She was still standing nervously by the window when the phone rang, making her jump and let out a little gasp of surprise. She snatched it up and said breathlessly, ‘Yes?’
‘Kate? Hi, it’s me, Michael. How are you?’ It was Riordan, his voice rich and deep and warm, and inexpressively good to hear right then.
Kate let out a sigh of relief, too happy at hearing a friendly voice to wonder how he had her number; she hadn’t given it to him. Her mobile, yes, but not her home number. She didn’t know who or what she had been expecting but his calm, assured voice soothed her and she said, a touch shakily, ‘Michael. Hi, how are you?’
‘All the better for hearing your voice,’ he said with the seductive note in his voice that might have set her tingling the night before but which right now was about the last thing she needed to hear. ‘My flatmate will be home tonight, alas, so I thought I’d invite myself round to your place for a repeat of last night.’
‘Flat mate?’ she said distractedly.
‘My brother-in-law, Josh,’ he explained, ‘It’s his flat you were in last night, not mine. I’m only staying here until the rebuild is finished in my own house and, well, I’d rather keep you two apart. Therese has only been dead a year and she was his sister, after all. People can be funny about things like that. Er, are you okay? Your voice sounds odd.’
‘I’m glad to hear your voice, if it comes to that,’ she said with a high-pitched laugh, ‘I’m having a weird sort of day.’
There was a sharp, inquisitive note in his voice as he asked, ‘Why, what’s going on?’
‘Well, I was burgled last night and... Oh, let’s just say I haven’t had the best day of my life. And just now, as I was pulling my curtains, I saw a man standing just across the street. He was just standing there staring straight in at me and it freaked me out a bit. In fact, I was thinking about calling the police.’
‘You were burgled? I don’t believe it! What, while you were with me?’
‘Yes, unfortunately.’
‘Well, I’m more glad than ever that you came back to my place last night. If you’d been at home you might have been hurt. I only wish you had stayed the night. It was quite a shock to wake up and find you gone. But we can talk about that later; the important thing is this guy hanging around outside your house. He’s just standing there, doing nothing?’
‘Yes,’ Kate hesitated, ‘It’s probably all very harmless but I live in a cul-de-sac and the park in the middle of the square is private, and kept locked. Only residents have keys and we just don’t get strangers hanging about here. He might be just waiting for someone who’s not home yet but...’
‘Exactly,’ he said firmly, ‘But he might not. But it’s too much of a coincidence that you were burgled last night and now you have a stranger hanging about outside, looking in your window. You say you haven’t rung the police?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘Right, I’ll do it. And it might sound obvious but don’t answer if he knocks on the door. You’d be surprised by how many otherwise sensible people do just that, out of sheer force of habit. Just sit tight until the police get there. I have a lot of pull and I’ll get them there a lot quicker than ringing 999 would. I’m on my way!’
With that he was gone, leaving Kate feeling unsettled and a bit startled. And not entirely pleased at his casual assumption of authority over her. He had just burst into action and taken charge, and under normal circumstances she would have resented that. But at least he hadn’t dismissed her as a foolish, scared girl jumping at shadows. Too tired and drained to even think any more she sat down by the phone, fighting an almost overwhelming feeling of what next?
Chapter Ten
Kate sat by the phone for what seemed an eternity, her nerves jangling and all her senses hyper-alert, though exactly what she was so anxiously awaiting she couldn’t have said. Was the stranger going to kick his way into her apartment and murder her? Hardly. But whatever her mind might tell her, her heart was pounding so hard she could see the front of her blouse vibrating, and she found herself wishing that the police would arrive even if it were just to complain about her wasting their time. To her it seemed that the cavalry was taking an age to arrive, but in reality only a minute or so went by before a ring on the doorbell made her jump. Who the hell can that be? The police? She checked her watch; surely not; there hadn’t been time.
