by Sam Blake
‘Are you sure it’s the same girl, Jacob? Absolutely sure?’
His eyes on the TV, totally absorbed now in a story about golden eagles being reintroduced to Ireland, Jacob nodded. Rebecca put her glass down on the coffee table with a crack. How on earth was she going to manage this one? Rebecca’s mind worked fast.
‘We need to tell the Gardaí – the people who are looking for her. Would you do that, will you talk to them tomorrow for me?’ If the Gardaí told Jacob he’d been a good boy and to forget about it, maybe he wouldn’t say anything in school? It was inevitable it would get back to them if they didn’t report it – the local sergeant’s twins were in his class – but if he spoke to them first, perhaps he’d let it go? Jacob was too focused on the eagles to reply; Rebecca doubted he’d even heard her. She’d have to try again in the morning.
15
Cathy pulled out a pine chair from the round kitchen table and sat down heavily. She hadn’t the energy to change back into her combats after training, had stripped off her sweat-soaked vest and jumped into the shower, pulling on her spare set of workout gear – a T-shirt and sweatpants – from the bottom of her kitbag. Resting her elbows on the smooth, pine-effect table, she ran her fingers over her temples and into her hair. The house was quiet. Eamon was working nights, and Decko was on a late shift. He was on his way, though, had been given a detailed list to pick up from the Indian takeaway.
‘Wine?’ Across the brightly lit modern kitchen, arty spotlights reflecting off black polished granite, J.P. was looking into the fridge. He’d changed into a holey old loose-knit jumper of indeterminate colour, one Cathy was sure his mum had knitted when he was about fifteen. Together with his faded jeans, he looked like he’d stepped straight in from the farmyard.
‘I’d love a glass, but I’d better stick with water.’ Cathy knew there was a danger alcohol would go straight to her head in her present mood, and the last thing she wanted to be doing tomorrow was nursing a hangover.
J.P. nodded sagely like it was a sensible decision and pulled a bottle out of the fridge, holding it up and looking speculatively at the label, ‘Posh fizzy, do? I think this could be stolen property, but I’m sure it’ll taste OK. There’s even a lemon in here. You’d think you’re in Finnegan’s pub.’
Cathy smiled, ‘I think you’ve missed your vocation as a barman, John Paul Morgan.’ He grinned at her over his shoulder and closed the fridge door as she continued, ‘How long did Decko say he’d be? I’m starving.’
‘Ten minutes, tops. Eamon won’t be impressed he missed out, we’d better save some for him for when he gets back in the morning.’
Takeaway curry wasn’t everyone’s idea of the perfect breakfast, but when you were on a week of nights your schedule got turned on its head. After a tough night it was quite normal for the team – the girls and the lads – to go to an early house when they knocked off and unwind over a few pints. Eamon would be delighted to find they’d saved his for him.
Cathy smothered a yawn, ‘Is he still in Ronanstown?’ She’d lost track over the past few days; so much was happening that the reality of her daily life felt like it was slipping away.
‘He’s hanging in there. Only a few more days to go. The van got rammed last night and some scrote took a baseball bat to the windscreen.’
‘Sure that was worth the effort.’
J.P. grimaced, ‘He wasn’t expecting bulletproof glass, that’s for sure. Think he got whiplash from the recoil.’ Before J.P. could go on, a clattering at the front door announced Decko’s arrival.
‘At last.’
*
‘So bring me up to speed, what’s the latest?’ Decko reached for the silver foil container of basmati rice and piled a second helping onto his plate. Cathy had put Eamon’s portion safely on the counter to cool, knowing what her other housemates were like. She knew she ate a lot during training, but she had no idea where these lads put their food. The fridge seemed to be permanently empty. The house kitty covered the essentials – bread, butter, bacon, eggs and sausages. The consensus was that if you had the makings of a fry you wouldn’t starve, day or night. In fact some of their best meals were huge fry-ups the morning after the night before, when the scent of bacon was the only thing that would wake them. Cathy’s strict diet when she was training meant that she couldn’t let rip like the others, and she usually ended up laughing at them looking at her detox shakes like they were contagious.
