down low on the bus while at the same time she was constantly on the lookout for him. She pushed open the door quietly, hoping to sneak in unnoticed, without disturbing the event. However, that didn’t go according to plan. As soon as she opened the door she was faced with a long hall with two men sitting behind a big head table, before which rows of chairs had been set up. In the front row sat one single person and a photographer who stood by a table of food with his camera around his neck, eating cake.
    They were all looking at her.
    ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she apologised, making her way to the pews under their stare. ‘I’m Kitty Logan from
Etcetera
. I spoke to Jedrek on the phone.’
    ‘Ah, yes! Miss Logan.’ A rotund man jumped up from the table and she immediately recognised his voice and his energy as the jolly man over the phone. He appeared to be in his fifties, a large pot belly as big as a six-month pregnancy on his cuddly frame. He came round the table, his hand extended, his head shaved to even the baldness, but a dark goatee around his mouth. He took Kitty’s hand, practically crushed it in his and violently shook it.
    ‘You’re very welcome, Miss Logan. I knew you would come,’ he said enthusiastically like a great big happy Buddha. He pointed a finger in her face in a ‘gotcha’ way. Kitty couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Alenka,’ he called to the woman at the table of cakes, ‘a cup of tea or coffee for our reporter.’
    ‘Coffee, please.’
    ‘Sit, sit!’ He practically took her by the shoulders and pushed her down in her chair. Kitty felt giddy. She looked at the journalist sitting beside her.
    ‘Are you Katherine Logan?’ the woman asked, eyes narrowing.
    ‘Yes,’ she cleared her throat. ‘And you are …?’
    ‘Sheila Reilly from the
Northside People
,’ Jedrek introduced her. ‘And this is her photographer, Tom,’ he said