by M J Lee
'Don't worry, I'll see myself out.'
'And don't worry yourself, it will work itself out in the end. It always does.'
Jayne gathered her notes and stuffed them in her bag. She walked to the door, taking one last look at the old woman sitting in the chair by the fire, staring down at her knitting. What did she mean 'it will work itself out in the end?'
The taxi horn blared again.
'Goodbye, Ms Fitzgerald.'
The only answer from the old lady was the clacking of knitting needles. It was as if Jayne had never been there.
She opened the door. The taxi was waiting in the street. A different one than she expected. Perhaps her driver had been unable to make it. At least, he had arranged a replacement for her.
She picked up the bag and closed the old woman's door behind her. She walked to the taxi. Something was wrong, another person was sitting in the back.
At that moment, a strong pair of arms encircled her, her bag was taken, and she was bundled into the back. A burly man got in beside her, sandwiching her in the middle.
'Good morning, Mrs Sinclair. I'm so glad you could join us. We'll just wait for Tony and then we'll be off.'
The front door opened and her bag was thrown inside. A man followed it into the seat. A nod to the driver and they moved off.
'I hope you enjoyed your little talk with Ellen. What did you discuss?'
'None of your business.'
She felt something sharp in her side, just below the breast. She looked down and saw the metal of a gun barrel digging into her ribs. She could smell the gun oil, a sharp, tangy smell like the scraps in a steelyard.
'Now, I was hoping that we were going to have a friendly conversation on this lovely November day. We don't get many days like this in Dublin. I think it's always best to enjoy them. Go for a drive out into the country.'
'I've got a plane to catch. Let me out now.'
Again, the gun jabbed her beneath the ribs. This time, she groaned audibly.
The man sitting next to her was small, almost elfin in appearance, with a head that seemed too large for his body. A bald head with a few strands of hair combed across the top, large ears, a pug nose and the disconcerting habit of pushing his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose each time he spoke.
'There you go again. Here we are having a pleasant conversation and you want to keep shouting. Now that isn't very friendly, is it? Sean over there doesn't like prodding you with his gun. He likes it even less when he has to use it. Makes an awful loud noise it does. Enough to wake up the dead. We wouldn't like that, would we?'
Jayne shook her head.
'Good, I knew the minute I saw you, we were going to get on like a house on fire. Didn't I say that Sean?'
The burly man beside her didn't say a word.
'He's not one for the conversation himself. The strong, silent type is our Sean. Now where was I, Mrs Sinclair? Ah I remember, I was asking a few questions and you were doing the answering.'
The car turned left. They had exited the city now and were into a leafy suburb. She had no idea where they were or where they were going. She shifted her position to the left away from the snub nose of the revolver.
'How is Ellen these days?'
'She's fine. Old but as sharp as a button.'
'Are buttons sharp these days? Must be an English phrase. She was remembering the old days, was she?'
'Look, I don't have to tell you anything.'
The jab of the muzzle in her ribs once again.
'No, you don't, that is true. But Patrick here is available to drive around Dublin for the rest of the day. And me, Sean and Tony, well, we're not busy either. I'm thinking it is you who has the plane to catch, is it not?'
Jayne looked at the clock on the dashboard. 11.20. She was going to miss the flight.
'The sooner you answer a few of our questions, the sooner we can let you down to get your flight. Sean will miss you, though, won't you Sean?'
Jayne felt the nose of the pistol in her ribs once again. The car accelerated away from the traffic lights. The houses on each side of the road were larger now, set back and with large gardens in front and at the side.
Jayne shifted her body to face the small man sitting on her left. She refused to look at the thug with the gun. He was just muscle with just a couple of brain cells to spark him into action.
What was so significant about her research? Why were these people interested in it? And who the hell were they?
Chapter Thirty-Two
Dublin. November 19, 2015.
David Turner had followed Jayne Sinclair to the terraced house in Ballsbridge. What was she doing here? He watched as an old lady answered the door and let her in. 'Let's sit and wait, Ronnie. She's got her case with her. My bet is she's going straight to the airport after she's finished here.'
'I'll find out who the old lady is. A mate in the Garda can do a quick check.' He picked up the mobile, dialled a number and began to speak. 'He'll get back to me in a minute.'
They sat in the vehicle on the street, watching the door. It felt just like the stakeouts they used to do in Northern Ireland, even the houses looked the same. Sitting. Waiting. Drinking bad coffee. Eating worse burgers. Not speaking, never saying a word. He hated every second of it, just as he hated it now. Patience really wasn't his forte.
The phone call, when it came, was a welcome relief to break the silence. 'Okay, got it. Thanks. I owe you one.' He switched off the phone. 'Her name is Ellen Fitzgerald. Her father was an old Sinn Feiner. She's been arrested a few times, public disorder, breaking the peace, nothing too serious.'
So yesterday a visit to the archives at the Cathal Brugha Barracks and this morning a trip to see one of the Old Guard. What was she doing? Looking into something that happened during the fight against the IRA? He would know more when he got back to England. He would pay one of his more computer literate friends to access the laptop he had stolen before he gave it to the client. Her files would tell him everything he needed to know about what Jayne Sinclair was up to. Until then, he would just sit and watch, and report back on the dot at noon.
