8

She nodded, this time without embarrassment. “Ok, so when did Siobhan disappear?”

“Saturday. We’d been fighting all morning and—” “Fighting?” I interrupted.

“Yes, fighting. She wanted to go to Donegal. She didn’t want to be here. She was bored. But there was no way I was going to let her have the run of that house on her own. She was screaming at me. She said that I treated her like a baby. That I didn’t love her.”

I nodded sympathetically.

“She said she felt like a prisoner here in the hotel,” Bridget said.

“What happened then?”

“She stormed out of the room.” “And then?”

“I caught her at the elevator. I asked her where she thought she was going.”

“What did she say?”

“She said she was going to the Malt Shop to get a drink, a milk shake.”

“You let her go?” I asked.

“It’s just a few blocks from here. She’d gone a couple of times before. I thought it would let her cool off. It’s been so tedious for her here. And besides, I think there was a boy she’d seen or something.”

“What boy?”

“One time we went for breakfast there was a boy there, she told me she thought he was cute.”

“You get a good look at him?” I asked. Bridget shook her head.

“Excuse me for a moment, Michael, my head is killing me,” she said. She picked up the phone and said, “I need some aspirin, please.”

In a few seconds the white guy from the elevator came in with aspirin. She took two, gave him the bottle back, and he left. She swallowed the pills, looked at me.

“Where were we?” she asked.

“She went to the Malt Shop. Maybe she was meeting that boy?”

“I don’t know about that. It’s just one of those places where kids hang out.”

“Did you tell the police about the boy?” “Of course.”

“Ok, so she went to this Malt Shop, what time at?”

“I don’t know, it was the morning, maybe around eleven.” “What happened next?”

“She didn’t come back,” Bridget said, fighting back tears. “What did you do?”

“Michael, she begged me not to have Ryan follow her, she said it made her feel like she was being watched all the time. She made me promise, and I told Moran to call him off. If he’d been watching her, maybe…”

“It might have made no difference,” I said trying to be reassuring.

She sighed. It was interesting watching her move between these aspects of herself. Between the mother, the businesswoman, the mob boss. Was she aware that her voice changed pitch, that her head lowered when she was talking about Siobhan?

I gave her a moment to embrace all those feelings of guilt and loss, and then I continued.

“Back to Saturday, what happened next?” I asked.

“I waited a few hours, and I sent a couple of my boys down to fetch her, but she wasn’t there and no one had seen her.”

“And then what?”

“I called the cops. They came immediately. They said that she had probably just run away and she’d be back before dark. But she didn’t come back, so they sent a team of detectives out looking for her. She didn’t come back all night.”

“Has she ever run away before?” Bridget closed her eyes.

“One time in the city, she skipped school and didn’t come back until ten o’clock.”

“Why did she run away that time?”

“Oh, it was the stupidest thing, the school was having a trip to the Galápagos.”

“The Galápagos?” I said surprised. “It’s a fancy school.”

“Sorry, please continue.”

“Well, we made a deal and I said she could go if she maintained a B average, and she hates math and she got a D in math, and I said she couldn’t go.”

“You’re pretty hard-core,” I said, but with a smile to show that I approved of her setting limits, since both of us could have done with some when we were that age.

“No,” she said to herself. “You can never win.”

“What exactly happened on that occasion in New York?”

“She called me from school on her cell and she said that this was the last day to sign up for the trip and what was I going to do about it. I told her that we had discussed this and she wasn’t going. So she said ‘I hate you,’ and she hung up the phone and she didn’t come back from school. She left a message on the machine that she was running away, she was taking a bus from Penn Station. I went crazy. I got everyone

who worked for me down to Penn Station, dozens of guys, I called the police, I called Greyhound, but she’d never even gone there. She’d spent the whole day in Washington Square Park playing chess with all those crazy people down there. And then she’d gone to some café and called her friend Sue, and told her she was running away, and Sue told her that I was frantic and she should go home.”

“She came home after that?”

“Yeah, she came home at about ten o’clock.”

“Did she call Sue this time? Did she call anybody?”

“No. She didn’t make any calls on her cell that day. And the police told me that according to Verizon that was very unusual.”

“How many calls did she make on a normal day?” “About a dozen.”

“And none on the day she disappeared?” “No.”

“Hmmm.”

“What does it sound like to you?”

