Little Criminals (15 page)

‘Please,’ Angela said.

‘Change into that,’ the leader said. He threw something on to the floor in front of her. She recognised her purple two-piece tracksuit. A second later her Nike trainers bounced awkwardly on the floor beside the tracksuit. Angela stared at him.

‘Here?’

‘We let you go off, find another phone stashed somewhere, right?’

The leader’s sidekick said, ‘I’ll do this.’ To Angela he said, ‘This way,’ pointing towards the kitchen. Angela picked up the tracksuit and went with him into the kitchen. He turned his back. Angela looked at the sparkling sea of broken crystal. As fast as she could, she shed the burgundy dress and pulled on the tracksuit.

‘OK’, she said, and he turned round.

‘What’s your name?’ he said.

She said nothing. A pair of socks was stuffed into one of the trainers. She pulled them on, then the shoes. She took her time tying the laces.

‘We’ve got to call you something.’

‘Look, why do—’

‘We’ve been through that and this is how it’s going to be.’

There was an undertone she couldn’t recognise.

‘Angela,’ she said. ‘Angela Kennedy.’

Out in the hall again, the gang leader pulled out a balaclava. He said, ‘It’s best that you don’t see any faces, OK?’

‘Please—’

When he pulled the mask down over her face, it was turned round so that the eyeholes were at the back. Her wrists were taken, pushed together and she felt a plastic strip tighten around them. A hand took her by the elbow and steered her to the front door and held her there. She heard the door open, then the gang leader say, ‘Go ahead,’ and a single pair of footsteps moved off quickly. After a minute, she heard a car starting up, somewhere outside on the street. Then the gang leader said, ‘Let’s go.’ She could hear more footsteps crossing the front yard, while the steady hand held her where she was. The sound of car doors opening. There was silence after that, with just the hand on her arm to let her know that she wasn’t alone. The sound of a car passing in the street. She noticed the scent of the musky aftershave. It was the leader’s sidekick. She recognised his soft voice when he spoke. ‘Everything’s OK, just take it easy.’

She thought she could hear Luke sobbing.

‘Please,’ she said.

‘Come on.’

‘Oh, Jesus, please.’

‘Time to go, Angela. This way.’ His words were wrapped in an exaggerated gentleness. ‘Come on.’

She heard him close the front door behind them. Then she was being guided away from the house. The hand tightened on her elbow and she stopped. A second hand touched her shoulder and she was gently pushed into a sitting position, on to something narrow, sharp. ‘Take it easy,’ the voice said. ‘You’re sitting on the back of the car, the boot’s open, I want you to swing round, feet up, OK, and ease yourself into the boot. There’s a holdall there, you can use that as a pillow. OK?’

She did as he said, his hands guiding her, lowering her until she lay on her side, her head resting on the holdall, her knees pulled up, her bound hands tucked in under her chin. She realised she could feel her pulse beating wildly where her fingers touched her throat. It was like touching her body’s terror. She moved her hands slightly so she couldn’t feel it any more.

‘OK?’

She said nothing. She felt herself being sucked towards some dread-filled part of her mind and knew that if she went there she would never come back.

Don’t even think about that stuff. Slow it all down, take it a minute at a time, a problem at a time. Don’t even think about the things you can’t do anything about
.

She knew it was impossible, but she thought she could still hear Luke’s sobs. Then the boot slammed shut.

The door of the room was heavy, solid wood. The window was covered by a sheet of thick chipboard, screwed in place. First thing they told Angela was if she tried to mess with the window she’d leave marks and they’d know about it and they’d break her fingers. Then they took off her balaclava. There were two of them, both masked. The leader and the tall, skinny one.

She’d been in the boot of the car for well over an hour. There were things in the boot – Luke’s plastic bucket and spade, from a summer visit to the beach, a pair of Justin’s wellington boots, something metal she couldn’t identify – things slid and rattled at every lurch and turn of the journey. Every movement of the car seemed more abrupt than it would have been if she were seated. The driver left every use of the brake and the accelerator to the last moment, and then compensated with the violence of his touch.

She’d started off trying to figure out, from the twists and turns of the car, where they might be heading. She gave that up and tried to keep a rough track of time. It was all stop and go, city noises, not the straight run and the swishing motorway sounds she’d expect to hear before too long if they headed south from her home. Probably they’d gone through the city and towards the Northside, maybe west.

The gang talked non-stop. They sounded excited. Angela could hear the voices but couldn’t make out the words. Eventually, the car stopped and the lid of the boot opened and the one with the gentle voice helped her out. She could hear some kind of heavy gate being closed, a shriek of metal as a bolt was thrown, a padlock clicking. Then she was taken inside. A wooden floor, she could tell by the noise. Then, a hand on her elbow.

‘There’s a stairs, right? Up you go.’

He guided her forward and up, coming up a step behind her. Someone else was ahead of her. She counted, twelve, thirteen, fourteen steps.

‘That’s it.’

When they took the mask off she saw she was in some kind of storeroom with a bare wooden floor and dirty, yellow walls scarred from floor to ceiling with dustlines and empty screw holes where shelving had been removed. Light came from two long fluorescent fittings hanging unevenly from the high ceiling. The room smelled like the door had been closed and the air hadn’t been stirred in a long time. If she had to put a name to the smell it would be putrid.

The leader laid down the rules. No messing with the window, no banging on the door, no screaming. ‘Fuck around with us, we’ll break you. You understand?’

Angela looked at the eyes behind the mask. They were brown, very dark and pitiless. Maybe all eyes look that way, behind a mask, isolated from the humanity of the face.

‘You understand?’

She willed herself not to answer him, not to nod. If he was aware of her attempt at insolence, his voice didn’t show it.

