by Finn Óg
“Yeah, I think?”
“So I made a bit o’ noise ahead and kinda forced them to rethink, and up they went to road level. And then my new pal, the taxi man, he asks them do they want a lift cos it’s his last run of the night, and in they get!”
“You’re feckin’ joking me?”
“No, it all just fell together nicely. I couldn’t believe it myself.”
“So there’s bad news?”
“Aye.”
“That’s why you’re back – you didn’t find where they were going.”
“Naw, I’m back cos I need a few quid to pay the taxi man. He’s down the stairs.”
“What? How much?”
“A lot, two hundred.”
“Where the hell did he take them?”
“A place I’ll no’ forget.”
“Why?”
“Portmarnock,” he replied.
“I don’t get it?” she said, hunting between books on a shelf for money.
“I grew up just outside the other Portmarnock – in Scotland.” He snatched the cash and turned to pay the taxi man.
Áine was as perplexed as she was annoyed by the time he came back up in the lift.
“So what’s the story now, then?”
“They told the taxi driver tae leave them at an industrial estate, then they did a runner.”
“A runner. They didn’t pay?”
“No.”
“So we don’t know where they went?” She looked crestfallen.
“I’m sorry, Áine, but we are closer than we were. They’re not gonnae go to Portmarnock and then track away to the other side of Dublin, are they?”
“You tell me.” Áine was off. “I don’t know what the hell we’re supposed to do now.”
“I think we take it all to the Guards now, and if we absolutely need to, we tell them about me being here, and if it gets messy, we just explain that they weren’t doing anything tae help, so we had to press on. Best leave out the bit about breaking into boats and whatnot, though.”
“Fine,” she said sighing, and reached for the landline phone.
“Hello,” she said after a few rings. “I’m calling about a … How do you know that? Have you found her?” Áine listened for a moment, then her face dropped. “Yes, that’s me … yes. Yes, McKenna was here.” She looked up at Min, despondent. “We really need to talk to someone who is prepared to listen … Yes, I appreciate that but … ok. But we have information and it is … eh …” She held the handset away from her head, her look incredulous. “They fucking hung up on me!”
“What?”
“They knew me by the number, that they’ve obviously recorded. They probably have me down as some nuisance caller on their database.”
“No way?”
“She said they’d send someone if they could, in the morning. If they fucking could!”
“What am I no’ getting about this? What is it with them?”
“That little shit guard has probably got me blacklisted. I bet you he’s told them all that I’m some nutter.”
“What time will they come?”
“Said the next shift starts at eight and they’d review it then. That’s four hours away. Said they were very busy!”
“Well, maybe we should just go to Portmarnock, see if we can find anything?”
“Like what? Do what? Stare at houses?”
“Well, what’s the place like?”
“North of here. I dunno. I was there once, maybe, when I was a youngster. There’s a beach, I think. We could have a look online.”
They walked through to the control room and sat down.
“What’s that?” Min asked, looking at the squiggles on the screens.
“A load of bollocks. I was trying to piece together the woman’s phone movements.” Min stared at it while Áine pounded “Portmarnock” into Google with a force that could kill most keyboards.
“The madam’s phone?”
“Yeah. It was a silly long shot using the compass and other data, doesn’t matter. Here, that’s Portmarnock. He dropped them at an industrial estate?”
“Yeah.”
“There it is, but it’s south of Portmarnock, really. I’d say you were diddled on the taxi fare.”
“Aye.”
“The estate’s pretty big. Where would you start?”
Min stared at it. “Maybe you should look for brothels or something. If she is a madam who’s blackmailing her clients, maybe they run it from somewhere near there.”
“How do you even search for a brothel?”
Min blew out air for a long time. “I don’t know. A sauna? Massage? People must find them handy enough otherwise they’d be out of business.” His eyes went back to the squiggles. “What’s the colours mean?”
“The green line is when the phone was travelling at speed, and the compass is the direction the phone was travelling, and if you place it over the speed thing, I reckoned it was fast – in a car or a bus or something.”
“And the red is slow, so I guess that’s when the person’s walking?”
“Maybe. Who knows. Doesn’t matter.”
“As if someone got off a bus and then walked,” Min said distractedly. “What’s the yellow?”
“That’s when the phone was turned sideways.”
“This is bloody genius.”
“It’s a bloody mess,” she said, staring up at her sauna search results.
“You’ve got all that from sensors in a phone?”
“It’s a bad kid’s drawing, Min.”
“It’s very possibly exactly what we need.”
“How?”
“Well, where have I spent part of the night?”
“In the sea, far as I can see.”
Min sighed. “Is there a railway station in Portmarnock?”
Áine blew out her cheeks. “Let’s have a look.” It took one zoom out and one zoom in. “Who knew? The Dart goes there on the way to Malahide, through Portmarnock.”
“Right, then see if your wee drawing fits at all.” Áine looked at him with an eyebrow raised.
“Fits the Dart route?”
“Go on, it canny hurt.”
