“I can’t say.”
Jack reached across and grabbed his collar. “Who are they?”
“I’m helping you as much as I can, Jack,” Alan croaked, color rising quickly in his face.
Jack loosened his grip slightly, enough for Alan to be able to breathe, and listened.
“They brought Donal in to program some stuff onto their computer. I suggested him as he’d got his degree and all, but he saw and heard a few things he shouldn’t have and they got angry. I told them he wouldn’t say a word but Donal was threatening to talk.”
“About what?” Anger was firing through Jack. He couldn’t believe after one year of searching, the answer was right here at home, the truth resting with his brother’s best friend.
“I can’t tell you that,” Alan said through gritted teeth, spittle spilling from the sides of his mouth. “I couldn’t talk Donal out of snitching. He was trying to get me on the straight and narrow, but he didn’t understand how serious they were. He wouldn’t listen.” His entire body trembled and Jack’s eyes filled as he waited. Alan’s voice broke and the shame was evident as he whispered, “They were only supposed to knock him around a bit, warn him off, give him a scare.”
It was as though red powder fell before Jack’s eyes. The anger pumped violently within him. “And you walked him straight into it.” His voice was hoarse. Jack jumped out of his chair, pushed his hand up against Alan’s throat and forced him off his chair. He fell back against the wall, and the mirror behind Alan’s head smashed with the force. The pub was silenced and people leaped out of the way of the two men. Jack threw Alan’s head hard against the wall again. “Where is he?” he hissed, his face up against Alan’s.
Alan made choking sounds and Jack squeezed his grip tighter. Alan tried to speak and Jack remembered himself and loosened his grip. “Where is his body?”
When he got his answer, he let go of Alan’s throat and backed away, dropping him from his grip as if he were a dirty rag. He allowed Garda Graham Turner, who had been sitting nearby, to take over, and Jack left the pub to find his brother. This time he could say good-bye properly. This time the brothers would both finally be at rest.
49
Hello, Sandy.” Grace Burns smiled at me from behind her desk. Her office was a cubbyhole at the back of a planning office. Inside were models of buildings and layouts of future plans for the surrounding lands.
I took a seat before her desk. “Thank you for saving me from the angry mob last night,” I joked.
“No problem.” But her smile quickly faded. “Tell me what’s really happening, Sandy. Is your watch missing?”
After talking to Joseph, Helena, and Bobby late into the night about what was the best thing do, they all agreed that I should lie. I didn’t agree.
“Yes, it’s missing,” I responded. Her eyes widened and she sat up straight in her chair. “But the last thing I want to do is make a big deal of it,” I warned. “I cannot explain how it disappeared, just as I can’t explain how I arrived here. No amount of questions from your colleagues or scientists or people who consider themselves to be experts can help this situation. I don’t want that G.I. Joe following me around anymore either. I don’t know anything. You must give me your word that you won’t spread this news because I will not be cooperative.”
“I understand,” she said. “In the time that I’ve been here there have been a few people I know of who have reported the same thing, but we have been unable to learn anything, just as all of our studies have had little success in discovering how we arrived here. The people I knew of either moved out of town because word got out and life became too difficult under the gaze of everybody in the village, or else it was a false alarm and they found whatever it was they thought they’d lost. The two people that we did actually have the opportunity to work with closely just couldn’t provide us with anything solid to work on. They knew nothing about why and how it was happening and most of us have realized that it’s an impossible thing to understand.”
“Where are they now?”
“One passed away, the other is living in another village. You’re definitely sure your watch is gone?”
“It’s gone,” I assured her.
“Is this the only thing that has disappeared?”
This is where I chose to lie. I nodded. “And believe me, there’s no better person at searching than me.” I looked around her room while she studied me.
“What is it that you do back home, Sandy?” She rested her chin on her hand and gazed intently at me, trying to solve the puzzle in her own mind.
“I run a missing-persons agency.”
