Blink

by Niamh O'Connor

  ‘I know,’ she says. ‘It wasn’t funny.’

  ‘Could we start again?’ he asks. ‘I could maybe knock next time and you could look me in the eye and shake my hand as I introduce myself?’

  ‘Why? I know who you are.’

  ‘You know my name, there’s a difference.’

  ‘You’re going to great lengths to avoid the actual reason you’re here. Are you in denial about what you did?’

  ‘Can we lose the jargon, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘You’re here because you need help,’ she reminds him.

  ‘I’m here because I want to keep my job; the same reason you are.’

  The kid bursts through the door again, crying. ‘Mommy, I fell off the chair and banged my knee.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she tells Sexton, standing, lifting the child up and taking him out of the room, whispering soothing assurances in his ear.

  Sexton stands and turns her notepad around, sees the words ‘Tea, milk, sugar’. A shopping list. He sighs and sits back down.

  When she comes back, he notices she’s put on trainers.

  ‘All I ask, before we start, is that you don’t put a report together based on generalizations that have nothing to do with what happened that night,’ he explains. ‘You have a view of me, just as I have of you, based on the couple of minutes we’ve been in each other’s company. It doesn’t mean either is right.’

  ‘I’m a professional, Detective.’

  ‘So am I,’ he clips.

  ‘You attacked a man in a holding cell.’

  ‘You have a child running in and out of the consultation room,’ Sexton retorts.

  Her eyes narrow. ‘What was the name of the man you almost killed?’ Dr Baker asks coldly.

  ‘You think me saying his name might change the fact that he was a scrote? It won’t. I can see from your face that’s not a word you’re familiar with, suggesting to me you’re more comfortable on a yoga mat than mixing it with the kind of people you’re trained to help. Scrote is short for scrotum sack. I know you want me to play the game and show remorse, but, to be honest, he pushed my buttons. Saying his name won’t change that.’

  She reaches for a sheet of paper, near a phone, and scans it. ‘I see that you’re a juvenile liaison officer. In my experience, JLOs tend to be officers with a lot of patience, and not people with short fuses. Do you enjoy working with young people?’

  Sexton looks at his fingers spread out on his legs. He can tell her the truth, or he can lie. Based on how things have gone so far, there’s only one option. ‘It’s fantastic. My interest in social work is probably the single reason I trained to become a crime fighter.’

  ‘I take it that’s an attempt at sarcasm. You don’t think JLOs are necessary?’

  ‘Glorified babysitters? Of course. My colleagues call me J-Lo. That’s how much respect I’ve got.’

  ‘I would have thought that it was life-and-death stuff at the moment, given what I’m reading in the newspapers.’

  ‘I preferred it when boredom was part of the job description of being a yoof.’ He makes bunny ears with his fingers around the last word.

  ‘Why are you doing it at all, if you’d rather be involved in some other area of policing?’

  He sighs. ‘Since the incident, I’ve been sidelined. Yes, they needed more JLOs to cope with all the suicides in the secondary schools. I got the gig. Yes, it has added to my sense of frustration, but no, I’m not impotent in bed. Yet.’

  ‘The incident?’

  ‘The reason I’m here.’

  ‘The reason you still haven’t spoken about. The name you won’t say.’

  ‘Philly Franklin, and he had it coming. There, are you happy now?’

  She makes a note.

  ‘Don’t write that down, for Christ’s sake. Can’t we just have a basic human conversation without it ending up in your notebook?’

  She stops writing and looks at him. ‘Do you understand why you’re here, Detective, and the nature of our relationship?’

  ‘Yes, you get paid by the hour to see me, and you don’t kiss your clients.’

  She looks appalled.

  He puts his hands up. ‘All I’m saying is that if I were sitting in your seat, I could make all kinds of assumptions, not necessarily correct. Based on first impressions, you’d be a single mom trying to juggle work and childcare and not quite pulling it off. Your son’s right hook combined with a borderline Attention Deficit Disorder suggests to me the absence of a father figure, which is going to add to your own feelings of guilt about your mothering skills.’ He scans her blank expression. ‘How am I doing? I know what you’re thinking, and yes, you’d be right, I got the box set of In Treatment for Christmas.’

