Disappeared

by Anthony Quinn

  “Do you shave with a razor?” he asked.

  “No. Should I?” Daly rubbed his jaw line.

  “I need a razor myself. I haven’t had a proper shave in weeks.”

  Daly noticed the man’s jaw was smooth and stubble-free. A bit of dried shaving cream was stuck in one of his nostrils.

  The old man raised his hand. He was holding a crumpled piece of paper.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  “No.”

  “It’s my secret. You didn’t know I had secrets.”

  “Everybody has secrets.”

  “But mine are special.”

  “What are they?”

  “I can’t tell you. Only the visitor is allowed to see.”

  “The visitor?” Daly’s voice changed, grew careful.

  “Yes. The young man that comes and writes down our secrets. Are you waiting for him too?” he asked, analyzing Daly’s face.

  “No. I’m not.”

  “Does he frighten you?”

  “No.” Daly made an effort to relax

  “Good. He doesn’t frighten me, either.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Who?”

  “The visitor.”

  “That’s his name. The visitor.”

  “Are you going to show him your secret?”

  “Maybe I won’t. It might be too horrible.”

  “Will it frighten him?”

  “Let’s wait and see.”

  Daly turned away.

  “Do your best to find him,” the man said. “I’ve been waiting for too long.”

  Daly assured him he would.

  The manager was signing sets of sheets by the medication trolley in one of the lounges. A humming noise filled the room. At first Daly thought it was a trapped insect, but the noise was too loud. It continued, hanging elusively in the air. It jarred him when he realized it was a high-pitched wail coming from an old woman with closed eyes. Another old woman looked up at him, blessed herself, and began reciting the rosary. The patient next to her leaned forward and with vehemence began chanting: “Fuck the pope and the IRA.”

  “Oh dear,” said the manager. “That’s the only phrase he remembers.”

  A care assistant helped her remove the disturbed patient from the room. She returned with a harried look on her face.

  “You didn’t tell me about the visitor,” said Daly. “The young man who writes down secrets.”

  “The visitor?”

  “The patient in the dayroom is waiting for him with a piece of paper.”

  “He must be talking about one of the pupils doing voluntary work.”

  “What pupils?”

  “They come here at weekends. They add a new dimension to the residents’ lives. Sometimes they write up people’s life stories, or play games. There’s a big difference in the residents’ moods afterwards.”

  She glanced impatiently at her watch. Daly moved in with the important question.

  “Tell me about the boy who writes down secrets. Did he spend time with David?”

  “Yes, there was a boy who wrote down his memories. His company produced a big change in Mr. Hughes. He was more settled afterwards.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “His grandmother is a resident here: Rita Jordan. He’s a quiet boy. Dermot’s his name. Dermot Jordan.”

  Daly left the nursing home in uncertainty and confusion. Dermot Jordan, he thought to himself. Could he be behind Hughes’s disappearance? The question opened up a depth of anxiety within him that immediately demanded a remedy.

  In spite of his suspicions, he could not help but feel a protective concern for the boy. If it was true, the boy was out of his league, playing a dangerous game of hide-and-seek with the security forces and a host of other nefarious groups. They might not be as powerful and belligerent as they were during the high noon of the Troubles, but they were tenacious in their desire to tie up loose ends, and their powers were secretive and arbitrary. He didn’t imagine Dermot could withstand an interrogation. He worried about the state of the boy’s mind and, more pressingly, that Tessa Jordan was somehow entangled in the subterfuge too.

  26

  Minnie and Bill were a pair of larger-than-life duck decoys, the most ancient set Joseph Devine had in his collection. Minnie had at least twelve coats of paint plastered over her, and Bill had a fissure that ran down the center of his back, but in spite of their decrepit condition, David Hughes handled them with care and delight.

  “They’re a motley pair, and at least fifty years old, but there’s plenty of game left in them,” he declared. “You can’t beat the old ones.”

