by Denis Byrne
The Superintendent sighed in resignation. ‘I suppose you’re right. We’ll just have to wait until one of us gets a break. But it better be soon. The Government are having apoplexy. From what I heard on the grapevine, they’ve dragged Carter into half a dozen meetings already. And every time he comes out after being kicked around like a football, the first thing he does is phone me.’ He did his best to remain serious and professional, but couldn’t prevent the shadow of a smile play around his lips ‘Isn’t that terrible?’
‘Very unfortunate, sir,’ Harrington agreed, being unaware of what the Superintendent thought of Carter. ‘It must be awful for him.’
‘But not a tenth as awful as it must be for the victims of the kidnappers, Harrington. That’s what’s important now! Not you or me or Danny or Carter! Heaven knows what sort of suffering they’re undergoing at the moment! So let’s all get the lead out and try a little harder all round! Right? Eh?’
The Golden Retriever nodded as if in approval, though it’s possible it may have been merely bobbing its head up and down to discourage a few midges buzzing around its nose.
*
Superintendent Clifford’s words regarding the suffering the victims were undergoing hadn’t quite reached the point he imagined it had. At least, certainly not at the precise moment he’d uttered them. In fact, he’d have been more than surprised had he had a crystal ball, and could conjure up the scene as it was now in Moran’s hideout. Especially if he’d been able to see into the games-room.
Anna Conway was competing on one of the computers with Lily Cartwright. They were trying to outdo each other by manoeuvring through an intricate labyrinth without being pounced on by the monsters lurking in the darkness, ready to spring out to devour them. Level one had successfully been negotiated by both of them, though Anna had had some scary moments along the way. Lily had encountered no such difficulties, breezing through with a dexterity which displayed an alertness of mind and keenness of eye quite exceptional for one so young.
Anna was struggling in her wake, whether intentionally, or because she had less of an aptitude for the game, was open to question. It could have been that her real role was to keep her young charge in a reasonably contented frame of mind. Anna had been instructed to do so at all costs when the plan to abduct the child and her grandfather was being hatched. Either way, Lily appeared to be enjoying herself, even if she was still puzzled as to why her Mommy had asked for her to be brought to such a remote locality.
‘I’m afraid you’re much too good for me, Lily,’ Anna sighed, as out popped a terrifying ogre with open jaws to swallow her character. ‘That means I have to go back to the start of level two again, doesn’t it?’
‘Of course, Mrs. Stevens,’ Lily replied. ‘That’s the whole object of the game. Once you’re eaten on any level, you have to go back to the beginning of it again. Everyone knows that.’
Anna smiled at the child’s forthrightness. Such innocence and trust had long ago deserted her own personality. Ever since her Father had one day left the house on the pretext of going for a newspaper and never returned again. Anna was nine years old at the time. She adored her Father, as she thought he’d adored her. She was an only child, and her Father’s disappearance had a devastating effect on her. She’d been aware that he hadn’t been getting along with her Mother for a couple of years before he left, but had never in her wildest dreams imagined he’d have walked out on the two of them.
Nothing was ever the same again. Her Mother’s bitterness turned everything in their lives sour and rancid. She died of a broken heart when Anna was only fifteen. After that, Anna didn’t care about anything any more. Her aunt and uncle, who’d taken her in after her Mother’s death, did so more out of duty than anything else. They were a cold and unloving couple, unable to provide her with the support and understanding necessary to restore her faith in humanity. Anna ran away and fell in with the wrong crowd, slept in squats, living from hand to mouth wherever she could, sometimes dreaming of when she was a little girl.
Of times when her Father would hoist her up on his shoulders and go galloping along a stretch of beach whenever they visited the seaside, Anna clinging to his neck and laughing hysterically every time he whinnied like a horse. She dreamed of her Mother in happier days, the three of them together on a visit to the Zoo, her Father taking photographs of her in Kiddie’s Corner, she stroking the fleece of a lamb, or holding a white rabbit in her arms, or him waiting to catch her safely as she slid down the red spiral chute in the playground into his strong embrace.
