by Sam Blake
She knew they needed to work out the best means of establishing communication. If whoever was in the house didn’t have a phone, the team had a throw phone, a secure private line that connected hostage taker with negotiator. She just hoped they’d be willing to talk.
Cathy shifted her position, her legs getting stiff from her exertions earlier. Taking a step forward she peered out through the gap in the sheeting. It was still pitch dark, but a light in the far end of the cottage glowed dimly.
Someone was in there.
Was it Sarah Jane? Part of her wanted to haul open the front door to see.
But that could be fatal. For both of them.
The ERU inspector put his hand to his ear again, holding a tiny microphone close to his mouth with the other hand. Their dialogue relayed through Cathy’s earpiece as each of the team checked in again.
Immersed in her own thoughts, Cathy peered again through a gap in the barn wall, everything tinted green through the goggles. Then a voice filled the farmyard and she almost jumped.
The tone was firm but calm. The negotiator. She glanced behind her. Speaking into a loudhailer he was watching the cottage closely through the gaps in the sheeting, looking for a reaction from inside.
‘This is Colm Hayes, I’m part of the Garda Síochána Crisis Unit. I’m here to listen to you and to try to make sure everybody stays safe. Can you indicate that you can hear me?’
Whoever was in the house couldn’t not hear that, even if they were asleep. Cathy could feel her mouth go dry. Who was in there?
But the silence gaped as they waited for a response. Long minutes.
At the far end of the cottage, in what Cathy guessed was the bedroom, the only light they could see was weak. Cottages like these were scattered all over the country, traditionally built with the front door opening directly into a stone-floored living area with a huge fireplace used for heating and cooking. In former times this space would have doubled as a sleeping area for big families. If they were lucky, a second room opened off it into a bedroom. Looking at the size of it, Cathy was pretty sure this was a two room cottage. Cathy strained her eyes to see through the tiny windows. Even with the night-vision equipment it was impossible to see inside, the glass darkened with layers of dirt, no doubt the frames fused shut, thick with a hundred years of paint.
Why was it taking so long for anyone inside the house to respond?
But she wasn’t going to let her imagination work on that one.
The negotiator tried again, his amplified voice reverberating off the concrete surfaces in the yard, off the steel walls of the barn, ‘Can you tell me if you are you OK? Does anyone need medical attention?’
No response.
What was happening in there?
‘Can you indicate you can hear me? Is everybody safe?’
Nothing.
Maybe it was a hoax. But how could anyone who wasn’t directly involved know what had happened tonight? How could they have known about the proximity of this location to the car park at the reservoir? Had Givens left Sarah Jane alone and another one of Farrell’s gang got to her? Cathy pulled her pendant out from the neck of her hoodie and ran it nervously along the chain.
Still calm, his tone indicating he was in complete control, the negotiator repeated his first request.
Across the yard, the light in the cottage flashed.
Cathy started, swung around to the inspector. He’d seen it. He raised his hand, signalling to the negotiator.
Glancing back at them, the negotiator nodded sharply. Then his voice echoed around the farmyard again, ‘Can you tell me if you are you OK? Does anyone need medical attention?’
The light flashed again: dark, light, dark, light. Nine times. Different lengths.
Cathy turned to grab O’Rourke’s arm. He leaned forward so she could whisper in his ear, her chin brushing his stubble. ‘That’s Sarah Jane – it’s Morse code.’
He nodded, .
The ERU inspector turned to her and nodded too, unspeaking.
Morse code wasn’t widely used anymore but last summer they’d gone to the National Maritime Museum in Dún Laoghaire: Cathy, Sarah Jane, Decko and J.P. Sarah Jane had been fascinated by the huge lighthouse lenses suspended above the pulpit and a Morse code machine. It had been freezing, but they’d gone to Teddy’s afterwards for ice creams, and she’d had them all tapping out their names and the SOS sequence as they sat and shivered in the park.
It was Sarah Jane, it had to be. And the fact that she was trying to communicate with the negotiator implied she was on her own in the bedroom, that she was hoping whoever was hidden in the main section of the house would be so busy concentrating on what was going on outside they wouldn’t see what was happening inside.