  Dermot drew closer. “‘For further arrangements, contact Bill.’ That’s what Devine’s obituary said.”

  Hughes wasn’t listening. He had already found the map. It was slotted inside the hole in Bill’s back like a half-posted letter.

  The old man grinned. “‘If that old bird could talk, the tales he would tell.’ How right Devine was.”

  He and Dermot Jordan pored over the map. The boy sensed that a decisive watershed had occurred in his life.

  “Devine must have asked a lot of questions to come up with this,” remarked the old man.

  The map showed a square mile of bog land above the village of Cappagh, in the foothills of the Sperrins. The dead informer had managed to narrow the search for Oliver Jordan’s burial place.

  Dermot felt the truth was very close. Now all he needed to do was take Hughes out to the bog land and hope the journey would jog his memory. He breathed deeply. No point in getting excited now. There had been so many false starts in the past few months, so many leads that took them nowhere.

  “You must be able to recall some landmark. A tree, a stone, a river, something?” said Dermot.

  Hughes said nothing.

  “Can’t you remember anything at all?” the boy shouted in exasperation.

  They were close but yet so far.

  Hughes turned his back to Dermot and lay down to sleep. His last conscious thoughts brought him deep into the fog of his memory as he struggled to recall the details the boy had requested.

  In one of his dreams, he found himself stepping out through the back door of his cottage into pitch-darkness. The door gave onto the black wind. Voices whirled and echoed in the howling air. He realized his eyes were closed against the darkness. Opening them, he gradually made out a sky of dim stars. But the brightest thing in the night was a flowering thorn tree sitting in the middle of a dark hedge. Its naked black branches were laden with white blossoms, shining like clusters of stars. A line of ghosts shuffled along the hedge toward the tree, as though it offered some form of protection. He saw Oliver Jordan climb up into the tree, then others, like stowaways boarding a boat, reaching up on their tiptoes, hugging the twisted branches while the blossoms stirred in the dark wind like a set of sails.

  A sense of relief and happiness overwhelmed him. Nothing was lost. No one had died. For forty years he had worked as a police officer; so many colleagues had been killed, as well as informers, not to mention the countless civilian victims. He saw the thorn tree gather them all up safely into its branches, ready to bear them off to a safer haven. But there was something anchoring the tree, something buried amid its roots, preventing it from carrying its cargo of lost souls heavenward. He gripped the gnarled base of the tree and tried to shake it loose, begging it to uproot itself, but it would not budge. The branches grated together as if in pain. He began digging with a tiny silver trowel, scratching at the stony soil.

  He was still digging in his mind when he awoke. It was not soil he was sifting through but memories. He dug deep, until he found what he was looking for in his mind’s eye, the site of Oliver Jordan’s grave. He could see it clearly now, on a strip of mountain bog, a whitethorn tree marking the spot, its scant blossoms fluttering in the breeze. It had been early spring when the IRA men buried his body, and the white flowers of the tree had provided the only colorful things for their eyes to
rest upon. It was the one living landmark in the expanse of lifeless bog. The siege of his memory was ending.

  27

  A frost was already forming when Daly pulled up at the farmhouse. In the distance, he saw a pair of rear lights melting into the still-red sky. He lurched up the lane wishing he had worn a thicker jacket. In fact, he wished he had given more thought to his clothes in general. He had been wearing the same shirt, tie, and trousers for the last few days, and they were beginning to look crumpled.

  In spite of the cold, he felt a thin layer of perspiration on his forehead. He rubbed his moist hands and paused for a moment to get his breath. What in God’s name was going on in his body? He had made an important breakthrough, yet here he was, sidling about anxiously in the dark like a lovelorn youth. He was Inspector Celcius Daly, chief investigating officer in a murder case. He glanced tentatively at the caravan door. It was just as well dusk had advanced. The shadows might conceal the red glow in his cheeks.

