Page 7 of Dublin's Danger Dancer

Chapter Three

On the drive back to Dublin, Ferg congratulates me on ‘a superb display of bravery and tenacity’.

“I’ll sign your papers for your suspension to be lifted. You’ll be on a three-month probation. Do what I say and then you’ll be fully reinstated.”

“So I can go back to the club tonight?”

“I don’t know how you’ve the energy. But if you’re sure that feckin gobshite didn’t recognise you today, then have at it.”

“I’m sure.” I lie.

Having feared O’Shaughnessy’s escape would jeopardise my suspension, it was ironic that my impromptu abseiling which lifted my suspension could end the best work I’d ever done. I had to know if O’Shaughnessy recognised me, and I had to know tonight.

After Ferg drops me home, at his insistence, I dial into the debrief.

“He wants it to look like he’s got out of the human trafficking business and that he’s only smuggling drugs, but don’t let that fool you. There’s a lot of money involved and remember trafficking victims have skyrocketed. There’s no way that feckers only drug smuggling.”

“Sir,” says the Northern Irish voice I recognise from the van. “Do you think he knew we were coming?”

“By the risk he took getting away, no,” says the commander.

“What did we get from the girls?” asks Ferg.

“All the girls report the same thing. They were kidnapped, blindfolded, and had headphones put on their heads. They report a feeling like they are descending in a lift. Beyond that, we have nothing.”

What should have been a two-minute conversation: the girls weren’t there, they’d moved the brothel headquarters somewhere else, quickly descended into a debrief where everyone had a chance to air their grievances. Of which there were many. After five minutes pass, I leave the laptop on mute and head out the door. I needed to light a candle for Harry.

St Marys was an unassuming old stone church down a dirt path a short walk from the apartment I’d called home since my undercover life began. This apartment was, in fact, much nicer than the apartment I really called home. The one I’d returned to on my suspension would soon be just a pile of post mounting on the mat to let anyone know a human lived there.

As I trot down the pathway, where tyre marks have dried into the ground, making it uneven, the words that I’d left unspoken keep ringing in my mind.

During the ride back to Dublin, Fergus had said, ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself. He got away today. But we’ll get him soon enough. And don’t for god’s sake agree to any dinner or anything else with him, it would destroy you. And for what? His lawyers would argue entrapment.’ If I didn’t use his affection to find answers, not knowing the truth would destroy me, anyway.

I push the thought out of my mind as I push open the heavy imposing oak door, studded with steel squares forged like pyramids. A gust of wind follows me inside.

Today marked twenty years since Harry, my big sister, had been murdered.

I gaze up at the copper foil between the colourful tiles of the stained glass window above the cross where Jesus hangs.

If she was alive today, she’d be forty-three. I wonder if she’d have a family, and if her kids would have her mass of thick, unruly brown curls.

I walk towards where the tea-light candles flicker in a steel row. Three are still burning, their wax fully melted, the wicks floating without anchor. There were normally more lit tea-lights. I expect all of those who normally come to light a candle for a deceased loved one or much-needed miracle were enjoying the rare sun rays being cast over Dublin on this balmy August night.

This was my second year here, praying for a breakthrough in her case. I’d become so desperate I’d turned to the opium of the people: religion.

A miracle was long overdue to solve her murder. The facts, as I knew them, would certainly take one.

At 7:32PM she tucked me into bed. I remember seeing the time on the sleeping beauty faced alarm clock she’d put next to my bed. She washed all our bedding and clothes with lavender scented detergent to remind us of mammy. I still remember the smell of the lavender on the pillowcase and the soft cotton of the pink My Little Pony duvet set she’d bought me. That was the last time I felt safe. And I haven’t been able to stand the smell of lavender since.

She told me she was going out for drinks with Lucky and the lads. All I knew was that when any of them came near the apartment, she’d make me hide in her wardrobe, scared they’d want to use me to run drugs, or worse, one of them would take a liking to me.

I’d never seen them, and they’d never seen me.

Harry had no qualifications, no GCSEs, no A-levels, no hopes of college. She’d given all that up to care for Mam through her breast cancer, and dad through his end stages of liver cirrhosis, and now me. Even though I was only thirteen. I knew the way she financed our luxury apartment and the endless amounts of clothes and toys she furnished me with, through activities that weren’t exactly legal.

I pick up the small wax tea light candle, feeling my thumb and index finger cause indentations in the cheap malleable foil. I deposit one euro in the rusting box. In my book, the Irish church was just a notch above the human traffickers, but I wasn’t about to steal a candle, especially one I was lighting for Harry. I needed all the good karma on my side. Who knew how much time I had left before there was no one left to care about her murder.

I pick up the lighter and light the wick of the candle. I place it down and look up to the cross.

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