But when she woke up in some squalid, derelict house, the realisation that he’d deliberately deserted her only served to harden her heart that little bit more. And in those moments of awakening, Anna knew that there was nobody in the world she could trust apart from herself. Until she came into contact with Myles Moran.
*
Anna was twenty at the time, and already had a string of petty convictions behind her. She’d already spent a three month sentence in prison for shoplifting, had escaped on numerous occasions with a severe ticking off for begging in the street, and was again up in court for her latest offence of stealing two handbags nestling invitingly against the legs of chairs in a fast food outlet a couple of women had placed there as they were having their meals. They were so engrossed in conversation, neither of them were aware the bags were gone until an alert assistant spotted Anna making off with them. She was apprehended not ten minutes later in an alleyway as she rifled through the handbags for cash or credit cards.
It was sheer coincidence Myles Moran happened to be in court the day Anna’s case was being heard. Hers was seventh on the list, and the judge wasn’t in the best of humour if his expression was anything to go by. He was a rotund individual with a large red face. The day was clammily overpowering and, to add to his discomfort, the air conditioning had broken down earlier that morning. He’d already presided over three drunk and disorderly cases, one careless driving offence, and two mugging charges. The judge found it necessary to wipe his brow on several occasions to prevent perspiration running into his eyes. By the time Anna’s case was brought before him, he felt as though he was melting where he sat. To his credit, he did his utmost to listen patiently to the details of her offence, though at the same time couldn’t but visualise himself under a cold shower the second he got home after this wretched day was over.
‘Five hundred euro fine,’ he pronounced after he’d been made familiar with Anna’s grand larceny ‘Or four months imprisonment upon failure to pay same. Well, which is it to be, young lady?’
Anna shrugged indifferently. ‘How about a life sentence in the monkey house in the Zoo,’ she said contemptuously, making no effort whatsoever to conceal her distain for authority. ‘You can come along with me if you like.’
There were titters from the body of the court. The judge looked as though he was about to have a heart attack, though his face couldn’t have become much redder than it already was. ‘What did you say?’ he managed to bellow, at the same time banging his gavel several times on the bench to still the rising tittering. ‘Silence in court! Silence, I say!’
The laughter gradually subsided. ‘You heard me,’ Anna said as soon as silence once more prevailed. ‘You know very well someone like me couldn’t pay a fine like that. All you want to do is send me to prison for stealing a couple of measly handbags. Well, why don’t you do a proper job of it and make it life!’
The judge drew several deep breaths. His head, he felt, was about to explode. He was being made a laughing stock of in his own court, but he was about to show this-this person who was going to have the last laugh. He did his best to compose himself. To show all and sundry who it was had the real power and was in total and absolute charge of proceedings. ‘Young lady,’ he said with all the dignity he could muster under such trying circumstances, ‘do you realise you are now in contempt of court?’
‘And have been since first laying eyes on your big ugly mug,’ Anna replied nonchalantly. ‘J
ust get on with it, can’t you? Do whatever you have to do. I don’t care.’
‘Take her down!’ the judge shouted angrily at the two policemen who were on duty, both of them striving to keep their faces straight. ‘Where she’s to remain in custody until she’s come to her senses and made a full apology to the court. I’ll make a further ruling on her sentence tomorrow morning.’
Everyone in court knew what that meant. Anna’s sentence was going to be at least trebled. But only after she made a grovelling apology to both the court and the judge himself. Otherwise, she’d remain in prison for a very long time indeed.
Myles Moran, sitting in one of the back rows, had felt like applauding. Never had he seen anyone show such utter derision in open court before. Sullen faces and discontented mutterings were commonplace amongst those receiving their convictions, but telling the judge to his face he’d a big ugly mug was something else again. Reckless and foolhardy, he had to admit, yet in his eyes, one of the most courageous displays of disregard for the forces of law and order he’d ever witnessed. With the proper guidance, Moran decided, the young lady in question could be of enormous benefit to someone like himself.