The comms in her ear were staccato, each officer radioing in. Then she heard the inspector say, ‘Keyhole, front door. Move in now – over.’
‘Affirmative – out.’
The response was instantaneous and, as the negotiator tried again, Cathy could see a black figure slip around the far corner of the cottage and drop to the ground, crawling towards the front door.
Cathy heard O’Rourke’s voice in her other ear before she realised he was still standing right behind her. ‘They’ve a night-vision keyhole camera. If they can get it through the door, with a bit of luck they can see who is in the main room.’ She nodded silently.
The figure spent a few moments beside the door, then raised his hand.
O’Rourke turned to look at the inspector , who gestured for them to join him. He pointed to the laptop screen. The camera was transmitting a black and white night-vision picture of the inside of the cottage – close to the floor, admittedly, but it was far crisper and clearer than Cathy could have imagined. She could see the uneven stone floor, a table and chairs. As they watched, the operative rolled the camera around to try and get a clear shot of the whole room. From his position beside the cottage and the view they had of the room, Cathy guessed he’d managed to get it through a gap in the door about two and a half feet from the floor. A fire glowed white hot in the huge fireplace. They didn’t have a full three-sixty of the room, but it looked deserted. Was whoever was holding Sarah Jane just out of view?
Cathy turned back to the crack in the sheeting. And the light began to flash again, irregularly this time. Flash, flash, flash.
They had to do something. Cathy focused on an image of Sarah Jane’s face, willing her to be OK, but she had a strong sense that whoever was in the bedroom was getting more distressed as the minutes ticked past. Was she injured? Cathy’s palms began to sweat.
Cathy touched the ERU inspector on the arm, whispering to him, ‘Have you got a heartbeat detector like the ones they use in earthquakes?’ She knew it was a longshot but she’d read somewhere that a group of scientists had developed a device that used microwaves to detect human heartbeats in piles of rubble; that’s exactly what they needed now to establish how many people were on the premises. He turned to look at her, giving her a negative with a shake of his head. They had one, but it wouldn’t work in these conditions? Good idea, but they didn’t have one? Cathy wasn’t sure. Ireland wasn’t exactly an earthquake zone, so she was pretty sure it wouldn’t be standard issue.
Cathy took a step backwards and looked at O’Rourke, raising her eyebrows. He understood her unspoken question and shook his head, ‘They can’t go in yet – too dangerous in the dark. They need to wait until first light.’
‘But dawn’s not for another three hours – they have to go in, the last flashes . . .’ Cathy could hear the desperation in her voice, but before O’Rourke could react the ERU inspector raised his hand. Through the earpiece Cathy heard it too,
‘We’re in. Contact made.’
Contact with Sarah Jane? Cathy felt an overwhelming surge of emotion engulf her, threatening to drown her.
The ERU inspector indicated the laptop again. A new screen opened to reveal another shot. The camera angle was higher this time, halfway up the wall, they
must have pushed the camera through the window frame. The room was a bedroom, a high, old-fashioned bed in the middle of the room, a military-style camp bed and sleeping bag on the floor beside it. The walls were whitewashed, uneven, a holy picture askew on the far wall.
And, huddled on the floor between the bed and the camp bed, as far away from the door as she could get, was a figure with pale hair. Her head was tucked into her knees, her arms around them as if she was trying to make herself as small as possible. Beside her on the floor a camping lamp glowed.
And Cathy felt every hair stand up on the back of her neck. Relief blending with fear in a potent cocktail that made her feel physically sick.
Sarah Jane.
Now they just had to get her out.
46
The ERU inspector’s voice was calm and practised as he drew Cathy and O’Rourke in close, keeping his voice low. The cottage was at least thirty yards away, and the door firmly closed, but the long side of the barn was open. And sound travelled easily at night.
‘The lads are happy she’s on her own in the bedroom, but we have to assume whoever is holding her is in the main part of the house out of range of the camera. The boys think they can remove the bedroom window, but it’s very small.’
Cathy ducked to look out of the crack in the corrugated steel wall facing the cottage, assessing the size of the window on this side of the building. The one at the rear would be the same size. It was small – just four tiny panes – but Sarah Jane was slim and fit. Cathy reckoned she could manage it.
