The Lost and the Blind

by Declan Burke

  All I needed now was a way of keeping them shut.

  The ruler was right there on the desk, the one I used for my proofreading gigs, an old-fashioned chunk of wood, twelve inches long and two inches thick and seamed with a thin steel edge. Not enough, maybe, to see off any post-midnight intruders, but just the right thickness to jam between the vertical handles on the wardrobe doors.

  In it slid, snugly tight. Kee kicked and shouted, but her voice was muffled and the ruler held.

  ‘Kee?’ I said. ‘Can you hear me?’

  A couple of vicious kicks on the inside of the wardrobe doors suggested she could.

  ‘Don’t take it personal,’ I said. ‘It’s Emily. There’s no way I’m hanging around and putting her at risk. But I’ll be in touch. OK?’

  ‘Don’t you dare leave me in here!’

  I didn’t see how I had much choice. Letting her out now would cause me even more problems than I already had, and I had more than enough to be getting on with. So I closed the office door and went into the bedroom and hauled the duffel out from under the bed where I’d stashed it when I heard the first ding-dong, went down the hallway to the living room and told Emily it was time to go – Shag and Scoob at full pelt through a cemetery now, a pumpkin-headed ghost in hot pursuit – that we were taking a little holiday, just me and her, a sleepover.

  ‘But this is nearly oh-ver, Dad.’

  ‘I know, love, but we can’t wait.’ I picked up the remote control and switched off the TV. ‘We’ll see it again.’

  She pouted at that, then stood up off her Trunki with an exaggerated sigh. ‘Pinky promise?’

  We linked our little fingers. ‘Pinky promise,’ I said.

  ELEVEN

  Emily and me, we weren’t exactly Bonnie and Clyde. For one, Clyde probably didn’t have to worry about Bonnie putting her hand up and saying, ‘I think I need to wee.’ Also, Clyde could very probably get away with saying things like, ‘Can you give me a couple of minutes over here, Bonnie? I’m trying to think.’ Try that with the average six-year-old desperado and, depending on your tone, she’ll likely burst into tears or ask what it is you’re trying to think about. Or both.

  I hadn’t exactly been working to a strategy when I’d barged Kee into the wardrobe. It was instinct, mostly. Kee was standing there in front of an open wardrobe, telling me she was either going to arrest me or leave me sitting there in the apartment with Emily, a pair of sitting ducks if the break-in crew came back for another look-see, maybe a proper chat this time.

  Cue the red mist.

  So I’d shoved and slammed and wedged the doors closed.

  Would I have done it if I’d only had me to worry about? Probably not. But it was done now and it couldn’t be undone.

  I drove up Patrick Street past the cathedral and down to the quays under the Christchurch arch, my sensible brain telling me that it still wasn’t too late, that the best thing to do was turn around and go back, release Kee and apologize and hope for the best.

  I turned west along the quays into the late-afternoon traffic, my adrenaline-crazed brain screaming at me to shoe the accelerator and just do one.

  I was out on the M50, heading south with one eye on the rear-view – the mirror at an angle so I could see the road behind and Emily strapped into her booster seat – when it occurred to me to wonder what might happen if the break-in crew arrived at the apartment and found Kee still in the wardrobe.

  That sensible part of my brain reckoned they wouldn’t come back, that they’d got what they wanted and made their point, and anyway, there was still a decent chance Gerard Smyth had accidentally slipped into that canal.

  Which was tough to hear, given that my crazy brain was screaming that they were already there, hauling Kee out of the wardrobe, and that they’d kill her too.

  ‘Daddy?’

  ‘Yes, love?’

  ‘Why was that lady in your apartment?’

  ‘She’s Daddy’s friend.’

  Silence, Emily gazing out the window. Then: ‘Why was she banging the door in your office?’

  ‘It’s, ah, like hide-and-seek, Em.’

  ‘She’s trying to find us?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Is she counting to one hundred?’

  ‘I certainly hope so.’

  ‘Is that why she was shouting?’