It was certainly a stroke of luck for Anna that Myles had been attending that particular day. He made a point of visiting court sittings every so often, sitting quietly at the back, listening to the cases, assessing the defendants and their behaviours, judging for himself if any of them were worthy of employment in Moran Enterprises. He found it quite amusing to use the building where justice was dispensed as his personal Recruitment Centre. Dapper Dempsey’s and Needle’s potential had been immediately evident to him in the past. Neither Dapper nor Needles knew of each others existences at the time.
Their trials were separate ones, one four months prior to the other. On each of the days they were due to be sentenced, both had been acquitted of all charges. They’d been more surprised than anyone when their free legal aid briefs had been replaced by one of the most high-powered defence attorneys that money could buy. Who quickly brought to the presiding judge’s attention the shoddiness of the police paperwork concerning their cases.
There were glaring errors and omissions which he was amazed hadn’t been pointed out to His Worship by the dismissed briefs of each defendant. And which he was more than happy to bring to the court’s attention so that true justice could now be served. As soon as Dapper and Needles hit the street, a Moran Enterprise recruitment member was waiting to offer them lucrative employment in return for their special skills.
The judge who was to pronounce sentence on Anna the following day received a phone call that evening about an hour after he’d stepped out of the heavenly cold shower he’d been looking forward to as he melted behind his bench earlier. He felt so much better he hardly knew himself. He’d replaced his sweat-soaked suit for a pair of light cotton trousers and a cool, short-sleeved silk shirt. As he reclined in an armchair of his luxurious lounge sipping a pre-dinner martini, he gazed out through the large window overlooking his back garden.
Around the fringes of the manicured lawn, red and white rose bushes grew in rows, each set the exact same distance from its neighbour. The garden sloped down towards the beach, and beyond it was a panoramic view of the sea. The judge never tired of looking at the ever shifting colours the different days brought to the ocean. Now, it was a mixture of blue and green, white foam forming on the surface of the waves the closer they came towards shore. He was lost in the beauty of it all, enjoying his martini, had all but forgotten the words flung at him in his own courtroom by that brash young woman, when the ringing of the phone disturbed his serenity. He sighed and reluctantly arose to take the call in his study.
The caller was extremely articulate. He spoke in a refined accent, and was very precise in the message he was conveying. He instructed the judge to listen very carefully. Not to utter a word until he’d heard what was about to be said. The judge was so flabbergasted at this impertinence, he immediately opened his mouth to demand who the caller was, or if he realised to whom he was speaking.
But the words were stifled in his throat by what came next. It froze the blood in his veins, and put a padlock on his tongue. His hands commenced to tremble, so that he found it necessary to use both of them to keep the receiver to his ear. When the line went dead after the caller hung up, the judge sat there staring in disbelief at the crimson and gold embossed paper decorating the far wall of his study. He had difficulty replacing the phone back in its cradle. Then he arose unsteadily, made his way back to the lounge, ignored the martini, instead pouring himself a stiff glass of brandy which he swallowed in a single gulp.
The next day, the judge somehow found it in his heart to display a compassion which had heretofore been alien to his nature. It surprised everyone except Myles Moran. The officials in attendance couldn’t believe their ears when the Probation Act was applied in Anna’s case. Afterwards, they whispered among themselves, asking questions of each other that none of them could answer.
One came up with a supposition which appeared to them all to be the only logical explanation for the judge’s ruling. He was seriously ill. Another followed up by saying that that had be the reason for his change of heart. Yes, that must be it, another agreed. Did you see his face this morning? The first thing I noticed, came the reply. There was no colour in his cheeks. None whatsoever. It looked as though a vampire had paid him a visit in the middle of the night and sucked all the blood from his body.