She sat frozen in place, incapable of rational thought. The bell rang again, longer and more insistently, and from sheer force of habit she got to her feet and reached out to grasp the catch. But she did not open the door, instead sitting back down on the phone stool. She hadn’t needed Michael’s warning to tell her that to open it would be at best foolish and at worst dangerous. The problem was that she felt such a fool at being too scared to open her own front door that she nearly did it simply to avoid embarrassment. After all, what if it were Lucy or Brendan Kelly from upstairs, checking on her? Or even Peter again, unlikely though that was? What kind of idiot would they think her?
Of course, the important question was; what if it were not one of them? Thank God I’m not a man, she thought, If I were I’d have to open that door or I’d never be able to face myself in the mirror again. But even so her self-respect would not allow her to sit there shivering like a frightened child; she had to do something.
She moved towards the front door again, intending to peer out through the new glass panel at the top and try to see who it was out there. But she was halted in her tracks by a deep, coarse voice calling urgently through the woodwork, ‘Kate Bennett? Open the fuckin’ door! I know you’re in there because I saw yeh in the window! Come on, open up! I want to talk to yeh!’
The voice halted her in her tracks again; it sure as hell wasn’t the police, nor was it anyone she knew. Yet it certainly sounded as if he knew her. She stepped up to the door and, feeling something of a fool, called out through the letterbox, ‘Who is it?’
‘Never mind who it fuckin’ is!’ came the voice again, and it was clear that he was trying to keep his voice as low as possible, ‘Someone who wants to talk to yeh, that’s who! It’s important but I’m not going to shout it out for the whole bleedin’ world to hear! Now open the fuckin’ door or I’m off!’
It occurred to Kate that a would-be murderer or rapist would hardly make such a threat, or so much noise. And if he was mad enough not to care about being seen or heard at her door, surely he would have tried to force his way in by now? She decided to open the door, dangerous or not, and actually had her hand on the latch when she heard the tortured screech of brakes outside. The police had finally arrived. She sagged against the door, weak with relief; about time!
She heard a muffled curse outside and then footsteps pounding up her steps and pattering off down the road. A man’s voice roared an order to stop at the fleeing figure, which even in her slightly stunned state Kate thought ridiculous; had anyone fleeing from the Garda ever obeyed such a command? Hardly. It was hard to believe that the police really uttered such clichés, but there it was; she had heard it for herself. Gathering herself, and taking a very deep breath, she opened the door and made her way up to the street above, expecting to see a police car and uniformed figures chasing her unknown visitor. Instead she saw Michael Riordan standing beside his State car. The driver’s door was wide open and the engine was running but he was showing his common sense by making no attempt to pursue the suspected burglar. When he saw her he came over and said, ‘It’s alright, I’m here now,’ and put a protective arm around her shoulders, which even in her current state of anxiety sent a flash of irritation running through her.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked solicitously.
‘Of course I’m all right.’ she said, shrugging off his encircling arm, ‘He didn’t actually do anything.’ Except scare the life out of me. ‘I thought you were the cops. How did you get here so quickly?’
He ignored the question and looked around as if only just noticing the absence of any Gardai, then said, ‘I saw him runn
ing up the steps from your flat and thought...’ He stopped, ‘Well, I don’t know what I thought but it gave me a very nasty fright.’
Her pinched expression softened and she no longer felt resentful of his slightly condescending concern. Her voice was gentler too as she said, ‘I told you, he didn’t do anything; he just rang on the doorbell.’
‘You didn’t answer it, did you? After what I told you?’
She felt an even more pronounced stab of irritation at his presumption but managed to control it, saying evenly, ‘No, you arrived before I had a chance to do anything. How did you get here so quickly?’
He shrugged, ‘I ran out the door as soon as I hung up, and rang the police from my mobile on the way.’ There was just the hint of a smile on his face as he said, ‘I’m surprised I didn’t pick up a squad car en route, actually, since I broke a few red lights on the way. To say nothing of the speed limit.’
‘Where’s your driver tonight?’
‘I gave him the night off. I was, er, hoping to be coming round here and I didn’t want him to know about it.’ He frowned and looked around, ‘I can’t understand why the Gards haven’t arrived yet, though. I wasn’t that quick coming over.’
