by Finn Óg
“Just tell him before I bust his head.” Min’s patience was exhausted.
“I’m her sister.”
“Ah, you’re Áine!”
“How do you know that?”
“I, young woman, am Fran. I am a comrade in arms to the young Sam – without the arms, admittedly,” he gasped.
Min lowered the man to heel height.
“Have you any identification?” Min hissed.
“I do, brother, I do.” Fran fished in his back pocket for a wallet and opened it to display – with pride – a union membership card inside a film-faced pocket.
“I know who he is,” Áine muttered with resignation.
“What were you delivering?” Min remained confused.
“Well, that is largely private,” Fran said.
“Just tell him,” Áine snapped, her back to both men.
Fran held up his hands. “Look, I don’t know what’s been happening here, but all I’m doing is acting as a courier for an old friend.”
Áine placed her hands at shoulder height against the wall, her head dipped between. “Sinead’s missing. Min is Sam’s best friend. For fuck’s sake, just tell him why you’re here before he cracks your skull open.”
“You make a persuasive argument,” Fran said, oddly unperturbed.
“Hurry up, then,” Min growled again, “and stop with all the bollocks talk.”
“Sam contacted me asking for assistance in delivering letters – old-fashioned style – from his location to this. He suggested a curious means of transportation, but I have become accustomed to his clandestine behaviours and so acceded to his wishes.”
Min turned to Áine. “Why does he talk like that?”
“I haven’t a clue. I’ve never met him before.”
“How is it that you—”
She sighed. “I know he put work Sam’s way. I helped Sam set up the system that kept his work under the radar. He,” she pointed at Fran, “was involved in the Libya disaster – before it was Libya. He gave Sam information that led to the sinking of some ship in Egypt – I never got the full story. It doesn’t matter.”
“You’re from a trade union?” Min looked perplexed.
“I am!” Fran announced. “I am the rep for your fine country and this one, and I assist beleaguered seafarers suffering at the hands of the capitalist classes who would exploit the workers to their advantage, caring not for chick nor child.”
“Give me strength,” Min whispered.
“I have access to a global membership who can ferry goods from one side of the world to another. Now, I’m not at liberty to say from where these letters came—”
“We know he’s in Dominica,” Áine interjected.
“From Dominica,” Fran resumed without drawing breath, “to our glorious green isle. That, I did out of regard for our mutual friend.”
“So Sam got you to tape letters inside our bin?” Áine said.
“Look,” he brandished an envelope as if it were a golden Wonka ticket, “here is the one I was to leave today before being so rudely man-handled.” He stared at Min with distaste.
“How did you get in?”
“Ah, now …” Fran got defensive.
“Answer her!” Min suddenly shouted in Fran’s face.
“The man on the front door is a member.”
“Of what?”
“The union.”
“Right.” Min shook his head.
“Are you signed up at all?” Fran ventured, ever the opportunist.
“Not in my line of work.”
“So how are the letters getting back and forward?” Áine asked.
“Ship.”
“That’s why it’s so slow.”
“Old school,” Fran said. “Now, Sinead I have spoken to on the phone, in the line of duty, but I have never actually met the woman, so what’s the diddly there?”
Min’s tightened jaw could not contain his guttural displeasure.
“He means story,” Áine explained. “What’s the story.”
“It’s like I’ve entered another dimension,” Min said.
“Sinead and Sam are – confusing,” Áine said. “They have a relationship, of sorts.”
Fran raised an eyebrow. “Above my pay grade. Anyways, thanks for the abuse and actual bodily harm, but if it’s all the same with you, I need to take this and get it dispatched. I don’t suppose there’s much point taping Sam’s letter inside the bin lid.”
Áine turned quickly. “Sinead left a letter in the bin?”
Fran suddenly looked sheepish.
“Did she or didn’t she?” Áine shouted.
“I have it here,” Fran conceded, fishing a second envelope, complete with parcel tape, from inside his jacket.
“When did she do that?” Áine’s mind was whirring.
“Any time from last collection,” Fran announced.
“Which was when?”
Fran shrugged. “Few days back – three or four?”
Áine’s gaze fell into the middle distance as she started counting. “That can’t be right – that would be the day I was attacked.”
“Well, which day were you attacked?” Fran held his hands out and gestured as if to say, how am I supposed to help if you won’t tell me what’s happening?
“It’s … eh …”
Min stepped forward. “Four days ago.”
“Four days ago,” Áine repeated. “So,” she looked at Fran,” was it three or four days ago you collected the last letter?”
Fran looked stumped.
“Check the cameras,” Min said.
Áine whipped up the iPad and began hitting it with her index finger and thumb. The two men watched her, trying not to look at one another.
“Here she is arriving. That’s four days ago – the day they beat the shit out of me.” She looked up at Fran. “Well, look at that, she headed in the direction of the bins before she came up.”
Min could tell Áine was slightly hurt at her sister’s prioritisation. “Right, well, that makes sense,” he tried to deflect. “She leaves a letter before she disappears.”
