Before: Sam Ireland Thriller Book 4 (Sam Ireland Thriller Series)

by Finn Óg

  For almost three weeks Sinead wallowed in the gloom, acknowledging her sister but not sitting with her in the evenings, not allowing herself to be drawn into conversation. She politely declined suggestions that they watch a movie or have a drink. Not once did she accept the offer of a coffee or share a dinner. In fact, she didn’t eat very much at all. Áine considered it her sister’s way of punishing the offender, hitting back at her for having called Sam despite the risks, but as the gloom dragged on she began to realise that Sinead was not capable of sustaining such intended vengeance or spite. This was not retribution – it was hurt.

  One evening, in the fourth week of gloom, Sinead’s mood altered. She bustled into the apartment in a hurry, clutching the post. Áine had given up offering a “Hi, how was your day?” She had grown to expect nothing in return, yet today she received one unbidden.

  “Hello,” Sinead said, and the curt utterance gave her sister hope of an emergence. Sinead left down three letters, kept one and vanished into her room.

  Áine stared at the space left by her twin.

  Sinead examined the envelope closely. For a long time before opening it she lectured herself on not allowing her hopes up, afraid it would contain nothing other than some work issue. It was unusual, and in so being gave her an excitement she struggled to contain. There was no address, no stamp, no hint of its provenance, yet handwritten in the centre was one word: Sinead. Many things passed through her mind as she turned it over and held it to the light bulb – Min? One of the nuns? They wrote letters all the time rather than using the email she had set up for them.

  If it wasn’t from either of those quarters, then how did it get into their letter box, inside their apartment block’s main doorway, without an address on it? Without a flat number, the concierge wouldn’t know which locked box to select, would he? The old man never used her name when she left home or returned. In the end she packaged her hopes, prepared herself for disappointment and gently slipped the leaf with her thumbnail.

  Hello,

  Please excuse the lack of names and whatnot. I just need to know what way the land lies because I don’t really understand what’s going on. It’s taken a while to follow up but that’s only because I needed to find a way of doing it without, well. Anyway, after a lot of thinking I found a way that makes sense.

  First, I hope you’re ok, better than ok. I hope you’re really well, and that the other one is too. I got a shock when I heard from her, but in hindsight perhaps I shouldn’t have because I know how handy she is. What I don’t get, though, is what it was all about. That’s why I’m being so opaque here. I don’t know what or how much can be said just now.

  But we’re fine. We’ll probably keep moving, so, and this isn’t to put you under any pressure or anything because you maybe don’t want to, but if you do want to reply, then I’ve made an arrangement with someone. I know this should reach you without interference, so to reply – if you’d like to, that is, leave it in a plastic wrap taped to the underside of the lid of your recycling bin. All a bit mad but I can’t think of a better way. It’s kind of pressing, though, so if you do want to, if it could be soon, then we won’t miss it.

  I don’t know what else to say because I don’t know where you’re at, but hopefully you know you’re being badly missed. You-know-who is asking about you all the time.

  Best to burn this or whatever after reading and that will hopefully keep us all between the hedges.

  Sinead flicked over the page, incredulous. She knew she would find the other side blank. No signature, no handwriting, just plain type printed out. She sat stock-still and didn’t know whether to smile in delight or hit the wall in anger. Confusion furrowed her brow and she tried not to cry.

  What the hell is this? What is he thinking? Is this supposed to make things clear?

  Her mind went blank for a few minutes, stunned perhaps. Then she decided: all this excuse for a letter did was make things worse.

  You’re being badly missed. By whom – by him? He suggested it was by Isla – or did he mean both of them? She growled in frustration and was tempted to tear the page apart, as instructed.

  “Fuck’s sake.” All this time – and this is it?

  She read it again, hunting for solace between the neatly printed lines. She found none despite scrutinising the words again and again. If it had been her, she’d have found a way of saying what needed to be said without compromising them all. But this – what was this? A letter? A note? A bloody memo? It had the feel of something put together in a half-assed rush. She knew he wasn’t much of a communicator, but still. She closed her eyes, willed herself to be calm, and then the exhaustion of wondering and weeks of sleeplessness eventually took over and she slept until her 5 a.m. alarm summoned her to work.

  All sense had deserted Clodagh. Her self-appointed exalted status within the convent was dinging the other women like a fairground striker. Sinead had tried to put off addressing the obvious in the hope that the situation would resolve itself, but when one of the senior nuns approached her, she knew she’d have to whack the mole.

  “The young lady from Clontarf,” the nun began, her approach befitting the gentle nudge that was intended, “is rather determined to have her own way, we’ve noticed.”

  We’ve conveyed her meaning perfectly. The nuns were not part of a silent order, but they didn’t, as a rule, say a great deal, so if they’d been talking about the dinner lady, then her time was definitely up.

  “Has she stepped out of line, sister?” Sinead asked, feigning ignorance.

