Border Angels

by Anthony Quinn

  “Here’s what you must do.” Daly spoke urgently. “Lock your doors. Stay away from the windows, and keep your mobile on you at all times. Tell me which house you’re in, and I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  She was silent.

  “Listen, Lena. Every time I get close to finding you, along comes this man. I talked to Martha Havel a few days ago, and do you know what happened to her? Are you listening?”

  Still there was silence on the other end.

  “He forced her van off the road. Then he dragged her injured body into a Jeep. Right now, he’s probably torturing her to extract the information I tried to get from her. That woman is suffering, and all because you won’t talk to us. What secrets are you hiding? Why won’t you let me help you?”

  “There are dangerous men after me,” she replied. “The lives of women are more worthless to them than animals, and so are our families. Why else do you think I’m trying to make myself invisible?”

  “We can protect you. You can help us put Mikolajek behind bars for a very long time.”

  “The police haven’t done much up till now.”

  “We’re working round the clock.” A note of anger crept into his voice. “All we can do is investigate the crimes we know have taken place. Jack Fowler died in mysterious circumstances, and his widow has accused you of blackmailing him.”

  “I never blackmailed Jack.”

  “You left a message on their phone demanding money. Are you saying it was some sort of misunderstanding?”

  Her voice was lower, squeezed in her throat. “No. I can never have a relationship unless I repay my debts to Mikolajek. He will destroy me and anyone I come in contact with. He made me break off the relationship with Jack. He threatened to kill the two of us. I pretended to blackmail Jack to make sure he wouldn’t come after me. It was easier that way.”

  “What about Fowler’s money? You still gave his account a bloodletting.”

  “Staying away from Mikolajek costs money.” There was a note of caution in her voice, as though she was afraid of saying too much.

  “All this is evidence that can be used to bring Mikolajek to court.”

  “If I became a witness, you’d have to put me in a concrete bunker for the rest of my days. And my family, too. No, I have a better plan. One that will help you catch Mikolajek without my evidence.”

  “Which house are you in?”

  She hesitated for a moment. “Number 74.”

  “OK, I’m heading there now.”

  She hung up.

  In his mind’s eye, he pictured a house, empty and lifeless, surrounded by other vacant houses, and in a window, the watchful face of a woman in hiding. An estate of unsold houses was the ultimate anonymous bolt-hole, he thought, as much of a void in the aftermath of the property boom as an empty sea.

  36

  Daly drove along deserted streets lined with houses devoid of life, like cutouts propped up in front of each other. It was hard to imagine he was deep in the South Armagh countryside. That was the snag about every one of the unsold properties in Foxborough Mews—their views were of many other similarly designed houses. He passed Michael Mooney’s house, but there were no vehicles parked outside and the place looked empty.

  At the end of the street stood number 74, one of the final properties to be built. The house was doing its best to camouflage itself in a general tangle of weeds, twisted hawthorns, and mounds of rubble. If Daly had to choose any of the houses for a hideaway, he would have picked number 74, too.

  He got out and skirted the property, catching reflections of himself in the dark windows. Occasionally he thought he saw another shadowy reflection slip out of sight, but each time he stopped and looked behind him there was no one there. The estate seemed to absorb all signs of life, the windows throwing back blank reflections of a silhouetted skyline. He rapped the knocker on the front door of number 74 and waited. There was no answer. Had the estate swallowed up Lena Novak, too? he wondered. He scrutinized the windows, but the interior was hidden from view. He knocked again, louder, and waited as the echoes faded into the estate.

  “Hello!” he shouted. “This is Inspector Daly.”

  Getting no answer, he pushed on the handle and found the door unlocked. He glanced behind once more to make sure no one was watching him and entered. The deep silence within reminded him that he was a trespasser. Slowly, he moved about the rooms, which were empty of furniture or decoration. One thing was sure, he wasn’t going to need a team of officers and a search warrant to give the place a thorough going-over.

  “Lena!” he shouted. “Where are you?” The solid wood floors creaked beneath his feet. He stepped into an immaculately tiled kitchen where a glass and a dirty plate were the only items out of place. Upstairs he looked into the bedroom and found a bed with a carefully folded sleeping bag. This time there were no signs that she had left in a hurry or that the house had been disturbed in any way.

  “Where are you, Lena?” His voice grew urgent. She had summoned him to this lair only to perform another disappearing act. He must be patient, he told himself, and wait for her to make contact, but he feared that he was missing out on something, and that if Lena and he carried on as they were, they would be condemned to repeat the same experience, forever: she running away, but never fast enough to escape; he chasing, but never hard enough to catch her.

  In the kitchen, he pulled out a chair and sat down. He checked his mobile phone and sighed. Her elusiveness was torturing him. Not only had her disappearances caused the investigation to stall, they had distracted him during the empty evenings in his cottage. Jack Fowler’s relationship with Lena must have been a roller coaster of highs and dark lows, he thought. Exciting at the start, but terrifying and dizzying toward the end.

