Close Ranks

by Valerie Keogh

  The young garda smiled and gave him a manly, gentle punch on the shoulder. ‘That’s ok, mate,’ he said, ‘I often have a snooze in the afternoon after a big meal myself.’

  That’s what happened. Jake, tired after an exciting day, filled with lots of forbidden food, driving around in a big car, swaying to the rhythm, fell asleep.

  When he woke up, he told them, he was sitting on a seat in the shopping centre and there was a big bar of chocolate beside him. There was no sign of the lady.

  ‘It’s all very strange,’ Joe Mathews said, putting a hand on his son’s head. ‘But he’s back now and he seems ok. Do you think we need to go...?’

  West interrupted him before he finished. ‘You will always wonder, Mr Mathews. It is better to be sure. Another hour and this will all be over.’

  Joe Mathews nodded with a sigh and then bent to pick up his sleepy son. ‘Come on Tiger, just one more stop and we can go home. The boy curled into his father and was asleep before they left the room.

  There was an uneasy silence after they left. Both men wanted to discuss what Jake had said but were conscious of Kelly standing there, unmoving.

  ‘You were of great help, there,’ Ms Johnson, Andrews said.

  She smiled at him but looked perturbed. ‘Isn’t it all a bit odd?’ she said.

  ‘Like many of our cases.’ West replied shortly, and added, ‘we won’t keep you any longer.’

  Summarily dismissed, Kelly had no choice but to take her leave. ‘I’ll just go then, shall I?’ she said, and without glancing their way again, she picked up her bag and, chin held high, she walked from the room.

  Andrews shook his head. ‘You two,’ he said to the sergeant after her steps died away, ‘you’ll be the death of me.’

  Ignoring him, West headed back to the manager’s office leaving Andrews to follow behind still muttering.

  The two gardai on phones in the office straightened when West appeared, giving him a nod by way of acknowledgement. He perched on the corner of the desk until, one by one, they finished.

  ‘All done?’ he asked, knowing Andrews would have left them to inform all the search teams.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ one said, answering for them both. ‘That was the last group just getting back to us now. We told the Press Officer too, so that’s sorted.’

  West nodded distractedly.

  ‘Ok, lads,’ Andrews said to the two men, ‘you can head off.’

  Ian, the manager, came in as they left. ‘I’ve just been on the phone to Senhor Armando. He is extremely upset about what has happened. He asked me to tell you that if he weren’t in Portugal he would have been here to assist. It was with great relief that he received the news of young Jake’s safe return. Senhor Armando has asked me to convey his deepest apologies and has given me instructions to offer each child that was part of your party a year’s free admission to Bang Bangs! And Jake is to be offered free admission for life.’

  ‘That’s a very generous offer, Ian,’ West said, ‘I’m sure the parents and children will appreciate it.’

  Ian nodded. ‘Senhor Armando, also asked me to ask you if there was anything we could have done differently. I did reassure him that we followed protocol to the letter,’ he continued, ‘the place was locked down within minutes. There wasn’t anything else we could have done better, was there?’

  More of the what if’s and if onlys, Mike thought, before reassuring the manager. ‘You did everything you should have done, everything you could have done. Problem is, Ian, if someone really wants to take a child there are too many ways to do so. At least this time there was a happy ending. It doesn’t always work that way.’

  Ian smiled, his relief obvious.

  ‘We’re going to head back to the station now,’ West said. ‘We’ll leave you to lock up.’

  West and Andrews headed to the door turning at the last minute when Ian spoke. The men heard the words joy-ride and looked back at him quizzically.

  ‘Sorry,’ Ian said, ‘I was really just thinking out loud.’ He looked embarrassed to have been caught out but then walked over to the two men who looked at him quizzically. ‘It just seems all a bit odd, doesn’t it? She took Jake on the Bumper cars, then to McDonalds for a slap-up meal. Finally, she leaves him on a seat in a public place, where he was sure to have been spotted pretty quickly, and in case he got peckish she left him a bar of chocolate. Why? It’s like she took him for a joy ride.’