  “She is rather overbearing, dear,” was the reply, “even with some of our religious visitors.” The nun nodded knowingly, as if imparting crucial direction without feeling compelled to issue orders. Sinead knew her charity’s endurance was only a given with the support of the nuns – both financially and for accommodation. She closed her eyes in acquiescence and thanked the old woman for the unwelcome command.

  The news did not go down well.

  “Hi, Sinead,” Clodagh said brightly, turning with a massive saucepan in hand as she entered the kitchen.

  “Hello,” Sinead said with an awkward grimace. “Can we have a word, do you think?”

  “If it’s about the state of the place, then I’m tired telling them. This pan was supposedly washed before, you know, but I’ll get them in order, Sinead, don’t worry!” she said brightly, as if it were these two women against the tardiness and lethargy of the world.

  Sinead’s patience was not as inexhaustible as it might have been on a better day, in a better month. Her anger with Sam made her think of a few things about him – his uncanny ability to be listened to when speaking, his no-bullshit attitude when getting things done. His style and approach flitted through her thoughts and she immediately adopted a tone she had heard him use.

  “Sit down,” she said, drawing her chin into her clavicle.

  Clodagh placed the pan on the counter, her smile flattening immediately.

  Oh, this works, thought Sinead.

  “Have you had issues with your manner before?” she said, not sternly, but adopting Sam’s occasional detachment.

  “Eh, how do you mean?”

  Sinead resisted the urge to buckle and use pleases and thank yous and I’m sorrys.

  “I think you know what I mean,” she said dully.

  Clodagh’s hands came up in front of her face and her elbows reached for the table before her. “I’m sorry, Sinead,” she said, “I just … I get carried away.”

  The day before, Sinead would have reached out for her, stroked her bare arm and given her another chance – knowing even then that it wouldn’t work, but she was tired of lost causes, and wondered if she, herself, might be the worst of such cases.

  “I think you’re ready to find a place outside the fold,” Sinead said. “You’re clearly strong, you have the will, and we all know you’ve got the drive. So think of it as good news. You’re ready to stand on your feet again – be proud of that.”

  The wo
man’s hands parted and her reddened face looked out in shock. “You’re … you’re throwing me out?”

  “Everyone leaves,” Sinead said. “That’s the purpose of this place. We help people get back on the road and live independently of what they’ve escaped.”

  “But who will run the kitchen? Who will keep the women in order? The place will go to the dogs,” she said.

  If there was one thing Sinead detested, it was a lack of self-awareness in people that made them feel superior to all around them.

  “Nobody asked you to keep anyone in line,” she said coolly. “That is not for you to do – that is barely even for me to do. This is a safe place for women and children to come to escape domestic and sexual abuse. We facilitate placements and help people get back to work and into the community. This is not a regime.”

  “Are you saying I’m running it like a regime?” Clodagh bristled, sitting upright, her annoyance morphing into anger.

  “I’m saying you’re not supposed to run it at all. You’ve taken that upon yourself and it isn’t going down well.”

  Sinead was surprised at how tough she was being – it felt as alien as it was invigorating.

  “Hardly surprising with the state of some of the women in here,” Clodagh spat.

  “Excuse me?” Sinead was immediately riled, and although she knew her anger was really deserved of someone else, she hadn’t the energy to temper herself in the face of this reaction.

  “Some of these women,” Clodagh said with ice scraping in her voice, “brought their circumstances upon themselves.”

  Sinead forced herself to suppress what she was thinking. She let the hypocrisy of the comment pass and with as much zen as she could muster said, “We do not judge in here. We do not decide who has brought what upon themselves. It is time you moved into the community. We have a space at a women’s refuge in Rathmines, and you can spend two weeks there. You should already have all your applications in order if you have followed the guidance given when you arrived. All you need to do is notify the agencies of your change of address, and we will forward any correspondence that comes here for you.”

  “On your head be it.” Clodagh shoved back the chair. “You’ll be sorry when you see the state of the place this time tomorrow. You won’t be able to run it without the likes of me.”

  Sinead stared at the woman as she stomped off. I’ve been running it for years without you, she didn’t say. But she did think about how the Sam approach had saved her an hour of tearful apology for her decision. It had prevented her backtracking from a position she knew was correct and would have resulted in a repeat eviction in any case. And this way, the abrasive reaction had left her feeling less bad about her chosen course.

  Perhaps there was something to be said about being a hard-ass after all.

  I’ve had a long day. I’ll follow your patter, so, in not using names and “whatnot”.

  I’m tired, though, of beating around the burning bush, and I need to tell you that I’m cross – angry. And at the same time I’m worried that in telling you that, even this inadequate communication will close down. Therefore, as far as I’m able to via this means of conversing, I’m just going to come out and say to you: I’m pissed off.

  Sinead reread what she had typed, slightly surprised at the formality of her tone, her lapse back into a training she had thought long forgotten. She shuffled forward, slouched – exhausted, and started again.

  Could you not have said more? It’s been months. Really, could you not have explained? I mean, for it all to be like, “This is it. Will you come with?” was a total shock. I didn’t even know there could be an ultimatum between us. Whatever “us” is – is there even an us?

