by Linda Coles
“Thanks, buddy,” she cooed. “You needed that, didn’t you?” She spent the next five or six minutes comforting him and getting his remaining wind up before her mind returned to the bizarre situation she now found herself in. How long had he been all alone, sitting in an overfull nappy and, by the look of it, having missed meals too? And there was no sign of either Ciara of Lorcan. The more she contemplated the situation, the more concerned she grew. Flynn whimpered in her arms and she remembered the bath. He needed a wash before she could put a fresh nappy and clothes on him. But should she call the police, the Gardai, before doing so? Had a crime been committed, and was she now trampling over evidence with each action she took? She felt sure Flynn’s welfare was more important right at that moment.
“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up and dressed, then we can decide what to do. How does that sound?” she asked, stroking his forehead lightly. At least he’d calmed down, his tears stopped, his face returning to a more normal colour.
A few minutes later, Flynn had his clean clothes on, and Chrissy placed him back in his cot while she quickly made her way down the stairs for another look around. Rupert greeted her again and woofed a little.
Maybe he was hungry too. She spotted an empty bowl on the floor by the fridge then found his biscuits in the nearby cupboard and filled it up. She topped his water up and watched for a moment as he tucked in hungrily. He’d had an accident, a deposit sat on the floor in the corner of the kitchen. She stroked his shoulders as he ate.
“What’s gone on here, eh? How long have you two been alone? Are they coming back, or has something happened to them?” She wasn’t expecting him to give her the answers, but asking the questions out loud helped to sort through the situation in her mind.
“If I call the authorities, I might be making trouble for your mum and dad if there’s a simple explanation,” she explained. “On the other hand, you can’t just abandon a child and dog like this; it’s not fair, not to mention dangerous.” She topped his bowl with a few more biscuits before returning the packet to the cupboard. “I don’t want you being sick too,” she explained and scratched his shoulder before leaving him to it.
She had to do something, but what? She stood looking out of the window. There was no vehicle parked outside. She looked around the room: everything was neat and tidy. She made her way back up to Flynn, but first checked each level to peer again into the rooms. All was tidy, as if nobody was staying there. In the main bedroom, she checked inside a small wardrobe to find it empty. Bending down to look under the bed for a suitcase or holdall, she only saw a couple of dust bunnies. She made her way back to Flynn’s room. It seemed his was the only place where there was any sign of habitation. The words from the woman at the sweater shop filled her mind, Nobody in there at this time of year. Owners only come in summer; it’ll be empty now.
But what about Flynn? And what about Rupert? And where had Ciara and Lorcan disappeared to? Because on taking stock of the situation, Chrissy could only conclude they’d left the pair to it. Chrissy was torn about what to do next. Should she call Julie, tell her to come over? Damn, her phone was back at the house. She glanced around looking for a landline, but there wasn’t one. It was a holiday home after all, visitors would have their own mobiles.
“Damn!” she spat. What next? She couldn’t leave the two alone, and with no phone, that left one course of action.
“There’s only one thing for it, Flynn. I’ll have to take you both back with me,” she said, gathering him up. “Let’s get you wrapped up and go and find your buggy, okay?” Having found a jacket for him, the two headed downstairs to the kitchen. “Where does your mum keep the buggy?” she said before spotting it collapsed and wedged behind a kitchen chair across the room. “Gotcha.” Reassembling it quickly, she placed Flynn in the seat and strapped him in. They were almost ready to go.
Drug baron sprang to mind, they’d only been laughing about it recently. Ciara had mentioned a cellar – she could take a look quickly, no one would be any the wiser. “I’ll just be a minute,” she explained to Flynn, who was watching her every move.
But first she had to find the cellar entrance and since the kitchen area was all in full view as she stood there, unless it was through a cupboard like in an Indiana Jones movie or a Mr Benn episode, there was no visible door. That left through the floor.
The rug!
She threw it back in the hope that some sort of entrance would materialise. She wasn’t disappointed.
“Got you,” she said, before bending down to open it. Cold air greeted her and she shivered as her eyes adjusted to the darkness below. Stone steps went down into the blackness, but how far? She couldn’t see further than two down. There had to be a light. Taking the first couple of steps, she let her hands search either side of the rough entrance wall until one of them found the switch. She flicked it on. An explosion of bright white fluorescent light filled the space as she carried on down into the room. When her head was finally below the bulkhead, and she could see all the way into the space, Chrissy pulled up short at what lay in front of her.
Chapter 20
Chrissy was aghast as she took in the contents of the cellar. Yes, it was odd that so many wicker storage boxes, of all shapes and sizes, almost filled the room, but it was what was propped up against the wall straight in front that made her gasp out loud. There, standing proudly, were two coffins, both made from wicker, like a laundry basket might be. There were no fancy brass handles, no fine, polished surfaces, and if she looked inside, she knew there would be no silky lining. But they were definitely coffins.
“What the—”
Who were they for? Were they empty? Oh heavens! Were they full? Chrissy approached one then reached out with her forefinger knuckle and rapped on the surface. It sounded hollow. She did the same with the other one, and surmised they were both empty. A saving grace. Had she really expected them to contain bodies?