“I don’t know,” I said, although the lack of phone calls scared me. That made it sound a bit premeditated. That boy had told her not to call anyone in case she got cold feet. It seemed to make it more likely that the boy was the agent for the kidnappers. Either that or he’d planned to run off with her, or rape her, or whatever, and then he’d found out who she was and panicked. Perhaps killed her and faked that note to throw the police off the scent.

I took a pad from the writing desk, grabbed a hotel pen. “You better tell me details.”

“Like what?”

“For starters, everything you remember about the boy.” “You think the boy might be involved?”

“Describe him.”

“I didn’t even really look at him. A teenager, I thought, red hair, thin.”

“Distinguishing marks, tattoos?”

“I didn’t get a good look. He came behind our table to get a salt shaker. I couldn’t see him, but Siobhan’s eyes were all over him and, well…”

“Well what?”

“I thought maybe he smelled a bit,” she said dismissively. “What do you mean?”

“There was a smell off him, you know, a funky teenage smell.”

“What kind of a smell?”

“I don’t know, Michael, I’m not even sure it was him behind me.”

“What kind of a smell?” I insisted.

“Jesus, I don’t know, aftershave, pot, spot cream, I don’t know.”

“Pot?”

“I don’t know, Michael.”

“When was this? When did you see him?”

“On Friday morning, I took her to the Malt Shop for a pancake breakfast. She’d been there on her own the previous day to get a milk shake, and before she’d said something like ‘There’s a boy who’s always there that I like, I think he’s really cute.’”

“So she’d mentioned him several times before or just that once?”

“I’ve been so busy, Michael, she could have, but I don’t really remember.”

“That’s ok. But you saw him on Friday?”

“Yes.”

“Working there?” “No.”

“Just hanging out?”

“Having a milk shake.” “What was he wearing?”

“I honestly can’t recall,” she said. “Bridget, think,” I insisted.

“I don’t remember, I didn’t pay him any attention. I had a lot on my mind. She’s too young to have crushes on boys, so I didn’t take it seriously. Maybe a black sweatshirt.”

“Anything on it? Logos? Letters?”

“I don’t know, I’m not even sure about the color. There could be a bird or something.”

“What type of bird?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

“Ok. Did she speak to the boy on the Friday?” “No.”

“How did you know that that was the boy she’d been talking about?”

“She was looking at him and I asked her if that was the boy she thought was cute and she told me to mind my own business, but I could tell.”

“So you don’t actually know that the redheaded boy in the black sweatshirt was the one she’d been talking about.”

“She didn’t actually say it, but I think that was him.” “And you didn’t get a good look at him?”

“Not really. I couldn’t even do a sketch for the police.” “That’s ok. And then you perhaps smelled pot on him?”

“Maybe.”

“What is this Malt Shop?”

“It’s a place a few blocks from here. It’s one of those diners, one of those nostalgia places. It’s full of kids. There were cars outside. Siobhan went there her first day here, I think she saw an ad for it on TV. She dragged me there on Friday and we had pancakes and a couple of malted milk shakes.”

“Siobhan liked it there?”

“She really liked it, it was full of boys. She went there a few times, maybe to practice flirting or something, who knows.”

“Flirting at her age?”

“Yeah, I know. Not even a teenager yet. I shouldn’t have let her go. I’ve no excuses. I was trying to do too much in too short a time, Michael. She was bored here in the hotel and it was only a few blocks away.”

“How often did she go there on her own?”

Bridget said nothing, started to cry a little. I passed her the box of Kleenex. She took a tissue, whispered a thank-you. And again I thought this is what happened to you when you thought yourself in-vulnerable. When you’d been at the top too long.

“How many times did she go there in total?”

“I don’t know. The place wasn’t here the last time we were in Belfast. We went there for breakfast on Friday. She had been there on Thursday. She went back Friday afternoon. And then she went there on Saturday. Or at least she said she was going there on Saturday. The police have been there and asked questions already. No one even remembers her. I sent my boys to ask around, and they can be pretty intimidating, but no one seems to recall her or that red-haired boy. It’s a very busy place. It’s a whole scene. I suppose he wasn’t a regular either.”

“But Siobhan said she’d seen the boy a couple of times. It sounds like he was a regular there,” I suggested.

“Well, no one remembered him.”

“The cops went down there?”