  After a while, he got up and walked through all the rooms again. It was the scene of another almost crime. She had been a trespasser here, a squatter, but now she was gone. There had to be a clue somewhere, he thought. Something to explain why she had called him and then left.

  He went through the rooms methodically. He was going to have to start reading between the lines. On a towel in the bathroom, he found a muddy footprint, too large to be a woman’s. He wondered who had left it behind. In a drawer in the kitchen he found a sales brochure for Foxborough Mews and a set of keys. One of the houses was marked with an X, number 68. In another drawer, he found a plastic bag with money. A total of eight fifty-euro notes, crisp and clean. He placed the money back in the drawer and walked outside.

  Blackberry brambles and gorse ran wild across the common ground. He followed a narrow forking path that he assumed had been made by rabbits or smaller rodents and almost tripped over an unearthed sewer pipe. He found where it ended in a bubbling mess of sewage and maggots, the reek of decay filling his nostrils.

  In the soft soil at the back of the houses he noticed a series of footprints. Although they merged in places, he managed to follow a clear trail to the back door of number 68, the house that had been marked with an X in the brochure. He felt as though he was searching sideways and backward around the void left by Lena’s disappearance.

  A shadow twisted at an upstairs window. Then the face of a woman appeared briefly, a thinner, elfin version of Lena. He heard a shrill, protesting voice, and then the anxious face disappeared. Was it fear of him or fear of someone else in the house that was etched on her features? The image stayed fresh in his mind. It was the face of a victim rather than a criminal. Where had he seen her before? He banged at the locked door, but there was no answer from within. He stood back and saw another movement at the window. This time the face of a different woman appeared, her eyes wide and tired looking. Her face registered shock at the sight of him. He shouted, but she didn’t respond.

  He was surprised to find the front door unlocked. The usual dividing lines o
f ownership and property did not exist in places like Foxborough Mews. He felt a chill of cold air on his face as he stepped into a hallway of gleaming marble. He moved slowly along a corridor, glancing into the empty rooms on either side. The air smelled of that odd mixture of sealed-in dust and fresh paint possessed by all new houses. Upstairs, he checked each room, opening closed door after closed door. He took a deep breath and entered the room in which he had seen the women. It had square white walls and a clean cement floor and nothing else. No place to accommodate even a shadow. He looked through the window and kept a steady watch on the street, his ears straining all the time for a noise in the house. Who were the women? Squatters or lost souls? How had they disappeared?

  He walked several times around the house, trying to light on a detail that would explain their disappearance or link them to Lena Novak. The only thing unusual was a picnic basket in the kitchen. Daly opened it and found a selection of cold meats and cheeses, and a bottle of champagne. In a side compartment were a pair of handcuffs, a blindfold, and a sharp knife. Hardly the gear for a traditional picnic in the park, he thought.

  Apart from the presence of the basket, there were no signs that anyone had recently been in the house. Whoever the women were, they barely qualified as tenants. Like Lena, they were visitors that came and went without a trace, ghosts for a ghost estate.

  He stepped outside and walked along the street. The setting sun briefly parted the dark clouds and was reflected in a hundred dazzling windows. A door rattled behind him, and the windows quivered. He spun round. The noise could have come from any one of a dozen houses. He tried several properties before he found one that was not locked. The front door of number 72 hung slightly ajar. He stepped inside. Vandals and thieves had ransacked the place, punching holes in the walls, ripping out copper piping and electrical wiring. He checked the rooms but found once again found no signs of life.

  He was about to return to his car when something made him halt in his tracks. Something about number 72 had struck him as odd. He went back in and walked around. He memorized the layout. Then he went back to number 68. He secured the front door from the inside and retraced his steps through the sparsely furnished rooms. The houses in the estate followed a similar room plan. A kitchen, utility room, bathroom, and two reception rooms downstairs, with three bedrooms and a further two bathrooms upstairs. However, in number 68, there was a bedroom less upstairs.

  Using his feet, he roughly measured the upstairs layout. He paced along the white walls of each room. Between one of the bedrooms and the bathroom, there was a space measuring about twelve feet by ten feet. He tapped the wall. It was hollow. He shifted a wardrobe and found a concealed door. He tried the handle, but it was locked. His discovery of a secret room was an unexpected development and piqued his curiosity. He had a dawning sense of danger and deception. He shouted and banged the door, but there was no answer.

  The developers of the houses may have had grand ambitions, but they were unlikely to extend to the creation of concealed rooms. Someone with a secret to hide had constructed it recently. He walked over to a window and surveyed the estate. It was getting dark, but no streetlights came on. He pressed his hand lightly against the glass and felt it vibrate. He stepped back. The window quivered like a living thing.

  37

  A throbbing sound filled the empty rooms of number 68. Daly looked outside and watched as a familiar black Jeep reversed up to the front door. He stood, motionless. The Jeep door banged shut, and a man with a shaved head jumped out.

  Daly stepped onto the landing. He heard the man try the front door, rattling it in frustration, and then pause. Then he tried again. Daly listened carefully, trying to work out the caller’s next step. A lengthier silence followed as the man went through his pockets, fishing for keys. Then he knocked on the door and impatiently rapped the side window with his knuckles. Whatever he was looking for, it wasn’t the rent.