  She waits.

  Sexton opens the top button of his shirt and runs his finger around the inside. ‘Is it just me or is it hot in here?’

  She indicates the water dispenser and he leans sideways and glugs a cup out. ‘There are techniques you can learn to cope when someone pushes your buttons,’ she tells him.

  Sexton cracks the cup after draining it. ‘Oh please, cut me some slack. If someone hurt that boy of yours, you wouldn’t stop to take deep breaths before deciding what to do next. You’d do what was required. That’s the real world, not what it says in your books.’

  Her expression changes. He knows this look from numerous interviews and countless interrogations over the years. The shutters have gone down.

  ‘What happened to your wife?’

  ‘My wife is dead. Look, what’s this really about? Why am I here?’

  She blinks. ‘You mentioned her when you first came in. I thought you might like to talk about her.’

  He turns and looks out the window. The door opens a chink.

  ‘Why’s the man shouting, Mummy?’

  Dr Baker hurries out of the room, and it is a good ten minutes before she returns. Sexton can smell coffee off her breath. She doesn’t go back to her desk; she stays by the door, holding her kid’s hand.

  ‘Look, I’m going to recommend you see a male psychiatrist.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you make me uncomfortable.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Sexton asks. ‘This is ridiculous. Can you sit down and just get it over with? Are you going to say I’m a misogynist now as well as sexually frustrated? Because the consequences of just one of those phrases affect the rest of my career, and I don’t mean in terms of promotion.’

  She lifts her son.

  Sexton stands, his fists balled. He is absolutely furious. Catching a glimpse of the expression on the child’s face, he takes a deep breath and pulls a fiver from his pocket.

  ‘Here, kid,’ he says, trying to hand it over, but Dr Baker turns the child away and keeps him out of Sexton’s reach.

  His ‘Perfect Day’ ringtone starts to trill. He picked it to remind himself there’s no such thing and that as soon as you start taking anything for granted, the shit hits the fan.

  He rubs his forehead as he presses the phone to his ear and listens as DS Aishling McConigle, the station’s family liaison officer, fills him in. Another day, another teen suicide. This one’s a fourteen-year-old girl. She was found this morning, died the previous night. McConigle’s about to do the death knock to inform the family, bring them to the morgue to ID their kid. She needs Sexton to tag along because the family have two other teenage kids, who may or may not need babysitting – she’s not taking any chances. The eldest one is fifteen, the younger thirteen. They’re both old enough to be left home alone, but in the circumstances she wants him there, just in case. McConigle’s sorry. Foxy mentioned Sexton is otherwise engaged, but this can’t wait. She needs to get there before the press.

  He nods. ‘I’m on the way.’

  As Sexton leaves, Dr Baker hurries to her desk and picks up the phone.

  3

  On the TV, a young female reporter in a waxed shooting jacket is standing in front of Garda HQ in the Phoenix Park, delivering so
me breaking news:

  ‘This latest death brings to twenty the number of youths under the age of fifteen who have taken their own lives in Dublin in the last four months. The most recent incident was just ten days ago. Leading experts have warned parents to be vigilant, as the copycat effect is now veering dangerously close to cult proportions.

  ‘The girl, who has not been formally identified, is understood to have attended one of the schools affected in the cluster. Her name is not being released until family have been informed …’

  Nigel aims the remote at the box and zaps, switching the TV off. He stands and lifts the tray on which his lunch is perched on his lap – ham, two potatoes, a sprig of broccoli and carrots – arranged like a still life. He carries the tray into the kitchen, scraping the untouched contents of the plate meticulously into the bin once his instep has summoned the lid to spring up. He puts the crockery and cutlery into the dishwasher and walks to the hallway, reaching for the phone. He dials a number he knows off by heart on the house phone and listens to Lucy’s voice play back on her answering machine.

  ‘I’m, like, not available right now, but if you leave your name and number, I’ll suck your cock.’ Lucy laughs. ‘Just kidding,’ she continues. ‘I’ll get straight back to you … if you send me credit.’ More hysterics. ‘Just kidding. Go ahead … dweeb!’

