Page 94 of Road Trip
“Positively posh,” Maeve said succinctly. “Yes. According to Jamie, the McGahees had a flat in Mayfair, and a country estate in the Cotswolds.”
“And we know the Rossingtons were posh too.” Therese stabbed the debutante photo with her gloved finger. “What if they were in the same deb club, or whatever you call it? What if Esme was Starr’s connection to Tarrymore?”
“Oh my God, you could be right. Jamie told me his grandmother kept a photo of Starr in her debutante dress in a silver frame at her home, and that Starr hated it.”
“I wonder if one of these girls is Starr,” Maeve said. “But there’s no caption to tell us who’s who.” She whipped out her phone and clicked off three frames. “We’ll have to try to see if we can find some old photos of Starr. Maybe there’s some old newspaper clippings showing her during her trial.”
The third photograph showed Esme posed with her parents. Therese read the caption. “‘The Honorable Mr. and Mrs. Edward Charles Rossington presented their daughter, Esme, at court. Also present was Lady Esme’s brother, the Honorable Geoffrey David Rossington.’”
Therese flipped more pages, until she came to a full-pagephotograph of a bride. Esme again, dressed in a white satin wedding gown, her face half-obscured by a billowing lace veil, eyes demurely downcast. The caption read:
Mrs. Sheffield Hotchkiss III, on the event of her marriage.
Maeve snapped more photos of both pages. She turned toward the shelves of bound newspaper issues. “Let’s see if we can find something in those. We need 1974.”
Therese found a volume covering 1972 through 1976 and set it on a long worktable. Still standing, she leafed through the brittle, yellowing pages, past front pages with headlines about labor strikes, crop failures, livestock auctions, local beauty pageants, and finally, a headline in bold black type:
ARRESTS MADE IN DARING DAYLIGHT TARRYMORE ART HEIST
The photos accompanying the story were understandably blurry, uniformed Gardai officers hustling handcuffed suspects into a Dublin courthouse. Two men and a woman were pictured, but the woman’s head was bowed, her long, dyed-black hair covering her face. She was dressed in a shapeless cotton prison issue shift.
“Can’t really see her face,” Therese said, flipping more pages.
“Here,” she said, tapping her index finger on what looked like an official black-and-white police booking photo.
Peggy “Starr” McGahee, age 25, daughter of prominent London solicitor Richard McGahee, alleged IRA gang member and mastermind of theft of priceless art collection from Tarrymore estate.
In the arrest photo, Starr McGahee stared defiantly into the camera’s lens. Her features were delicate, with an elongated nose, high cheekbones, and large, light-colored eyes with dark circles beneath.Her now lighter, naturally blond hair was center-parted and scraped back into a low ponytail.
Maeve snapped a few frames of the arrest photo.
“Does she look like anyone in the deb photo with Esme?” Therese asked, looking over her sister’s shoulder at her camera roll.
Maeve enlarged the group photo of the debutantes with her fingers. They both examined the ranks of smiling young women, dressed in white formals and opera-length white gloves, the picture of proper British society.
“I can’t tell,” Maeve admitted. “They’ve all got those elaborate beehive hairdos and cat’s-eye eyeliner and pale lipstick. If I didn’t already know what Esme looked like, I couldn’t even pick her out of this shot.”
Therese stabbed her index finger on one of the girls in the group photo. “This could be Starr. Same shape face, light-colored eyes.”
“Maybe.” She leaned in to study the photo closer. “She does look a little bit like Jamie.”
“Only one way to be sure. Text me those photos. I think we should go pay Esme a visit.”
“We can’t do that,” Maeve protested. “Just show up at her door and start grilling her? She’s already told us to stay away from her.”
Therese smiled her Cheshire cat smile. “Ahh, foolish sister, don’t you understand? No sometimes means maybe. And sometimes maybe means yes.”
“And sometimes no means stay the hell away or I’ll call the cops,” Maeve retorted.
“Fine,” Therese said. “I’ll go by myself.”
“And I’ll stay here to see about the tires for the car. And wait by the phone to see if she has you arrested.”
CHAPTER 41
The walk to the gardener’s cottage was longer than she’d anticipated, and left Therese vowing to get back to the gym once she returned home—wherever that was.
A narrow gravel path had been carved through the thicket of trees, vines, and overgrown shrubs. When she shoved aside a branch with sharp briars she was rewarded with deep scratches on her face and arms after the branch snapped back.