  I know I’m rambling, and I know I’m not in a good place, but at some stage I have to say this to you. This has been going on for so long now – if, in fact, anything has been going on, and, to be honest, I can’t even answer questions from you-know-who about anything, really. I think one minute that I know you to your core, but I don’t know the first thing, not really. Most of what I know I only “think” I know – robbed from snippets or unguarded moments before you shutter up and close the bloody shop for the night and I go off to my bunk and you go to who knows where. And the worst of it is – I can put up with all that vanishing into the night, disappearing and whatever the hell else, and I don’t bloody think there are many who would. Underneath it all I somehow agree with what that’s about, even though I can’t say it because it’s you who sets the rules, always. And the rule here seems to be to say nothing. So, for the record, I’m in agreement with all that – even though it seems to go against everything I’ve ever stood for or worked for or believed was right. But I can see that you have a kind of logic and sense to what you do, and I can live with that, in the same way you can’t live without it, it seems.

  What I can’t live with, is not knowing. I’m all out of rope here, and it’s not just the screamingly bloody obvious. It’s being able to have a sensible conversation with ‘the other one’ as you put it. For crying out loud. Like when she says, “What do you really know?” What am I supposed to say? Seriously, I don’t even know where you went to school. I couldn’t tell her if you’d been to college or what led you to go off and do the things you do or did – whatever they are. I don’t know the most basic things. I don’t even know what age you are. Or if you’ve got a middle name. I don’t care if you have a middle name or whether you’re forty or fifty-fucking-five, but the more I think about it and write this, the more I realise that I just don’t know anything about you personally.

  I do know I’ll always be second, and I know that many women wouldn’t like that, but I am ok with that – more than ok with that. Much more than. You know all about my feelings there, and if you don’t, then you’re blind. And I know you’re not blind because you somehow see things and know things that I could never see or know. I don’t get how you instinctively work stuff out or notice shit that just about anyone else never would, YET you don’t seem able to see what’s staring you in the face.

  Maybe I’m just typing this to get it out of my system because it’s been a bad day and I need to vent. I hate people seeing me cross or upset and that’s happened recently and I struggle with it. I can see you have struggles too – even a blind man can see that, but you won’t share and I can’t ask. I dunno. I doubt I’ll send this, but this is how I feel. Pissed off.

  And I don’t want this to be the first thing you hear from me, I really don’t, so I will probably write something else tomorrow when I’m in better form, but you’ll probably have cleared out by then.

  What I wanted the first thing I told you to be is this – all of this is so bloody unnecessary cos the other one has checked in all the right places and your trusted person (from Tinker’s - yeah, we’ve spoken) has confirmed it. There is no one connecting any dots. To cut a long story short, all that last-minute will-you-won’t-you head-wrecking stuff was not bloody necessary at all. It’s been dealt with and no worm cans are about to be reopened. What do you think? It should be good news, so why is it making me so bloody angry?

  Sinead lay in bed for a long time the following morning. The thought of going to work on the day that Clodagh was due to leave was deeply unappealing. She normally wouldn’t duck such a difficult conversation. If she felt responsible, she would flagellate herself before the nuns, taking all that was her due and much that wasn’t on the tip of her chin. Yet, today, she was exhausted, thinking bad things about everyone she cared about, and chose, instead, to find a film on her phone and lie there. She didn’t even ring to let Grace know.

  After an hour she heard the front door open and close, felt the vibration of the elevator shaft working, and knew Áine had left the building. After twenty minutes the lift gently buzzed again and she pulled the duvet close, resolved not to answer whomever the concierge had allowed up.

  The door opened again and a strike of alarm ran through her. Áine never collected the post or went to buy milk – that
was down to Sinead. She tensed and worked out what she would do with an intruder, thumbing her phone ready to dial the Guards. Her worry was allayed when the keys were dropped – as was Áine’s custom, in a porcelain bowl filled with gnarly scentless potpourri by the kitchen door.

  Two crap films later she slunk through to the kitchen in her pyjamas, flicked on the kettle and looked at the door to the control room. Only then did she remember what she had left in there the night before. She tried not to run to the door, but, relieved, found Áine pouring through screeds of code on multiple screens.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi,” Áine said without turning.

  Sinead’s eyes darted over the desk and hunted the screen bank.

  “I left some papers in here last night.”

  “Over there.” Áine’s arm craned out, a stylus in her hand.

  Sinead retrieved the page and the envelope and hovered.

  “Did you …?”

  “Started to, then realised it was from him.”

  “There isn’t much of it, so if you started, you probably finished.”

  Áine said nothing.

  “I used one of your computers last night.”

  “I know,” Áine said.

  Sinead faltered and made to turn away, but she longed for an opinion, some reassurance, at least a discussion. She felt, in that moment, deeply, horribly lonely. She faltered, then slowly walked away.

  “That’s the most you’ve said to me in a month,” Áine said, no detectable tone to her voice.

  Sinead paused. “I’m not angry with you,” she said.

  “It’s worse than that,” Áine said. “You’re disappointed.”