She laughed first, but her smile faded when she realized she was laughing alone. “You search for missing people?”
“And help people reunite, find long-lost relatives, adopted parents, adopted children, that kind of thing,” I rattled off.
Her eyes widened with each example. “So your case is certainly very different from the others I spoke about.”
“Or it’s coincidental.”
She mulled that over but didn’t comment. “So that’s how you know so much about the people here.”
“Only some people. Only the people in the play. By the way, the dress rehearsal is on tonight. Helena wanted me to invite you.” I remembered how Helena had hammered it into my head before I left the house that morning. “It’s The Wizard of Oz but it’s not a musical, Helena is stressing to everybody. It’s just her and Dennis O’Shea’s interpretation.” I laughed. “Orla Keane is playing the role of Dorothy. I’m actually quite looking forward to it.” I realized this, as I said it, for the first time. “The idea for the play was initially just my way of having a chance to talk to the potential cast without raising suspicions. We thought it would be far cleverer than knocking on doors and relaying stories of home, but perhaps we should have put a bit more thought into it. I didn’t realize how quickly people talk here.”
“Word gets around fast,” Grace replied, still in a daze. She leaned in further and said, “Were you looking for someone in particular when you arrived here?”
“Donal Ruttle,” I said, still hoping I’d find him.
“No.” She shook her head. “The name isn’t familiar.”
“He’s now twenty-five years old, from Limerick, and would have arrived here last year.”
“He’s definitely not in this village, anyway.”
“I don’t think he’s here at all, I’m afraid,” I thought aloud, feeling instant sympathy for Jack Ruttle.
“I’m from Killybeggs in Donegal, I don’t know if you know it…” Grace leaned forward again.
“Of course I do.” I smiled.
Her face softened. “I’m married here but my maiden name is O’Donohue. My parents were Tony and Margaret O’Donohue. They have passed away now. I saw my dad’s name in the obituaries in a newspaper I found six years ago. I’ve kept it.” She glanced over at her wall cabinet. “Carol Dempsey,” she started up again. “You know Carol. She’s in the play too, I believe. Well, she’s a Donegal woman too, as you well know, and she informed me of my mother’s death when she arrived a few years ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yes, well…” she said gently. “I’m an only child,” she explained, “but I have an uncle Donie who moved to Dublin a few years before I arrived here.”
I nodded along with her, waiting for the story to begin, but she fell silent and watched me. I shifted uneasily in my chair, realizing she was giving me information about her life to refresh my memory.
“I’m sorry, Grace,” I said softly. “That might have been before I set up the agency. How long have you been here?”
“Fourteen years.” I must have looked at her with such pity because she quickly explained, “I love it here, don’t get me wrong. I have a wonderful husband and three gorgeous children and I wouldn’t go back in a heartbeat, but I was just wondering…I’m sorry.” She sat upright again and composed herself.
“It’s OK. I’d want to know too,
” I said gently, “but I’m not familiar with the people you’ve mentioned. I’m sorry.”
There was a silence and I thought I’d upset her, but when she spoke again she seemed fine.
“What made you want to find missing people? It’s such an unusual career.”
I laughed. “Now, there’s a question.” I thought back to when it all began. “Two words,” I said. “Jenny-May Butler. She lived across the road from me when I was a child in Leitrim, but she went missing when she was ten.”
“Yes.” Grace smiled. “Jenny-May is as good a reason as any. What a character.”
It took me a moment to catch what she’d said. My heart leaped into my throat with the surprise. “What? What did you say?”
50
Come on, Bobby!” I yelled, poking my head in the door of Lost and Found.
“What?” he shouted from upstairs.
“Bring the camera, get your keys, lock up, and let’s go. We’ve got to go!” I allowed the door to swing shut and paced up and down the veranda, Grace’s words still ringing in my ears. She knew Jenny-May. She had given me directions. I had to go to her now. My excitement had gone way past boiling point and was overflowing, spilling from me as I waited impatiently outside for Bobby. I needed him to show me the way to Jenny-May’s home in the forest, yet I didn’t have the patience to explain what it was I wanted.
