by Shane Dunphy
I lay there, the phone pressed to my ear, staring at the ceiling. I noticed a thin wisp of spider-web filigreed around the light fixture. Was Mina suicidal? She was certainly upset. Possibly depressed. Definitely angry.
I couldn’t risk it.
‘I’ll get over there, see what the story is.’
‘Okay. Call me if you need anything.’
‘I could do with a cup of coffee right about now.’
‘Can’t help you there. Call me.’
I put the phone down and rolled out of bed. Coffee would have to wait.
It would prove to be a very long day.
Molly put a cafetière of aromatic coffee and one of her ridiculous, tiny bone-china cups and saucers down on the kitchen table in front of me. I was reading Mina’s note. It wasn’t heartening, but I would have been lying had I said that its contents surprised me.
Dear Mum and Dad,
I cannot stay here any more. I have tried but you want me to be somebody and something that I am just not. I am not happy and I am making you not happy as well. Sorry.
I have thought about it and thought about it. There does not seem to be any place that I feel right. I just don’t fit. You always treated me like I could do anything, as long as it was something you wanted me to do. If it was something I wanted but you did not, you put something in the way and that was that. I am tired of fighting. I never win anyway.
I am going away now and I am not coming back. Thank you for loving me. I know you did, the best way you could. I wanted to be the daughter you would have liked. But I am just not that person. Take good care of one another.
Love,
Mina
I put the letter, written in Mina’s precise hand on a lined page from a copybook, down on the table, depressed the plunger of the cafetière and poured myself a thimbleful. It was extremely good, and welcome. Pity I’d have to refill my cup every thirty seconds or so, but perhaps I was just being picky.
Dirk was dressed in full executive regalia, but his eyes were red and he looked gaunt. Molly was in a long, kimono-looking dressing gown that went from her ankles to her neck. On her feet she wore oriental-style slippers. They looked authentic, if not comfortable.
‘Well,’ Dirk said, ‘any thoughts?’
I knew that he was fighting to keep himself under control. There was a part of me that felt he deserved the pain he was obviously feeling. It wasn’t like I hadn’t warned them both that this was coming. But a larger portion felt sorry for him, for them both. Just like Mina, they had not been able to change who they were. They would have to, if we were to drag this back from the edge of disaster.
‘I would not read this as a suicide note.’
He and Molly visibly sagged with relief.
‘Thank God,’ Dirk said, rubbing his eyes. ‘I didn’t think so, but she’s been so down.’
‘She’s at a low ebb, there’s no doubt of that. But I don’t think she’s at risk of killing herself. She’s got something to live for.’
They both looked at me.
‘Jacob Benedict,’ Molly said, deadpan.
‘Yes. She loves him, Molly. Unequivocably. You’ve tried to quash it. You’ve told her to forget him. You’ve banned her from seeing him. All you have succeeded in doing is turning him into a fantasy, an image of all the things she wants but can’t have. They have discussed marriage. There’s a whole scenario they’ve created for themselves: where they’ll live, what work they’ll do … she’s seventeen, he’s not much older; the likelihood of them remaining together is slim, but all this adversity has pushed them closer. You need to give them a chance to try.’
Dirk looked at Molly, then back at me. He cleared his throat and straightened his tie.
‘Can you find her?’
‘I have no idea. But I’ll try. How long has she been gone?’
‘She keyed in the alarm code at 12.30 a.m., according to the machine’s computer.’
‘If I bring her back, will you allow her to see Jacob? There’s not much point if you don’t. She’ll just go again, and each time she’ll find somewhere better to hide. And, while she’s not a suicide risk now, that doesn’t mean she can’t become one. And there are many other risks where she’s going. I won’t bullshit you, I am worried about her.’
‘We’ll facilitate them in pursuing their relationship,’ Dirk said quietly. ‘I just want my daughter back. I want to see her smile again. I want her to look at me like she used to: with love, not accusation in her eyes. You were right. I’m man enough to say it. You were right, and I’m sorry. But, please, use all your resources to bring her back to me. To us.’
I poured my tenth cup of coffee, drained it and stood up.
‘I’m going to go home, to get a shower and some breakfast. Then, when the rest of the world wakes up, I’ll go and look for her. There’s still the chance she’ll come home by herself. I don’t think it’s likely, but I wouldn’t write it off completely.’
‘Just find her,’ Molly said. ‘Please.’
‘I’ll do my best. But it’s very hard to find someone who doesn’t want to be found.’
Jacob didn’t know where she was.
I was over at the workshop, which seemed to be the most sensible place to begin. I sat with him in their canteen. Ellen was beside him. Brendan beside her. Nobody had any ideas, and nobody developed any while I was there. Jacob had his head bowed, refusing to look at anyone.
‘I ain’t seen her. Not since she stopped comin’ here. You know that, ’cause I told you a few days ago.’
‘I was just wondering if she had been in touch with you. She’s run away from home again, Jacob, and I’m trying to find her. Her mum and dad have told me that they don’t mind you two being boyfriend and girlfriend, just so long as she comes home.’
‘They say that now ’cause they wants her to come back. They don’t mean it.’
‘I think they do, this time.’