‘You want to go to the toilet, knock hard on the floor, we’ll hear you. You can sit or stand, but no walking around up here, no noise. No talking unless you’re asked a question.’

He threw the balaclava on the floor. ‘You’re told to put that on, you put it on. Put it on backwards. Whenever you’re told to wear it, don’t take it off without checking with us that our faces are covered. You don’t want to see our faces, OK?’

Angela nodded.

At the door, the leader turned back. ‘That happens, we don’t have a choice about what we do. You understand?’

Then they left, locking the door behind them.

There was a single mattress on the floor, no sheet, just a child’s Pokémon quilt and a pillow with a stained pink pillowcase. There was no furniture in the room. Angela lay down and after a while she felt cold, so she pulled the quilt over her and stared up at the cracked ceiling. The door opened. It was the gang leader. He stood there looking at her for a moment.

Behind the mask, he might have been angry, sympathetic, threatening, amused or lecherous. Angela wanted to say something, anything, to provoke a response that might suggest which it was.

He reached out and switched off the lights, then he closed the door and apart from the thin lines of light at the top and bottom of the door, all was darkness. At the edges of her mind Angela could feel the fluttering of the swarm of thoughts that she knew she must not allow any closer. They were thoughts about all the things that might happen, the things she might dread and the things she might hope for, and they were too strong to confront. They were the kind of thoughts that cannot visit a mind without colonising it.

She had to think moment by moment. Neutral thoughts. Thoughts about things that didn’t matter.

Memories were OK, as long as she chose them carefully, so she didn’t end up weeping. And thinking about practical things. She had to stay clean. She would ask for a hairbrush. A radio. That would pass the time. It occurred to her that she might well hear about this on the radio. That’s how her friends would hear about it. Someone would hear it on the radio, the phone would start hopping. The notion of her friends hearing her name on the radio in connection with a major crime was so absurd that she almost enjoyed it. There were no words or images in her mind to which the thought could connect. Nothing in her experience made sense of this.

Tomorrow, Thursday, the routine was drop Saskia and Luke at school, drive on down to the gym. Would it be on the radio that soon? The regulars, talking about her, pedalling side by side on the stationary bikes.

The gym
.

She wouldn’t make it tomorrow. An hour sweating with the girls, a shower and lunch. While that was happening, she’d be – what?

She’d exercise. Wasn’t much else to do, if she was going to be stuck in this glorified closet. Can’t sit on your arse all day. Get up and move it. The gang leader had said no walking around. Have to talk to them about that. She’d have to be able to loosen up, run on the spot, that kind of thing.

Jesus God. The way I’m thinking, it’s like this is going to go on for days and days
.

Jesus, no
.

Please
.

It already seemed like days since Justin’s birthday, the cake, the presents, the doorbell ringing. She wished she’d looked at her watch before the gang leader switched off the light. It must have been, what, ten o’clock, at least, when this started. Eleven, probably half eleven when they left the house. That made it – say an hour, maybe more, getting here – one, maybe two o’clock in the morning.

Justin would be on to Daragh first thing, start the wheels turning, soon as he had the kids sorted. The kids – and here she was skirting close to forbidden thoughts – best if they go to her mother, so Justin would be free to do what he had to do. The kids would be fine. Once she was back with them, Luke would – no, leave that alone for now, stay focused.

Make-up. She was still wearing make-up. She’d need some facial wipes, get the warpaint off. She’d make a mental list of things to ask them for in the morning.

Some magazines. Drinks, fruit. She was still compiling the list when she found her mind fogging with tiredness. She levered off her trainers without unlacing them. She thought she should perhaps take the tracksuit off before sleep claimed her, or she’d feel grubby in the morning, but the cocoon of tiredness was too comfortable, the alternative too bothersome, and she drifted off.

Frankie Crowe was up first next morning, making coffee, listening to the radio. There was nothing on the morning news, nothing at seven o’clock, nothing at eight. The husband would be on to the cops within the hour, if he followed orders. The cops would keep the media out of it for the time being. They’d spend the first couple of days beating the bushes, trying to get a handle on this. Touts would be rousted this afternoon, tonight, threats made and favours called in. No chance. Only five people knew that Frankie was involved – and four of them were in this house. Milky was the fifth, he’d be here later. Tommy Sholtis knew that Frankie had got tooled up, but he didn’t know what the job was. Anyway, Tommy was as tight as a drum.

The cops would still be getting into gear by the time the money was handed over and the whole shebang would be game, set and match.

Frankie was sitting in a makeshift kitchen, some kind of staffroom at the back of the building. Beneath the layers of dust, grime and grease, the walls were painted a dull cream. It was a big room, with some cupboards and a fridge, plus a cooker and a short countertop, a microwave, several chairs. In one corner, there was a large matt silver television on a stand, with a matching video machine underneath. Not new but close enough. Milky had done them proud. There was no cable or satellite, so the viewing was limited to the two RTE stations. An archway led to a massive walk-in fridge, and there was a toilet at the end of the corridor.

It was a two-storey commercial building, off a side street in Phibsboro. There was a yard at the back, not overlooked, which was ideal for getting the hostage out of the car and into the building.

The door to the staffroom opened and Dolly Finn came in. He was wearing his black tracksuit zipped up to his chin.

‘Morning.’

‘Where d’you think you’re off to?’

Finn’s eyebrows pushed up, wrinkling his forehead. ‘I always go for a run, first thing.’

‘Sit down, have a coffee. No one leaves the house.’

Dolly paused a moment, then he said, ‘Fair enough,’ and got himself a coffee. He sat across from Crowe and the two sipped their coffees and for several minutes nothing was said. Then: ‘She OK this morning, no hysterics?’

Crowe said, ‘I looked in on her twenty minutes ago, still fast asleep.’