‘She’ll get through.’
The inspector nodded. ‘Colm’s going to start talking to create a bit of noise out the front here while the boys remove the window frame at the rear of the house. It’s rotten as hell – they reckon it’ll come away easily. The lads are all too big to get through so we need her to come out on her own as quietly as possible. The second she moves, we’ll create a distraction and a bit of noise to give her the chance to get clear.’
He looked at Cathy to see if she understood. She nodded. ‘I want you around the back. She knows you, she’ll respond to you. We will only have a few seconds to make this happen.’ Cathy nodded again as the inspector spoke into his mouthpiece, ‘Good to go – she’s on the way.’
O’Rourke squeezed Cathy’s shoulder as she turned to head out, back the way they had come. She followed the side of the barn around to the gate. Above her, thick cloud blocked out the stars and the ghostly smudge of the moon. Christ, it was dark. Without the night-vision goggles she wouldn’t be able to see her hand in front of her face.
Reaching the gate Cathy could see a figure in black waiting for her across the field. He signalled for her to get down low. Glancing at the cottage, Cathy crouched down as low as she could and covered the gap between the corner of the barn and the gate. Then around the hedge and into the field. Looking at the size of the windows and angle of the cottage she was sure she was out of view here, but still keeping down, she jogged to the officer waiting for her.
The night air was freezing but Cathy was sweating now, the wind whipping across the field stinging her face as she reached the officer and followed him to a gap in the hedge. Pulling her jacket around her to protect herself from the brambles, she pushed her way through.
Givens had said he wouldn’t kill Sarah Jane, that he knew her dad, that he owed him; and then they’d had the tip-off about her location. So they’d found her, but they couldn’t take the risk that whoever he had left her with felt the same. Then it dawned on Cathy – Givens wouldn’t expose one of his team. Someone had given them Sarah Jane’s coordinates, and Cathy was sure it was one of Givens’s associates who had called, presumably on Givens’s instruction, but he wouldn’t leave one of his guys out on a limb. What if he’d left Sarah Jane on her own? Was there anybody in the house at all with her? Was that why they couldn’t see anything on the camera in the main part of the house? From the way she was behaving it looked like she thought there was someone there, and therefore they had to assume there was, but was there really?
Pushing through the hedge immediately behind the cottage, they came to a small clearing, what must have once been the cottage’s back yard, where another officer was waiting. A rusted pulley stood in the middle: what was left of a well. The sound of water trickling was louder here, and Cathy could hear the distant lowing of a cow somewhere across the fields. The area was waist high in brambles and overhung by trees, but Cathy could see the back wall of the cottage, the officer operating the camera they had fed through the window frame hunkered down against the wall. As Cathy reached him an owl suddenly hooted somewhere overhead, making her start.
The two ERU officers indicated she should sit back while they worked on the window. The wooden frame was like cardboard, completely rotten under the layers of paint. They slipped what Cathy presumed was a blade in between the main frame and the wall, sliding it around as quietly as possible. From the front of the house Cathy could hear the negotiator again, his voice drowning out any sounds they might be making. ‘We have supplies of food and water, can you tell me if anyone requires medical assistance?’
Then the two men paused, as if they were counting the minutes before the negotiator started speaking again. Right on cue he did, and a moment later, suction cups on the glass, they wriggled the entire window out. Lowering it against the wall of the cottage, they signalled for her to move in, one of them cupping his hands to give her a boost up to look through the window. Cathy pulled off her baseball cap and goggles and vaulted up.
The walls were cold and rough under her hands, the opening tiny, bits of wall and wooden frame crumbling down on her as she leaned in over the deep window sill. Sarah Jane, only a few feet away, was looking up at the window, her face paralysed by shock. Cathy grinned and, without speaking, Sarah Jane hauled herself up and came towards her. Cathy put her fingers to her lips and signalled that she should climb out. But the window was a fraction too high for her to jump up. Peering up, her face desperate, Sarah Jane gestured to Cathy that she couldn’t get out.
