Distress Signals

by Catherine Ryan Howard

  ‘Here’s what we’re going to do,’ Cusack said, and I noted that this was the second time in two minutes she’d said those words and we still didn’t know what ‘we’ were going to do. ‘I recommend that you go home, continue to attempt to make contact with Sarah through any channels you can think of – phone, friends, Facebook, etc. – and let us know if you hear anything from her. You can use our telephone number here for the contact information if you wish. I’d recommend that you do; don’t put your personal phone numbers on anything you plan on posting online. In the meantime, I’ll liaise with the Department of Foreign Affairs, see if Sarah has made contact with any of our European consulates. I can also check whether or not she was on that inbound flight yesterday. Perhaps she was and you missed her, Adam. If nothing changes, we’ll reconvene here on Monday morning and see where we go from there.’

  I thought: reconvene here on Monday? Is there really a possible version of this universe where another two and a half days go by without us hearing anything from Sarah?

  Cusack started collecting her things, but didn’t touch the Ziploc bag or the printed boarding pass.

  ‘Don’t you want to take those?’ I asked her.

  ‘Why don’t you bring them with you on Monday, if we meet then?’

  ‘The CCTV!’ Jack blurted out. ‘You could check the CCTV at the hotel.’

  ‘We’ll definitely talk about that,’ Cusack said. ‘On Monday.’

  ‘I can’t wait until then.’ Maureen’s voice sounded so small it pierced me. ‘I need to talk to her now.’ She looked at Jack. ‘I need to talk to my daughter now.’

  Jack looked at his wife, helpless. Watched as she started to cry. Then his lower lip began to tremble.

  I looked to the opposite wall. I couldn’t watch.

  The normal world, the Before world, was slipping away, sliding towards a position that would soon be beyond my reach. The abyss wasn’t just stretched out in front of me now. It was all around me, above and below me, and I was falling, tumbling down, down.

  And what could I do about it? At that moment, I couldn’t think of one single thing.

  Out of desperation, I picked up my phone and called Sarah’s number, even though I knew what I’d hear: a beat of dead air and then her voicemail kicking in.

  For fuck’s sake, Sarah. Turn on your damn phone. Or call us from another one. Just do something. End this. Make it stop.

  I opened WhatsApp then and—

  What the . . . ?

  I kept my expression neutral, my face a blank mask. Brought the screen closer to my face, blinked, looked again. Made sure it was really there, made sure that my desperation hadn’t built a hallucination.

  A double checkmark where I’d been expecting only one.

  The message I’d sent to Sarah on Monday.

  It had been read.

  I mumbled a goodbye to Jack and Maureen, telling them that I had something to do and that I’d call them afterwards. They just looked at me blankly. I made my way back down to the lobby of District HQ, out into the morning sun and into the first place I found where I could sit and think: the bar directly across the street.

  Inside, it was empty and cavernous, the lunchtime rush a while away yet. I asked the bartender for a whiskey. It felt like liquid heartburn going down and then acid indigestion once it had, but soon my edges began to blur and my senses retreated a step. I felt a little better. I ordered another one. I felt better still.

  The bartender was studying me, not realising that I could see him do it in the mirror mounted behind the bar. After my second one he asked if I was okay, said he’d seen me coming out of the station. I wondered if they always kept such a watchful eye out for customers who’d come from a chat with An Garda Síochána, and if he did that because sometimes they had trouble with the ones who had. I said I was fine and asked for another one. The bartender said he’d bring me something to eat instead.

  I sent Moorsey a text to tell him the Gardaí would be no help. He asked me where I was. Fifteen minutes later, he climbed onto the bar stool beside me. He must have left Tyndall the moment I texted back, or ran all the way here without breaking a sweat.

  ‘Weren’t you at work?’ I asked him.

  ‘Yeah, but it’s fine.’ He asked the bartender for a Sprite. ‘They pretty much let us come and go as we please over there.’

