by Neal Martin
And anyway, Harry was a good guy. She knew that from the moment she met him. Sure he was big and intimidating, especially being a soldier and all, but he was also smart and humorous, and sometimes even fun, though he would deny the fun part. He was also the calmest person she had ever met. Nothing ever seemed to rile him up, unlike with her mum, who got riled up by things all the time. Kaitlin wasn't stupid. She knew her mum resented Harry for being back, even though she wanted Kaitlin to know her father. Kaitlin thought her mum was sometimes jealous of the easy relationship Kaitlin had developed with Harry. Kaitlin understood. Her mum had raised her single-handedly, bar the few years when she was married to Peter, who also worked at the university. Kaitlin thought Peter was okay, but she never saw him as her father. Just a nice man her mother was with. She was secretly relieved when they eventually split up. It never seemed right, her mother marrying someone else. Kaitlin fantasised sometimes about Harry and her mum getting back together and the three of them being a family at last. But she knew that would never happen. Her mum didn't love Harry anymore. At least, that's what she told Kaitlin.
Kaitlin loved him however. Even though she had figured out that her being kidnapped was most likely something to do with Harry. The kidnapper took her to punish Harry for some reason, or to make Harry do bad things. Whatever the case, Kaitlin chose to believe that it wasn't Harry's fault, her being kidnapped. Harry would never do anything that would put her at risk. Or so she kept telling herself.
Harry would save her.
She kept repeating that to herself, even as she heard the creaking of the stairs below her. She tensed up under the blankets. The kidnapper was coming to check on her again, as he had been doing every couple of hours. He would come and poke his head through the trapdoor, shining a light into the room when it got dark. He would stare at her a moment, then he would leave.
When she heard the trapdoor being unlocked, Kaitlin curled into a tighter ball and closed her eyes.
He will be gone soon. Don't open your eyes until he's gone.
She jumped when the trapdoor slammed back to the floor.
That never happened. He always held the door open just a bit. Never opened it all the way. Her eyes flew open.
The ladder leading into the attic creaked loudly under the kidnapper's weight.
He's coming in!
Kaitlin sat up like a frightened rabbit and saw the tall figure of the kidnapper standing over by the trapdoor, motionless. The room was dark, but there was enough light from the moon outside the window to allow her to see that he had something shiny in his hand, something that caught the moonlight and glimmered like precious metal.
The kidnapper walked towards her.
Kaitlin involuntarily moved back to the end of the mattress and hugged her long legs. Her heart rate increased at the sight of the metal blades he had in his hand. What were they?
"Please don't hurt me," she pleaded. "You don't have to hurt me. I'll do whatever you want." She looked up to the kidnappers face, which was a mask of shadow. It was the first time she had seen him up close, but she didn't recognise him from anywhere. There was no emotion in his face at all, nothing in it to suggest to her that she could bargain or plead with him. He was going to do whatever he thought he had to, and that was that. He was also odourless. No smell of sweat or aftershave. Nothing. It was like a ghost had come into the room with her. Or a demon.
The kidnapper knelt down and for the first time she noticed the syringe in his other hand. When he spoke, he did so in a low, quiet voice that was almost a whisper, in an accent she thought was Irish, but not Northern Irish. Southern Irish maybe, mixed with something else she couldn't pinpoint. He held up the syringe. "This will stop you from feeling any pain. Do you want it?"
"What are you going to do?" Kaitlin asked, feeling like she should be backing away from him. But where was she going to go?
"I'm going to cut your little finger off." His voice was as dead as his dark eyes. Flat. Emotionless.
Kaitlin started crying. "Why?"
"Your father didn't do as I asked. Now you have to pay the price."
"No…"
"Pain. No pain. Which is it?"
Kaitlin looked at the sharp cutters in his hand, then at the syringe he was holding up. Her stomach turned, and she felt she was going to be sick. "No pain," she whimpered through her tears.
