by Sam Blake
Asperger’s syndrome made Jacob take everything literally, made him unable to read or even recognise that people have inner thoughts; but it also made him quite quite brilliant on subjects that interested him, with a memory for detail that never failed to astound her. He only had to glance out of the window and he could draw the whole street.
‘You’re a smelly poo and I hate you.’
Jesus, what had it been that had set him off this time? She’d left him upstairs totally absorbed in his drawing, the incident at school, the vase, the meltdown completely forgotten. But now they were right back at square one.
‘It’s all your fault . . . everything’s spoiled now.’
What was her fault? Rebecca had reached for the drawing to see if she could work it out, but Jacob snatched it away from her, ripping it in two, sending the pieces of paper scattering over the polished floor.
‘Why wasn’t Daniella there on Saturday? She’s always there on Saturdays. I wanted to show her my ice palace on Minecraft.’ Bobbing down to his level, Rebecca tried to stay calm. This was the problem. Interruptions to his routine always caused ructions. Saturday’s disruption was still bothering him and, coming on top of today . . .
‘She wasn’t well, darling, I told you. Remember, Daddy told you when he called on Saturday morning.’
Why the hell he’d had to say anything to Jacob in the first place she’d never understand. He hadn’t expected Jacob to answer the phone, but really?
‘But he was going to take me to the zoo on Saturday. And why didn’t she tell me she wasn’t coming?’
‘I don’t know, darling, perhaps her phone ran out of battery. Why don’t we do some stretches?’ Rebecca tried to make her voice sound gentle, masking her thoughts. If she could get Jacob to do some deep-muscle exercise she knew he’d calm down, whatever the matter was. It worked like a drug.
His face didn’t change; it was so contorted with anger he looked like something out of a comic, freckles hidden in the creases of a scowl so deep it had clouded his normally bright blue eyes.
‘No. That’s stupid and smelly.’
She just wanted to hug him. To take away the pain. But he couldn’t bear being touched.
There were days when she just didn’t know what to do, how to help him . . . He’d told her once, ‘Sometimes it’s like there’s a war going on in my head, Mummy.’ Mummies were supposed to fix everything, to make it better. How the hell did you fix that? The divorce hadn’t helped, moving house. And having his father parading a constant string of women about. One day Jacob would realise that they weren’t all there to play with him when he went over.
But right now she had other things to worry about. He was still wearing his Spider-Man pyjama top, had refused to take it off for school this morning, and he had a tuft of brown hair sticking up from the top of his head. He looked about as adorably cute as anyone could when they were mad as hell.
She’d rubbed the top of his arms, ‘How about we watch Top Gear?’
‘Don’t touch me!’
She winced as the toe of his runner connected with her shin.
5
‘What the hell are you playing at, Cat?’
Cathy could hear how mad J.P. was before she even got to the bedroom door. But how could she have waited?
She felt anger beginning to bubble, heard the challenge in her own voice, ‘She’s not here. I had to check . . .’
‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
The landing looked a lot smaller with J.P. on it. He had that effect on enclosed spaces. His midnight-blue hat and uniform bomber jacket didn’t help, bulked his six-foot-two frame up even more. As she slipped out of Sarah Jane’s bedroom, he frowned at her, opened his mouth to give her a lashing she was sure, but then, maybe seeing the look on her face, changed his mind. He gave an exaggerated sigh and eyed her like he was trying to keep his temper.
‘So fill me in, Miss Marple. What’s the story?’
Cathy took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves. She could feel her heart racing, and suddenly her legs were beginning to shake.
‘Her room’s been turned over,’ Cathy indicated the door behind her with her head, ‘looks like it’s been searched – and someone’s taken her computer. And she didn’t come to training . . .’ She caught her breath again, fighting to keep her voice level.
J.P. nodded, calm now, in control. ‘Dec told me.’ She could feel him assessing the situation, his dark eyes taking it all in.