Time passed slowly, it always did on a stakeout. As if it had been slowed deliberately to make the waiting even more painful. Sometimes people chatted away the hours, naming favourite movies and their casts, English football teams or talking about past operations and who had been a plonker. But he wasn't much of a talker and Ronnie was even less so. More of the strong silent type. Strange, he always thought the Irish had the gift of the gab.
'Somebody has pulled up outside. Looks like a taxi.'
He leaned forward, looking at the new arrival. It had a taxi sign on its roof but two men had got out from the car and stood by the door of the house, while another remained in the back.
'That's not a taxi, it's a welcoming committee.' He recognised the trademarks of an IRA operation. Using a taxi was the giveaway. What was more innocuous, more ordinary than a couple of people sitting in the back of a taxi?
The door opened a crack and then stopped. The men standing on either side of it, leant back into the wall, waiting for Jayne Sinclair to exit. She stepped out carrying her case and stopped, surprised to see someone sitting in the back of her taxi. The man at the door took her by the arms and bundled her into the back, the other man sat in the front with her case. The taxi began to drive off immediately. It was all over in a matter of seconds. A very professional operation. Anybody who didn't know, would think the woman was just sharing the car with the men, taking a taxi to the airport perhaps.
Turner tapped the dashboard. 'Follow them, Ronnie, but at a distance. I don't want them to know.'
Chapter Thirty-Three
Dublin. November 19, 2015.
'Now, you're probably wondering who we are and why we are taking you on a little tour of Sean's hometown?'
'The thought had crossed my mind.'
'Aye, it has a habit of doing that on journey like this. We are what you might call a welcoming committee. We welcome
people and ensure they had a wonderfully safe time in our fair city. Don't we, Sean?'
The thug beside her played the big, silent type to perfection.
'We were wondering why an ex-police woman like yourself was visiting our city?'
'How do you know I'm ex-police?' It was time to start asking the little man questions herself. Change the relationship in the back of this car.
'Ah, a little birdie told me. The same wee bird also said you had visited the barracks and the university asking questions. I'll ask again. Why are you here in Dublin?'
'You seem to have a talkative bird there, a parrot perhaps? Or a magpie who likes stealing shiny things from people's hotel rooms? What did you say your name was?'
'I didn’t Mrs Sinclair. Let's not deal in names for the moment. I'll ask again, why are you here in Dublin?'
'To see the sights. I'm a tourist like anybody else.' Jayne disliked the little man sitting next to her with his bad breath. She wasn't going to tell him anything.
'And one of those sights is Ellen Fitzgerald, is it?'
'It is.'
'Ah well, Sean there, was thinking that Ellen wasn't in any guidebook he knew of, weren't you Sean?' The big man didn't say a word just nodded his head.
Jayne took her cue from him. Silence is golden.
'Let me lay my cards on the table, Mrs Sinclair.'
The little man opened his hands revealing soft pink palms and long, elegant, fingers. They were the hands of a child.
'Ellen Fitzgerald is important to us. She and her father deserve respect and admiration for all that they have done in their lives. We wouldn't like that legacy to be sullied in any way. Do I make myself clear? Particularly not this year. The year we celebrate the anniversary of one of the greatest times in Irish history.’
Jayne wasn't going to let this little man lecture her any longer. 'Why did you steal my laptop?'
'What laptop?' The little man's eyes opened wider, he seemed genuinely surprised. 'I can assure you Mrs Sinclair, we don't steal people's property, we have our principles,' he said with a sniff of self-righteousness.
A quick flash of eyes in the rearview mirror. 'We're being followed, boss. The white Volvo.'
The little man twisted in his seat, looking behind him. 'Are you sure, Tommy?'
'He's been behind us since we left the old lady. Just one car.'
'The Garda or the Specials?’
'Don't know, boss. Not a car I've seen before.'
The little man turned and stared at her. 'Who are you, Mrs Sinclair? A researcher in family history or is that just a cover?'
The car swung sharply left. She was thrown against the little man.
'It's still there, boss. Three cars back. I'm sure it is tailing us.'
'Pull through the lights up ahead and turn left, Tommy.'
The driver accelerated towards the lights as they turned red. Ignoring the signal, he turned left, forcing a car to stamp on its brakes. A long, annoyed squeal of a car horn followed.
'Turn left at the next road, Tommy. Listen, Mrs Sinclair. I don't care who or what you are, but you are to leave Ellen Fitzgerald alone, is that clear?'
The car swung left again and screeched to a halt again. Jayne was thrown out of the car onto the pavement. Her bag came sailing out after her, landing with a thud against the wall behind her. She sat there for a few moments, rubbing her knee. She dragged herself to her feet gingerly. As she did so, a white Volvo drove past. In the passenger seat, a man was staring at her. She had seen him somewhere before? But where?
Who was he? And why was he following her?
Chapter Thirty-Four
Dublin. November 19, 2015.
They followed the taxi through the suburbs of Dublin, making sure to keep three cars behind.
