by Sam Blake
Beside her Gallagher shifted, his olive-green waterproof jacket crackling, plain-clothes regulation issue. He was just as worried as Cathy; she could see it in his face as he glanced at her.
Cathy smiled quickly. They were all in the same boat here. Her colleagues all knew Sarah Jane. Cops hung out with cops; maybe it was the hours – it was definitely the nature of the job that few people understood it – and outsiders were treated with caution. But Sarah Jane understood, knew what they could and couldn’t talk about, had slipped right into the gang when Cathy had first introduced her one night in the pub at the end of a tough shift. At this stage she had met them all – Thirsty, O’Rourke, her housemates.
Thirsty had been here for thirty minutes now, pulling the huge steel box that contained the tools of his trade out of the back of his van. Hairs, fibres, prints, endless photographs; he’d catalogue everything as if this was a full-scale investigation.
But why had Sarah Jane left the car unlocked? The question kept nagging at her. And left her phone behind? The battery was dead – maybe she’d forgotten her charger so there was no point in taking it into work. Thirsty would make sure it was recharged in controlled conditions so they could check her calls.
‘You going back to base now?’ Cathy asked, looking across at Gallagher. ‘Not much more we can do here until we can check out her call log.’
He nodded, ‘I’ll get the car park CCTV – her ticket will give us her entry time. We’ll see if she was on her own.’
Cathy pulled out her phone and hit dial. O’Rourke answered immediately.
Her voice caught as she spoke, ‘Thirsty’s here – he’s almost finished. Frank’s heading back in. I want to go back to The Rookery, talk to Billy Roberts and Vijay again, see if they’ve remembered anything . . .’
Cathy wasn’t sure why she was being drawn back to the restaurant, but something was niggling her.
‘Grand, keep me posted.’
*
As Thirsty and Gallagher left, the tail lights of their cars bright in the dim car park, Cathy headed for the lift, the heels of her boots echoing on the concrete. She ran through the footage they’d seen on the CCTV cameras so far in her mind. Billy Roberts hailing the cab, it pulling up, him helping Sarah Jane into the back. There had definitely been something up with her.
As she arrived at ground level Cathy tried to think of all the times she could remember Sarah Jane being ill. She was fit and healthy, still glowed from her long summers spent abroad as she was growing up. But she was allergic to mussels – had she eaten something at the restaurant? And if she’d gone home to bed, what had happened then? Slug, her housemate, was in his own world, and it wasn’t one orbiting this planet, so he was worse than useless, had no idea of her movements. The other two they shared the house with were away at the moment, probably didn’t even know she was missing. Well they would by tonight; O’Rourke’s press release would be on all stations, appealing for anyone who might be able to help to come forward.
So Sarah Jane had come home Sunday night, and then what? Had she gone out again? Had someone called to the door? Had she been there when her room was turned over? It was as if, by taking her computer, someone wanted to silence her, but why?
As Cathy walked around the corner opposite the Break for the Border pub, she wondered if she could be more useful in Dún Laoghaire, in the station, rather than here. But the key with any missing persons investigation was to try to establish who the last person was that the misper had had contact with. And at the moment it was looking like the taxi driver.
Had he done something? Had he pulled over and attacked Sarah Jane? It wouldn’t be the first time a woman had been assaulted by a cabbie.
Sarah Jane was gorgeous. As all-American as could be, pure white teeth and thick now ash blonde hair with the body of an athlete. Thanks to her dad’s Norwegian heritage she was all ice-blue fjords and fresh air. She attracted attention wherever she went. She was outgoing and confident – good at hiding her personal insecurities, her fears that she’d never be able to live up to her father’s reputation as a journalist, that all her relationships would go the same way as her parents’ marriage. Not that that stopped her looking for the perfect man, but as she admitted herself, she was picky – perfect was a hard role to fill.
Cathy knew O’Rourke was pulling Traffic’s surveillance tapes on the route to Dún Laoghaire. It would take a while, but they should be able to track the taxi on its way out of the city and into Dún Laoghaire and make sure there were no stops.