As Decko helped himself to more curry, Cathy put her knife and fork together on her empty plate and answered his question.
‘O’Rourke’s TV appeal went out tonight. On the Six One and the late news.’ She leaned forward to check the time on her phone – it was well after 11 p.m. ‘With a bit of luck there will be a few calls by now. We’ve got CCTV of her getting into the taxi taken from the shop across the road, so we’ve got a time frame and something they could show with the report. Plus her photo, obviously.’
Reaching into a brown paper bag for another onion bhaji, Decko nodded. He was usually the comedian, but not tonight, ‘What’s the feeling?’
‘Still no idea, really. O’Rourke was talking to Aidan – Niamh wants us to keep an eye on the fact that it could be a random abduction, maybe some guy was watching her and followed her home, or was watching the house.’ Cathy reached for her water, her mouth alight from the curry. She’d never thought that having her brother Aidan married to the Assistant Commissioner would have any direct impact on a case she was working on, but since Sarah Jane had disappeared, knowing that Niamh was there in the background was a relief. Until they had credible evidence that there had been foul play, that Sarah Jane was in danger, they couldn’t launch an official investigation; Niamh still had to balance her budgets, but at least O’Rourke wasn’t worried about picking up the phone and keeping her briefed. Cathy put her glass down, twirling it around carefully on the table as she spoke, ‘She’s right about keeping every avenue open, but the burglary seems to indicate that someone was interested in Sarah Jane’s computers, and what she was working on.’
‘Which was?’
‘A load of stuff, but the lads with the horses in Ballymun seems to be the most likely to ruffle feathers. I had a chat to The Boss earlier when I was out at the gym, he’s going to find out exactly who she was talking to, what their connections might be. He’ll have more luck than our lads, everyone talks to him.’
J.P., silent until now, stood and picked up his and Cathy’s plates to take to the dishwasher, ‘Reckon she could have been getting too close to something without realising it?’
Cathy shrugged. ‘Half the criminal activity in the city is orchestrated from around there. Everything from fencing fags to phones, drugs, the whole lot.’
‘Maybe someone saw her talking to some of the runners and thought she was asking about the horses as some sort of cover?’ J.P. stood hovering beside the dishwasher, the door open, his face thoughtful.
‘God only knows.’ Cathy stared into her empty glass, swishing the slice of lemon around, and she was right back in St Pancras station in London, sitting outside a French restaurant in the main part of the station. She’d ordered a latte as she waited for Sarah Jane, and it had been delivered by a very attractive waiter together with a glass of iced water and lemon and a compliment about her hair. She smiled at the memory. He hadn’t known where to look when Sarah Jane had arrived pushing her bright pink suitcase, her leather jacket slung over an equally bright pink ankle-length summer dress, the colour setting off her tan and the amethyst bracelet she always wore. She looked like she was about to shoot a magazine ad, all her accessories colour coordinated.
St Pancras was a place they both loved, from the converted Victorian station with its beautiful curved steel and glass roof to the wide marble concourse and gorgeous shops. It felt like a meeting point, a fulcrum in time and place where stories and lives met and intersected. Early, Cathy had sat mesmerised by the constant flow of people, by the pianos strategically placed along the concourse that anyo
ne could sit down and play. As she’d sipped her coffee a black guy had started playing something classical. Beethoven, Sarah Jane had announced as she arrived moments later in a rush of people disembarking the Eurostar.