Bobby arrived at the door, looking bewildered. “What the hell are you doing-” He stopped as soon as he saw the look on my face. “What happened?”
“Get your things, Bobby, quick.” I pushed by him into the shop. “I’ll explain on the way. Bring the camera.” I hopped around him as he clumsily tried to gather his things, trying to keep up with the speed with which I was barking my orders. By the time he had finished locking up I was power-walking down the dusty street, aware that even more eyes were on me now, after the community gathering last night.
“Wait, Sandy!” I heard him panting behind me. “What the hell happened to you? It’s like you’ve a rocket shoved up your arse!”
“Maybe I have.” I smiled, racing on.
“Where are we going?” He jogged alongside me.
“Here.” I thrust the page of directions at him and kept walking.
“Hold on. Slow down,” he said, trying to read it and run alongside me at the same time. One of my strides equaled two of his but I kept walking nonetheless. “Stop!” he shouted loudly in the market area, and others turned to stare. I finally stopped. “If you want me to read this properly you have to tell me what the hell is happening.”
I spoke faster than I had ever spoken before in my life.
“OK, I think I got all that,” Bobby said, still slightly confused, “but I’ve never been in this direction before.” He studied the map again. “We’ll have to ask Helena or Joseph.”
“No! We’ve no time! We have to go now,” I whined like an impatient child. “Bobby, I’ve been waiting for this moment for the past twenty-four years of my life. Please do not delay me now when I’m so close.”
“Yes, Dorothy, but it will take a bit more than following the yellow brick road,” he said sarcastically.
Despite my frustration, I laughed.
“I understand your haste but if I try to bring you to this place it will be another twenty-four years before we get there. I don’t know this part of the woods, I have never heard of this Jenny-May person, and I don’t have any friends who live that deep. If we get lost, we’re in big trouble. Let’s just go to Helena for help first.”
Although he was almost half my age, the boy made sense, and so I grudgingly stomped my way to Helena and Joseph’s house.
Helena and Joseph were sitting on the bench in the front of their house, enjoying the relaxing atmosphere of Sunday lunchtime. Bobby, sensing my urgency, rushed straight to Helena and Joseph while Wanda jumped up from the ground where she was playing and ran to me.
“Hi, Sandy,” she said, grabbing my hand and skipping alongside me as I walked toward the house.
“Hi, Wanda,” I said in a bored tone as I tried to hide my smile.
“What’s that in your hand?”
“It’s called Wanda’s hand,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “No, the other hand.”
“It’s a Polaroid camera.”
“Why?”
“Why is it a camera?”
“No. Why do you have it?”
“Because I want to take a photograph of somebody.”
“Who?”
“A girl I used to know.”
“Who?”
“A girl called Jenny-May Butler.”
“Was she your friend?”
“Not really.”
“Well then, why do you want to take a photograph of her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it because you miss her?”
I was about to say no when I stopped myself. “Actually, I did miss her, very much.”
“And are you going to see her today?”
“Yes.” I smiled, grabbing Wanda under her armpits and swinging her around, much to her delight. “I am going to see Jenny-May Butler today!”
Wanda began laughing uncontrollably and sang a song she pretended to know about a girl called Jenny-May, which she clearly was making up on the spot, much to my amusement.
“I’m going to come with you,” Helena said, breaking into Wanda’s song, giving her a kiss on the top of her head. I took a photo of the two of them when they weren’t looking.
“Stop wasting the cartridges,” Bobby barked at me, and I snapped his face too.
“No, Helena, I don’t expect you to come.” I waved the photos in the air to dry before placing them in my shirt pocket. “You’ve got the dress rehearsal tonight. That’s more important. Just explain to Bobby where it is.” I began to get jittery again.