Silently she indicated that Sarah Jane needed to move away from the window. Cathy hopped back down, unclipped her kevlar vest and pulled off her jacket – they were too bulky to allow her to fit through the space,. She threw them onto the ground. The officer cupped his hands again, and a second later Cathy was wriggling through the window, hands out, landing on the camp bed below it in a forward roll. As she stumbled up, Sarah Jane threw her arms around her. For a second they hugged, then Cathy pushed Sarah Jane away, bending to give her a boost up out of the window. On the other side the two ERU officers waited.
Sarah Jane didn’t hesitate, was up and through the window, landing, Cathy hoped, in their arms.
Cathy next.
Backing across the room, getting as far from the window as she could, she ran at it, springing up to grab the edge of the sill, making way more noise than she’d intended. But a second later she was out, the second officer standing beside the window so she could grab his shoulder and haul herself through. Stumbling, Cathy grabbed her jacket and vest and followed the officer through the hedge. Then they were both running across the field, the ERU officer’s arm over Cathy’s shoulders protecting her, keeping his body between her and the cottage. Cathy’s chest was bursting with the cold air. Beyond them, the first officer and Sarah Jane were almost at the parked vehicles; vehicles that had now been joined by an ambulance.
47
It was almost five thirty in the morning and the lights of the interview room in Dún Laoghaire Station were harsh, boun-cing off the cream walls and polished grey surface of the tower recording system bolted onto the wall. Cathy knew Sarah Jane was exhausted, they all were, but it was vital to get everything she could remember on tape as soon as was humanly possible, before her memory started to fade, to obscure the facts. It happened to everyone, perception – what people thought they’d seen – and what had actually happened could be quite different places.
Wrapped in a Garda jacket, her h
air tied in a knot, Sarah Jane put her elbows on the table and ran her hands over her face. Across the table, O’Rourke activated the equipment to record the interview – visuals and audio from the camera above them. Cathy reached across the table and rubbed Sarah Jane’s arm.
Listening to the whirr and click of the machine, Sarah Jane took a sip from the steaming cup of hot chocolate in front of her, warming her hands as she held it. A high-pitched bleep indicated everything was ready to go.
‘Now start at the beginning and tell us everything you can remember.’ O’Rourke’s voice was warm, encouraging.
Putting her cup down, Sarah Jane smiled weakly and drew in a breath, her voice husky, little more than a whisper. ‘I really don’t know how I could have been so stupid.’
‘Just take it one step at a time. Try and remember everything’
‘It started in the shop, in Vijay’s shop . . . Oh . . .’ Having hardly started, Sarah Jane stopped suddenly, her eyes open wide, ‘Does Vijay know? Was it in the papers?’
Cathy smiled. She knew exactly what was on Sarah Jane’s mind, ‘You’ve been all over the news, but don’t worry, we’ll notify him as soon as we can. You can give him a call yourself a bit later – he’d definitely like to hear from you.’ Sarah Jane shook her head, blushing, understanding Cathy’s tone. ‘You’ll have loads to talk about – getting kidnapped is as good a starting point for conversation as any.’
O’Rourke leaned forwards in his seat. ‘So tell us what happened in the shop?’
‘OK, so it started on Friday. I was a few minutes early for work, so I popped into the shop to see if Vijay was there. There was a girl standing in the queue in front of me – very nervous, Eastern European, I think. She was filling out some form and I was just standing there, and she turned around and whispered, “Help me.” ’ Sarah Jane paused, her eyes fixed on her takeaway cup, turning it slowly. ‘I didn’t know what she meant, but she looked so terrified, kept glancing at the guy she was with, so . . .’ Sarah Jane paused again, ‘I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t talk to her with him there, so I scribbled down my phone number on a lottery slip. I didn’t know if the guy was her husband and was beating her up or what.’ Sarah Jane’s eyes met Cathy’s. She’d heard the stories of domestic violence that featured almost every week in Cathy’s job. Sarah Jane sighed, ‘I waited for them to leave and I thought I’d just keep an eye out to see where they went. I saw them go into the car park behind the restaurant.’ Sarah Jane pushed her fingers into her hair, her eyes fixed on the cup as she relived the events of Friday, ‘But then one of those street-cleaning trucks came past, and by the time I’d gone around it to cross the road they’d disappeared.’