The kidnapper leaned forward just as Kaitlin shut her eyes. A second later she felt the sharp prick of the needle going into her neck.
Not long after, unconsciousness took her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Kaitlin's absence was conspicuous to the point of oppressiveness. The silence in the house that Gemma McGuire was so used to, the quiet calm that she normally welcomed when Kaitlin was in bed, now felt horrible to her, like the walls themselves were closing in. She had never felt so lonely and empty in her life.
At somewhere after 4:00 p.m. she was lying on the sofa in the living room, her head busting from the vodka she had drank several hours before. Earlier she had phoned her mother to let her know what was going on. Not that she wanted to, but she had to tell someone. Her parents had a right to know that their granddaughter had been kidnapped.
It made Gemma sick to her stomach every time she thought or said that word: kidnapped. It was like a knife to the gut. Gemma's parents said they would drive to Belfast as soon as possible, but Gemma told them no. She didn't want them driving all the way from Fermanagh just to hang around the house and make her feel worse than she already felt. As unbearable as being on her own was, Gemma knew she couldn't handle her parents being in the house as well. Her mother especially was a born panickier, hard on the nerves. Gemma's nerves were already frayed to breaking point. She didn't need her mother fraying them further. She told her parents that Harry was handling the situation. Her parents were aghast that she hadn't involved the police, until she told them it was too dangerous getting the police involved. Some arguing ensued about Harry's ability to get Kaitlin back, soldier or not. This was all his fault, they said. They never liked him anyway. What was she thinking allowing him back into her life again? Eventually, when she couldn't listen to it anymore, she told them she would keep them informed, and hung up. Her mother phoned twice since, and both times, Gemma told her the same thing: Kaitlin wasn't back yet. What else was she supposed to say?
At around 4:45 a.m. Gemma heard a noise at the front door, like the letter box opening and closing. She sat up on the sofa and listened for a moment, her heart thumping in her chest. She got off the sofa and walked fearfully into the hallway. She stopped when she saw a white envelope lying on the floor by the door. Given the time, she knew it couldn't have been the postman who delivered the envelope. She stared at the white envelope for a long time before finally willing herself to go over to it. When she got close enough, she noticed a red stain at the bottom of the envelope. There was also something written on it. Her hand went to her mouth as she stared at the ominous package on the floor. Although she couldn't bring herself to admit it, she knew the red stain was blood. There was no mistaking it.
"Oh God…" She bent down to pick the envelope up, gingerly grabbing it with the tips of her fingers first, like it would bite her if she wasn't careful. Written on the envelope in large letters were the words: CALL ME HARRY.
It took all of Gemma's willpower to force herself to open the envelope to see what was inside. When she finally got the envelope open, she wished she hadn't. Upon seeing what was inside, a look of horror came over face and she immediately dropped the envelope to the floor before starting to scream.
About twenty minutes later, Gemma was standing in the kitchen drinking vodka to try and calm her nerves. The bloody envelope was in the sink, after having lain on the hallway floor up until five minutes ago, Gemma not having the nerve to pick it up again after the first time. Her face was wet with tears, and she tensed up to try and stop herself from shaking, but her whole body shook like she was standing inside a freezer. Every time she dared look at
the envelope, her stomach hurled. There was already a puddle of vomit on the hallway floor from when she had first discovered what was inside the envelope.
Then there was a knock on the front door. The noise startled Gemma so much she dropped her glass and it smashed on the floor, splashing vodka over her bare feet. She froze to the spot, terrified of who might be standing outside the door.
The door was knocked again, louder this time.
Without thinking, Gemma grabbed a knife from the block on the worktop and walked into the living room, where she waited, the knife held out in front of her with both hands.
Another loud knock. She jumped again, her eyes widening in fear.
Then she heard a voice from outside. "Gemma, its Harry. Open the door."
The huge amount of tension in her body dropped away all at once and she almost collapsed to the floor. "Jesus," she breathed, one hand going to her chest as if she was having a heart attack.