*
Myles Moran saw more than mere potential in Anna Conway that day in court. He saw a young woman very much like he himself was at her age. But at the moment a little too brave and uncaring for her own good. She required careful tutoring to bring out to the full the excellent qualities she possessed. He’d teach her how to use those qualities in a more subtle way when circumstances required it. And knew he could rely on her to employ other methods when skill and diplomacy failed to achieve the aims of Moran Enterprises. And he was right. After a year of listening and learning from him, Anna was now the finished article. Like the daughter he never had. And for Anna, he was her new Father. One she knew would never desert her as her own one had.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘Thanks just the same, but I’ll make my own way back to town,’ Danny told Harrington as soon as the meeting on the river bank was over.
Harrington had offered him a lift in his car, an old banger he’d picked up from a second-hand dealer only a couple of months ago. It looked as though it was held together with blutack and sealing wax, but it was all Harrington could afford. He’s taken it for a test drive before he bought it. It appeared the dealer’s claim that it had been fitted with a reasonably decent reconditioned engine was the truth, for it hadn’t let him down yet in that department. Granted, its springs weren’t what might be referred to as state-of-the-art, for when it met an unexpected pothole, Harrington felt every bone in his body jar with the impact. But, for what he had paid for it, he supposed he couldn’t really complain.
The Superintendent had no choice but to accept Harrington’s invitation to drive him back to town, seeing as the wheelchair he’d set out in hadn’t lived up to his expectations. ‘You can drop me off a couple of streets away from the station,’ he said as he squeezed into the passenger seat, dumping his haversack between his feet. ‘Sergeant Neville might start asking awkward questions if he sees the two of us together.’ He smiled at the thought of Neville having to scurry back and forth from his office to deal with matters the junior officers weren’t capable of handling. ‘Besides, he might come rushing out and drag you back to man Reception again. He hasn’t had an uninterrupted snooze since you ceased to exist.’ He shifted his bulk, sought around for the seatbelt to strap himself in, his nose wrinkling as he did so. ‘Did you ever consider investing in an air freshener, Harrington? Eh? There’s a pong in here you could shave.’ He tried to roll down the window, but it wouldn’t budge.
‘You have to give it a few taps first, sir,’ Harrington explained,
leaning across him and doing the needful. ‘But no matter what you do, it will only come halfway down’
‘So I see,’ the Superintendent replied, nudging the door a bit more forcefully with his elbow to try and see if that would help the window to come down further, but all he succeeded in doing was making the entire car sound like a tambourine. ‘I suppose I’ll survive somehow. If you step on it, it should create enough of a breeze to prevent us being suffocated altogether, though don’t be too enthusiastic about it, or your foot might go right through the floor.’ He laughed outright when he saw the look of dismay on Harrington’s face. ‘I’m joking, Harrington! It’s a fine car, splendid altogether. Far, far better than having to walk. You surely didn’t think I was being serious, did you?’
Harrington smiled weakly in return. Sometimes it was difficult to keep abreast of the Superintendent’s sense of humour, though Harrington had noticed straight away that Danny appeared to have no difficulty in that respect. There was a lot Harrington was learning about the two of them, and he was glad to have been chosen as part of the team, even though he was aware he didn’t share the effortless understanding that seemed to flow between Danny and the Superintendent. But he was determined that he wouldn’t let them down when it came to the crunch.
‘All strapped in, sir?’ he asked, about to turn the key in the ignition.
‘Just a second,’ the Superintendent said, looking out at Danny, with the Golden Retriever standing obediently by his side, waiting for them to leave. ‘Danny!’ he called, ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to come with us? I’m a little concerned - -’
‘It’s okay, Super,’ Danny replied, and again Harrington was impressed that Danny was already aware of whatever it was that was worrying the Superintendent even before he’d finished the sentence. ‘I’ll wait until it’s dark so nobody sees what way I’ll go back.’