  13

  Kelly Johnson slammed her car door shut and took off with a screech that left rubber on the road and raised eyebrows of passers-by.

  To say she was annoyed would be doing her emotions injustice. She was, as her mother used to say, spitting feathers.

  ‘How dare he?’ she asked, overtaking a parked car without, she was sure Garda West would say, due care and attention. Her wing mirror bounced as it hit the wing mirror of the parked car. Kelly swore, slowed, checked in her rear-view mirror, saw the other mirror was equally unscathed and drove on, trying not to take her annoyance out on the world around her.

  She felt she’d done a good job with the Mathews, had certainly done some good with Anna. After all, her husband was happy to leave his hysterical wife in her care.

  Her thoughts turned back to West. ‘Dismissing me like I was some kind of servant. The utter cheek,’ she said, swinging her car across the lane and into Wilton Road, ignoring the flash of an irate driver who had to brake suddenly to avoid running into her. Parking outside her house, she got out and slammed the door, the sound reverberating around the quiet cul-de-sac.

  ‘And if Mr Bloody Nosey Neighbour dares to complain,’ she muttered looking across the drive to where the neighbour in question lived, ‘I’ll give him a piece of my mind.’ She stood waiting, hoping he’d appear. He wasn’t West. But he would have done as a stand-in. Typically, just when she could have made use of his interfering ways, he didn’t appear.

  ‘Bloody typical,’ Kelly muttered, turning and opening her front-door, slamming it behind her, glass rattling in the frame. Nosey neighbour, having ignored the first bang was driven out onto his drive by the second. He looked around for someone to blame, stared for a long time at Kelly’s door, always suspicious of her who had had ‘doings’ with the police. But silence had been restored and he returned to his television, muttering about noisy people and people in general.

  Kelly dropped her bag in the hallway and headed to the kitchen. She filled the kettle, took out coffee and a mug. Opening the fridge, she took out some milk. All routine, normal actions that soothed her pretty savage mood.

  She hadn’t seen West in five months and now she saw him three times in quick succession. And he was horrible to her. Undeservedly so, she thought, a lump coming in her throat. It seemed so unfair when all she was trying to do was help. And she had helped. She knew she had. With the Mathews, and the Roberts.

  She’d spent so much time with him all those months ago. They’d developed a certain rapport; at least, she thought they had. If she was honest with herself, she’d thought West quite fancied her.

  Back then. Months ago. In Cornwall. In Cork. Days when she was so messed up she couldn’t think straight. In the middle of the chaos, she remembered thinking, it was nice that a handsome man like West was attracted to her. Remembered thinking, wrong time and place. Remembered wondering, what if she had met him instead of Simon.

  And then she had returned from Cork. Widowed but not-widowed, never, in truth, wed. Coming to terms with the truth that Simon had never really existed. That the man who called himself Simon was really Cyril Platt, another woman’s husband.

  And in all the legal manoeuvring, all the meetings and solicitors and letters and explanation upon explanation, Mike West had drifted to the back of her mind. But she hadn’t forgotten him.

  Now here he was, back and obnoxious.

  He probably likes women needy and frail, she thought, remembering how pale and thin she was five months ago. How pathetic she had been.

  She’d gained the weight she
lost and felt better than she had done in a long time. A week in Malta had given her skin a boost, turning it from milky to honey gold. She’d treated herself to an expensive salon treatment, the stylist working wonders with high and low-lights so her hair looked naturally sun-kissed.

  She looked good. She was good. Most days.

  It took months to get ownership of her lovely house sorted but finally it was hers. Now she had to decide if she wanted to stay in it. The counsellor she saw advised against making any life-changing decisions for a year.

  ‘You may not want to believe it, Kelly, but you are going through a grieving process,’ he’d said, ‘whether you want to think of it like that or not. In your heart, in your mind, you were married. In both, Simon was your husband. In fact, not only are you grieving for the loss of your husband but for the loss of a dream, for the loss of innocence.