She looked at her watch and I had a pang of longing for mine. “It’s just after one. The dress rehearsal isn’t until seven; we’ll be back in time. And besides, I want to go with you.” She touched my chin lightly and winked. “This is far more important, plus I know exactly where we’re going. This clearing is not much farther on from where you and I met last week.”
Joseph made his way to me. He held out his hand. “Safe trip, Kipepeo girl.”
I took his hand with confusion. “I’m coming back, Joseph.”
“I should hope so,” he said, and placed his other hand on my head. “When you get back I shall tell you what a Kipepeo girl is.” He smiled.
“Liar,” I said, narrowing my eyes.
“Right, let’s go,” Helena said, throwing a lime green pashmina over her shoulders.
We set off in the direction of the woods, Helena leading the way. At the edge of the woods a young woman appeared, looking dazed and confused as she gazed around the village.
“Welcome,” Helena said to her.
“Welcome,” Bobby said happily.
She looked with confusion from their faces to mine. “Welcome,” I said and smiled, pointing her toward the registry office.
The routes Helena chose were cleared and well-traveled trails. The atmosphere reminded me of the first few days I had spent alone in these woods, wondering where I was. The scent of pine was rich, mixed with moss, bark, and damp leaves. There was the foul smell of rotting leaves mixed with the sweet floral scents of the wildflowers. Mosquitoes hovered in small areas, darting in circular motions together. Red squirrels bounced from branch to branch, and occasionally Bobby stopped to pick up an item of interest in our path. We couldn’t walk fast enough, as far as I was concerned. Yesterday I had thought the prospect of finding Jenny-May an impossibility; today I was going back the way I had come, to actually see her.
Grace Burns had explained that Jenny-May had arrived in the village with an elderly Frenchman, who had been living deep in the woods for years. She had knocked on his door seeking help when she had first arrived all those years ago. Seldom in the forty years he had lived Here had he ventured to the village, but
twenty-four years ago he arrived at the registry office with the ten-year-old girl named Jenny-May Butler, who insisted on him being her guardian-the only person she trusted. Despite his desire for solitude, he agreed to care for her, choosing to remain in his home in the woods but making sure Jenny-May went back and forth to school every day and formed and maintained friendships. She became fluent in French, choosing to speak it when in the village, which meant that few of the Irish community were aware of her true roots. Jenny-May cared for her guardian until his dying day, fifteen years ago, and she decided to remain in the home he made hers, outside of the village, rarely venturing to the village herself.
After twenty minutes, we passed the clearing where I had met Helena and she insisted on stopping for a break. She drank from the canteen of water she had carried with her and passed it to Bobby and me. I didn’t feel the heat or the thirst on this hot day, though. My mind was focused on Jenny-May. I wanted to keep moving, keep walking until we reached her. After that, I had no idea what would happen.
“God, I’ve never seen you like this before,” Bobby said, staring at me oddly. “It’s as though you’ve ants in your pants.”
“She’s always like that.” Helena closed her eyes and fanned her perspiring face.
I paced up and down beside Helena and Bobby, hopping around, kicking leaves, and trying desperately to channel the adrenaline that was rushing through me. Feeling more anxious with every second they spent with me, they finally felt under pressure to move again, which I was glad of, but felt guilty about.
The next part of the journey was farther than Helena had thought. We walked for another thirty minutes before seeing a small wooden cabin in a clearing in the distance. Smoke was puffing from the chimney, following the direction of the tall pines until it overtook them, going where they couldn’t go, up and out in the cloudless sky.
We stopped walking as soon as we saw the cabin in the distance. Helena was red in the face and tired, and I felt more guilty for bringing her on such a journey on this hot day. Bobby was looking at the cabin rather disappointedly, probably hoping for something far more luxurious than this. I, on the other hand, was more pumped up than ever. The sight of the humble home before me took my breath away. It was the home of a girl who had always boasted about wanting so much more, yet, to me, the sight of it was a dream, a perfect pretty little picture. Just like Jenny-May.
There’s No Place Like Here Page 29