Áine wasn’t happy. “So if that was four days ago,” she looked up at Fran, “and you say you collected a letter a few days back, then what’s the letter in your hand?”
“Good question,” Fran said.
Min stared at Áine, working it through. “Could she have left two letters? Would she do that?”
“That’s not strictly speaking letter-writing etiquette,” Fran chimed in.
“Shut up,” Áine and Min said in unison.
Min walked over and gently lifted the iPad from Áine. He then scrolled forward, more clumsily than she had. “Bloody hell,” he turned to Fran, tilting the tablet towards him, “you turned up less than an hour after she left it. I assume you took it away?”
Fran shrugged.
“But you didn’t leave a letter?” Áine asked.
“Well, no, as I say, usually one person writes then the other person—”
“Stick your etiquette up yer arse and just answer the questions.” Min turned back to the tablet. “Aye, so she went that way twice. Seems she left two letters on the same day.”
Áine shook her head. “Why?”
“I dunno, but there she is coming down to the car park at the end of the same day – the day you were attacked. Then she goes for the drugs, gets in the car and drives out.”
“Shit,” Áine said. “I thought for a minute …”
“What, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I thought she might have returned – after she went missing. I thought she might just be in the gloom and taking time to herself.”
“I’m completely lost now,” Fran said.
“We can’t find her, Fran. I’m really worried. We think she might—”
Min held out his hand to halt Áine in her tracks.
“Ah, right,” said the little Dubliner. “This has something to do with drugs.”
Min stared at Fran, who h
eld his gaze unwaveringly. Min noted how ballsy the new arrival was. “The drugs were painkillers for her,” he jerked his head in Áine’s direction, “after she was attacked.”
“Right, so.” Fran nodded, willing to accept anything rather than be pinned against the window again.
“Timings don’t work. She left one letter – you collected it – then the same day she left that one that’s in your hand. Unless you’ve been back in-between?”
“No,” Fran said. “That’s it, twice in the last week only.”
Min had questions of his own. “So if you were going to put Sinead’s most recent letter on some ship, where is the ship going to, cos Sam’s left Dominica.”
“Not on this occasion,” Fran said. “I am to scan it, without reading it – strict instruction – and send it by email.”
Min looked at Áine. “Sam must be relaxing. Mebbe the message is getting through.”
“What message?”
“That he’s not being looked—” Áine began, only to be hushed again by Min with an upturned hand. “Sorry.”
“Sounds messy,” Fran concluded. “And how is Sinead missing – since when?”
“What email address?” Áine ignored his questions.
“What?”
“What email address are you to use to send Sinead’s letter to him?”
“His usual one – the Charlie one.”
Min looked queryingly at Áine.
“Charlie was his little company I set up for him. It’s been dormant for ages.”
“If he’s using an old email, it sounds like he’s definitely confident.”
“Or desperate,” she said nodding. “But where’s he gone?”
“That, my new, very violent friends,” Fran declared, “I cannot help you with.”
21
“We’re wasting time here,” Áine said.
“And I have a job to do,” Fran piped up, and headed for the door.
“No chance, pal. Leave those letters here. Áine can send Sinead’s – she has the email address, and she’ll give Sam’s to her sister when we find her.”
“But Sam trusts me to deliver it and my word is—”
“My word is, you’ll leave that with the sister of the woman who wrote it and you’ll take your silly sentences and you’ll piss away aff, is that clear enough for ye?”
“Crystal, brother,” Fran said, “but on your head be it. I will have to explain all to our mutual friend.”
“You will say F-all to anyone, pal. She,” he pointed at Áine, “can get into anyone’s emails, and if you so much as mutter any of this to any other human, I’ll sling you frae that bridge out there. Rest assured, Áine will send the letter.”
Fran looked at Min, shook his head and made for the door.
“One more thing,” Áine said. “Give me your number in case I need to contact you.”
Fran took the pencil from her and wrote on the proffered Post-it. He handed it and the letters to Áine. “I wish you the best of luck in locating you sister,” he said. “Regardless of what you may think, I am – quite literally, little more than the messenger here and I have the greatest regard for Sam.” He let the door swing closed behind him.
Min exhaled noisily. “What a massive distraction.”
Áine looked at him. “What made you come looking for me? Did you find something?”
“Mebbe,” he said. “But I also got a call from work.”
“You have to go back?” Áine found herself immediately anxious.
“Naw, it was one of my tech team. They canny find ye at all. However you’ve done it, you seem to be masked.” Min was shaking his head in amazement.
“Imagine, and me a woman too.”
“Don’t be going down that feminist tunnel wi’ me – it’s a dead end. Right, I need ye tae see something.”
Min led Áine into the control room where a series of separate images had been arranged on the screen. In each was a well-dressed woman posing, but her heels and a glimpse of tattoo suggested something else. The shoes were ridiculously high and betrayed the business suit as aimed at some sort of fantasy, while the body art was ill-concealed and teasing. All shots had been taken outdoors.
“Recognise anywhere?”