Kate shrugged, ‘Try being a private citizen and see how long it takes for them to turn up. Hours, I can tell you from personal experience. In the case of a burglary at least. And suspected prowlers are probably even lower on their list of priorities.’ She turned and noticed for the first time that more than one neighbor was peering out at them through windows or open doors, which caused her to groan inwardly; God, what a night! What a day! Will it never end?
Lucy and Brendan actually came out of their ground floor flat and walked halfway down the long flight of worn old stone steps, with Lucy calling out in a worried tone, ‘Is everything okay, Kate?’
‘Fine!’ Kate wearily called up to them, ‘Don’t worry, it was nothing.’
‘Your burglar didn’t come back, did he?’
Before she could answer a police car finally arrived, its blue lights flashing although the siren was off, and Kate began to wonder if this was actually a nightmare. If so she was ready to wake up. Oh, it’s nothing, she had said to Lucy, and an instant later the police screamed up. What would the neighbors think of that?
She gave a soft groan, though she could see a humorous side to it, as well as to her own bourgeois dread of a public scene, and Michael quickly said, ‘Listen, you’re not up to this right now. You go on inside and I’ll deal with the cops.’
Kate shook her head, though not without regret, ‘I can’t, they’re bound to want to ask me some questions.’
Two uniformed officers got out of the car and slowly walked towards them, eyeing Michael warily as they approached. Seeing this Kate suddenly realized, and not without a certain horrified amusement, that they thought this was some sort of domestic dispute, and that Michael was the reason they had been called. Clearly they were half-expecting him to attack them. All the scene needed was a cameraman from COPS or something to appear, and her mortification would be complete.
The older of the two Gardai, a Sergeant, said to Kate, ‘Is everything all right here, Miss?’
‘Fine,’ Kate assured him, ‘I just got a bit of a fright. I saw a man hanging around out here and thought it might be the same guy who broke into my flat last night. But I don’t think it was. In fact, this chap... Well, I just don’t think it could have been him.’
The policemen frowned simultaneously and exchanged a ponderous glance before the Sergeant said, ‘You were burgled last night? Did you report it?’
Kate nodded and the two policemen looked around as if expecting to see the stranger still hanging around waiting to be questioned.
‘Well, there’s no sign of him now,’ offered the younger man, so seriously that Kate, in spite of everything, had to fight to suppress a giggle; it was like having Zig and Zag respond to an emergency call.
‘Of course there’s no sign of him bloody now!’ said Michael acidly, ‘He ran away when I drove up. Really he should have stood there until you arrived and arrested him, but the selfish swine had the temerity to run off! How unsporting of him! Of course, if you had come when we called and not twenty minutes later when you’d finished your nap, or tea-break, or whatever the hell you were doing, you might actually have seen him or, God forbid, even caught him!’
The younger of the two policemen, who still had acne and seemed hardly more than a boy, looked at him coldly, ‘We came the instant we got the call, sir. Which was about two minutes ago. We were actually just down the road and we got here as fast as humanly possible.’
‘Right!’ sneered Michael angrily, ‘I made an emergency call at least fifteen minutes ago but you were only alerted two minutes ago! A likely story!’
The Sergeant here took a hand, saying with an expressionless face, ‘And who might you be, sir?’
‘I might be just about anyone,’ loudly retorted Michael, who seemed to be working himself into a blazing fury, ‘But in fact I am Michael Riordan, Minster of State for Trade and Industry! Does that ring any bells? It will, because I can assure you I shall be contacting your superiors first thing tomorrow morning to complain about your attitude! And your response time!’
The two Garda exchanged another of their slow glances but Kate no longer found it amusing. ‘Oh, for God’s sake leave it, Michael!’ she snapped, more conscious than ever of being the cynosure of all her neighbors’ eyes, ‘All I want to do is end this and go to bloody bed!’
The policemen seemed only too glad of the opportunity to speak to her instead of Riordan, and the Sergeant took out a notebook and pen before asking, ‘Can you describe the man you saw, Miss?’
