The Whole Truth

CHAPTER 71

THEY TOOK A CAB FROM THE HARBOR, driving through small villages on their way west to Dublin proper. A chilly rain was falling and even the pubs they passed were mostly empty. As Katie gazed into the window of one bar and saw a cheery fire and a man pulling down a pint, she didn’t have the least desire to join him. Her alcoholism was apparently cured. All it had taken was the end of the world.

Before they’d left England Katie had phoned Kevin Gallagher and explained that her source had probably lied to her.

“Do you have absolute proof that he did?” Gallagher demanded.

“No, not absolute.”

“Do you have absolute proof that the facts of your story are untrue?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then we’re standing by it.”

“Even if I’m not?”

“This is the biggest story of my life, Katie, so I’m going to pretend this conversation never happened and I suggest you do the same.” Then Gallagher had promptly hung up on her.

“Son of a bitch!” screamed Katie. “I hate editors.”

The cab dropped them off and they walked in the rain. Katie looked around.

“Isn’t that the university?”

Shaw nodded. “Come on.” They headed down a side street.

He knocked on a door where a sign hung.

“Maggie’s Bookshop?” Katie said.

The door opened and a tall, stout woman ushered them in.

She closed the door and Katie surveyed the books on all four walls. They were running for their lives and Shaw had forced her to vomit her way across the Irish Sea so he could take her to a bookstore in dreary Dublin?

The woman didn’t tell Katie her name, and Katie didn’t volunteer hers. She assumed the woman was Maggie.

“I’m so sorry about Anna,” the lady said to Shaw.

She led them upstairs where a room had been set up as a hair and makeup area.

“Sit here, please.” The lady motioned to a swivel chair in front of a long mirror. Katie sat and the woman picked up a pair of shears and lifted a handful of her hair.

Katie jumped out of the chair. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“You didn’t tell her?”

“Tell me what?” Katie said, staring at Shaw.

“Haircut,” Shaw said. He nodded at the woman. “Do it short and change the color. And then you can scalp me.”

An hour later, Katie James was a brunette with spiky hair, her eyes were brown instead of blue, her skin coloring was darker, her eyes rounder, her lips narrower. She wore bulky clothes that added about twenty pounds.

Shaw could not make himself shorter, but twenty minutes later his hair was mostly gone and the woman had done a number on his face, including a mustache and goatee, a bulked-up nose, and contact lenses that turned his startling blue eyes a muted brown. Katie couldn’t even swear it was him.

She led them to another room set up as a photo studio.

Katie said to Shaw, “She sure has a lot of sidelines for a bookshop owner.”

The pictures were taken and two hours later Shaw and Katie had brand-new passports, driver’s licenses, and other official papers showing them to be a married couple from a London suburb.

Shaw thanked the woman and paid her.

“I wish you luck,” she said.

“Oh, we’re going to need a lot more than luck, honey. Why don’t you go ahead and pray for a miracle?” Katie shot back as she slammed the door behind her.

As they walked down the alley she said, “Where to now?”

“Grab some sleep and then I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning,”

“A doctor’s appointment?” she said skeptically.

“Let’s get something straight. I’m not going to tell you everything.”

“Fine. Just so long as you know that cuts both ways.”

“The ground rules are set then.” He picked up his pace and she had to hurry along to keep up.