There had to be something they were missing, though, Cathy was sure of it. Perhaps if she chatted to Billy Roberts and Vijay again there would be something else, anything, they could tell her that would help.
Arriving in South William Street, Cathy could have kicked herself. It was probably too early for The Rookery to be open or for any of the staff to be on the premises. She should have called Billy to find out when he’d be coming into work and arranged a time to talk to him.
She tried the bell anyway. No answer. Standing at the top of The Rookery’s steps, Cathy leaned on the ornate iron railings, looking up and down the road. It was just after ten o’clock, and delivery trucks were already parked in the narrow street, a street-cleaning vehicle, brushes revolving, cleaning the gutters. Across the street Cathy could see the newsagent’s was busy.
Sticking her hands into the pockets of her jacket, Cathy turned again, looking up at the buildings on either side of the street, checking out the security cameras. The team would be calling into every premises as soon as they were open to find the footage from Friday onwards.
A seagull flew down from a roof opposite, powerful wings outstretched. Riding the breeze it vanished under the arch of the car park that opened out behind the restaurant. Cathy watched him as, huge yellow webbed feet out in front of him, he landed on the flat casing of a camera positioned above a fire exit on one of the buildings backing onto the car park. She leaned over the balustrade to take a better look – it was pointing in this direction and looked very hi-tech.
Skipping down the steps Cathy glanced into the car park. It was surrounded on all sides by tall Georgian buildings, some of whose front doors she guessed had to be on the street running parallel to this one. She walked under the arch to take a better look. Looking up, she could see there was a camera over what appeared to be the back door to The Rookery itself. She scanned the car park. The vehicles that had been parked there last night hadn’t moved.
Pulling out her phone she opened Google Maps, looking to see which premises backed onto the car park. It only took her a moment to work out that the one with the camera over the back door was a nightclub. She’d never been there as a punter, but The Paradise Club was one of Dublin’s few casinos and lap-dancing clubs. They didn’t need to advertise – they were one of the ‘in’ places, a bit like The Rookery, that were always busy. Cathy frowned. They had a reputation for running a clean house, no drugs. Whether that was true or not, Cathy wasn’t sure, but she could find out easily enough.
The seagull squawked and took off again. Cathy checked out the angle of the camera it had been sitting on. It was trained on the door, but if it had a wide angle it might have picked up Billy Roberts helping Sarah Jane to the taxi on Sunday night.
Turning around, Cathy walked briskly out to the street and around the block. The pavements were still glistening with the night’s rain, and a man on a bicycle wobbled past her.
A moment later she’d reached the spot indicated by the cursor on her screen. It was a tall red-brick Georgian townhouse, its windows shuttered, a similar set of steps to those at The Rookery running up to a firmly closed door, paint gleaming gloss black, a brass plate beside the bell the only clue as to what the business of the building was. Cathy leaned forward, straining her eyes to read the neat Times New Roman script etched into the plaque.
The Paradise Club. Cathy rang the bell. She was sure it was far too early for anyone to be about, but it was worth a shot. She turned around on
the step, pulling out her phone, and was about to dial O’Rourke when she heard a sound behind her and the door swung open.
12
Turning around on the top step of The Paradise Club, Cathy’s eyebrows shot up as she was greeted by the guy she’d seen only last night on Vijay’s security tape, the hunk in the leather jacket who had been looking at the men’s magazines while Sarah Jane had been waiting in the shop. Casual, in a tight-fitted black T-shirt, a wide black leather-studded belt through the loops of his jeans, both arms heavily tattooed. He wasn’t the type you forgot.
‘Gardaí.’ Keeping her face friendly, Cathy flipped open her warrant card.
His eyes were stony as he looked at it carefully. Charming.
‘How can I help you?’ His accent was heavy, Eastern European, Cathy wasn’t sure where from.