  He froze just before knocking on the caravan door. A thought struck him. Had he exaggerated the importance of Dermot’s relationship with David Hughes? For a moment, he feared this new development was just a sham orchestrated by his heart to prompt another visit to Tessa Jordan’s caravan. The impetuous thumping of his heart felt undignified for a man approaching his fortieth birthday. The rush of blood was another clue that his feelings were taking over the investigation.

  He stood in the dark feeling a helpless sense of indecision. And then the caravan door opened in front of him, and Tessa Jordan leaned out her dark head.

  “Go away! Get out of there!” she shouted in his direction.

  Daly stood his ground.

  “Clear off, I said!”

  “Not until I’ve spoken to you about your son, Mrs. Jordan.”

  She half-screamed, half-giggled in surprise. Her hand ran up to her throat, and then shakily covered her mouth.

  “It’s you,” she said.

  “Thanks for the welcome.” Daly’s voice had an injured tone.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” she exclaimed. “I was shouting at that old goat. She keeps breaking out and digging up my plants.”

  She drew back into the caravan but left the door half open.

  Daly was reassured to see that the goat was indeed sharing the darkness with him. In the dim light its strange eyes stared balefully back at him.

  The caravan was cramped and untidy. There was no sign of Dermot or any of the things that a seventeen-year-old boy might be interested in. She waved him to the one seat that was not covered in clothes.

  “Does the caravan get cold at night?” he asked, to break the silence.

  “No. It’s very snug. Reminds me of holidays in Donegal. Especially when the wind and rain batter it at night.” She had a dreamy, vacant look in her eyes.

  A gust of wind shook the caravan, and he felt the closeness of her body. It was snug, all right. In the confined space, he felt surrounded by her smells and textures, the sound of her breath, the fragrance of her hair. It was a more intimate interior than her living room on Woodlawn Crescent. Only the picture of Oliver Jordan leaning against the window kept his passion at bay. His thoughts scuttled away into crannies.

  “Is Dermot around?” he asked.

  The question fell a long way in the short distance between them.

  “You just missed him.”

  “I need to discuss something very important with him.” He felt the sweat return to his brow. “In fact, it might even be a criminal matter.”

  The radiance in Tessa Jordan’s face drained away. In the moments before she could compose her face, he saw fear, loss, and a wild look of recognition take shape as though she had been preparing herself for this revelation.

  “Is this about the arson attacks?”

  “Perhaps,” he replied, intrigued by what she was referring to.

  The words came rushing out, as though they had been building up a pressure in her throat.

  “Dermot always loved playing with fire,” she explained. “As a child he messed around with matches and cigarette lighters. He could hold a match until it burnt down to his fingers. I thought it was something boys did just to test themselves; challenge the steadiness of their nerve.”

  Daly nodded. He had played around with fire as a teenager too. Until he discovered the incendiary potential of girls.

  “Then he started lighting fires in the house and in the garden. Anything he could get his hands on. Newspapers, clothes, even pieces of furniture were burnt. I took him to see a psychologist. He said it was attention-seeking behavior.”

  She paused, giving Daly time to work out where this was going. The revelation hit him like a series of encroaching bombardments. Not too heavily at first, but then closer as the truth began to dawn on him.

  “He was a teenager without a father,” continued Tessa. “What could I do? Make him some herbal tea when he was angry? Then last year, the fires became more serious. I wanted to protect him. He was old enough to face criminal charges. Spending time in jail would have spelled the end for him. So I had to cover up for him. What else can you do when you have an arsonist in the family?”

  The word “arsonist” rolled through his mind as he replayed the events of the past few weeks. The fires at Woodlawn Crescent, the men dressed in black, the smoke alarm with the battery removed. Each memory was like a fresh wave of breaking thunder. He needed to go somewhere private to absorb this unexpected development and its ramifications.

  “So the men dressed in black never existed? Except in Dermot’s imagination?”

  She bit her lip.

  “Has Dermot talked to you about what he’s been up to recently?”