  ‘Do they?’ I drained what was left of my second drink, fixed my eyes on the empty glass. ‘Even when you have a big project deadline, like you do today?’

  Silence.

  ‘You knew, didn’t you?’ I turned to face him. ‘You knew Sarah was seeing that guy. That’s why you were being weird. I thought you were jealous or something. Or annoyed with me because I was being a dick. Is everyone telling me lies, Moorsey? Can I trust anyone at all?’

  ‘Will you let me explain? I found out by accident. I overheard Rose on the phone to Sarah. I didn’t even tell her that I had for ages and, when I did, she freaked out. She said if you found out it’d be all her fault, not mine. Anyway, Ad, I didn’t really believe that anything was going on. I mean, Sarah? You and Sarah, the Golden Couple? I didn’t think there was a chance. Even now, I’m thinking there has to be some simple explanation for this that doesn’t involve—’

  ‘She read the message,’ I said, turning back to my now-empty glass and the plate where only the crumbs of a ham sandwich remained. I pushed both away. ‘The WhatsApp message. Its status is “read” now. She’s seen it.’

  ‘What? When?’

  ‘The time stamp is from when I sent it. You can’t see at what time it’s read.’

  ‘Can you figure it out? When did you last check it?’

  ‘I know I opened WhatsApp last night, when I was at Jack and Maureen’s house. The message wasn’t read then, I’m sure of it. But when I looked just now – well, about half an hour ago – the double checkmark had appeared. So it must have happened overnight. Considering that the phone must’ve been on for her to do that and that all the calls we made went straight to voicemail – it never rang – that makes sense. She turned the phone on either very late at night or very early in the morning, so she could check her messages but not alert any of us to the fact that the phone was on.’

  ‘Shit, Adam. That means that she—’

  ‘Read all the texts I sent her. The ones Rose and her parents sent her too. Maybe even listened to the voice messages, checked her emails. But didn’t bother responding to any of them. And didn’t bother contacting her mother and father either, even though I sent a text saying we were going to the Gardaí.’ I got the bartender’s attention and pointed to the coffee machine. My head was starting to feel like it was encased in a fog. ‘It means that she left on purpose. With him. That she did this to us. Is doing it.’

  ‘What did the Gardaí say?’

  ‘She’s a grown woman, come back Monday.’

  ‘What’ll they do then?’

  ‘Not much, judging by the reaction today. They’ve told us to go home for the weekend and put her picture up on Facebook and Twitter, that kind of thing. We could’ve figured that out by ourselves.’

  ‘They know she read the message?’

  I shook my head. ‘No.’

  ‘Did you tell Jack and Maureen?’

  I shook my head again.

  ‘Ad, you need to tell them.’

  ‘Why? What good would it do? Hey, you know this horrific waking nightmare we’re all going through? Well, good news: Sarah orchestrated it herself. Your daughter did this to you. You’re welcome.’

  ‘At least they’d have the comfort of knowing that she’s alive.’

  ‘Alive?’ I scoffed. ‘Of course she’s alive.’

  ‘Yeah, but Jack and Maureen . . . I bet their imaginations are running riot. They’re probably lying awake all night picturing the worst. If you told them she’d read the message—’

&
nbsp; ‘They’d still be lying awake all night, wondering why Sarah did this to them.’

  We lapsed into silence for a while.

  ‘But what about the passport?’ Moorsey asked. ‘Aren’t the Gardaí concerned about that?’

  ‘The Garda we spoke to said that maybe Sarah lost it and is at this very moment queuing in an embassy somewhere, getting emergency papers so she can fly home.’

  ‘But who sent the passport to your place?’

  ‘A Good Samaritan, apparently. Who is also a psychic, because that’s the only way they could have known Sarah’s home address.’

  ‘Isn’t this a good thing, though?’ Moorsey asked. ‘That they aren’t springing into action? That they don’t seem that worried about her? That makes me think they hear stories like this all the time, but the people come back.’