‘My God, he’s good – he should be getting paid for playing.’ Pushing her suitcase under the marble topped table, Sarah Jane had leaned over to hug her, ‘Sorry, have you been waiting long? I had—’
Cathy had interrupted her, ‘A problem?’ She’d almost laughed. Despite travelling halfway around the world on her own before she was sixteen, Sarah Jane seemed to have a catastrophic relationship with anything that moved. When she caught a plane her bags went one way while she went the other, when she caught a train there was a bomb scare or sheep on the line, or worse a human fatality, an ‘incident’ as the London Transport Police termed it. The last time she’d been on a coach it had caught fire on the motorway and she’d been stuck in a bus station somewhere outside Madrid for hours. It was like the transport companies, whether they were Ryanair or Virgin Trains they could see her coming and were playing some sort of elaborate game. Between that and her non-existent sense of direction, she really needed a minder when she travelled. Even when she was using Google Maps she walked in the wrong direction.
‘So what happened this time?’ Cathy smothered a grin as her best friend slumped down into the rustic-looking wooden chair, pulling her ponytail over the shoulder of her pale tan leather jacket. Her dad had given it to her for her birthday in New York, the leather so soft it looked like butter. And her hair was almost the same colour as the jacket and ramrod straight. How many times had Cathy wished she could swap her crinkly raven curls for something a whole lot more manageable?
‘It was OK – Dad got me a cab, and that was fine, it just got a flat on the way to the station. I had to run to get the train.’ Sarah Jane looked for the waiter, her eyes lighting up when she spotted him, ‘Hmm, the day is looking up.’ Flashing her brilliant smile at him she’d ordered lemon tea.
Cathy had never seen anything arrive so fast.
But Sarah Jane’s attention was back on Cathy, ‘And then, when I got here, they got all shirty at passport control. Apparently I might be undesirable on a US passport but I’m totally fine with an Irish one. Fortunately,’ she paused, ‘I had both.’ She grinned, ‘How was your anti-terrorism course? What’s the talent like in the London Metropolitan Police?’
Behind them an announcement had echoed around the station, drowning the chink of cutlery and the chatter of excited travellers.
*
Decko put his hand on Cathy’s arm, bringing her back to the kitchen, the middle of the night, and Sarah Jane’s absence. ‘You’ll find her. Anyone who’s checked up on her will know she trains with you, that she’s under McIntyre’s wing – he’s known those families since they were kids, they won’t want to mess with him. Maybe some goon is using her as a pawn in one of the feuds – they want to show who is strongest and they’ll let her go in a day or so. The power politics between the gangs is nuts.’
‘Maybe she had a row with the cabbie and he dropped her at a petrol station and she got lost trying to find the way back? You know what she’s like, she could be walking around Cabinteely Park in circles and we’re all overreacting.’ J.P. switched on the dishwasher as he spoke.
Cathy smiled. They were both trying to make her feel better, she knew. ‘I hope you’re right.’
*
Upstairs Cathy leaned on her bedroom door and crossed her arms. Decko and J.P. had decided to have a game on the PlayStation before they hit the hay, and she could hear them roaring through the floorboards as they destroyed an army of zombies. At least she thought they were zombies; it was hard to tell, but she was pretty sure they were winning.
Her single room wasn’t the most welcoming nook at the best of times, and right now it was the last place she wanted to be. Sparse was the way Sarah Jane described it, but as Cathy was always saying, it was comfortable, had everything she needed and she was hardly ever here. She didn’t do fancy, didn’t need a palace to live in, and she loved sharing with the lads, even if she did have the smallest room. When her compensation had come through after the explosion she’d thought about using it for a deposit on an apartment, but she wasn’t ready to be on her own yet. It was too soon. She needed to know she had company, that the solid things she was used to were all still there. The explosion had shaken her but she felt safe coming home to this house and the lads. Instead of a deposit, she’d used part of the money for a new car and put the rest in the bank. It still felt like dirty money, and would do for a long time. When she was ready she’d decide what to do with it.
But tonight she was in a dark mood – even the single rail for her clothes looked lonely, her Bagpuss hot water bottle cover looked positively miserable, and the pile of dirty washing under the window wasn’t exactly motivating. It only took her a moment to decide what to do. Tonight she needed to be in her own bed at home, to be fussed over by her mother, and she needed to get her washing done or she’d have nothing to wear to work tomorrow.
