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It occurred to Kate that a would-be murderer or rapist would hardly make such a threat, or so much noise.  And if he was mad enough not to care about being seen or heard at her door, surely he would have tried to force his way in by now?  She decided to open the door, dangerous or not, and actually had her hand on the latch when she heard the tortured screech of brakes outside.  The police had finally arr
ived.  She sagged against the door, weak with relief;
about time!

She heard a muffled curse outside and then footsteps po
unding up her steps and pattering off down the road.  A man’s voice roared an order to stop at the fleeing figure, which even in her slightly stunned state Kate thought ridiculous; had anyone fleeing from the Garda
ever
obeyed such a command?  Hardly.  It was hard to believe that the police really uttered such
clichés
, but there it was; she had heard it for herself.  Gathering herself, and taking a very deep breath, she opened the door and made her way up to the street above, expecting to see a police car and uniformed figures chasing her unknown visitor.  Instead she saw Michael Riordan standing beside his State car.  The driver’s door was wide open and the engine was running but he was showing his common sense by making no attempt to pursue the suspected burglar.  When he saw her he came over and said, ‘It’s alright, I’m here now,’ and put a protective arm around her shoulders, which even in her current state of anxiety sent a flash of irritation running through her.

‘Are you all right
?’ he asked solicitously.

‘Of course I
’m all right.’ she said, shrugging off his encircling arm, ‘He didn’t actually
do
anything.’ 
Except scare the life out of me.
  ‘I thought you were the cops.  How did you get here so quickly?’

He ignored the question and looked around as if only
just noticing the absence of any Gardai, then said, ‘I saw him running up the steps from your flat and thought...’  He stopped, ‘Well, I don’t know what I thought but it gave me a very nasty fright.’

Her pinched
expression softened and she no longer felt resentful of his slightly condescending concern.  Her voice was gentler too as she said, ‘I told you, he didn’t
do
anything; he just rang on the doorbell.’

‘You didn’t answer it, did you?  After what I told you?’

She felt an even more pronounced stab of irritation at his presumption but managed to control it, saying evenly, ‘No, you arrived before I had a chance to do anything.  How did you get here so quickly?’

He shrugged, ‘I ran out the door as soon as I hung up, and rang the police from my mobile on the way.’  There was just the hint of a smile on his face as he said, ‘I’m surprised I didn’t pick up a squad car en
route, actually, since I broke a few red lights on the way.  To say nothing of the speed limit.’

‘Where’s your driver tonight?’

‘I gave him the night off.  I was, er, hoping to be coming round here and I didn’t want him to know about it.’  He frowned and looked around, ‘I can’t understand why the Gards haven’t arrived yet, though.  I wasn’t
that
quick coming over.’

Kate shrugged, ‘Try being a private citizen and see how long it takes for them to turn up.  Hours, I can tell you from personal experience.  In the case of a burglary at least.  And suspected prowlers are probably even lower on their list of priorities.’  She turned and noticed for the first time that more than one
neighbor was peering out at them through windows or open doors, which caused her to groan inwardly;
God, what a night!  What a day!  Will it never end?

Lucy and Brendan actually came out of their gr
ound floor flat and walked halfway down the long flight of worn old stone steps, with Lucy calling out in a worried tone, ‘Is everything okay, Kate?’

‘Fine!’  Kate wearily called up to them, ‘Don’t worry, it was nothing.’

‘Your burglar didn’t come back, did he?’

Before she could answer a police car finally arrived, its
blue lights flashing although the siren was off, and Kate began to wonder if this was actually a nightmare.  If so she was ready to wake up.  Oh, it’s nothing, she had said to Lucy, and an instant later the police screamed up. 
What would the neighbors think of
that?

She gave a soft groan, though she cou
ld see a humorous side to it, as well as to her own
bourgeois
dread of a public scene, and Michael quickly said, ‘Listen, you’re not up to this right now.  You go on inside and I’ll deal with the cops.’

Kate shook her head, though not without regret, ‘I can’t, they’re bound to want to ask me some questions.’

Two uniformed officers got out of the car and slowly walked towards them, eyeing Michael warily as they approached.  Seeing this Kate suddenly realized, and not without a certain horrified amusement, that they thought this was some sort of domestic dispute, and that Michael was the reason they had been called.  Clearly they were half-expecting him to attack them.  All the scene needed was a cameraman from
COPS
or something to appear, and her mortification would be complete.

The older of the two Gardai, a Sergeant, said to Kate, ‘Is everything all right here, Miss?’

‘Fine,’ Kate assured him, ‘I just got a bit of a fright.  I saw a man hanging around out here and thought it might be the same guy who broke into my flat last night.  But I don’t think it was.  In fact, this chap...  Well, I just don’t think it could have been him.’

