Chapter 14: Lola Lush -

From South America

With Love…

from “Dunnitt: A Life in Puzzles and

Poor Decisions” by Hugh Dunnitt

I have learned that some people fall in love, while others fall into strategy. Lola Lush belongs to the second group. She does hearts like other people do heists. She had already told me about Peru and the alpacas, about Tommy “Twitch” McSnitch and the tattooed map she had admired at the wrong moment, about the decorators who would descend upon Mallon Hall on Monday the twenty third. It was theatre of the highest order. Yet the act that interested me most was the one she had not performed. The one she was saving for the O’Malleys.

“Two of them,” she said, eyes shining. “Twins. Names like Rome. Ponious and Pilate. One writes rules. The other collects debts. I fancy the collector. Cute but dim.”

This is the part where readers assume I corrected her on the spelling. I did not. I have learned to let Lola’s confidence carry her to the point she wishes to make. She was not asking me about ethics. She was planning a move.

The Twins Enter

They would come late. They would enter quietly. They would stand where they could see every door and every rival. Pontius O’Malley would check faces for insolence. He is said to despise the smallest smirk and to cherish tidy procedure the way priests cherish tidy altars. He once learned the law in the shadow of bad lawyers and came away convinced that rules, once written, must never bend. He will ask for respect first, truth second, mercy only if there is time.

Pilate O’Malley is a different instrument. The book he keeps is not a Bible. It is a ledger. Every favour, every insult, every unpaid promise recorded in ink. People say he will look at you like an accountant looks at a column of figures. They also say a page has gone missing from that ledger. A page with a red ribbon. A page that someone tore out and thought clever. Pilate has not forgotten. He will not forgive.

Lola knows all this and still says he is cute but dim. You may call that delusion. I call it method. She underestimates men for sport. She flatters them for profit. She intends to place a hand on Pilate’s sleeve and look up through lashes and ask what it feels like to be feared. She will make him feel seen. She will make him feel safe. Then she will ask about the missing page.

A Short Education in O’Malley

Before I could tell Lola to leave the twins alone, I took a detour through their history. The O’Malley name carries the weight of debts older than most grudges and richer than most fortunes. It began on the Dublin docks, became a dialect of polite violence, and flowered into a family creed. Their ancestors learned how to angle a chair in a corner to watch both doors. They learned to smile during threats. They learned that chaos buys time. They learned that revenge can be inherited like a watch.

The modern branch looks tidy to those who do not look closely. It is not tidy. It is disciplined. There is a difference. Pontius has a mirror and a temper. Pilate has gloves and a list. Pious writes letters that can shame a bishop and silence a broker. Phelem carries a mallet like a saint carries a relic and believes most problems can be fixed with force or with faith. Bob is the sister who burned down a warehouse and then tried to invoice destiny. The twins are the axis on which the family turns. The rest provide weather.

Lola’s Plan

Lola does not wish to marry the twins. She wishes to win. She wants the twins to fight her battles without knowing they are her battles. Step one is to bait the collector.

“You keep a ledger,” she intends to say to Pilate, in a voice that sounds like regret and tastes like champagne. “I keep memories. Perhaps we can do a swap.”

Pilate will smile without smiling. He will say it depends on the currency. She will offer gossip. He will offer silence. She will pretend to confuse cute with safe. Pilate will let her, for a time. Then he will ask for names. She will give him Sebastien Swoon and Dolly, not because she wishes them harm, but because the game requires an opening gambit. Sebastien will be accused of a debt of reputation. Dolly will be accused of a debt of promise. Neither will be fatal. Both will be useful.

The second step of Lola’s plan involves the missing page. If she can discover its content, she acquires leverage. If she can discover who took it, she acquires a weapon. There are rumours. Some say the page names a sum owed by a Mallon to an O’Malley, payable in gold or in humiliation. Some say the page names a favour owed by an O’Malley to a Patagonian archive. Some say the page is blank, and the ribbon alone is the threat. Pilate knows. Lola wants to know. My job is to keep both of them from learning it at the same time.

Pontius, Ridicule, and Rowan’s Ghost

Pontius is harder. He is not cute and he is never dim. He trained himself to survive laughter by trying to ban it. Laughter remains his weakness. A single ill timed chuckle and his hands will tremble. I asked Lola not to exploit that. She nodded and promised and then smiled in a way that suggested the promise would not last a full hour.

Pontius believes the law is a cathedral and that he is its usher. He interned with bad men, learned good forms, and now stalks rooms like a headmaster desperate to restore order to children who enjoy chaos. He will pursue documents. He will pursue dates. He will pursue signatures. He will pursue Lola’s claims like a fox chases a squeal. He will look for a certificate from Peru and he will find a story instead. I expect him to hate that.