  Kelly had broken down and cried then as she hadn’t cried for several weeks. She thought she was coping. Adapting to her new situation. She was fooling herself.

  So she would make no decision about the house for the moment. She loved it. But it was a huge, spacious Victorian house designed for a large family. Unsuitable for a lone woman.

  Kelly sighed then turned and, taking her coffee with her, headed upstairs. Wired from the evening, from her altercation with West and from the coffee, she decided to do some work rather than trying to sleep. Anyway, she liked this time of night, the quiet, the calm. It was a time for loners. A time when she didn’t feel out of place.

  She went into the room she had designated her office. Windows, now dark, usually looked onto full leafy trees where she watched birds when the muse had taken a sabbatical. She switched on her laptop and waited patiently for it to power up, wondering at the same time about Jake Mathews.

  It was very odd, she thought. Why take the boy? He looked fine; he’d had a nice afternoon apart from having to pee into an empty Coke container. She smiled at the thought. Innocent child, thinking that was the worst that could possibly happen. But why was he taken?

  Of course, it may turn out that something more sinister had occurred. But Kelly just didn’t think so. Perhaps, she had planned to keep the child but the quick action of all present to alert everyone made that impossible. It must be that. Otherwise, she asked herself again, why?

  Her lap top signalled it was good to go. As it had done, every time she switched it on in the months since Simon had vanished. She couldn’t write then with the spectre of a missing husband haunting her days. His death, the deception and all the damned lies had prevented her writing since.

  Deadlines for the series of children’s books she was contracted to write had come and gone. Her publisher showed concerned understanding for the first few months. An understanding that was wearing increasingly thin. The last few phone calls had hovered nearer the, we’ve all got problems, get over it, category.

  So here she was, once more, staring at a blank screen, willing her unwilling head to do just that. She had got into writing children’s fiction by accident, had never planned to stay in it but success was a twin-edged blade. Giving up her boring day job to write meant she needed an income to pay the bills, pay the mortgage. Her successful children’s books did that but she had to keep writing them, there was no time to write the novel that she knew was there. It was written in her head. It just needed the time; the fingers clicking over the keys, letters popping on her screen, one crazy letter after the other, falling into line after line, and her novel would be written.

  When she and Simon married that had been the plan. No mortgage, no bills to pay. She could finish her contract and then start on her dream. And she had. Somewhere, saved safely, were the first few chapters of her novel. She hadn’t touched it since Simon vanished and wasn’t sure she could do so now.

  She’d had the dream for so long. Fear kept her from taking those chapters out, looking them over. Fear. Because if they weren’t good enough, another dream would be shattered and she really didn’t think she could handle that.

  Her fingers rested on the keyboard. It would be easy to churn out another children’s story. But she just couldn’t do it. Knew, without a doubt she’d never do it again. She’d tell her publisher tomorrow. He’d not be happy but perhaps not surprised.

  Kelly hadn’t switched the lights on and the glow from her laptop screen was the only light in the room. It faded now to a dim glow, its soft hum the only sound.

  What was she going to do? The voluntary work she had taken on with Offer had been a mistake. ‘It will take your mind off your own troubles,’ an acquaintance had told her, handing her an application form.

  Had she been a friend or family, Kelly wouldn’t have found it necessary to bite her tongue, but Heather Goodbody was the merest acquaintance, a woman she had got into the habit of nodding a hello to when she met her in the shops. So she felt obliged to be polite and bite back the retort she’d wanted to give. That the woman didn’t know a thing about her troubles.

  She’d pocketed the form and didn’t look at it again, until last month when she remembered it. She took it out and thought, maybe she was right. Maybe someone else’s problems, someone else’s earth-shattering heartache would put her’s into second place.

