Page 180 of The Last Love Song
‘Well, apart from the little, er, incident, sensational. Totally sensational. I wish you could have seen the boys. It was like they’d never been away. The crowd went wild, especially for Con, of course. There were ten encores. I think The Fishermen could have a whole new career if they wanted it.’
Helen’s eyelids began to droop.
‘Look, if you don’t mind, I’ll leave you for a bit. I could do with getting home and having a shower.’
‘Of course. You go home.’
‘Can I bring the boys to see you later? I think they all want a word. And Derek is yours any time you want him, he’s so grateful.’
Helen smiled and closed her eyes.
By six that evening, she was feeling much better. The drip had been removed and she was sitting upright.
The nurse bustled in, her eyes filled with a sudden look of respect for Helen.
‘You, my lady, have a special guest. I was only watching him on TV last night. Shall I show him in?’
Helen nodded.
Con filed in looking tired and sheepish, his arms filled with an enormous bouquet. He put the flowers into Helen’s arms. ‘From the boys and me.’
‘Thank you. Could you put them over there?’
‘I’ll take them.’ The nurse hovered in the background. ‘Who’s a lucky girl then?’ she smiled.
Con sat down. ‘The band all wanted to come, Helen, but we decided it might be too tiring for you.’
Helen nodded. ‘Probably would be. I do feel a bit exhausted.’
‘And...I wanted to see you, to say thank you. I hear you told Todd you thought Maggie was after me last night. You were there to try and save me.’
‘Well, I was there to try and save myself. It was the only way I could prove my innocence.’
‘But it wasn’t me after all.’
‘No, but I didn’t realise right until the last minute who she was after.’
Con stared at her. ‘I really came to ask your forgiveness for being so quick to accuse you. I was so devastated about losing Sorcha I wanted someone punished.’
‘I understand why you believed it was me, Con. Both you and that Inspector Garratt thought Sorcha said it was me she saw in the studio that afternoon. In fact, reading through Garratt’s notes, what Sorchaactuallysaid was that she couldn’t remember Maggie’s name, that you were to ask Helen, that she was an old friend of mine.’
‘And was she?’
‘Yes. I was at college with her when I first came to London. I had a brief affair with our tutor, Tony Bryant, one summer. He’d told me that his girlfriend was away, that he loved her and that our affair would be over when she came back. I never knew the girlfriend was Maggie until Garratt wrote and told me her name. I suppose they kept their relationship quiet because she was a student and he was a tutor. She must have found out that Tony and I had an affair while she was away. Perhaps that’s why she set me up,’ she mused.
‘And Derek’s Peggy and your Maggie turned out to be one and the same woman,’ sighed Con.
‘Both abbreviations for Margaret,’ Helen replied.
Con nodded. ‘He was always mad about her. She turned him down because she’d said she was in love with someone else. The someone else must have been this Tony. I remember it well.’
‘Obviously Maggie thought Derek was the one who killed Tony.’
Con looked surprised. ‘Tony died?’
‘Yes. He was murdered. They never discovered who did it.’ Helen looked at Con. ‘You say that Derek was obsessed with his Peggy, but do you think he was obsessed enough to kill Tony for stealing her from him?’
Con inhaled deeply. ‘He did sink into a bad depression...but Derek doesn’t strike me as a murderer. He’s called “Derek”, for God’s sake.’ He rubbed his tired eyes. ‘The desperate thingis that Todd doesn’t believe Derek and Peggy ever had a proper relationship. He blew it all up in his mind. In any case, Tony’s death must have done something screwy to Maggie’s head.’
