We present an extract from Glass Houses, the new book by Edel Coffey.
Twenty years after the Juliet Fox case destroyed her career, journalist Eddie cannot resist returning to Manhattan's elite when a new luxury tower rises beside the crime scene. But dangerous people still guard their secrets, and someone will kill to keep the truth buried...
The minute I opened the envelope, I knew something was about to happen. Call it journalistic intuition, call it foresight, but the very nanosecond I opened that invitation and saw the Bryant Fox Developments logo, I knew we were going back to the Juliet murder. And God forgive me if I didn't feel a thrill of excitement pulsing through me at the thoughts of it.
You are cordially invited to celebrate the grand
opening of the Sky Building and Sky Pool
53 West 53rd Street, NY10019
Where living feels like flying
My editor – Trudeau, I called him – walked in. I decided to give him a couple of minutes to settle into his office before accosting him. I called him Trudeau because he looked like that perfectly dressed, plasticly handsome Canadian politician. Gussied up in a navy suit every day, not a hint of facial hair, as if he had been shaved by a Turkish barber in the elevator on the way up, a haircut so neat it suggested . . . well, psychopathy. He was young and slick and of the city – too young if you asked me; what thirty- eight- year- old knew how to run a newspaper?
I RSVPed to the email invitation for the Sky Building party and asked the press officer to send back a guest list, the basic tool of the social diarist’s arsenal. I watched Trudeau deliberately unpack his phone, his pen, his laptop, from his slim briefcase, and place them at right angles to each other on his desk. He never forgot he was in a glass office, under scrutiny, never lost concentration and distractedly picked his nose. There was a time when workers had doors or dividers, some semblance of privacy, but now it felt like anything behind a closed door was untrustworthy, hiding something. We had to be on display at all times, from our social media accounts to our workplaces to the glass houses we increasingly chose to live in. My email pinged. My stomach flipped even before the information had travelled along my optic nerve to my brain. The names on the guest list were names that I recognised. Names from long ago, from old police reports and investigations, interviews and late- night articles. We were going back. Everything was lining up. I took two sharp, deep breaths then walked across the newsroom.
Trudeau sat in his office like a sleek puma, beautiful but useless behind his desk, waiting for someone to bring him a piece of meat. Well, here it is, I thought, with a glorious offering hanging from my jaws, literally begging to be eaten.
I stepped into his office and was hit with the overpowering scent of his cologne, suffusing the room like a noxious gas. I could taste his cleanliness in my mouth. I coughed.
'Uh, got a minute?’
He looked up, wrinkled his nose as if I was the one who stank and then waved me in. Trudeau was the kind of guy who was confused by women he was not sexually attracted to, discombobulated by messy females like me, who wore their hair natural, wiry and black with the kind of grey usually seen around the eyes of sad old dogs. What were women like us even for? He never knew how to relax in my presence.
‘I have a social invite here from the property developer Bryant Fox which might be of interest for the supplements. He’s got that new development, beside MoMA on West 53rd? They’re having a
grand opening a couple of weeks from now . . . May I?’ I gestured at the chair on the other side of his desk and he hesitated, clearly preferring that the worn seat of my jeans would not come into contact with the pristine cream leather of his Eames chair (such an obvious choice), but he eventually nodded for me to sit down. ‘You remember his daughter was murdered, twenty years ago this summer? Juliet Fox? I thought perhaps we might do an anniversary piece . . . Fox has already described the building as his monument to his daughter and a lot of the people from that era will be at this party . . .’
Trudeau swivelled his eyes around before saying, ‘I remember. My eldest brother was in college with Juliet at the time. My parents were actually friends of theirs. Juliet was a brilliant tennis player, a real beauty too . . . all of us little kids were in love with her . . .’ he drifted off.
Jesus Christ, this guy.
I tried not to let my thoughts bother my facial expression, and kept a firm grip on my eyes’ desire to roll dramatically. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Well, I covered the story at the time, still have all my contacts, and notes. It might be worth revisiting in the light of the new building. Fox might talk to us for a human interest piece; we could talk to Juliet’s friends from the time, where they are now, how the murder changed their lives . . .’
‘Mmm,’ Trudeau sat back in his chair. He looked surprised. ‘I like it, Eddie,’ he said. ‘Go ahead with it. We’ll run a piece in the weekend magazine, the week of her anniversary, but keep me in the loop OK? This is a sensitive story. I’d hate to upset the family.’
Of course you would. Wouldn’t want things to get awkward at the tennis club.
I suppressed an urge to smile but Trudeau seemed to sense my satisfaction as he said, ‘But I still want your regular duties covered. I want those social pages to sing!’
Even his smug power trip couldn’t dampen my genuine delight to be working on something of substance for the first time in years.
‘You got it, boss,’ I said through a grin. He looked perturbed by my unusually good mood and deferential reference to his position. I felt alive again. I returned to my desk with a spring in my step, or what might be called a spring if my sciatica wasn’t bugging me so much. I took a celebratory bite out of my cold bagel and a blob of cream cheese flopped onto my jeans. I smeared it away carelessly, as I pored over the guest list again. I could feel it. We were going back. Back to the Juliet murder, back to the story that stole my career and ruined my life.
In Glass Houses is published by Sphere