  “I’m the last person he would talk to. He looks up to you, though. I thought you might have…” Her voice trailed away.

  Daly sighed. “You should have told me about the fires. A judge might have decided a custodial sentence was not in Dermot’s best interests. I could have arranged for him to get some help. Instead, you wasted police time. I have enough real work to do without policing dysfunctional families and their problems.”

  “Well, you can save yourself any more trouble and leave now,” she said abruptly.

  Daly wished he could rewind their conversation and start again. He had been wrong-footed by Tessa’s revelation. He wondered what else Dermot had been concealing.

  “Before I go, I need to know if Dermot is linked in any way to the disappearance of David Hughes. Dermot met him when he was in a nursing home last November. They built up a friendship.”

  “Dermot has nothing to do with that, or with you for that matter. What he does is none of your business.”

  He shook his head sadly and closed his notebook.

  “If that’s the case, I doubt if there’s anything I can do to help him. If he does know where Hughes is, the two of them may be in great danger. Hughes was a Special Branch agent. He knows enough secrets to have signed his own death warrant.”

  He sat square and immobile in his seat. A vague glimmer of doubt began to glow in the green irises of Tessa Jordan’s eyes, but it was extinguished as quickly as it had appeared.

  She scowled at Daly. “I don’t need you to do anything for Dermot. Save that for the informers and your colleagues who recruited them. They’re the ones who need help.”

  He stood up, dismayed. “Why do you think I came here in the first place? Don’t you realize I’m on your side? I want to find out the truth too, not get involved in another cover-up.”

  “What do you mean by ‘another cover-up’?” she countered. She stood up in front of him, her body strong, lithe. Her face was inflamed with anger, the clear skin with its spatter of burning freckles, the green eyes like a storm-churned sea. Tiny beads of perspiration formed in the groove of her upper lip.

  Daly paused. His tongue felt thick, inert in his dry throat. “Cover-up” was the wrong word to have used. She had thought he was referring to her concealment of Dermot’s arson attempts. The suggestion that a
mother’s love might mirror a dirty war against terrorists had riled her.

  When his voice returned it was quieter, appeasing.

  “I’m here because I’m concerned about Dermot. It’s up to you to help me. Anything you can tell me about what Dermot’s been doing in the last few weeks would be helpful. Here’s my home number. You can contact me anytime. When you see him next, talk to him, find out as much as you can about his state of mind.”

  “If what you say is true, you won’t be able to help Dermot.”

  “Why not?”

  “This is Special Branch territory. An agent on the run, and an informer murdered. It’s their area of competence. They won’t want you involved.”

  Daly thought of Irwin. Their area of incompetence, he wanted to say.

  Before leaving, he tried one last shot at enlisting her help. “I’m here as a friend, Tessa. A friend of your son’s. I’m not interested in the arson attacks. I just want to know that he’s safe. Special Branch isn’t far behind me, and God knows who else. They might not share my concerns.”

  “If you’re no longer interested in the fires, then there’s no reason for you to be here.” Her gaze was level, cold. She had clammed up. There was nothing else he could do.

  He sat in the car afterward, rubbing his stubbly cheeks in the palms of his hands. He toyed with the idea of returning to the caravan and imploring Tessa to help him find Dermot, and launch a search party immediately. Then he thought better of it. Home, he decided. As quickly and discreetly as possible.

  Later, as he lay in his bed, the night filled with the sound of crows, hundreds of them, moving out of the trees around his father’s farm, to wherever they spent the spring months. Just as he was about to fall into sleep, he was jerked back into consciousness. The crows had left, and the house was still. He listened for the sound that had awoken him, then realized that the disturbance had come from within.

  28

  When Daly left the police station at lunchtime, he found two men loitering by his car. Irwin was leaning against his driver’s-side door chatting to a man in a dark suit as if they were old friends. Their relaxed demeanor put Daly off his guard. He walked straight up to them.