'Looks like they're not going to the airport.'
Why had the IRA picked her up? Was it because of the old woman? Or something else? 'Keep following but stay well back.'
'They are bound to spot us eventually with only one car. This lot know what they're doing. We've come back on ourselves. The same junction we were at five minutes ago.'
'Keep after them, drop further back if it will help.'
They followed the taxi for twenty minutes. It kept to the suburbs avoiding the centre of the city, heading east through Rathmines and then south towards Tallaght. Where were they taking her? And what were they doing? All he could see were three heads in the back of the car. Two were turned towards each other, one was facing front.
Suddenly, the car sped up, mounted the pavement and turned left through a red light.
'Follow them, Ronnie. Don't lose them.'
They were blocked by an old man driving an even older car. Ronnie glanced to his left and swung the car up onto the pavement, forcing a cyclist off his bike. The car careered down the pavement, one tyre on the road. A woman with a pushchair opened her eyes in fear as the car kept coming and coming straight towards her.
She screamed.
At the last minute, Ronnie swerved back into the road just before the junction, swinging left through the red light. A bus was coming straight towards them from the right. The loud pitched squeal of brakes. An immense green mass looming closer and closer. He could see the driver forcing himself back into the seat, pushing down with all his might on the brakes.
They were going to be hit. David Turner braced his body back against the seat, preparing it for the shock of the impact.
The crash of metal on metal never came. Just as the bus loomed over them, the wheels of the car gripped the road and they began to surge away, the distance between them and the large green lump of metal known as a bus slowly getting larger and larger.
'They've turned left up ahead. Shall I follow?' Ronnie was as cool as a spring day, still focussed on the car in front.
'Keep after them.'
Ronnie's eyes never left the road ahead, staring at the white taxi, and moving in a slow, controlled manner. He swung the car around the corner. Ahead they could see Jayne Sinclair picking herself up from the ground, her bag lying next to her.
'Shall we stop?'
'No, keep on going. She's out now.'
'Keep after the taxi?’
David Turner thought for a moment. 'No, let them go.'
Ronnie seemed disappointed at the decision. He wasn't being paid to fight the IRA, not anymore anyway, but he still missed the adrenalin rush of a car chase.
As they passed Jayne Sinclair, she looked over towards their car. Let her see him, no point in hiding anymore.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Dublin. November 19, 2015.
She missed her flight. After picking up her case and wandering around for ten minutes, she had walked into a greengrocer's to ask where she was.
'The airport? Well, you'll be long way from there.' The old man behind the counter gave a little chuckle at the folly of the question. 'It's over on the other side of town. An American tourist, are you?'
Jayne ignored the question. 'Could you call me a taxi?'
'Well, there are no taxi firms hereabouts, but Pat sometimes runs us to the airport if we're flying off on holiday. I'll give him a call.' He picked up the phone and after a long chat about the weather and how the man's son was doing at the university, they talked about going to the airport. The shop owner put the phone down. 'He'll be here in twenty minutes. Could be half an hour, though. With Pat, you can never tell. Now can I be getting anything for you while you wait?'
Jayne suddenly realised she was starving. She hadn't eaten that morning. And after the events in the car, she was desperate to eat something to settle her stomach. 'Do you have a sandwich?'
'That we do. Only egg and onion today, though. That's all that Mrs Clancy made this morning. Her hens must be laying so.'
'Egg and onion would be lovely.'
She sat outside the shop eating her sandwich and waiting for her ride to the airport. What the fuck was going on? Why had she been kidnapped? All they seemed to ask about was her visit to Ellen Fi
tzgerald as if it was all that mattered. Had she inadvertently stepped into the middle of something? Or was her client's past somehow caught up with something deeper, something more important? She didn't know. Not yet anyway, but she would bloody well find out. Nobody threatened her. It didn't matter if it was some thug in Moss Side or a small pale man in Dublin.
She took another bite of the white bread sandwich. Egg and onion, an acquired taste but not one she was interested in acquiring. She threw the rest of the sandwich away.
Had her client been truthful with her? Was there more to this than just finding a long-lost father? She thought back to their meeting. The man was old and ill, dying according to his nephew. All her instincts shouted, no they screamed, he was only after one thing. To find out who he was and where he came from. It was like 'Rosebud' in Citizen Kane. An idea, a vague memory, a desire to return to that state of innocence that existed before he was sent to America. It was as if he was returning to his childhood. She had seen the same in her father. He could remember details from growing up in Hulme better than he could remember what he had for breakfast that morning. Or worse. He could remember the name of his teacher at primary school, but he couldn't remember her name. Or her face. It had been three days since she had last seen him, she needed to visit him again.
So what the fuck was going on? Since the start of this case, a brick had been thrown through her window, her computer had been stolen, she had been kidnapped, and now she was certain she was also being followed.
Was it all because some old man wanted to know who his father was? Or was something more involved. MI5? The IRA? The Irish Special Branch? Had someone seen a Dublin connection to all of this and decided that it needed to be followed up?
Whatever it was and whoever it was, one thing was certain. Somebody was after her and they weren't looking for her dazzling personality