He shrugged and continued to stare at the table.
‘I think that’s all you’re going to get here, Shane,’ Brendan said, sweat glistening on his brow. The back of his shirt was plastered to his back. It was just nine thirty, and I wondered what kind of condition he’d be in by midday. ‘You can run along, Jacob. Thanks for your help.’
Jacob stood up and walked briskly from the room without looking back.
‘There. Are you satisfied, Shane?’ Brendan said, trying to look smug and not succeeding. ‘I told you you’d get nothing from him. He’s a morose young man, at the best of times. I don’t know where you got the idea that he and Mina had a connection. They rarely even look at one another here.’
‘They’re putting on a performance, Brendan, that’s why they don’t seem to be close,’ I said, feeling tired. ‘He’s angry, now, angry as hell. He came to me, I told him I’d help him and I’ve let him and Mina down.’
‘Aren’t you overstating things?’ Ellen said. ‘I’m not sure they’re capable of the kind of sneaking around you’re suggesting.’
I stood up, shaking my head. ‘Will you call me if you hear anything?’
Brendan and Ellen nodded, looking at one another in bewilderment.
At eleven thirty I was standing at the bar of The Sailing Cot. The same barman told me categorically that he had not seen Mina, and that she would not be welcome if he did. I left him my number and asked him to call me if she showed up, but I wasn’t confident. I hadn’t made any friends on my last visit.
I left the bar and walked back to where the Austin nestled against the high edge of the footpath. I leant against the bonnet and lit my fifteenth cigarette of the day, realizing that, for all my good intentions, I was out of ideas. My only two reasonable avenues of enquiry were Jacob and the dingy bar behind me. I could trawl through the rest of the dives in the city, but that would take weeks, and would probably result in nothing. Mina had spent the night somewhere, and something told me that she hadn’t slept rough. The thin man I had met her with before was probably one of a network of contacts she
had in the strange underworld to which she fled. I needed someone else who knew their way around this grim landscape. I knew someone who fitted the bill, but I was reluctant to contact him. You never knew what can of worms you would be opening up when you asked for his services. He was unorthodox and spectacularly unpredictable. But I was out of serviceable options. I took my mobile from my pocket, and pulled a number out of the phonebook.
‘Can I speak to Devereux?’
Karl Devereux is a Community Worker from Blackalley, an area not unlike Haroldstown, but on the other side of the city and possibly more troubled. So far as I could tell from the complex mythology that has sprung up about him, Devereux was born to an alcoholic mother who never saw him as anything other than a burden. He did not know who his father was, and fell in with a youth gang when he was eight years old. Graduating from runner to gang enforcer by the time he was sixteen, he went freelance in his twenties, working for several criminal enterprises as well as a certain republican terrorist organization whenever they required his particular skills in the Republic. He was without the restriction of any kind of political ideology or any discernible qualms of morality, which made him an extremely sought-after professional in his particular field: general thuggery of all kinds, with a bit of shooting and explosives work thrown in for good measure.
Eventually, when his career was at its height, Devereux was arrested, more than likely through information tendered by a jealous competitor. Evidence had been planted at a crime scene; testimony was given by a previous employer who happened to be behind bars and wished to alleviate his sentence; Devereux went down. The crime he was convicted of (and he never for a second said that he didn’t do it – he refused, in fact, to say anything at all throughout his trial) had been carried out for a private operator, and since he was not actually a member of the IRA, he got none of the privileges of a prisoner of war. The Good Friday Agreement did him no favours. He served his time with common criminals, and he did it quietly and without trouble. He had enough of a reputation to be feared, and therefore was left alone. But prison had other effects on him.
Irish prisons are not pleasant places. Mountjoy, which is where Devereux did the bulk of his time, is a foul, overcrowded, inhuman institution, well known for its high incidence of drug addiction, for the mindless violence that seems to be so commonplace within its walls and for the regular suicide attempts of its inmates. It is not known for its ability to rehabilitate career criminals. Yet Devereux came out a changed man.
No one really knows what happened to him in Mountjoy. He served eight years of a ten-year sentence and nothing earth-shattering happened during that time. There were a couple of riots in ‘The Joy’, in none of which he participated. He worked for a time in the laundry, had responsibility for the prison library for two years, and is said to have conducted himself competently, but without distinction, at these tasks. He took a course in Sociology and another in Irish History, through the Prison Education Scheme, although he did not sit exams for either. I have spoken to the tutors of these courses, and they tell me that Devereux rarely spoke up in class, but that when he did he displayed a level of comprehension far above that of the other students, and would certainly have achieved certification in the higher percentiles. It has been suggested that he found Jesus, but he was not seen to regularly attend the prison chapel, and the Catholic chaplain is on the record as stating that he never had a single conversation with the quiet, dark-eyed man whom the other prisoners tended to steer clear of.