Kate sighed and thought back, trying to picture him as he had looked leaning against the railings. ‘Well, there’s not that much I can say about him, really; I only saw him for a second, and it was dark. I can’t be sure but I’d say he wasn’t terribly tall, certainly less than six feet, and slim built. Er, he had longish brown hair but no beard or moustache that I could see.’ She shrugged, ‘That’s about it, I’m afraid. Sorry.’
‘And how was he dressed?’
She thought harder, ‘Uh, jeans and a black jacket, I think. It might have been a leather jacket, I’m not sure. I only caught sight of him for a second.’ Before I pulled the curtains and cowered behind them in terror, she thought but did not add.
‘But not a biker’s jacket? No zips and straps hanging off it’?’
‘No, definitely not.’
‘Have you quite finished?’ asked Michael angrily, ‘Because I personally think it might do more good if you actually went and looked for this fellow instead of standing here talking about him!’
‘Just on our way, sir,’ replied the policeman with a blank face that, in its way, said as much as even the most exaggerated expression. ‘I don’t know about you but I personally think it might help if we actually knew who we were supposed to be looking for, rather than just running aimlessly around like headless chickens.’ He turned back to Kate, ‘We won’t be back unless we find someone matching the description and need you to identify him, okay? But don’t hesitate to ring if you see him again, Miss. And don’t worry, if we don’t find him we’ll make sure to cruise by here a few times during the night, in case he comes back.’
Kate smiled at him and said gratefully, ‘Thank you, Sergeant; it’ll be a comfort to know you’re around.’ But I don’t think he was a burglar at all. And I don’t think he’ll be back. Not tonight, at least. But she said none of this; telling them that the man had known her name and had asked to talk to her would only open up a whole new can of worms, and lead to even more questions. Questions she couldn’t answer. And right then she just wanted them to leave so she could get to bed and sleep for about a month.
‘Just one last thing, Miss,’ said the younger Garda, ‘We’ll need your name and address.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ snorted Michael. Before he could say any more Kate said, in a
louder than normal voice, ‘Kate Bennett, 12a Alton Terrace, Monkstown, Dun Laoire. That flat just down there, actually. Will there be anything else?’
After writing this information down the Sergeant shook his head, ‘Not for the moment, but like I said, if we pick up someone matching the description you might be asked to identify him. Though since he committed no crime, tonight at least, there isn’t much we can do anyway, apart from questioning him and maybe frightening him off from coming back around here.’
‘Fat chance of you clowns finding anything, including your own arses!’ muttered Michael, stamping away to park his car properly and switch off the still-running engine.
‘I’m terribly sorry about that,’ said the furiously embarrassed Kate, ‘I really don’t know what’s wrong with him.’
The tall young policeman offered her the ghost of a smile, ‘That’s all right, Miss. It’s an attitude we’re used to. Until we’re needed, that is. People usually change their tune pretty quickly when they’re in trouble. Then they absolutely love us. But in fairness he’s probably just worried about you. People behave strangely after getting a fright, you know. Though he’s just plain wrong about our response time; we were here literally two minutes after we got the call. It was a priority alert, you see, so we dropped everything, and we were only just up the road anyway. But like I said, a fright makes people react strangely. Well, we’ll be off then, miss. Good night.’
‘Good night, and thank you.’ said Kate, turning away to hide a weary smile. No one knew better than her the strange ways people behave, particularly -as he had said- after a fright. But in spite of their intimacy the previous night Michael was practically a stranger to her, which made his reaction odd. Modesty aside, she doubted that he had fallen desperately in love with her quite this soon. So why such an extreme reaction? Perhaps he just had a short fuse generally. She sighed and began making her way down to her flat; she was in no mood for any more riddles just then. As she walked she was more aware than ever of her neighbors’ curious eyes following her, but by this stage she was pretty much past caring. As far as she was concerned they could all drop down dead in front of her just so long as she got a good night’s sleep.
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