Cathy pulled at the silver necklace she wore hidden under her hoodie and ran the oval dog tag along its ball-link chain. The engraving ‘Please return to Tiffany’s’ was pockmarked by shrapnel from the explosion, but still legible. O’Rourke had given it to her back in the day, one Christmas – she’d given him aftershave. Now it represented so much more – not only their bond, but her survival. He’d found it in the grass beside her when the bomb had gone off, the metal hot, and as soon as they’d taken off the first layer of bandages, he’d been there to clip it back around her neck. Now she only took it off for training in the gym.
Cathy took a deep breath and continued, her fingers worrying at the chain,
‘She had a row with her dad.’
‘But he doesn’t live here, does he?’ J.P. nodded towards the bedroom, ‘He’s not done this?’
‘No.’ Cathy shook her head, trying not to look at him. She stared at a spot on the carpet for a moment, trying to focus, to get everything sorted out in her mind. Downstairs Slug had turned off the TV, finally ending the car chase that had been echoing through her head since she arrived. Now she could hear a woman’s voice – J.P.’s observer, his partner in the patrol car, talking to Slug. Asking about the stink of weed in the house and how the feck he could have been deaf to someone breaking into Sarah Jane’s room. But then if he normally played the Xbox that loud he’d have missed a bomb going off. ‘No, her dad’s in Syria, he works for CNN. This is something else.’ Cathy shrugged helplessly, ‘Something’s really wrong, I just know it. Her mum says she was working on a story – something her dad said was too dangerous for a student . . .’
‘Jesus, Cat, how do these things keep happening to you?’ J.P. pulled her to him, wrapped both his huge arms around her and gave her a hug. There was a good reason everyone called him the gentle giant, like the guy in the sweetcorn ads but not so green. He was the best, had kept watch over her every move when the darkness had threatened to overwhelm her after the explosion. Together with the other guys she shared the house with – Decko and Eamon – J.P. had been brilliant, giving her enough space so as not to crowd her, but she knew none of them had taken their eyes off her.
He’d carried a cloak of cold air in with him from outside, and she felt the chill now, the stiff fabric of his jacket still damp from the rain. Fighting back tears, hot in the corners of her eyes, Cathy took a shaky breath, unable to answer for a moment. Thank God for the lads. They’d done so much for her in the last year.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll find her. She’s probably in a pub somewhere chatting up some celebrity for a feature in Hello!’
Cathy pulled away and play-punched him in the stomach, ‘Stupid, she doesn’t do that sort of stuff.’
Grinning, he reached for his radio. ‘That’s better . . . now let’s call the troops, will we, and find out what’s happened here?’ He depressed the call button, ‘Foxtrot Alpha One to Control . . .’
*
‘So how long has she been missing?’
DI Dawson O’Rourke sounded relaxed. It was the Monaghan accent that did it, made him sound like a drive-time radio DJ, all soothing and calm.
But Cathy knew him better than that, and the rest of him wasn’t sending out the same message.
As he stood sheltering in the porch of Sarah Jane’s house, waiting for Cathy to reply, he slipped his phone back into the pocket of his navy pinstripe jacket, his face creased in a frown. He’d had his hair cut again, a military buzz cut. That, his broken nose and
the scowl on his face made him look more like a street fighter than ever. He and Cat went way back; he’d been her first sergeant when she’d left Templemore Garda Training Academy, assigned to Pearse Street Station. Out on the beat or frozen to the core on posts outside government buildings, he’d always had a smile for her, an encouraging word when she’d got back to the station. Even then he’d been on the fast track, had been the force’s youngest sergeant, just like he was the youngest inspector now. And then he’d offered her a lift home one night and their paths had become inextricably linked. But Cathy didn’t have space in her head for the past right now, tonight was about Sarah Jane.
‘She said she’d be at training.’ Cathy said it again – she was starting to feel like a parrot.
‘Which was what time?’
‘Seven. At Phoenix.’
‘And what time is it now?’