“At least nobody knocked back,” she said out loud, relaxing a little as she studied the room a bit more closely.
A gurgle from above caught her attention, and she remembered young Flynn, sitting up there all alone. It was time to head off. She’d seen and experienced quite enough for one morning and was acutely aware of how long she’d been gone. Julie would be wondering where she’d got to.
“What to do, Flynn?” she asked him back in the kitchen. “There’s too much weird stuff going on for my liking.” She glanced at the hole in the floor, the bright light looming up from it like an apparition.
“Whose are those coffins? Surely they don’t belong to your parents, do they?” As an afterthought, she added, “Though I suppose they could do.” Chrissy sat, thinking out loud, looking for a reasonable explanation for the events so far that morning. There wasn’t much coming to mind.
“As cute as you are, young man, I need to talk this one over with an adult.”
Flynn wore an uncertain look, and Chrissy hoped he wasn’t going to start crying again.
“Time to go for a ride, so I’ll go and find a spare blanket then we’ll get off,” she told him, before heading back to the nursery to get what she needed. A moment later, she tucked the blue blanket across his body, and they were ready to go. They couldn’t go over the fields back to the house, not with a buggy, and the road meant a longer journey for the two of them.
She was drawn to take another look in the cellar. “I’ll be two seconds, promise,” she said and slipped down through the cellar opening. The two coffins stared back at her like something from a Stephen King film. She certainly hadn’t been expecting to stumble on such a disquieting discovery. Other than the coffins, the space looked like any other cellar and smelled just as fusty and damp. A type of whitewash peeled off the stone walls, the flagged floor clear of any other debris but for the wicker bins. There was nothing else to see or do, so Chrissy made her way back up to a waiting Flynn, turned the light off and dropped the trapdoor back in place. The rug followed and all was back exactly how she’d found it only
a few minutes ago. Could such a lot have happened since she’d left her coffee to investigate a barking dog? Apparently, it had.
“Time to go, little one,” she said, reaching for the buggy and steering it out of the door. Rupert spotted them from his place in the grass and strolled over, not in any particular rush. “I guess you’d better come along too,” she said, grabbing his leash off a hook on the wall and attaching it to his collar. She closed the door and paused for a moment, deep in thought.
What an odd morning.
When Chrissy was satisfied she had everyone secure, they set off on the journey back to her own holiday home, and no doubt a great deal of questions from the others.
The trouble was, Chrissy didn’t have any answers.
Chapter 21
As Bronagh came to, she was aware of someone flitting about nearby, of strange voices she couldn’t fathom and a bright overhead light. One thing she did know was that she wasn’t at home. And one leg felt like it was encased in cement. It was.
A broken wrist and a broken leg meant she wasn’t going to be leaving her hospital bed today. Add the cuts and bruises to her head and chest area, and she looked like she’d taken on a cage fighter and let them pummel her half to death. The airbag had saved her neck but added to her facial bruises when it had punched its way out from inside the dashboard. With her good hand, she tried to wipe her eyes, which had run slightly. The inside of her head throbbed, and her mouth felt like the bottom of a canary’s cage.
“There you are,” a voice said brightly. “I’m nurse O’Brien. Can you tell me how much pain you’re in, on a scale of one to ten?”
Bronagh tried to sort through the cotton wool in her head and make sense of what the woman was asking, but nothing seemed to function correctly, and the question dissolved from her mind. She stared vacantly up at the nurse.
“You’ve had a nasty accident, and you’re in the hospital. The Guards are here, waiting to ask you some questions, but I don’t think you’re up to it yet, are you?”
Bronagh tried to shake her head ‘no’, but the slightest movement sent pain spiralling through it. She winced involuntarily.
“I’ll get you some pain relief,” she said, smiling. “Oh, and your brother is here too,” she said, pointing with her own head.
Deciding not to move again, Bronagh forced a whisper from her lips, “Thanks.” The word barely made a sound, but it was enough and the nurse vanished for a moment. Or so it seemed. When Bronagh came to again an hour or so later, it was a different kind of light around her as she struggled to open her swollen eyes fully. Gingerly, she turned her head to one side and realised the light was in fact a weak sunshine climbing the sky, fluorescent replaced by natural light. A chair in the corner contained a crumpled body and judging from its clothes and the faint odour of oil and diesel, it was her brother, Brocc. How long had he been there? she wondered. More to the point, how long had she been there? She tried to raise herself up a little and as pain shot through her head again, she remembered the same thing happening not that long ago. But how long ago was it?
And then something far more important hit her. She had to leave! She had to get back home and quickly! Bronagh struggled, but looking down at the bed in front of her, it wasn’t hard to see the white plaster cast of a broken leg. Another cast covered her wrist. She’d never broken a bone in her life and she was annoyed that she now had two limbs in plaster. Someone had obviously seen her movement and another nurse put her head around the curtain and smiled.
“Good morning. How are you feeling?” she enquired as she approached Bronagh’s pillows and straightened them.
Gathering a deep breath, she replied urgently, “I’ve got to get back, I have to go,” and struggled with her good arm to sit herself up. It was no use, she simply hadn’t the strength and the pain sent torrential waves of nausea through her stomach, making her gasp and swallow deeply.