‘I’m investigating a missing persons case, I wondered if you’d seen this girl in the last twenty-four hours?’ Cathy held up her phone, a photo of Sarah Jane laughing. It had only been taken last week in the college canteen.
Showing no hint of recognition, the man shrugged, ‘Maybe, I’m not sure. What’s happened to her?’
‘She works at The Rookery restaurant around the corner, she disappeared sometime between Sunday evening and Monday evening. We’re tracing her last known movements.’
He shrugged again, ‘I don’t know how I can help.’
‘Perhaps you could start with telling me your name?’
‘Nacek, Piotr Nacek.’
‘And you work here?’
‘I run the security.’
It was a bit like pulling teeth. Nacek, one hand in the pocket of his jeans, leaned the other hand high on the doorframe and Cathy caught sight of his knuckles, the prison tattoos. The vast majority of Eastern Europeans still had to do national service, which made them perfect for a role in security, but Cathy wondered if he had been up front about his criminal record with his employers.
‘We’d like to have a look at your security recordings. Sarah Jane Hansen, the missing woman, got into a cab last night outside The Rookery, and I believe one of your cameras covers the car park at the rear of the building.’
‘It’s broken.’ He shrugged, ‘I’m waiting for the security company to come and fix it.’ He paused, ‘Don’t you need a warrant?’
Helpful.
‘We can get a warrant if we need it, but businesses are usually quite forthcoming in this type of situation. Unless they’ve got something to hide.’
He shrugged, the muscles under his T-shirt rippling, ‘Nothing to hide here. I’ll check with the boss but that camera’s not working at the moment.’
‘Good of you. Here’s my card. Some of my colleagues will be along a bit later asking as well, so if you could get an answer by then it would be useful.’ She paused, ‘I believe you visited the newsgent’s on South William Street on Friday?”
He shrugged, ‘I’m in there a lot, it’s around the corner.’
‘You were with a girl on Friday, a blond girl who was making a money transfer?’
The shrug again, his face disinterested, ‘I know a lot of people, I might have been, I can’t remember.’ Cathy paused, wishing she’d taken a photo of the screen in Vijay’s shop, that she had a still of the girl to show him. It might help jog his memory.
Cathy had a feeling from what she’d seen on the tape, from the girl’s body language, her anxious glance at him, that she had been nervous of him for some reason. She knew she needed to tread carefully but knowing what the girl had said to Sarah Jane was starting to gnaw away at her. Perhaps it wasn’t important, but she just needed to find out, and the only person who could tell her was the girl.
‘I might need to come back to talk to you again—’
Nacek interrupted her, ‘I’m here most of that time,’ and with that he closed the door, leaving Cathy standing on the step. Nice.
Cathy pulled her phone out of her pocket, heading back down the steps and around the corner. Pausing to lean on a rough brick wall between two shopfronts, she crossed her arms and waited for O’Rourke to answer. This time it took him a few rings.
‘I’ve found the guy on the tape, the one in Vijay’s shop on Friday when Sarah Jane was in there.’
‘How did you manage that?’ O’Rourke sounded surprised,
‘He runs the security at The Paradise Club. It backs onto the car park behind The Rookery. I just called in looking for their CCTV footage.’
‘Helpful?’
‘Not exactly.’ She could almost hear O’Rourke nodding as she continued, ‘He doesn’t remember being in the shop on Friday. Can we lift a photo of the girl from Vijay’s tape? I really want to know who she is and have a chat with her. If he works this close, maybe she does too, someone else around here might recognise her.’
‘No problem, I’ll organise that. Although I’m not sure what she’ll be able to tell you, she was probably asking Sarah Jane the time or something.’
‘But Sarah Jane wrote something down for her. It might have been a bus number or the name of her mascara, but they spoke.’
‘True.’
Cathy persisted, ‘I want to know a bit more about that MoneyGram transfer she was making.’
‘Don’t spend too long on that, it’s unlikely Sarah Jane’s going to turn up in Outer Mongolia or wherever she was sending the money.’