Cathy glanced over to J.P., who was standing with his arms folded on the step into the porch, his dark head framed by the open front door. He wiggled his fingers, five, ten.
‘About ten?’
O’Rourke folded his own arms and rocked back on his heels.
‘So technically she’s been missing for three hours.’
‘But—’
‘And how old is she?’ O’Rourke interrupted Cathy, switching his gaze from something on the glazed panel above her head to give her the full benefit of his winter blue eyes. But it wasn’t a cold stare; it was the type of stare you saved for a five-year-old who had done the washing-up with shampoo.
‘She’s twenty-four. I told you.’
O’Rourke raised his eyebrows, eyeing her. He didn’t have to say it. Cathy said it for him, ‘She’s an adult. I know. She could be anywhere. I know.’ Cathy bit her lip and fixed her own deep blue eyes on his. ‘I also know that it’s totally out of character for her to vanish. I know she’s had a row with her dad about some story she’s working on that he thinks is dangerous, and her mum’s having a total canary. And I know she wouldn’t miss training unless something – something big – was preventing her. And . . .’ O’Rourke opened his mouth to reply but Cathy didn’t let him, ‘her room has been turned over like someone really wanted to find something.’
‘OK.’ O’Rourke paused for a moment, then rubbed his chin. ‘Even with all that, you know we should wait a few hours at least before we call out the cavalry.’
‘Yes . . . But . . .’
Exasperated, Cathy felt like stamping her foot. What the hell was the point of being in the job, if you couldn’t pull it out when you needed it? Now O’Rourke was here she was definitely feeling a lot better, but all of this talk was slowing them down.
‘The front door was open for most of the evening because our friend here was waiting for a pizza and too lazy to get off his arse to open it.’ O’Rourke drew in his breath, ‘So the room could have been tossed by anyone – the local gurriers, the pizza boy . . .’ He was playing devil’s advocate and she knew it.
Cathy shook her head, thrusting her hands into the front pockets of her hoodie. ‘Pizza boys don’t search bedrooms. They might grab cash off the hall table, but they aren’t going to go upstairs, are they? And this just isn’t like her. I know there’s something wrong, I just know it.’
Wrinkling her nose, Cathy gave him a long look with more than a hint of a glare. It was a challenge, and O’Rourke’s mouth twitched into a reluctant grin.
‘I’ve already put out a call for her car, and Thirsty’s on the way to process the forensics on her room – he’s just finishing up a burglary in Silchester Park and he’ll be right over.’
Cathy felt some of the pressure lift. Thirsty was the best. He’d headed up the scenes-of-crime team in Dún Laoghaire for, well, just for ever. And she’d always had a suspicion that his close friendship with the Super had helped land her in the detective unit well ahead of many of her colleagues who had longer service – that and the silver Scott medal she’d been awarded for saving O’Rourke’s life. Despite everything that had happened, getting out of uniform had been the best thing she’d ever done. She half smiled to herself, remembering his exasperation as he stood at her hospital bedside, You got yourself shot in uniform, Cat, and you get out of uniform and what happens? You get yourself blown up. You might have nine lives, girl, but I haven’t. And they don’t let you smoke in here, you know . . .
O’Rourke continued. ‘I’ll need a full description from you. What is she – five foot nine? Dark blond hair, slim.’ He paused, ‘Her hair still long?’
‘Yep, but she got fed up with it being “boring” she said – she had it bleached. Ombre, it’s called, it’s sort of ash blond with purple bits underneath.’
He raised his eyebrows, ‘Purple? She’s got purple hair?’
‘No,’ Cathy shook her head despairingly, ‘the lilacy bits are all underneath, it looks great.’ When Sarah Jane had got back from the hairdresser’s she’d looked like she’d stepped out of an all-American shampoo advert; she wasn’t exactly invisible in a crowd.
‘We’ll need a recent photo.’