“You’re not going anywhere for a while,” the nurse said firmly as she gently leaned in to stop Bronagh getting up any further. The figure in the chair stirred at the sound of conversation and immediately went to the nurse’s aide. Groggy from his own lack of sleep, he was still able to take charge of his stubborn sister. Her feistiness, however, was a good sign she was feeling better and was on the mend.
“Come on Bron, lie back down and stay still, will you? You’ve had an accident and you’re not going anywhere, not for a while at least.” He gently lay an oil-ingrained hand on her shoulder, ready to stop her moving if he had to, and watched as she closed her eyes for a long moment. When Bronagh opened her eyes again, tears were on the edge of spilling free and she blinked them away as best she could.
“Hey, don’t go getting all upset, you’re safe now. A few bits broken, but you’ll live.” His pink-tinged, weather-beaten skin crinkled around his eyes and mouth as he smiled down at her, willing her to stay still and rest.
“You don’t understand!” she said more urgently. “I can’t be here. You’ve got to get me back!”
“What’s so important? The shop? I’ll put a sign up, folks will understand.”
“No, not the shop…” Bronagh knew it was no use saying any more. He wouldn’t understand. The nurse relaxed a little, safe in the knowledge that her patient wasn’t going to try and get out of bed again, and busied herself writing notes on her chart and checking her blood pressure. Eventually she slipped away, leaving Brocc and Bronagh to talk in private.
“The Guards still want to talk to you. About the accident. What happened, Bron? On your phone, were you?”
“What? No, of course not.”
“Then what happened?”
Bronagh ran through the events in her head as they came to her. She hadn’t been on her phone. It had been dark but clear, and then suddenly she’d noticed something in her rear-view mirror, a glint of light. And then her car had lunged forward and spun out of control, slamming into the banking and rolling over and over. She couldn’t remember anything other than that. Had another vehicle come at her, run her off the road, caused her to have the accident? On such a quiet back road? It was not beyond the realms of possibility. Not with what she had volunteered for.
Chapter 22
He couldn’t imagine why. “Are you serious?” Brocc asked his sister. “What on earth makes you think you were run off the road, woman?”
“Because it came up behind me, and didn’t want me to see it – there were no lights on the vehicle, that’s why.”
“It’ll have been ne’er-do-wells, too much drink in them, I’d say. They’ll have been local lads trying to stay away from the Guards.”
“I wish I could be as sure as you.” She tried to moisten her lips and Brocc passed her a glass of water with a straw sticking out.
“Here,” he said as he offered it to her. Bronagh took a couple of long slurps. “Does that feel better now?”
She managed a nod.
“Now, tell me what’s so important that you have to get out of bed for.”
Bronagh sighed deeply and turned her head away from him so he couldn’t see her eyes filling with tears again. She needed to think, there was too much at stake and telling Brocc what she was up to was quite simply out of the question. He wouldn’t understand. Men like him never did. What on earth was she going to do? A blue-uniformed guard entered the room and made his way over. Bronagh recognised him immediately, his thinning hair was legendary on a young man: Garda Drew Harris.
“Hello Ms Bowen,” he said. He’d been calling her Bronagh for most of his adult life, but in his official capacity he stuck with formal. It sounded odd to her ears, but she let it go. He was here to do his job. Brocc nodded his greeting and the officer nodded back. “I have some questions about your accident – if you’re up to it?”
“Better to get it over with I suppose, then you can get on.”
Brocc offered the single chair to the officer but he declined it, leaving it for the older man who gave a suit-yourself shrug and sat back down. Harris took his notebook out a
nd revisited what he’d learned so far before asking his first question.
“Let’s start at the beginning then. Can you tell me what happened, what you remember?”
Bronagh hadn’t had time enough to think about quite what she’d say but it was too late now. She had to think on the hoof and hope she didn’t say too much.
“I didn’t see a thing,” she started. “One minute I was minding my own business, and the next I was being hurled through the air like I was in a tumble dryer. The whole thing lasted a few seconds.”
“Did you see any other vehicles before your accident?”
Had it been a vehicle she’d seen in her rear-view mirror? If not, what could it have been?
“I couldn’t be sure now,” she said slowly. “I don’t remember seeing any headlights if that helps.” Vague would have to do.
“Were you distracted in some way. Perhaps changing the radio station, or your phone rang?”
“Definitely neither of those,” she said with as much force as she could muster. “I drive in silence usually, and my phone was in my bag. Like I say, I can’t really remember anything.”
“We found your phone on the road. Maybe it had been thrown from the car?”
“No, that can’t be mine. I keep it zipped away, inside my bag. It must be someone else’s.” She glanced around the room for her belongings and Brocc took the hint. Standing, he said, “I’ll get it for you,” and retrieved her handbag from the bedside cabinet. The zip, she noticed, was undone. “That’s odd,” she said thoughtfully. “Brocc, check and see if my phone’s in there, please.” He did as he was asked and came up empty. He shook his head ‘no’. Realising her phone had been taken somehow, Bronagh tried to think about what to do or say next.