Áine grabbed the drawing in its entirety and moved it around the screen aimlessly. “See? It’s bollocks.”
“Shrink it down. Match the distances to scale, see if you can get it tae fit.”
Áine huffed again and reduced the size of the image and blew up the Google map.
“Start with what you thought might be the rail route and lay it against the—”
“Track. I get it. Thank you.”
The image was expanded and reduced a few times, then, like an ill-fitting jigsaw piece, it fell in beside the railway line.
Min turned to look at her. “That’s bloody genius.”
Áine’s heart was hammering. “That is, in fact, genius.”
They stared at the map. Not only did the green lines fit the Dart line out of Dublin, the red lines almost exactly matched roads leading from the station. Min tapped the screen where red became yellow.
“That’s where we need to be. Wish I had time for a quick shower.”
30
Min did, in fact, have time for a shower.
“You’re kidding me?” he looked at Áine, baffled.
“I never learned.”
“How do you get about?”
“I walk or I get the bus, or the Luas.”
“The what?”
“The tram. I, I don’t really go out all that much, to be honest.”
“And your sister?”
“She drives, but she took her car and it’s now at the convent.”
“I wish I’d brought a bike this time.”
“How did you get here?”
“Long story.”
“Why not try your extortionate taxi man? I’m sure he’d love to sucker you for another fare – or sucker me, more like.”
Min’s forehead rose momentarily as if he liked her suggestion. He took out his phone a
nd hit redial. He stood for a minute, stopped, then repeated the process.
“He’s no’ answering. He did say he was going off shift. Probably just as well, to be honest.”
“Why?”
“Cos if something goes wrong, we don’t want some hackney driver placing us there, do we?”
“Something goes wrong?” Áine said quietly.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine, but if Sinead is there – and it’s a big enough if, Áine, to be honest – and if things get grizzly, then it’s best we weren’t there at all.”
Áine said nothing. Just looked straight at him.
“What about the wee fella? The chatty bastard delivering the letters. Sam seemed to trust him, no?”
“Fran? Eh … well, yeah, Sam trusted him, for sure, but we don’t know him.”
“Well, it’s no’ like we’re teeming wi’ options here, are we?”
Áine’s lips tightened in resignation. “I took his number.” She turned away and made for the kitchen table. Min heard her lift the landline phone. There was a pause. “Is that Fran?” he heard her begin. “Yeah, I know. Yeah, Áine, I’m really sorry. Look it, apologies and everything, but we have a bit of an emergency. We were kinda wondering where you live?” Min heard another silence, then a sigh. “We’re needing a lift, like, and we can’t really rely on anyone else. And it’s important. It really is, and, look, Fran, it needs to be now.” Min moved through to the kitchen area. “We think we know where Sinead might be and I’m so worried about her. I think she’s been taken.” Min saw the tears well in her eyes as she turned away from him. “No, we tried them, three times. They think she’s just done a runner. They won’t listen to us at all. Can you help, Fran? Please?” Min moved out of the kitchen again, seeking dry clothes, but he heard her finish the call. “Thanks a million. Really, Fran, you might literally be a lifesaver.”
The first time Min experienced Áine’s wrath was in the car park at the apartment block. He had sensed it existed, but to feel its front was a different experience.
“Just what the fuck, exactly, do you mean I stay here?” it began.
Min stiffened. He was unaccustomed to people questioning his decisions. “We need someone to man the comms. It just makes sense.”
“If you need a man to man the comms, then you better stay here yourself.”
Min let out a heavy breath and looked at Fran, who was half asleep and holding open the door of his small car. He turned back to Áine. “I’m gonnae need help – but likely not there. I’m gonnae need you looking at street layouts and the geography – feeding me information. I don’t need you getting—”
“In the way. Go on, dickhead. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”
“Getting into trouble too,” he said, as calmly as he could.
“You can fu—”
“Enough!” he shouted, the command bouncing around the concrete walls and coming back to them again and again. His voice returned to its normal volume but remained resolutely firm. “I’ve come a long way, in trying times, to help. This is something I have experience of and you don’t, so either you give me a hand and do what I ask, or you make a fucking nuisance of yourself where it’s not as important to the objective, which – I remind ye, is to get your sister home safe. Is that understood?”
Áine, for the first time in her life, found herself simultaneously admonished, apologetic and pliant. “Yes,” she said, her head lowered.
“Right, I’ll be on the blower shortly. You,” he turned to Fran, “get in the car and let’s go.”
Fran turned and clambered in. Min stepped forward and took Áine’s cheeks in his paws. He tipped her forehead up and kissed it. Then he walked around the car and got in.
“Where to, brother?” Fran asked, as if nothing had happened.
“Portmarnock, please. Fast as ye can but don’t be breaking any limits. I canny afford to have some plod asking questions.”
The streets were all but empty. The homeless and the hammered from some prohibited house party were the only ones marauding the footpaths. Occasionally a staggering body would wave out an arm as if to flag down a taxi they probably couldn’t afford.
“So what’s the story, friend?”