  The phone beeps for him to speak. Nigel hesitates and hangs up. Tears roll down his face. He pulls the phone book out of a drawer in the hall table, flicks through the pages until he gets to the ‘B’s and then licks a finger to turn them one by one, trying to locate the surname Brockle.

  As he runs his finger down the list, the ink smudges in a blurry trail. His finger stops at the only Brockle in the book: Martin and Marie. He dials the number. The call connects after three rings.

  ‘Ah, hello, it’s Nigel Starling.’

  He waits for a response but, after a prolonged pause, clarifies, ‘Lucy’s dad. It’s just that I was watching the news and I hoped we could …’

  He pauses to listen intently to what’s being said on the other end of the phone.

  ‘I’m so very sorry to hear that.’ He holds the phone away from his ear and pulls a face in response to the angry blast. When he listens again, it’s only for long enough to establish that there’s no longer anybody on the other end.

  Hanging up, he redials the number, but it rings out. Nigel goes to the cloak stand in the hall and puts on his scarf and coat. He uses his big toes to push the backs off his slippers – his shoes are waiting neatly by the door. He studies the sets of keys hanging on the wall and runs his finger along them to try to find the spare for his wife’s car, then realizes something that makes him start.

  Suddenly, he bolts for the bathroom under the stairs, drops to his knees and vomits. His wife, Nancy, runs in, kneels down beside him and rubs his back. ‘What is it, love? What’s happened?’

  4

  Grimacing, Lucy draws her hands off the steering wheel and covers her face as her mother’s car careers out of control, hits the ditch and judders to a halt. Watching from her perch on a metal gate at the entrance to a paddock known locally as the Cider Field, Melissa Brockle tips a pair of bug-eyed shades down an inch and stares disbelievingly at Lucy over the rim.

  Lucy peers back through her fingers as Melissa heads towards her. Even in her uniform, Melissa looks like she’s just stepped off the set of Glee. Her shiny ponytail has been meticulously curled in a tendril that bounces from side to side in time with each step. She pulls open the passenger door and climbs in.

  ‘You are such a loser,’ Melissa says. ‘You look like a complete tart, and you’ve been drinking. Your eyes are all over the place.’

  ‘How come you didn’t change out of your uniform, like we agreed?’ Lucy demands. ‘What if someone saw you?’

  ‘He-llo? What do you think this is for?’ Melissa asks, indicating the shades and ponytail wig. ‘If I’d changed, my old dears would have copped something was up. BTW, You so scraped the bumper. It’s going to need panel beating, which costs an absolute fortune. In other words, you’re dead.’

  ‘That is, like, the least of our problems,’ Lucy says. ‘I was reading this old article online about how Red Scorpion is supposed to have, like, raped a woman as well as killed people, but they couldn’t charge him because she was too scared to give evidence.’

  ‘OMG,’ Melissa says. ‘I so told you this was a bad idea.’

  She reaches for the handle. Lucy leans across her and pulls the door shut.

  ‘We have no choice,’ Lucy reminds her. ‘We have to do it. Before any other kid dies.’

  Melissa takes a deep breath. ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘You’re scared? All you have to do is make sure Red Scorpion isn’t a psycho who wants to slit my throat, or assault me, and ring the cops if he tries.’

  ‘You still haven’t told me how I’m supposed to manage it without being seen,’ Melissa says.

  ‘You can get out of that seat, for starters,’ Lucy answers. ‘He said to be sure to come alone, remember?’

  ‘What do you want me to do? Like, lie on the floor in the back? I’ve, like, suffered from car sickness since I was two. Even if you put some kind of blanket or coat over me, if I puke, he’ll smell it. Even if I take Motilium for motion sickness, it’s not going to stop me cacking my pants.’

  ‘Yeah, it will,’ Lucy says, checking the rear-view. ‘Motilium freezes the stomach.’ She leans to the passenger footwell and rummages in her handbag. ‘Want some?’

  ‘Only you,’ Melissa answers. She pauses. ‘Don’t you think it’s weird he set up the meeting in Amy’s Wood?’

  ‘He’s a freak – that’s why we want to meet him, remember?’ Lucy says, annoyed.