  ‘It is. So we’d know she wasn’t cheating.’

  She digested that. Then: ‘Melanie cheats.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘She never counts all the way. And she peeks.’

  ‘That’s not very fair, is it?’

  ‘No. Why do people cheat, Daddy?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why do you cheat?’

  ‘Because it’s easier.’

  ‘Well, there you are.’

  I wondered, providing the ruler held, how much of a head-start we were likely to get. If I was Kee, I’d hold off on ringing the station and letting them know I’d been locked into a wardrobe by some civilian and his pint-sized accomplice. I’d be trying to figure it all out first, see if I couldn’t kick down the wardrobe doors, maybe screw off the hinges.

  Then again, Kee might be made of sterner stuff. Could take the hit, the guys giving her a hard time about being stuffed into a closet like a winter coat. For all I knew they were already co-ordinating a stop-and-search.

  ‘Daddy?’

  ‘Just give me a sec, Em. I’ll be with you in a minute.’

  ‘Can we play I Spy then?’

  ‘Of course we can.’

  I had to presume the worst. That Gerard Smyth’s drowning was no accident. That I was, or would very soon be, the prime suspect, and that there’d be a personal element to Kee’s desire to track me down, a wounded pride to be salved, a professional reputation to be repaired.

  And that was just the cops.

  If the spooks who’d broken into the apartment had had a couple of hours to play with, there was every chance they’d be tracking my emails. Which meant, once they read my email to Iggy, they’d think I was headed south for Kinsale.

  Kee would believe otherwise, because I’d specifically mentioned Cork, but there was no harm in giving her a reason to second-guess herself. So I cut west off the M50 at the Kilnamanagh junction, driving out through Belgard and Cookstown, the industrial estates with their security cameras, then north after Whitehall and back up to the N7 and the motorway to Limerick and Cork.

  Except the trick now was to avoid all motorways and toll booths, anywhere there might be CCTV. Head north through the midlands, then northwest, to Donegal and Delphi Island. Find Shay Govern and get him in a headlock and choke the truth out of him, find out what the hell was really going on, why Gerard Smyth was going cold on a slab. Then call in a big favour from Jenny, go public, get Emily and me on to a front page or two.

  Spooks thrive in the shadows, sure. But they do tend to melt away once the spotlight is turned on.

  Emily’s appetite for I Spy was insatiable. Three hours later she was still finding new things to spy. In the last half-hour, though, most of them had been spied inside the car, the light outside fading fast.

  ‘Clouds?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Coral.’

  ‘Daddy.’ She shook a pudgy little fist at me. ‘Why I oughta …’

  She was near enough the right height for the Jimmy Cagney impression I’d taught her, but she still had work to do on the nasal whine.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Corn?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is it inside or outside?’

  ‘Inside.’

  ‘Crazy girl.’

  ‘Daddy. Play properly.’

  ‘Sorry. Cute girl?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Give me a clue.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘C’mon. I gave you a clue last time.’

  ‘OK.’

  While she was thinking about it I said, ‘Are you hungry, love?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘What would you l
ike, burgers?’

  ‘Oooh, yes, please.’

  We were coming up on Letterkenny by then. Say what you want about the Celtic Tiger – and sure, it was going extinct fast and dying a hard death – but it left behind an impressive road network of motorways and dual carriageways and by-passes that means you can pretty much navigate the entire length and breadth of the country without ever driving through a single town. On a long enough journey, say from south County Dublin all the way to north Donegal, that can clip a couple of hours off your trip. It also meant you disappeared off the radar somewhere on the western edge of Dublin’s suburbs and didn’t show up again until you got careless, or hungry, or ran low on petrol.

  I pulled on to the hard shoulder, knocked on the warning flashers.

