Page 43 of The Trap by Catherine
“You’ve been to Enniscorthy and back already today? Gosh, you must have started offveryearly.”
“We did. And we got lucky with the traffic.”
“How lovely for you both.” Roland looked to Angela. “Are you having a nice day?”
He asked it in the same tone you’d ask a child if they were looking forward to Christmas. Angela’s skin felt like it was in the process of detaching itself from her soft tissue and rotating one-eighty degrees around her body.
Thankfully, Denise asked him, “Ever been?” before she had to answer.
Roland laughed, then wagged a finger at her in playful reprimand. “Now, now, now, Miss Denise. That sounds like something you’d have to ask in a formal interview.” He turned up his palms, looked around, feigned confusion. “Isthisa formal interview?”
“So youhavebeen to Enniscorthy?” Her tone was getting sharper.
“Is this how you talk to all your charges?”
“I’m just asking, Ro.”
Ro, Angela noted. He looked pleased that she’d called him that, not because it was friendly or familiar, but because it meant she needed something from him and was buttering him up to try to get it, that he had the upper hand.
“What about Ballinteer Road?” Denise asked. “Ever been there?”
Roland did a pantomime frown. “Where’s that?”
“Dundrum.”
“If it’s near the shopping center, then quite possibly. Why?”
“Lucy O’Sullivan had an intruder in her garden last night,” Denise said. “Or very early this morning.”
“Oh.” Roland smiled, satisfied. “Oh, Isee. But you’re just here to check in.” To Angela, “This woman can’t lie for shit.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Roland,” Denise said evenly. “Lucy O’Sullivandidreport an intruder in her garden last night. I’m here to check you haven’t had any similar trouble. It’s this Lena Paczkowski news, of course. It churns everything up again. Gets out all the crazies. And you’re such a recognizable face, it wouldn’t surprise me if some of them came your way. Has there been any strange or nuisance activity that you’d like to report? Did you notice anyone outside your property last night?”
Denise and Roland held each other’s gaze for an uncomfortably long moment.
Then he said, “I was too busy in here to notice anything out there. Do you want her number?”
What Angela wanted, at this juncture, was a shower.
If not a power-wash.
“That won’t be necessary,” Denise said.
Roland’s face changed then, into a genuine frown, and when he spoke again, his tone was totally different.
The smarm was gone.
“Could it have been a woman?” he asked. “This intruder?”
Denise hesitated. “Possibly... Why?”
He stood up and went to the window, stuck his hands in his pockets, and looked out. If you ignored the boulevard of broken dreams and abandoned washing machines and focused on the green hills rising up behind them, Angela thought, the view actually wasn’t that bad.
“What is it, Ro?” Denise said.
A long beat passed before he responded.
“Maybe it was Caroline,” he said without turning around. “The intruder in Lucy’s back garden.”