“Yeah, they brought a photo of Siobhan to show around, but no one had noticed her. Michael, I’m not sure that that’s where she really went. I really have no idea.”

“Do you have another photograph of her?” Bridget nodded.

“Could I have it, please? I’m going to need it.”

Bridget walked across the room, grabbed her handbag, took out a purse, removed a Polaroid, gave it to me. I examined the girl.

She was pretty with coppery blond hair and big green eyes. She had none of Darkey’s coloring or his pug nose. All her looks came from Bridget. Rosy cheeks and a charming, happy smile which suggested that she got the joke. In the photo she was wearing a blue dress with flowers around the collar.

“That’s from a few months ago,” Bridget said. I nodded, shaken from my reverie.

“Is this what she was wearing when she went missing?” I asked.

Bridget smiled. “God, no, you can never get her into anything formal. On Christmas when she visits her grandma, that’s about the only time she’ll wear a dress.”

“So what was she wearing?”

“Blue jeans and white Adidas sneakers and an Abercrombie sweatshirt with a hood.”

“What color was the sweatshirt?” “Bright yellow.”

“That’s good, that’s pretty distinctive,” I said, trying to give her some crumb of comfort.

“That’s what the cops said too, but they drew a blank.” “Well, we’ll see. I’ll ask around.”

“Thank you,” she said sweetly.

“Did she have any other friends or family here?” “No.”

Bridget lit herself a cigarette, brushed the hair back from her face. I couldn’t think of any more questions. I had a lot to be going on with. I could get cracking right now. But I was reluctant to leave her. I didn’t want to go so soon after being deprived of her presence all these years.

“Is that enough?” she asked. I nodded.

Bridget stood.

“Wait a minute, Bridget, let me ask you something.” She turned, leaned unsteadily against a table.

“What?”

“Bridget, I’m going to do my very best to find Siobhan, but I need to know that I can trust you. I was attacked in Dublin by two men. I talked to Moran and he said it was nothing to do with him or you. Is that the truth?”

Bridget shook her head.

“Michael, I don’t know anything about that. I sent those men to kill you in Lima but by the time the op was on, Siobhan had gone missing, my men had found nothing, and the police were clueless. I thought you might be able to help where they couldn’t. I called the assassins off. I don’t know who tried to hit you in Dublin, but it was nothing to do with me. I promise.”

I didn’t need to reflect on it for a while. I believed her.

“Ok,” I said. “I’ll do my best. I’ll do more than my best. I’ll bring your daughter back,” I said.

Bridget wrote something on a piece of paper. She handed it to me.

She touched the side of my palm. Her fingertips were cold. I shuddered involuntarily. I smelled her hair and the sweat on her body. I felt her breath.

“Two phone numbers,” she said. I looked at the note.

“The top one is my cell, the bottom one is Moran’s.” “Ok, I’ll call in periodically,” I said.

I put the note in my jacket pocket.

“What are you going to do now?” I asked.

“I’m going to raise ten million dollars and I’m going to go to the police station and wait for them to call.”

“So you don’t think that was a crank note?”

“I don’t know, Michael, but what else can I do?” “Aye.”

“What are you going to do now?” she asked.

“I’m going to take this photograph and go down to the Malt Shop and ask some questions.”

She leaned heavily on the table. She looked, for a moment, like she was going to fall forward into my arms.

“Thank you,” she muttered softly.

“Thank you, Bridget,” I said stupidly. I stood and looked out the window.

“Ok, there’s the bat signal, I have to go,” I said.

She grinned weakly and turned to me. Our eyes locked longer than was strictly necessary.

“Good luck, Michael.”

She didn’t offer me her hand. I didn’t offer mine. We continued to stare at each other. But then she nodded. The interview was done. I turned on my heel and walked out of the room.

Moran and a couple of heavies were waiting outside the door. Moran stopped me.

“Are you filled in?” he asked. “I am.”

“I hope you can help, Michael, I mean that sincerely. Siobhan’s the priority.”

I nodded.

“But remember what we talked about,” he said quietly.

I didn’t reply. I walked quickly through the length of the suite, turned into the corridor, and pressed the button for the ground floor. I was glad to be getting away from these people.

“Goodbye, Mr. Forsythe. Have a great day,” Sebastian said. “I have other plans,” I said and walked out of the hotel.