  Filling out the form, she’d posted it before she could change her mind, and then forgot all about it, so that when the phone rang three days later she had no idea what they were talking about when they said they were phoning from Offer. Confused explanations on both sides ensued and Kelly was so flustered and embarrassed she found she had agreed to go for training the following week without meaning to at all.

  On the day, Kelly considered not bothering to turn up. They’d understand, she thought. A few minutes later she had changed her mind again. And so it went all day. She watched the clock as it ticked its way down to the time she would have to leave, as though it was some tyrannical overlord.

  It was the stupidity of it all that made her go in the end. It isn’t as if she were doing anything else, she thought, putting on her coat, grabbing her bag and leaving before she could go through yet another round of indecision.

  They were running the training from the community hall in Foxrock village, Kelly had been told by the woman who rang her, a woman with an accent and a foreign name that Kelly didn’t get and in her embarrassment didn’t ask her to repeat. The hall was quiet when she arrived and for a moment Kelly wondered if she had the day or time wrong. But then the door opened and Heather Goodbody’s cheerful face appeared, ‘I thought I heard footsteps,’ she said, ‘How wonderful to see you, come in, come in.’

  Too late to run away. Kelly forced a smile, forced her feet to continue to carry her reluctantly over the threshold.

  Then the door was closed and locked behind her, startling her.

  ‘That’s everyone,’ Heather said. ‘We always lock the door for security when we’re all here.’

  Partially relieved, Kelly smiled again. Definitely couldn’t run away now, could she. Instead she followed Heather, keeping the smile in place as she was introduced to three other new recruits whose names she automatically forgot. She took the last empty chair around a scarred and not very clean table.

  ‘Thank you all so much for coming to our training evening for volunteer recruits,’ Heather started, a serious look replacing the smiling countenance of earlier. ‘Offer is providing a very important service to our local community, supporting those who have been through some form of trauma. It was set up earlier this year by our founder Viveka Larsson who will be with us later this evening. Ms Larsson ran a similar and very successful group in Helsinki. When she moved to Ireland earlier this year she discovered we didn’t have anything equivalent, so she decided to give her time and energy to setting up Offer.’

  Her set speech over. Heather smiled again. ‘Before we get down to the formal training does anyone have any questions?’

  ‘How much training do we get?’ A smartly dressed, middle-aged woman asked using her hands as she spoke, diamonds on the ring fin
ger of each hand catching the light.

  Beautiful rings, Kelly thought admiring, wondering if the woman used her hands deliberately to show them off or if she were oblivious to their effect. Her own hands were bare, rings consigned to a drawer on her return from Cork. Some day she’d sell them or maybe give them to charity. Some day.

  Heather was answering she realised, tuning back in to what she was saying.

  ‘...three hours this evening will give the foundation. Then over the next few weeks you’ll be assigned to a mentor and go with them, see how things work. As soon as you feel able, you can choose to go out by yourself. Viveka knows from previous experience that some people take to this quicker than others. Remember everyone,’ she said looking around the crowd of four, ‘we are not a counselling service. Our function is to be a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on. We listen, fetch and carry. Do whatever we can to make it easier for the person or family to get on with their lives. Our services can be required for an hour, a day, a week or longer. For as long as we are needed, Offer volunteers are there.’

  It was a fine speech and Kelly could see the others were impressed. Maybe she was too cynical now but it took a lot more to impress than fine speeches.

  ‘Why Offer?’ she asked.

  Heather lost in the glory of her speech-making looked puzzled. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Why the name? Offer?’

  Heather laughed. ‘Oh I see. It’s a translation from Finnish. Viveka’s original group was called Tarjous. She had thought of using it here but decided to keep it simpler so translated it to Offer. And if you think of it. It is exactly what we do. Offer our services. I would go so far as to say,’ she smiled, ‘we offer ourselves.

  Was it only her who felt like being sick, Kelly thought, looking around and realising it was. It was just her. Maybe she was more damaged than she had thought. More cynical certainly. But, really? Offering ourselves? Surely that was going just a little over the top.