‘I’ve got loads.’ Cathy pulled her phone out of her hoodie pocket, offering it to him. He put up his hand, but she already knew he didn’t need the photos this second. ‘We’ll find her, don’t worry.’ Cathy’s sigh of relief was audible. She bit her lip, resisting the urge to throw her arms around him. He was right that it was early to call out the troops, and she knew how busy they were, every night stretched to the limit; J.P.’s radio had been hopping since he’d arrived.
‘She got an iPhone, by any chance?’
‘No, it’s an android, a Samsung.’
‘Let’s hope she’s still got it with her.’
O’Rourke paused, his eyes locking on hers like he was looking inside her. He put his hands on the tops of her arms, giving them a reassuring rub.
‘We’ll find her, Cat.’
He might not have J.P.’s film-star looks, but Cathy felt herself heating up. For a moment the porch became very small, like it was just the two of them, like the moment they were in had suddenly become frozen in time, the rest of the world continuing to turn around them.
Why did this keep happening?
It was at moments like this that she felt an overpowering urge to kiss him.
Cathy bit her lip again. After the blast they’d become closer than ever. It had been his face she’d seen first as she came out of the coma, his hand that had held hers when the doctor had explained her injuries. He was the only one who knew the full story, apart from the father of her baby of course, but he’d been one big mistake from the get-go. It was O’Rourke who had been there for her.
She still didn’t quite understand how stuff kept happening to them. That night back in Pearse Street, her own car in for repairs, O’Rourke had been dropping her home when a Ford Astra had swerved into the path of their patrol car, the intoxicated driver too drunk to stand. Then what had been a straightforward Section 49 had become something very different when an armed gang had come barrelling out of the Power City warehouse they were stopped beside, heading for a getaway car that had made its own getaway the moment the driver had spotted their patrol car flashing down the Astra. Seeing Guards right in their path, the raiders had panicked and the bullet she’d taken had saved O’Rourke’s life.
They would always be connected.
She’d just like the connection to be a whole lot more personal.
But he was her boss. He was one of her big brother’s best friends, and he was thirteen years older than her. And he was dedicated to his job. And having a relationship with a junior colleague wouldn’t exactly do wonders for his career prospects. Assuming he felt the same, of course.
No matter how much she felt like falling into his arms right now, maybe this wasn’t the moment. O’Rourke squeezed the tops of her arms again. ‘Trust me. It’ll have to be unofficial for now, but we’ll find her.’
6
Pulling into a space in the floodlit secure car park behind Dún Lao
ghaire’s modern concrete and glass Garda station, Cathy fiddled with the car stereo again, looking for Lyric FM. Static, then a burst of Mozart; at least she thought it was Mozart. It sounded like one of the classical concertos Sarah Jane played on her phone when she was studying. Switching the engine off, Cathy turned it up, filling the Mini with a crescendo of violins for a moment while she gathered her thoughts. Closing her eyes, resting her hands on the steering wheel, leaning back into the headrest, Cathy ran back over everything again in her mind. There had to be something – something small she was missing that would give her a clue as to where Sarah Jane could be.
She’d given her colleagues in the district detective unit a full description – everything she could think of that could possibly be relevant – but there had to be something else . . . She tried to tune into the music – if she could think like Sarah Jane, surely she’d see it.
It was almost eleven. The car park was full, dominated by two Garda vans, the only space Cathy had been able to find tucked away in the back corner beside a Honda that looked like it had been crashed in a high-speed chase. Under the floodlights it was macabre, the bonnet crumpled, windscreen smashed. Glancing over, Cathy could see dark stains on the dash, traces of silver fingerprint dust on the steering wheel glittering in the artificial light.
Had Sarah Jane had an accident? She knew O’Rourke had had all the hospitals checked. Cathy let out a sigh and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. It wasn’t a traffic accident. She was sure of it. Sarah Jane would have turned up by now if it was.
Cathy knew Sarah Jane was working on an assignment about Ballymun and the tower blocks, kids with special needs. That wasn’t exactly life-threatening. What else could she have stumbled on that her dad thought was dangerous?