She finally walked out of the living room and into the hallway, looking through the spy hole in the front door before opening it. The knife was still in her hand as she stood staring at Harry.
"Gemma," he said, frowning with concern. "What's the knife for?"
"Fuck you," she said, before turning her back and walking away from him, moving back into the kitchen again. She heard the front door close and he appeared in the kitchen a moment later. He hovered in the doorway, and she noticed the tear in his jacket, at the shoulder. Then she saw the blood dripping down his hand and splashing in droplets to the white kitchen tiles. The look of contempt on her face didn't change, despite the fact that she knew he was injured in some way.
"Are you alright, Gemma?"
She shook her head at him. "You said you would handle this," she snarled. "You said you would get Kaitlin back."
"Gemma, I'm—"
"I don't want to hear it!" She pointed to the sink with the knife. "Look in there. Look!"
Harry moved over to the sink, his eyes still on her. Then he looked into the sink at the bloody white envelope. He stared, but said nothing.
"Look inside it! Look in the fucking envelope and tell me your handling things, Harry! Look!"
He looked sick as he opened the envelope with one hand and looked inside. "Oh Christ…"
She screamed at him. "You did this!" The knife in her hand was pointed at him. "This is all your fault! Kaitlin is hurt because of you, Harry you fucking bastard."
"Gemma, please," he said, putting his hands up as he slowly came towards her. "Put the knife down."
"I should cut your fucking finger off as well…"
"Gemma, your foot…"
"This is all your fault!"
"Your foot, Gemma. You're bleeding."
Gemma looked down to see bloody footprints on the floor. A sharp pain indicated there was a shard of glass in the sole of her foot. She put the knife down as she groaned in pain, lifting her foot up off the ground while holding onto the worktop for balance.
Harry came forward. "Let me see."
"Don't come near me," she said sharply, as she tried to bend her leg up so she could see her foot.
"You've got glass stuck in your foot, Gemma. Please sit down on the floor so I can take it out."
A look of disdain came over her face, but she nonetheless hopped one-footed to the corner of the kitchen and sat down on the floor, wincing at the pain in her foot. As Harry knelt down in front of her she looked away from him, closing her eyes and wincing as he gently pulled out the shard of glass that was stuck in her foot. "You have a first aid kit here?"
"The cupboard up there," she replied, still not looking at him.
He went to the cupboard and found the first aid kit, then knelt down in front of her again as he proceeded to wipe her foot with antiseptic soaked in a ball of cotton wool.
Tears ran down her face as she kept her head turned to one side, but not because of the pain in her foot. She hardly felt that. "What happened, Harry?"
He applied a large square Band-Aid over the cut in her foot. "It's not deep," he said.
"That's not what I asked you."
"I know." He sat down on the floor and leaned against one of the kitchen cupboards, then sighed. "I fucked up, Gemma."
"How?"
"McGinty should be dead by now. Twice I went to the cunt's house to kill him, and both times the cops stopped me. I was arrested."
"Arrested?" She turned her head towards him. "Why are you out then?"
He shook his head. "I was released. Somebody arranged it. I don't know who."
"The bastard who has Kaitlin?"
"No. He says he had nothing to with it."
"You spoke to him?"
Harry nodded. "After I got out of the cop station."
"Why did he hurt Kaitlin like that?"
"Because I failed to do what he asked of me." Harry closed his eyes for a second. "I'm sorry, Gemma. I tried. That fucking detective…"
"Black? The one who came to see me?"
"He's like a dog with a bone. He won't let the whole thing go. And it's not just that."
"What?" she asked, not liking the sound of his voice.
"That McGinty, he's a fucking paedophile. I saw the stuff he had on his computer at home. Sick fucking stuff."
"Is that why you're supposed to kill him?"
He shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know. The second time I went back to do him, McGinty started talking about the people who arranged my release from the police station. He didn't say who they were, but he said they only let me out so they could kill me."
Gemma shook her head. "Jesus Christ. This can't get any worse."