  ‘Back in a sec, love,’ I said. I got out and went around the car to the ditch, grabbed a couple of handfuls of mud and smeared them across the number plates fore and aft. Then I got back in and reached into the back for Emily’s Trunki. Rachel being not only a good mother but verging on OCD when it came to personal hygiene, she’d packed, as I’d hoped, a full packet of baby wipes. Then it was on down the long hill towards Letterkenny, and the roundabout at the bottom of the hill and the petrol station on the far side.

  I filled the car and paid with cash. Even if we showed up on CCTV it wouldn’t be for a couple of days, and by then, all going to plan, Emily and I would be basking in the limelight, and untouchable.

  We ate gourmet burgers in the Errigal Inn on the Ramelton Road just outside Letterkenny, where I consulted Google via my phone and discovered that the last ferry to Delphi Island left Rathmullan pier at 5.15 p.m. The first ferry out departed at 9.30 a.m. the next morning, so I rang ahead to a B&B in Rathmullan and told them I’d be arriving with my daughter in half an hour or so, and staying for one night.

  I’d turned the phone off for the journey north, partly so it wouldn’t be a distraction, partly because I had a vague idea that doing so would foil any interested parties trying to track me via triangulation, or at least make it a little bit harder for them to do so. When I turned it back on I’d received a text message from Rachel, asking how Emily was doing, to which I now replied that Emily was perfectly fine, and currently enjoying her dinner. There were also a couple of missed calls from Kee, both of which were delivered in a surprisingly reasonable tone given the circumstances, telling me to come in, I had nothing to worry about, and that my safety, and Emily’s, were of paramount importance.

  She actually used the word paramount. I wondered if it was in the handbook.

  At first I was impressed by her professionalism, how calm she sounded, but then I started wondering if it wasn’t the other way around – that she was running solo, and trying to get me back in before anyone discovered I’d locked her in a wardrobe.

  I was running low on battery, the little red bar flashing 10%, so I turned off the phone to conserve power and called for the bill. Emily, full to the gunwales on burger and ice-cream, was already nodding off when I strapped her back into her booster seat. I eased out of the Errigal Inn’s car park and headed north towards Ramelton. It was almost dark by then, so I gave the road my full attention for a couple of minutes, got my night-sight going. When I glanced again in the rear-view mirror Emily was already asleep, head lolling left and right as we followed the dark and winding road. I was taking it handy, easing into the bends and taking my time coming out, and the set of headlights maybe a couple of hundred yards back was doing exactly the same.

  A careful driver, maybe. Or just a guy like me who didn’t know the road, was using the car in front as a pathfinder.

  I took it slow going down the steep hill into Ramelton, cut left and came up out of the sharp turn after the bridge towards Rathmullan in second gear.

  The headlights behind did the same.

  I eased up into third, trundling along until I was out of sight around a long left-hand bend, then floored the accelerator. Ten seconds later the headlights appeared in the rear-view, and picked up the pace until it was barrelling along. I laid a soft foot on the brake, dropped down to sixty kph. The headlights gained on us for a second or two, then dropped off again.

  By then I was sweating cold. If I’d been on my own I might even have been tempted to pull in, see if he’d drive past. But with Emily in the back I was taking no chances.

  The good news, or the best possible spin on very bad news, was that I was being followed – the guy wasn’t trying to ram me, or force us off the road. Everything else, yeah, was bad news. I didn’t know the area, had no rat-runs I could disappear into. And the road was dark, ditches on one side and the silvery Swilly on the other.

  The only option, as far as I could see, was the old fall-back – get somewhere public, a place with people and lights, and see if the guy wouldn’t just melt away. So I pushed on along the road towards the orange glow up the coast that I was hoping was Rathmullan.

  It’s a pretty little village, Rathmullan, and it wasn’t exactly a ghost town when we arrived. There were the orange street lights, and plenty of yellow glows in the windows of the terraced houses facing out across the lough, and nary a tumbleweed to swerve around as I drove along the seafront. Of actual people there were very few sightings, apart from one old guy on a corner gesticulating at the stars, which appeared to have done something to displease him.