Pulling her kitbag out from under the bed, she threw in her toothbrush, make-up and a change of clothes and scooped up the laundry, stuffing it into a pillow case. At the bottom of the stairs she stuck her head around the living room door, raising her voice over the sounds of explosions. ‘I think I’m going to stay at my parents tonight, I can get this lot done and find out if Niamh’s heard anything O’Rourke isn’t telling me.’
16
Cathy rolled over in bed and opened one eye, groggy, hauling herself from a deep sleep. The digital alarm clock beside her bed said 6.30 a.m. She hadn’t arrived at her parents’ house until about 1 a.m., her mum the only person still up, her head buried in a book as she sat curled up on the sofa beside the dying embers of the fire in the living room. Cathy had given her a hug, loaded her mum’s washer-dryer and gone straight to bed, only to find herself tossing and turning all night. She’d ended up getting up to check her washing, padding around the silent house trying to switch her mind off. She’d gone back to bed and she must have fallen asleep just after she last looked at the clock at five.
Exhaustion clouded her mind, and it took a moment for her to realise why her brain needed her to wake up so urgently.
Sarah Jane.
Darkness seeped from somewhere in her middle outwards, engulfing her for a moment, making it hard to breathe, like a pressure in her chest that was pushing the oxygen from her lungs.
Cathy stared up at the ceiling of her childhood bedroom. She’d come here last night with her washing, but really she knew she needed the comforts of home, of solid walls, of her mum telling her everything would be fine.
It would be – it would be fine. Christ, she hoped so.
It was still dark outside, the phosphorescent plastic stars she had stuck around the central light when she was nine years old glowing gently in the light seeping around her door from the landing.
Downstairs Cathy could hear voices – her mum’s, and then the deep rumble of male voices. She picked out her dad, her brother Aidan. . . and O’Rourke. What the hell was he doing here?
Swinging her legs out of bed, Cathy was down the stairs and had swung around the door jamb of the kitchen before she realised she was wearing a firehouse-red NYFD T-shirt – and nothing else.
‘Have you found her?’
‘Don’t you think you should put some clothes on, love?’ Turning from the sandwich she was making at the counter, Cathy’s mum, Theresa, looked at her over the rim of her glasses.
Ignoring her, and the heat she could feel of her blush rising as O’Rourke’s blue eyes took in the full picture, Cathy wrenched a handful of dark curls out of her face, still wild from the pillow. A small part of her would always look back on this moment and be thankful that she had shaved her legs.
‘Well? Have you found her?’
‘No, Cat, we haven’t.’ Niamh Connolly, Cathy’s sister-in-law, recently appointed as An Garda Síochána’s first fema
le Assistant Commissioner, shook her head.
Aidan kept his voice low, met her eyes as he spoke, ‘Dawson’s here to give Niamh an update. Get some clothes on and come join us.’
‘Right. Right.’
Not wanting to go, to miss anything, Cathy hesitated, her eyes meeting Niamh’s for a moment. Niamh was sitting at the head of the table, her dark bob effortlessly sleek even at this hour of the morning, her pale-blue uniform shirt emphasising her eyes. She and Aidan had moved back in with Cathy’s parents temporarily while their new house was being renovated. Little had they expected to be holding a briefing meeting in the kitchen.
Aidan raised his eyebrows in that ‘well, what are you waiting for, go to it’ way that applied to little sisters. A second later she was heading back up the stairs, two at a time.
*
‘You really must have something to eat.’
Back in the kitchen, after the world’s fastest shower, now in khaki combats and a black polo neck, Cathy was about to shake her head when her mum slipped a plate of toast and marmalade down in front of her. The smell made her stomach growl. She must be burning calories with nervous energy, she hadn’t realised she was hungry at all after eating so late last night.
‘Thanks.’ Cathy fired her mum a grateful smile. Her mum had pulled her greying hair back in a ponytail, and was wearing one of Cathy’s dad’s BBQ aprons over her yoga gear, the slogan 007: Licence to Grill totally at odds with her glasses and slippers.
‘So, what’s happening?’