‘I know, I’ll be quick. I’ll see if Vijay’s there now.’
Cathy hung up and headed across the road.
13
‘So what do we know?’
Sitting behind the desk in his office, O’Rourke steepled his fingers, his eyes on a photograph attached to the noticeboard on the opposite side of the room. That had been another missing persons case, the one that wouldn’t let him go. Cathy knew it helped him think, to focus. The day he’d arrived in Dún Laoghaire he’d stripped off the cellophane from the pristine cork board and pinned the photo of a teenage girl in the top right-hand corner. The whole station had been talking about it.
It was a cold case. Unsolved. Cathy hadn’t said it to anyone but the case was one from their time in uniform in Pearse Street when Cathy was only a student.
Lucy Reynolds had been sixteen, her long mahogany hair clipped up at the sides, the rest almost reaching her waistband. She’d gone to a concert in Marley Park and had never come back.
Cathy knew that somehow having Lucy looking at him from across the office drove O’Rourke on; even when the shit was hitting the fan, Lucy kept the fire alive. One day, Cathy knew, O’Rourke would get to the bottom of her disappearance. Even if he was retired he’d do it, he’d find out what happened to her, why there was no body. And when he found the perpetrator, Lucy’s killer, he’d absolutely nail them. Of this Cathy was quite sure.
But she couldn’t think about that now, about old cases and girls not coming back. It wasn’t an option. Sarah Jane was missing now and they were going to find her. There wasn’t room for failure. She shifted her bum on the window sill of his office, focused on her black leather boots, her hands stuck in the pockets of her camouflage combats. Her hair was taking so long to dry today she’d taken it down.
‘Last sighting is the taxi driver dropping her home Sunday night – no further contact, or social media updates after that. Her mum was trying to reach her yesterday, Monday, and couldn’t, she failed to turn up at the gym last night.’ She could hear herself, matter of fact, the bones of what they knew.
‘How are we doing on getting her previous movements mapped?’ O’Rourke knew the answers, but from experience Cathy was aware it helped to talk these things through. Batting the facts around they might spot a hole or make a connection that was glaringly obvious when you put two apparently unrelated pieces of information side by side. It wasn’t the way everyone worked, but it was a routine that worked for them.
‘I saw her Thursday, and from then on we’re pretty sure where she was – up to Sunday night. Between social media posts and witness statements we know she was at The Rookery most
of Friday, and several people saw her in the library at various times during Saturday. She was there all day – it would be characteristic for her to get stuck in and not leave. Sometimes she doesn’t even stop for lunch.’
‘Saturday evening?’
‘We’ve a gap there. Looks like she went home and didn’t leave the house until she went into work on Sunday, but we’re still checking. It’s on house to house’s list.’
‘So Friday she gets the DART to work but Sunday she drives in?’
‘The traffic is horrific on a Friday, she usually gets the DART in and the bus home from Kildare Street. Town can be a bit dodgy at night – that’s the safest bus stop in the city, it’s about a hundred yards from government buildings.’
‘Where there’s a twenty-four-hour protection post,’ O’Rourke interrupted; it had been in his district when he was a sergeant.
‘Exactly. She listens to podcasts on the way or works on her laptop. She loves the peace and quiet, and it saves on parking. She drives on Sunday because there’s no traffic, so it’s faster to get in and the DART and buses aren’t as regular. Sunday pay justifies the parking. By the end of the weekend she’s too knackered to mess about with buses.’
‘But this Sunday she didn’t drive home or get the bus, she felt ill and the manager, Billy Roberts, put her into the taxi.’
‘And she didn’t go back to her car to get her phone, which is a bit weird.’
‘Maybe she thought it was in her bag, was too sick to realise she didn’t have it?’
‘Maybe.’ There was that word again. Cathy grimaced.
‘Anything else on Vijay’s tapes?’
Cathy shook her head. After their encounter on Friday, Sarah Jane had only appeared again on the newsagent’s security footage getting into the cab.