Scandal as Gravity

There is a line between scandal that amuses and scandal that breaks bones. The twins live on that line. Lola intends to dance on it. She will turn her rejection by televised housewives into proof that honesty frightens people. She will call Tina Tout a distraction and then use her as a mirror. She will confess to the wrong crime at the right moment and seem brave. She will cry at the exact second a camera looks her way. She will hint that Goldie needs a home and that Mallon Hall has rooms.

What she will not see, because she refuses to, is that Pilate is not dim. He plays the long game with a straight face. He does not like being touched during negotiations. He does not drink when others drink. He prefers owing to being owed. He is the sort of man who will ask for a favour in a whisper and collect in a crowd. Lola will mistake patience for softness. She will learn the difference the hard way.

Lola Lush and Roberta “Bob” O’Malley

Lola’s dislike for the O’Malley brothers is a cocktail of envy, ambition, and misjudgment. Her hatred for their sister Roberta ‘Bob’ O’Malley is something else entirely. It is personal. It is sharp. It is the sort of distaste that stains the air.

Bob is the only woman Lola refuses to underestimate. A convicted arsonist with an insurance payout that became legendary, Bob possesses the sort of reputation that makes grown men choose different seats in pubs. She writes letters from her cell with immaculate grammar and terrifying clarity. Each one feels like a curse wrapped in courtesy.

Lola claims Bob once looked at her with what she described as “Patagonian frost”. Lola has never forgiven her for that. She has vowed Bob must go, one way or another. Whether that means removal from the gathering, exposure of a rumour, or the theatrical staging of a downfall, Lola has not yet decided. The only certainty is that this will not end quietly.

Lola and Judge Reginal Rope Blackheart

If Lola reserves her sharpest knives for Bob O’Malley, she keeps a special one for Judge Reginal Rope Blackheart. Her hatred for him is almost operatic.

While drunk in Patagonia, the Judge propositioned her. Badly. He slurred. He swaggered. He suggested possibilities without the decency to buy her a drink. Lola has retold this moment many times, each version more dramatic. She calls it “The Night of the Great Offence”. She claims Blackheart had the manners of a goat and the charm of an undercooked potato. She has never forgiven him. She has never tried.

It does not help that he later denied ever meeting her, despite being found asleep on a crate marked “Condor Deliveries” with her feather boa around his neck.

Lola’s Plans for Mallon Hall

Lola’s ambitions do not stop at inheritance or revenge. She has already begun planning the complete transformation of Mallon Hall. She speaks of it with the certainty of a queen preparing a coronation.

One evening she leaned forward, lowered her voice, and delivered a monologue that could have brought down a minor government.

“Time Donegal got LUSHED,” she announced.

I asked what that meant. I regretted it immediately.

She flung out her arms as if conducting an orchestra.

“Redecoration. Rejuvenation. Restoration. Removal. A new era of elegance. A dynasty of beauty. My dynasty. Mallon Hall will shine like sequins under proper management. Which is to say, under me.”

She tapped her handbag.

“I have carpet samples, Hugh. Carpet samples. Do you know what that means? It means destiny is choosing flooring.”

I asked about the staff.

She sighed with theatrical sadness.

“Half of them are insolent. The other half are lazy. I shall sack fifty percent and simply let go the rest. With dignity. And perhaps a biscuit.”

When I pointed out that this would leave Mallon Hall empty, she waved the idea away.

“I will hire fresh staff. Bright staff. Staff who understand gratitude. Staff who know how to say ‘Yes, Miss Lush’ without looking like they have swallowed a lemon.”

She leaned closer and whispered:

“And I want uniforms. Glamorous ones. Something with shoulder pads. Something that says ‘This hallway is ruled by a vision’. If Donegal cannot keep up, Donegal will be upgraded.”

Her certainty about her ownership of Mallon Hall remains, in my view, premature. Though she carries herself like a woman who has already changed the locks.

Hugh Dunnitt’s Notebook

• The ledger with the red ribbon exists. A page is missing. I have felt the knot where it was torn.

• Pontius will not be mocked without consequence. His mirror is not vanity. It is armour.

• Pious writes like a bishop. He also writes like a bookkeeper with a soul to save.

• Bob still exerts gravity from a cell. Her letters are careful. Her influence is not.

• Pilate’s gloves are a tell. He hates fingerprints in every sense.

• Judge Blackheart has the morals of a dropped sandwich.

The Move I Did Not Advise

Lola asked me if she should kiss Pilate. I said no. She asked me if she should accuse him. I said no. She asked me if she should borrow his ledger and return it with an apology and two names crossed out. I said no, and meant it.

She will choose one of those anyway.

South America gave us the rumour. The twins will give us the reckoning. And when the night ends, if the treasure remains a myth and the will remains missing, there will still be one truth to carry home. People like Lola and the O’Malleys do not seek gold. They seek proof. Proof that the world once saw them and could not look away.

On that measure, the night will be priceless.