  Melissa plays with her ponytail, curling it around a finger, all set to suck her thumb, which hovers near her mouth. Lucy knows if Melissa was on her own, it would have gone in by now.

  ‘So where is it I’m supposed to hide in this revised version of events?’

  ‘There’s only one place in this car you can go without being seen,’ Lucy replies, swivelling around and looking out of the back windscreen.

  Melissa stares to see if Lucy is serious. Lucy presses a button and the boot creaks open.

  Melissa takes her shades off. ‘You’re joking, right?’

  No answer.

  ‘And how the fuck am I supposed to open the boot from the inside to make sure you’re not being boned by some guy with a boning knife, Einstein?’

  Lucy points to the button. ‘I’ll release it just before I get out, and you can hold it down from inside to make it look closed. That way, if anything happens to me, you can jump out and save me.’

  Melissa’s jaw drops. She starts to shake her head, but Lucy grips her arm and squeezes. ‘Don’t even think about it. This is for Amy. You owe her, remember?’

  ‘You just make sure you tell the others what I did, OK?’ Melissa says.

  ‘You bet,’ Lucy says.

  ‘Anyway, it’s not like we’re even going to get in with all the parent patrols to keep kids out.’

  ‘They’re, like, totally an urban myth,’ Lucy answers.

  ‘How do you know that?’ Melissa asks.

  ‘’Cos if they existed, Amy would have been the last one to die.’

  Melissa puts the flat of her palm up to Lucy and opens the door with the other. ‘I cannot deal.’

  In the rear-view mirror, Lucy watches her stomp around to the back of the car and climb in.

  5

  The only thing worse than the nightmare view unfolding in the windscreen, where a jack-knifing lorry is hurtling towards the car at breakneck speed, are the sounds playing out in sync: a foghorn blaring, brakes screeching, metal chirping and groaning and glass shattering into a million tinkling splinters and shards. When everything stops moving and skidding with a thunder-clap smash, a soaring tongue of flame bursts from the place the car bonnet is supposed to be, and then everything goes black.

  T
he crash that caused all Chief Superintendent Jo Birmingham’s sight problems occurred over twenty years earlier, but flashbacks still come regularly and without warning. Like now.

  ‘Describe what you can see?’ her ophthalmologist prompts.

  Dr James Griffen’s voice is high-pitched and nasal.

  Jo unclenches her fists. ‘You wear glasses, right?’ she asks, her face inches from his.

  She heard his glasses clinking on the tonometer during the eye exam.

  ‘Yes,’ he says.

  ‘Imagine them smeared in Vaseline,’ Jo says.

  Her husband, CS Dan Mason, takes her hand. Her gratitude isn’t tinged with resentment for the first time in years. They’re rock solid again after all the problems caused by his affair with his secretary, Jeanie. Jo just wishes it wasn’t a side effect of her now needing him more than ever.

  ‘That’s how everything is now for anything more than a foot beyond my face,’ Jo continues. ‘Within that radius I can see perfectly; outside, it’s like there’s a haze or a cloud in front of things. If something is two inches in front of me, I can see fine, but any sort of range beyond that and I can’t make out the outlines.’

  ‘But that’s normal,’ Griffen reacted. ‘It’s only a month since you had deep lamellar transplants. I can still see multiple light reflections.’

  ‘I still can’t see my sons’ faces,’ Jo says, exasperated.

  Dan’s hand moves to her back. She knows he understands how badly she wants to see them, and she leans closer to him. Their eighteen-year-old, Rory, lost a friend of a friend to suicide in the spate that’s gripped the city’s secondary schools, and Jo feels useless trying to gauge how he feels without sight. Plus, she is missing major milestones in the development of their three-year-old, Harry. Motherhood has never come naturally to Jo. But she is as fiercely protective of her sons as anyone.

  She grips Dan’s hand.

  ‘There’s been no improvement. I may as well not have had the surgery.’

  ‘Your progress is perfectly normal,’ Dr Griffen says. ‘It can take a year for your vision to stop being blurry, and two for it to return to its best. You knew this before the surgery. You just have to be patient. You’re lucky. Think of all the people still waiting.’