  I was almost through the village – it took about forty seconds – before I found what I was looking for. A pub with its front door open, a splash of buttery light leaking across the street to a low wall where a group of smokers huddled together, one or two of them sitting on the wall. Behind and below them was a mostly empty car park, a children’s playground beyond, the pier away to my right. I drove down into the car park and made a wide turn so that I was facing back the way I came, almost directly below where the smokers perched on the wall. One of them glanced down, incurious, as I got out and went around to the trunk and opened it, pulled up the floor and found the tyre jack. Then, as the headlights appeared, nosing down into the car park, I got back into the driver’s seat and closed the door.

  The sound of the closing door, or maybe the blast of fresh air, made Emily restless in the rear seat, turning her head and muttering something I couldn’t hear, mainly because the blood was pounding in my ears.

  The plan, if plan wasn’t too grand a word for it, was to sit tight and let the guy make the first move. If that move looked like it might become an aggressive or threatening one, I’d crack him fast with the tyre jack and then make another plan.

  Like I say, not exactly Napoleonic in strategy. Not that it mattered. The headlights rolled down into the car park and eased up flush with the driver’s side of my car, top to tail, so close I couldn’t have opened the door. By then I could see that the driver was smiling and that he had an unusually large and squarish head, a shock of curly hair that put me in mind of a clown’s wig, and a face that wasn’t practised at smiling. Maybe it was because I was expecting the worst, and maybe the size of his head had something to do with it, but that smile looked a lot like how I’d imagine a splitting atom might look.

  He winked.

  Then, still grinning, he placed a huge paw flat against his window, as if saying ‘hello’, so that only I could see the gun nestling there snug in his palm.

  TWELVE

  My instinct was to floor it, put distance between Emily and that gun.

  But there was nowhere to go. I was facing the right way, sure, and the guy would have to get his Peugeot turned before he could start following me, but the village was so quiet that he’d have no trouble picking me up again, and after that it’d be a pursuit in the dark along narrow roads I didn’t know. And he very probably wouldn’t be still smiling when he finally ran me to earth, or off the road.

  The only thing in my favour – possibly – was that I had a nearly full tank of petrol, and could maybe outrun him that way.

  Somehow it didn’t seem likely. And anyway, I didn’t fancy trying it with Emily flopping around i
n the back seat.

  He was still smiling, gesturing now, pointing at the gun – some kind of automatic, a stubby little thing but lethal-looking all the same – and then shaking a forefinger. Telling me, I believed, that he wasn’t planning on using it. Then the gun went away and he made a spiralling motion with his hand, telling me to roll down my window.

  When we were face to face I could see he wasn’t really smiling. At some point in the past he’d had the corners of his mouth slit and then been punched or kicked, so that he’d screamed or groaned and the cheeks had split a couple of inches on both sides, leaving pinkish scars. Which was why, probably, he gave off the clown vibe.

  ‘I know you have a wee girl in the car,’ he said. ‘What I’m hoping is that means we both behave, do nothing stupid.’

  ‘Then put that shit away.’

  ‘No problem.’ He nodded at my lap, where the tyre jack lay. ‘I saw you go to the boot of the car, didn’t know what you might be carrying.’

  He was keeping his voice low, so as not to wake Emily. Or maybe he was more concerned about not attracting attention from the smokers perched on the wall above.

  ‘What do you want?’ I said.

  ‘There’s a man who’d like a chat.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘He’ll tell you himself. He’s not too far away from here.’

  ‘I kind of like it right here. It’s bright, there’s people around …’

  ‘Seriously, all he wants is a chat.’

  ‘Sorry. Like you said, my kid’s back there. I’m not taking her anywhere.’

  He thought that over. ‘Can’t say I blame you,’ he said. ‘Hold on.’ He reached a phone off the passenger seat and dialled a number, then held his hand over his smiley mouth so I couldn’t hear what he was saying. By now the smokers on the wall above were openly curious, looking down at the two cars parked top-to-toe in the nearly empty car park, both engines still running.

  ‘OK,’ he said. Then he passed across the phone.