“Min’s my name, Fran. And the story is that your pal, Sam, and me go back a long way. He dug me out o’ a few holes, now it’s my turn to do him a wee favour.”
“And this is to do with his young one?”
“Young one?”
“Girl, woman, Sinead.”
“Ok. Well, aye, we think someone’s abducted her.”
“Really – why?”
Min wasn’t at all sure he should share any information with his new acquaintance, but felt slightly guilty that their last meeting had involved him dangling Fran against a window by his throat. Besides, Fran had come out in the small hours to help two people he didn’t know.
“Why did ye come tonight?”
Fran thought for a moment. “Sam’s an honourable man. He always stood by the proletariat when I required it of him, so—”
“But this isn’t Sam we’re helping here.”
“It’s Sam’s love interest, is it not?”
“Aye,” Min grunted.
“Well, I am confident that if my good wife or children needed assistance and I was to call Sam, he would come. So in the spirit of being stronger together, I’m returning a favour as yet unrendered.”
“You talk some shite, Fran, but I appreciate that, all the same.”
“I thought she was just missing.”
“It’s complicated.”
“I suspect I may possess the intellect to process the story.”
Min looked at Fran, whose eyes remained on the road, and conceded. “Sinead works at some refuge, right?”
“I’m aware.”
“I believe Sam met her when he was doing some work for her charity?”
“Correct, through his company – Charlie, but I suspect Charlie was just him. I know about this part.”
“Well, you might know more than me. We kinda lost touch a bit after Shannon was killed.”
“Now you have me at a disadvantage, brother.”
“His wife – Shannon?”
“I never met her. I didn’t know he had a wife.”
Min shifted uneasily. “Well, you wouldn’t have – she was murdered.”
“No way?”
“How well do you actually know Sam?”
“Not as well as I thought, clearly. Who killed her?”
“It was a random. She got into an argument and he stabbed her.”
Fran stayed silent.
“Anyway, after that he was kinda freelancing, as I understand it, back here in Ireland.”
“He did good work, brother. You’d have been proud of what he achieved.”
“And he and Sinead must have got pally, like. Anyway, he took off and she stayed put.”
“I’m assuming he was evading the establishment?”
“How do you know that?” Min looked at Fran again.
“It’s the twenty-first century,” Fran began. “There are more direct means of romantic communication than the letter writing chosen by Sam.”
Min grunted. “Well, all of this mess has nothing to do with Sam.”
“Really?”
“He’s just at sea while Sinead’s got herself in a right shit fight.”
“I always had an impression she was steady-out.”
“Some woman at the refuge did a runner and left a phone behind. Now it seems some right nasty bastards want the phone back.”
“Do you mind me asking why you don’t just give it to them?”
“It’s a wee bit late for that. We think they’re involved in all sorts of mucky stuff, including blackmail. And, anyway, long story short, they might have taken Sinead to beat the shit out of her so she’ll tell them where the phone is.”
“Bloody hell,” Fran said. “And how long have they had her?”
“If they have her, it’s been about …”
Min counted on his fingers. “Bloody hell, it’s been ten days.”
“So she could be …”
“Aye, I’d say that’s a real possibility.”
“And is this, like, a criminal gang, then? One of the drug cartels?”
“You have drugs cartels in Dublin?” Min was surprised.
“We do, brother. Organised crime is a very real thing in this fine city.”
“Well, I don’t know. All’s I know is that two boys who came looking for the phone ended up at a property in Portmarnock, which is where we’re headed. You can drop me there and then get back to your bed.”
“Under no circumstances,” Fran replied.
“Come again?”
“I will not be turning tail, brother. I am here to help, and I may be wearing pyjamas under my jeans, but I am at your disposal.”
Min smiled a little for the first time in days. “Good man, Fran. Good man.”
31
“I think we drive around in a circle and gradually move in closer.” Min was using the inbuilt satnav display between the two men.
“Is time not of the essence here?” Fran seemed confused.
“Rush into a thing like this and you get your arse handed to you,” Min replied. “We need to recce a way in and a way out. People always make the mistake of only doing the first bit – but there’s no point doing anything if ye can’t get away wi’ it.”
“Sound out.” Fran was becoming briefer in his dialogue, Min was grateful to note.
They drove around the edge of the industrial estate, moving further in towards the unit Min had identified.
“This isn’t really Portmarnock, strictly speaking,” Fran said. “Portmarnock’s further north and much more upmarket.”
“I don’t care, pal. That’s where we need to get tae.” Min tapped the screen again. “I reckon we go past, you drop me round that corner and then, if you’re still game, you wait facing south and ready tae pull into the main road and away. Agreed?”
“And what do I say if the Guards pull up and ask me what I’m doing?”
“You don’t seem the sort to be stuck for words, Fran.”
“That I am not, brother, that I am not.”
“That’s it,” Min said, staring at the steel shutters of the unit as they drove past. It was a stand-alone and wide, but the outside gave no indication as to its use. “What d’ye reckon it is?”