  Daly slipped down the stairs and out the back door. He crept round to the front of the house. The caller had gone, but the Jeep was still there, the keys sitting in the ignition. He fumbled in the dashboard compartment and retrieved an Irish passport in the name of Frank O’Neill, and a folder stuffed with bank statements and letters belonging to Jack Fowler. At last, the nameless stalker that roamed the border country had a name. Daly had made the first step in relegating the man with the limp to the status of an ordinary criminal.

  He was about to return to his car and radio for help when he heard a frantic knocking from the boot. He glanced up at number 68. Still no signs of life and the driver was nowhere to be seen. Daly reckoned he might have enough time to check what was making the noise. At the sound of his footsteps, the Jeep swung slightly from side to side. Something in the boot was struggling desperately to get his attention.

  He popped open the lid and found himself staring into the dark, troubled eyes of Lena Novak. Her body had been bound with ropes. There was no noise from her gagged mouth. Only her ragged breathing, rising and falling. Her eyes fixed on his. They were frosted with fear. He untied her squirming body and helped her out of the boot. Her body was still in shock, shaking slightly under his touch. She felt cold, as though he had lifted her from a freezing river.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “He held a knife to my throat. He threatened to cut me if I struggled.” She resisted his attention, but seemed reluctant to disengage from the safety of his gaze. “It’s only a small cut.”

  Hearing a noise from the house, he grabbed her arm forcefully. Her eyes twisted up at him, anxious and surprised. “Get into the Jeep,” he whispered urgently. “We don’t have time to get back to my car.” They jumped into the front, and Daly reversed quickly onto the street. A minute later, they were on the main road back to Lough Neagh.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  She rubbed her neck; her cheeks were still flushed from the struggle in the boot. “After I spoke to you on the phone, the doorbell rang,” she said. “I thought it was you.” She shivered. “But it wasn’t. You were right. He was there all along. He wrapped his hands around my throat to make me stop screaming. Then he gagged me and tied me up. I blacked out. When I came round, I found myself locked in the boot. I shouted until my throat was raw. Thank God you came.” Daly detected a thread of affection in her voice.

  Driving through Armagh, he rang the station on his mobile phone. He asked for a patrol car to check out number 68, Foxborough Mews. He relayed his suspicions that a group of women were being held in the house against their will. He also told the duty sergeant his car had broken down. A recovery vehicle was sent out to tow it back to the station. He put the phone down and glanced at the cut on her neck.

  “I should take you to the hospital. Get you checked over.”

  “No. I can’t take the risk. He might be waiting for me there.”

  “There were some documents in his Jeep. In the name of Frank O’Neill. Does that ring a bell with you?”

  “I’ve never heard of the name. Who is he?”

  “I don’t know, but I can tell you he’s a professional. A trained professional who’s been given orders to kidnap you.”

  “I got away from him,” she said defiantly. “Twice.” Her dark eyes glittered at him. “No man will ever take me prisoner again.”

  “What were you doing in Foxborough Mews?”

  “Hiding.”

  “A ghost estate is a strange place to hide.”

  “Everywhere’s strange to me. That’s what happens when you’re on the run in a country with no identity or past. I thought it would be the last place people would think of looking.”

  “What about the other women?”

  “What women?”

  He explained how a group of women had been kidnapped from an illegal alcohol-bottling plant.

  “Have you seen them?” The tone of her voice changed.

  “I think so.”

 
“Where?”

  “They were in number 68. I saw them look down from a window, but when I searched inside, they had disappeared.”

  She said nothing. He wanted to ask her more questions, but her mood had changed. He was afraid that if he started to cross-examine her, she would run away at the first opportunity. She nodded off in the warmth of the car and then jerked awake, fighting sleep. She kept her eyes open and vacant, slipping into a trance that was neither sleeping nor waking.

  He tried to catalog her emotional state, the lengthy silences in their conversation. He was on guard for ominous signs in her demeanor. The detective in him compelled him to do so, but the changes he should have been watching for were those taking place within him. Her close presence shed a different light on the investigation, like the subtle light of the moon, changing the shape and direction of his detective work. Some things were beginning to make sense to him, but many more remained in the dark. Who were the women hiding in number 68? Was it a coincidence that he had found them in the same estate as Lena and Michael Mooney? Where was Martha Havel? And what sort of a picnic required the instruments of kidnap?

  It was dark when Daly pulled the Jeep up at the cottage. He nosed the vehicle deep into a small orchard at the back. The headlights lit up the first of the season’s apple blossoms. He helped Lena out of the Jeep and led her through deep grass overgrown with brambles. A necklace of bruises had started to discolor her neck. The sweet smell of her perfume filled his nostrils.

  38

  It struck him that Lena was his first female houseguest since he had moved into the cottage a year ago. Although the place was run-down and messy, it had been a sanctuary from women and work, the stricken­ victims and the burdened colleagues. He unlocked the door and tentatively­ invited her in.