He did the only thing he could think of. He picked up his phone and rang Graham Turner, the guard Jack and his family had been dealing with during the search for Donal.
“Hello?” Graham answered. The background was noisy with shouts, chatter, and laughter. Pub noises.
“Graham, it’s Jack,” Jack shouted in the silent wooded area.
“Hello?” Graham shouted again.
“It’s Jack.” He raised his voice even higher, startling whatever animals had taken refuge in the nearby trees.
“Hold on, I’m going outside,” Graham shouted. The voices and noise grew louder as the phone was carried through the pub. Finally there was silence. “Hello?” Graham said more quietly.
“Graham, it’s Jack.” He kept his voice down now. “Sorry to call you so late.”
“No problem, is everything OK?” Graham asked with concern, used to Jack’s late-night calls over the past year.
“Yeah, things are OK,” Jack lied.
“Any news on Donal?”
“No, no news. Actually I was calling you about something else.”
“Sure, what’s up?”
How on earth was he going to explain this? “I’m just a bit worried about someone. I was due to meet them yesterday morning in Glin but they didn’t show up.”
Silence.
“I see.”
“A message on my answering machine was left before leaving Dublin to let me know they were on their way down but they never showed and the car is parked down by the Estuary.”
Silence.
“Yeah.”
“I’m just starting to get worried, you know?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re bound to under the circumstances.”
That one statement suddenly made Jack feel like a raving paranoid lunatic. Maybe he was.
“I know it sounds like nothing but I think it’s something, you know?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Graham said hurriedly. “Sorry, hold on one minute.” The phone was covered as voices became muffled. “Yeah, another pint. Cheers, Damian. I’ll be in as soon as I finish my smoke,” he said, and then came back on the line. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem. Look, I know it’s late and you’re out. I apologize for calling.” Jack held his head in his hands, feeling like a fool. His story had sounded stupid and his concern for Sandy unnecessary as soon as he had expressed them but he knew deep down that things weren’t right.
“Don’t worry about it. What do you want me to do? What’s the guy’s name and I’ll ask around?”
“Sandy Shortt.”
“Sandy Shortt.” Yep, the guy was a woman.
“Yeah.”
“Right.”
“And you were to meet her…?”
“In Glin yesterday. We passed each other at Lloyds station, you know, the one on-”
“Yeah, I know it.”
“Yeah, well, we met there at about five thirty A.M. but she didn’t show up later that morning.”
“She didn’t say where she was going when you met her?”
“No, we hardly spoke.”
“What does she look like?”
“Very tall, curly black hair…” He trailed off, realizing he had no idea what Sandy Shortt looked like, he had no reason to believe that the woman he had passed at the petrol station even was Sandy Shortt. The only proof he had was a file on the dashboard with Donal’s name on it. The driver could have been anyone. He had allowed all the pieces to fit together nicely without even questioning its sense, which right now seemed liked none at all.
“Jack?” Graham was calling him.
“Yeah.”
“She’s tall with curly black hair. Know anything else? Her age or where she’s from or anything?”
“No, I don’t know, Graham. I’m not even sure what she looks like. We only ever spoke over the phone, I don’t even know if that was her at the station.” He suddenly had a thought. “She used to be a garda. In Dublin. She quit four years ago. That’s all I know.” He gave up.
“OK. Right, well, I’ll make a few phone calls and get back to you.”
“Thanks.” Jack felt humiliated, his story was full of holes. “You’ll keep this between us, won’t you?” he asked quietly.
“Will do. All well with Gloria?” The tone was accusing. Or maybe it wasn’t, it was possible Jack was misjudging everything these days.
“Great, yeah.”
“Good. Send her my regards. You’ve got a saint there, Jack.”
“Yeah, I know,” he replied defensively.
Silence. Then pub atmosphere.
“I’ll get back to you, Jack,” Graham shouted. The line went dead.
Jack thumped his head, feeling like an idiot.
At midnight, as he ran a finger up and down the side of the cold metal car as he paced, his phone rang. He had already texted Gloria to let her know he would be home late, and so he knew it wasn’t her when he answered.
“Jack, it’s Graham here.” His tone was gentler than before. “Listen, I made a few calls, asked around the lads to see if any of them knew a Sandy Shortt.”
“Go on.” His heart thumped.
“You should have told me, Jack,” Graham said softly.
Jack nodded in the darkness, though Graham couldn’t see him. Graham continued, “Seems you shouldn’t worry about her. A good few of the lads knew her.” He laughed, and stopped himself. “They said she disappears all the time without letting anyone know. She’s a hermit, keeps to herself and comes and goes as she pleases but always comes back within a week or so. I wouldn’t worry about her, Jack. This seems to be in keeping with her usual behavior.”
“But what about her car?”
“A 1991 red Ford Fiesta?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s hers, all right. Don’t worry about it; she’s probably around the area checking out the place. The lads say she’s a keen jogger, so she probably parked there and went for a run earlier, or maybe the car wouldn’t start or something simple as that. Anyway, it’s been a little over twenty-four hours since you were supposed to meet. There’s no need to panic.”
“I thought the first twenty-four hours were supposed to be the most important,” Jack said through gritted teeth.
“In missing-persons cases they are, Jack, but this Sandy Shortt isn’t missing. She likes to disappear all the time. I was told that most of the time even her family doesn’t know where she is. They called the guards on three occasions years ago but they don’t bother anymore. She comes back.”
Jack was silent.
“There’s not much I can do. There’s nothing to go on, nothing to suggest she’s in any danger. She’ll probably call you in a few days. According to her ex-colleagues, that’s the way she works.”
“I know, I know.” Jack rubbed his eyes wearily.
“As a word of advice, be careful of those kinds of people. Agencies like Sandy Shortt’s are just out to make money, you know? I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s done a runner. There’s nothing that they can do that we haven’t already done. There aren’t any more places to search that we haven’t already searched.”
Sandy hadn’t asked for a cent, knowing that Jack hadn’t got a cent to give.
“I had to do something.” That was all he could reply. He didn’t like how Graham was referring to Sandy. He didn’t believe she was crooked, he didn’t believe she had gone wandering off on an investigation without her phone, her file, her diary, and her car, or was still jogging at midnight. Nothing Graham said made sense, yet nothing Jack said aloud seemed to make sense either. He was going entirely by instinct alone, instinct that had been affected by Donal’s disappearance and a week of nightly phone calls to a woman he had never met.
“I understand,” Graham responded. “I’d probably do the same myself if I was in your shoes.”
“What about my stuff that’s locked in her car?” Jack bluffed.
“What stuff?”
“I sent her Donal’s file and a few other things, I can see them sitting in the car. If she’s going to take my money and run, I’d at least like my things back.”