Whatever occurred, Devereux emerged from the walls of Ireland’s toughest penal institution a reformed character. He returned to Blackalley, and gradually began to do voluntary work for the Community Services in the area where he had grown up: assisting in the running of youth clubs; helping out with Meals on Wheels; doing outreach work with prostitutes; driving buses for the Irish Wheelchair Association; working night-shifts at the homeless shelter – and never accepting a penny for any of it, despite being offered full-time posts with several local organizations. He seemed to enjoy the freedom of being a freelancer (a remnant, possibly, of his earlier incarnation) and, while he worked out of an office in the main community centre, he continued to live off social welfare and spread his interests among the local voluntary groups, all of whom welcomed him as a much needed pair of hands. Devereux never hid his history, wore it like a badge of honour, in fact. Here was a man who had been there, had come up on the very streets where he now worked, taken the dark road, paid for it, and was now going to give something back.
Karl Devereux was maybe forty years old, with long black hair, combed straight back, and an angular, clean-shaven face. He was dressed in jeans, a denim shirt and a grey, light linen jacket. He wore no rings or watch, and his shoes, which I could see because he had them propped up on his office desk, were plain black leather. There was not a pick of spare flesh on him, and, when he moved, which was only when he had to, it was with the grace of a dancer. His eyes were a cold, pale blue.
I finished telling him about Mina, and he nodded, slowly.
‘She hasn’t returned? You’ve checked with her parents?’ His voice was without accent, deep and rich.
‘I called them just before I arrived. They haven’t heard from her.’
‘You said she’s run before. Is this the longest she’s been away?’
‘I think so. It’s usually just overnight.’
He nodded again, but I could tell he was elsewhere, running over possibilities in his head. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the city, particularly the parts most others did not know.
‘There are several things that spring to mind.’
‘So you’ll help me?’
He nodded as he continued speaking. ‘There is a market for young girls of her … appearance … there are those who will pay handsomely for them. She may already have been taken to be trafficked out of the country.’
‘It’s never happened before. I think she goes to the same people each time she runs away from home. They’re probably using her, but I don’t think she’s in danger of being taken out of the country.’
‘Let’s hope not, but it’s sensible to be prepared for every eventuality. Her people are wealthy?’
‘Yes.’
‘There are those who would find her, if her father was prepared to pay for it. I could give him some names of reliable men.’
‘You mean mercenaries or private investigators.’
‘People who know how to do that kind of work, yes.’
‘Well, if we fail, that may just be something to consider.’
Devereux stood up in a fluid motion – one moment he was sitting with his legs up on the desk, the next he was standing with his hand outstretched.
‘If she’s still in the city, I’ll find her. Should it turn out that she’s been moved, I know people who can find her, as there’s money to be had for doing it. Tell her family not to worry.’
I shook his hand, which was very dry to the touch.
‘I wish there really was nothing to worry about, Devereux. I honestly do.’
He smiled, which actually looked sort of sad.
‘She’s undoubtedly in danger. But we’ll bring her back. After that, it’s up to them to help her sort through whatever it is that’s causing her pain. And she’ll have to do some work herself. There’s only so much others can do for her. Ultimately, it’ll be up to her.’
I walked to the door of his small office.
‘Call me as soon as you’ve got anything.’
‘When I’ve found her, you’ll know.’
‘Don’t pick her up without me. She’ll need a familiar face.’
‘As you wish.’
I walked through the main office and out to the car-park, wondering what I’d unleashed.
It was early afternoon when I finished with Devereux, and, after ringing the Henrys to inform them of my (lack of) progress, I drove over to Haroldstown to see the Walshes. I was due a visit, and, on a more selfish note, I wanted to do somethi
ng that would take my mind off Mina and her plight.
I had decided that I would act on Benjamin’s advice and stop beating about the bush, surreptitiously attempting to build a case for or against the reality or unreality of the haunting. I was going to approach the issue head-on.
When I got to the house, I called Biddy aside.
‘I want to go out the back with the boys today, Biddy. We’ve played games around this for long enough. I want to see what goes on out there.’
‘I’ve told you before, I don’t want that.’
We were standing in the dark hallway. I could hear the sound of the television from the living room, a cartoon playing loudly.
‘Do you want me to help them, Biddy?’
She looked at her shoes, a battle clearly going on in her face.
‘All right, don’t do anything to scare him, okay?’
‘I promise I’m not going to cause a fuss. It doesn’t really matter whether I believe in what’s happening in the garden or not. What matters is what it’s doing to your sons. I want to see how they are when they’re with him.’
She nodded and gestured towards the door of the living room. ‘Go and do what you have to do.’
Bobby and Micky gave me a warm welcome, chatting excitedly about a trip they had taken with their mother and aunt to the park the day before. I looked at some pictures they had drawn for me of them on the swings and slides (I had been encouraging them to record as much of their lives as possible through a variety of media) and then I agreed to watch the rest of the cartoon with them before we began the session.
When the cartoon had finished, I switched off the box, and we sat down on the floor, facing each other.
‘I want to meet your dad today, boys. I’d like you to bring me out with you, and introduce me. I think it’s time. We’ve talked a lot about him. Now maybe you can show me.’
They looked at me gravely, then at each other.
‘He don’just come. He calls to us when he wants to see us,’ Bobby said. ‘He might not come for you.’
‘He calls to me,’ Micky said firmly.
‘Well, can’t you call him? Won’t he come if you want him to?’