‘I wanted to talk to you before you heard it from someone else,’ Ginger said in the silky tones she’d sometimes heard her Aunt Grace use. Grace was pretty good with people when it came down to it. Probably why she still had loads of boxes in her house despite Ginger’s best attempts to shift them. She was not a woman to be trifled with.
And neither was Ginger Reilly. Not anymore.
‘Tell me what?’ said Carla, eyes narrowing. ‘Sit?’
‘No, I’ll stand,’ said Ginger. ‘I’ve got another job, so I’ll be leaving.’
‘What sort of job?’ said Carla.
‘It involves the internet edition and Alice’s plans to have much more e-copy than previously. You know about the moves we’re making in that direction?’
Carla stiffened. ‘Naturally,’ she snapped.
‘I’ll be working on that,’ said Ginger still in the same silky tones.
‘Doing what?’ demanded Carla.
‘I’m going to be a senior editor for all the women’s e-titles,’ Ginger said. ‘We’re aiming at a ... younger audience than here.’
She stared pointedly at Carla as she said this.
She might not be as thin or as beautiful or as sexy as bloody Carla Mattheson, but she was younger. In the art of war, you had to use any weapons you had.
‘You?’ said Carla, nonplussed.
‘It’s the Girlfriend column,’ said Ginger.
‘What do you know about the Girlfriend column?’ Carla was scathing now.
Just a few more words and she’d leave.
‘I write it,’ Ginger said calmly. ‘I’ve been writing it all along, and the features that go with it. It’s worth far me to me financially than this.’ She gestured around the office in the newsroom with one hand. ‘So rather than let me go, they’re paying me a lot more money and giving me a great new job. Isn’t that fabulous?’ And then she left.
Bye-bye old world, and hello new one.
Callie
The call came early in the morning. Callie was used to waking very early now. The curtains in her mum’s front room were not the blackout blinds she’d had in the Dublin house and she woke when the sun did.
She had stopped flicking through her phone for a story written by Ginger Reilly. Instead, there had been much social media activity about how the Girlfriend writer had turned out to be a tall, curvy, plus-sized woman who said she wanted her column to be a platform for all girls – and boys – who felt they had to be the same to fit in. She’d got a big new job and was going to be running her own YouTube channel.
Ginger Reilly was some girl, Callie thought fondly. She owed her a call and a big thank you. Before Ginger had left Ballyglen, the three of them had exchanged numbers and promised to meet up.
‘I’m not in Dublin often and I’ll probably be wearing a dark wig if I do come,’ she said jokily, ‘but I’d love to meet you both – and baby India.’
‘You have to meet Aunt Grace too,’ Ginger said. ‘You would adore her. And you never have to talk about what happened with your husband. Nobody can force you to. If he goes to trial, the world will know you weren’t involved.’
‘If—’ said Callie.
But when the phone rang this morning, and she saw Detective Superintendent John Hughes’ number on the line, she felt sick to her stomach. This couldn’t be good news, she thought. Early morning phone calls rarely were.
‘Yes, Detective Superintendent,’ she said.
‘We’ve got your husband,’ he said bluntly.
‘Oh.’ It sounded totally not the right thing to say after so many months of waiting, and yet, what else did you say?
‘How did you get him?’ she asked, as if she was enquiring about a distant acquaintance.