"I'm confused by the whole thing," he said, standing up and lifting the vodka from off the worktop, drinking it straight from the bottle. "I don't know what any of this has to do with me."
"Or Kaitlin." She shook her head as tears began to flow again. "He cut her fucking finger off, Harry."
Harry said nothing, just stared at the floor.
Gemma stood up, wiped the tears from off her reddened, puffy face. "There's a message written on that envelope. Did you see it?"
"A message? No."
"It says, call me. You need to phone that bastard and see what he wants this time. We need to get Kaitlin back."
As she said it, a measure of resolve seemed to pour into her. No more tears, she promised herself. No more blame. She had to be strong until they got Kaitlin back. She had to be strong for Kaitlin.
"I'll call him," Harry said. "But not here. I want to get a fix on his location this time. I'll have to call him from the office, where the equipment is."
She watched him take out his phone and dial a number. A few seconds later, he said, "Donna. I need you to meet me at the office. Can you do that?" He nodded. "Okay, thanks Donna. See you shortly." He looked at the phone and dialled another number. "John. Can you meet me at the office? I'm going to try to get a fix on Kaitlin's kidnapper again. Donna will be there…sure…thanks, John."
"I want to come too," she told him. "I can't hang around this house any longer on my own. It's driving me insane."
He looked at her a moment, then nodded. "Okay. You can come. Afterwards, you stay with John. He'll look after you until this is sorted."
"If it's sorted."
"Hey," he said, gently taking her by the arms, the deep brown eyes she once loved so much fixing upon her. "We'll get her back. Nothing is going to stop me."
A sad smile creased her lips. "Thank you for not promising."
He maintained his stare for a moment, then let go of her arms.
"You're bleeding," Gemma said. "What happened?"
"Cops shot me."
She shook her head. "Jesus…"
"The bullet just grazed me."
"Let me look at it."
He took his jacket off, then the tight long-sleeved top he had on, which now had a tear in the left shoulder where the bullet went through. "A surgical pad and bandages will do."
"It needs stitched, Harry."
"It'll be fine. Just patch it up."
As she went to get the first aid kit, she wished she could say the same about herself, for she knew after this, no matter what happened, she would never be the same.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
They took Gemma's blue Ford Fiesta to Rankin's office in Donegal Square. After being shot at by the cops, Edger abandoned his silver Skoda outside of Andersonstown, figuring the cops would be looking for it. Even though someone went to great lengths to ensure he remained a free man, he wasn't entirely sure the cops would just forget about him, especially after making a second attempt on McGinty's life, and most especially after injuring that cop and taking her gun. To be on the safe side, he had to assume he was now a wanted a man, so he had to be careful.
The office was open when they got there shortly after 6:00 a.m. The morning light had yet to break through the dark cloudy sky, and Belfast city centre was quiet with little traffic on the roads. Another hour and the place would be heaving with traffic as people made their way to work.
Rankin was alone in the office as Edger and Gemma walked in. He was dressed in dark jeans and a black pullover. He got up out of his chair to introduce himself to Gemma. "I'm very sorry about your daughter," he said to her. "We'll do everything we can to help."
"Thank you," Gemma said, forcing a smile. "We will get her back."
Rankin's smile faltered slightly as he looked at Edger, who looked away. "I hope so."
"Donna not here yet?" Edger asked.
"She phoned. She should be here shortly."
Gemma went to the window and looked across to the city hall and the street down below. "Nice view you have here."
"Yes, it is," Rankin said, exchanging looks with Edger again.
"She's holding up," Edger said quietly. "I was hoping she could stay with you today. She doesn't want to be alone."
Rankin nodded. "Sure, I'll look after her. I'll clear my schedule. What happened, Harry?"
"I need a smoke," Edger said. "Come out to the stairs with me."
The two of them left Gemma alone in the office and went down the hallway to the stairs where Edger rolled and lit up a cigarette. "That fucker cut Kaitlin's finger off."