  ‘What if she doesn’t come back though? How are we ever going to find her if we don’t have their help? Where will we go from there? How can I—’ My words caught on the lump in my throat. ‘How can I just go on with my life without knowing where Sarah is or how she is or why she did this? I can’t even sleep without knowing, let alone . . . How do you expect me to live in that apartment or go buy milk in the shop or write – Jesus Christ, write – without knowing where she is? What do I do with her stuff? What if I move on, and then she changes her mind and comes back? What if she’s sick, like mentally ill or something, and this is not a decision she’s made but some kind of episode she’s suffering from, and she needs our help? We can’t help her if we don’t know where she is. We don’t know what’s happening if we can’t talk to her. What if we’re still here in a month’s time, none the wiser? Or in a year? Ten years? I haven’t even told my parents yet, Moorsey. I don’t know how. How do I start that conversation? Where are the instructions for living like this?’

  ‘At least you know that she’s okay though,’ Moorsey said gently. ‘If she checked her phone, she must be okay.’

  ‘But why is she doing this? Why won’t she just call me and talk to me? If she wanted to leave me and go off with this other guy, why didn’t she just break up with me?’

  My coffee arrived. I lifted the cup with both hands and took a sip, very slowly. It was a chance to pull myself together.

  ‘What about the American?’ Moorsey asked.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Have you thought about trying to contact him? He might be easier to get to. He might have his phone on, for a start.’

  ‘How would we get his number? We don’t know anything about him. We don’t even know his name.’

  The prospect of talking to him, to the faceless American, gave me heartburn worse than the whiskey. I didn’t want to know anything about him. I preferred him as an idea, a faceless threat, a possible misunderstanding.

  But if I could reach Sarah through him . . .

  ‘There has to be a way, Ad,’ Moorsey was saying. ‘Think. If you were looking for evidence that she had been in contact with someone, where would you go?’

  ‘To her phone,’ I said, ‘which we don’t have. Her email account, which we can’t access. Her wallet, which she took with her.’

  ‘Did you look at home? Through her drawers and stuff? Rose has this big hatbox thing where she keeps mementoes and souvenirs and crap. Receipts. Does Sarah have anything like that?’

  ‘I don’t think so, no.’

  ‘Is there anywhere else she’d keep—’

  He stopped just as I spoke; we’d both thought of it at exactly the same time.

  ‘Her desk,’ I said. ‘Her desk at work.’

  It took us five minutes to walk from Angelsea Street to the doors of Anna Buckley Recruitment. It occupied an entire Georgian building on the South Mall, across from the majestic limestone columns of the AIB Bank building that sat at number sixty-six. I went to Reception and asked for Susan Robinson while Moorsey waited on the street outside. They directed me upstairs.

  Susan was waiting for me outside her office door.

  ‘Adam!’ She pulled me in for a hug. ‘I asked Lisa to double-check the name. I was like, “Adam Dunne? Hollywood screenwriter Adam Dunne? Are you sure?” What are you doing here? We never see you around these parts. Come to pick up Sarah’s homework, have you? Is she feeling better? Nothing worse than stomach flu, is there? I suppose you tend to lose a couple of pounds, at least. Maybe I should get her to lick me or something? I’ve a christening next week. Ha! Come on in, come on in. Have a seat.’

  I did what I was told. I was exhausted already.

  But I did have confirmation that Sarah had indeed called in sick.

  Susan was in her late forties and making every effort to distract from the fact. That day she was wearing a short, shiny, shapeless dress with some sort of geometric design printed on the front, towering heels that must have had her feet poised at the same angle as Barbie’s and thick, black eyeliner that I could see pooling in the inner corners of her eyes from three feet away. Her legs and arms were the same odd rust colour and her white-blonde hair didn’t move when she did. I wondered idly how flammable she was.