Áine stared first at the women, then dropped focus to the background. She blew up the images and dragged them around the screens. “What are these – adverts?”
“Aye, escort service. Claims to be high class for accompaniment at dinner and whatnot, then in the same sentence lets you pick a nationality, hair colour and interest.”
“Interest?”
“Aye, and they’re no talkin’ aboot walks in the countryside or going tae the cinema either.”
“I see,” she said, but she couldn’t see at all. “There’s nowhere I recognise.” Áine’s head shook in frustration.
“That’s a shame,” Min replied. “I couldnae even find a green pillar box in the background tae confirm they were taken in Ireland. In truth, they could be anywhere. It’s well done, I’ll hand them that much.”
“But these can’t be the only photos on the phone – there’s a few gigabytes in there.”
“Storage seems mostly internal shots, all filth. You’re no gonnae want tae look at them videos and the like. I’ll keep going through them, but it’s grimy bedrooms, grainy shots. More blackmail, I’d say.”
“Why?”
“I think they’re taken on a secret camera, or a mobile phone. The angles are poor, the lighting’s dreadful. I think it’s all done in secret. Maybe from a handbag or a pinhole camera. I imagine there’s a bloke waiting outside who shows the video to their clients as the women leave and then demand more money to delete it.”
Áine thought of the world her sister worked in - Sinead’s motivation for helping the victims of such exploitative behaviour, her bravery at doing so despite all she’d been through. A tear fell down Áine’s cheek and she felt an arm around her shoulder, pulling her in. Unable to look up she buried her bruised face into the shoulder of a man she barely knew and she wept, in fear, in sadness and in pride.
“You know the best thing tae be at?” She heard Min after a few minutes spent sobbing into his armpit.
Áine just shook her head against his solid body.
“Work,” he said. “Work at it, build a list of tasks and stroke them off, limit the scope for error.”
“The photos?” she said, muffled, not keen to remove herself from his muscular embrace. She felt him stroke her hair and knew he was about to push her upright and she wanted him to leave her where she was.
“I’ll look after the photos,” he said. “I’ve got one of my unit scraping the data from the phone to see where it pinged.”
“You let it find service here, in this apartment?” Áine pushed herself up in panic.
“Not yet. I cloned it and sent the packet to a man I trust. He’s a real geek, no’ like you. He can barely hold a conversation.”
Áine almost smiled. “So what do I do? What’s on my list?” She found herself querying the ease with which she was prepared to be commanded by this man, the comfort in being guided – a feeling hitherto completely alien to her.
“I want you tae think about how Sinead will be reacting – how resourceful is she? What would she do? Any way she might exploit to get a message tae ye. Has she any of your expertise?”
Áine wilted a little. “She has no tech knowledge at all.”
“Ok. Well, what’s her training – will she fight? If she has been taken, will she be able to manage?”
Áine blanched and stammered. “I don’t want to think about that,” she blurted in panic. “I really don’t want to …” She found her throat swelling and almost making her choke with fear, as if she had been blocking the thought from her mind.
“Hey, hey,” Min said soothingly, “easy, now, easy.” He reached for her arm again. “What’s the matter at all?”
Áine gulped air, calming herself. “It’s just, I can’t …” She shook her
head despondently. She looked at Min in desperation, then down at the floor again, and said quietly, “This isn’t Sinead’s first rodeo.”
He knew not to press. Some seam of deep hurt had been struck and he was at a loss as to how to react. “I’m sorry,” was all he said.
Áine shook her head again. “I don’t even know if Sam knows. I can’t—”
“Listen,” Min said, “don’t be thinking about how she’ll react. Ignore me. It’s probably not important.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“It’s something we do. Focus can be helpful, usually.” He suddenly looked unsure of himself. “When someone gets taken, captured, I suppose, we make an assessment about how they’re likely to react so we can plot how any extraction is likely to pan out. The mental state of any hostage is an important consideration.”
“Why?” she almost moaned the word.
“Cos a hostage, or a captive, can right royally fuck up any rescue. If they’re likely to fight, if they’re not fighters, if they react badly to any violence – and it’s usually the case that extractions have pretty extreme violence – the hostage can run around and get themselves … injured,” he corrected what he was going to say.
“Sinead won’t do that.”
“That’s good. She’s smart, she’ll tell them what they need to know. That would be smart. There comes a point when you have to just tell the truth to protect yourself.”
“I don’t know if she’ll do that.”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t know if she will talk.”
“What would be the point in not talking? She knows the phone was dumped in a bin, doesn’t she?”
“Well, she knows it was dumped but—”
“So she’ll tell them that, aye?”
“I don’t know, Min. I don’t know. If they have her, if they lock her up, I don’t know what she’ll do!” Suddenly Áine was sobbing again. “I don’t know what her state of mind will be. She may … she might not. She might not.”
“What? She might not what?”
“She might not say anything! She might close down, or she … she might hurt herself. She won’t be able to …”
Min was at a loss, faced with mounting distress and unable to understand any of it. “I’m not following ye here at all. Why would she hurt herself?”