  ‘Saturday night was fun, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘God, I didn’t get home until after three! The babysitter was a right bitch about it. I gave her an extra twenty though and that soon put the train-tracked smile back on her face. Sixty euro she went home with. Can you believe that? She makes more than me, if you go by the hour. We should all be babysitters, eh? I was lucky to get a packet of crisps and a fiver when I was her—’

  ‘Susan,’ I said. ‘Sarah isn’t sick.’

  A moment of suspended animation as she stopped chattering mid-sentence. A flicker of confusion across her face. Then:

  ‘She’s feeling better, you mean?’

  ‘No, she was never sick.’

  ‘Then why . . . I’m sorry, Adam.’ Susan laughed nervously. ‘I think I’m a bit lost here.’

  ‘Sarah just told you she was sick. She actually went to Barcelona. She flew out there Sunday morning and was supposed to come back yesterday lunchtime, but she didn’t. She wasn’t answering her phone and now it’s switched off. No one has heard from her – not her parents, not her best friend, not me.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure it’s just—’

  ‘We went to Angelsea Street this morning, her parents and I. We’ve reported her missing.’

  Susan looked stricken. ‘But she said she was sick...’

  ‘When did she tell you that, exactly? Do you remember?’

  ‘She emailed me, over the weekend. Sunday morning. I remember because I thought to myself—’ Susan blushed. ‘I said to myself, “She seemed perfectly fine on Saturday night.” God, I thought she was just hungover. I mean, it’s not like I could blame her. I was dying myself Sunday morning.’

  Had I seen Sarah typing a message on her phone at any point on Sunday morning? I didn’t think so, but then she’d been at the airport early. She could’ve done it there.

  I tried to picture her face as she composed the lie to Susan, read it over and pressed Send, but there was only a collection of blurry, indistinct features where Sarah’s face should be.

  I couldn’t picture it. I couldn’t believe my Sarah would do that.

  But she had.

  ‘Have you heard from her since?’ I asked.

  ‘No. Is she okay? Is she feeling okay? I mean, like . . .’ Susan pointed to her head. ‘Mentally?’

  Ignoring that, I said, ‘Do you think anyone else here would’ve heard from her?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can ask. Whatever we can do to help, Adam. Whatever we can. Just say the word.’

  ‘Would you know anything about an American man that Sarah might have met through work? That she became friendly with?’

  I focused on a spot of noticeboard just over Susan’s left shoulder while I said it, but she didn’t reply until I’d made eye contact again.

&
nbsp; ‘An American man? Why? Do you think they’re . . . Are they together?’

  ‘Do you know anything about that?’ A creeping flush was heading for my cheeks, the leading edge of it the embarrassment of asking if other people were aware that my girlfriend was cheating on me long before I was, the rest the shame of being embarrassed about anything when the reason I was asking was because I didn’t know where Sarah was. ‘Did you have any training days where someone came in from outside the company? Or visits from other branches? How could she have met someone at work who didn’t work here?’

  ‘I don’t . . . Adam, what’s going on?’

  ‘Can I take a quick look at her desk?’

  ‘Her desk?’

  ‘There might be something in there that will help us contact her.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I won’t know until I find it.’

  ‘I—’ Susan looked flustered. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Just thought I’d ask. Probably better to leave it for the Gardaí anyway. I think you can expect them Monday, they said.’

  ‘They’re coming here?’

  ‘Well, they need to search her desk.’

  I could see the conflict on Susan’s face: Gardaí swarming around the office would be exciting, yes, but the workday would also be completely disrupted while Sarah’s colleagues huddled together to gossip and theorise.

  ‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘it’d be okay.’

  ‘Can I go look now?’ I pushed back my chair. ‘Her parents are up to ninety, as you can imagine. The sooner we make contact with her . . .’

  ‘Of course, yeah.’ Susan stood up. ‘Follow me.’

  We took the stairs down to the ground floor, walked towards the rear of the building and out into a modern extension: an office space filled with fluorescent lights, grey cubicles and young workers in high-street suits sitting at desks. They all looked up as we walked in. Susan shot them stern looks. Turn back around. Get back to work. Mind your own business.