The policemen frowned simultaneously and exchanged a ponderous glance before the Sergeant said, ‘You were burgled last night?  Did you report it?’

Kate nodded and the two policemen looked around as if expecting to see the stranger still hanging around waiting to be questioned.

‘Well, there’s no sign of him now,’ offered the younger man, so seriously that Kate, in spite of everything, had to fight to suppress a giggle; it was like having Zig and Zag respond to an emergency call.

‘Of course there’s no sign of him bloody
now!’
said Michael acidly, ‘He ran away when I drove up.  Really he should have stood there until you arrived and arrested him, but the selfish swine had the temerity to run off!  How unsporting of him!  Of course, if you had come when we called and not twenty minutes later when you’d finished your nap, or tea-break, or whatever the hell you were doing, you might
actually
have seen him or, God forbid, even caught him!’

The younger of the two policemen, who still had acne and seemed hardly more than a boy, looked at him coldly, ‘We came the instant we got the call, sir.  Which was about two minutes ago.  We were actually just down the road and we got here as fast as humanly possible.’

‘Right!’ sneered Michael angrily, ‘I made an emergency call at least fifteen minutes ago but you were only alerted two minutes ago!  A likely story!’

The Sergeant here took a hand, saying with an expressionless face, ‘And who might you be,
sir?’

‘I
might
be just about anyone,’ loudly retorted Michael, who seemed to be working himself into a blazing fury, ‘But in fact I am Michael Riordan, Minster of State for Trade and Industry!  Does that ring any bells?  It will, because I can assure you I shall be contacting your superiors first thing tomorrow morning to complain about your attitude!  And your response time!’

The two Garda exchanged another of their slow glances but Kate no longer found it amusing.  ‘Oh, for God’s sake leave it, Michael!’ she snapped, more conscious than ever of being th
e cynosure of all her neighbors’ eyes, ‘All I want to do is end this and go to bloody bed!’

The policemen seemed only too glad of the opportunity to
speak to her instead of Riordan, and the Sergeant took out a notebook and pen before asking, ‘Can you describe the man you saw, Miss?’

Kate sighed and thought
back, trying to picture him as he had looked leaning against the railings. ‘Well, there’s not that much I can say about him, really; I only saw him for a second, and it was dark.  I can’t be sure but I’d say he wasn’t terribly tall, certainly less than six feet, and slim built.  Er, he had longish brown hair but no beard or moustache that I could see.’  She shrugged, ‘That’s about it, I’m afraid.  Sorry.’

‘And how was he dressed?’

She thought harder, ‘Uh, jeans and a black jacket, I think.  It might have been a leather jacket, I’m not sure.  I only caught sight of him for a second.’ 
Before I pulled the curtains and cowered behind them in terror,
she thought but did not add.

‘But not a biker’s jacket?  No zips and straps hanging off it’?’

‘No, definitely not.’

‘Have you quite finished?’ asked Michael angrily, ‘Because I personally think it might do more good if you actually went and looked for this fellow instead of standing here talking about him!’

‘Just on our way, sir,’ replied the policeman with a blank face that, in its way, said as much as even the most exaggerated expression.  ‘I don’t know about you but I personally think it might help if we actually knew who we were supposed to be looking for, rather than just running aimlessly around like headless chickens.’  He turned back to Kate, ‘We won’t be back unless we find someone matching the description and need you to identify him, okay?  But don’t hesitate to ring if you see him again, Miss.  And don’t worry, if we don’t find him we’ll make sure to cruise by here a few times during the night, in case he comes back.’

Kate smiled at him and said gratefully, ‘Thank you,
Sergeant; it’ll be a comfort to know you’re around.’ 
But I don’t think he was a burglar at all.  And I don’t think he’ll be back.  Not tonight, at least. 
But she said none of this; telling them that the man had known her name and had asked to talk to her would only open up a whole new can of worms, and lead to even more questions.  Questions she couldn’t answer.  And right then she just wanted them to leave so she could get to bed and sleep for about a month.

‘Just one last thing, Miss,’ said the younger Garda, ‘We’ll need your name and address.’

‘Oh, for
God’s
sake!’ snorted Michael. Before he could say any more Kate said, in a louder than normal voice, ‘Kate Bennett, 12a Alton Terrace, Monkstown, Dun Laoire.  That flat just down there, actually.  Will there be anything else?’

After writing this information down the Sergeant shook his head, ‘Not for the moment, but like I said, if we pick up someone matching the description you might be asked to identify him.  Though since he committed no crime, tonight at least, there isn’t much we can do anyway, apart from question
ing him and maybe frightening him off from coming back around here.’

‘Fat chance of you clowns finding anything, including your own arses!’ muttered Michael, stamping away to park his car properly and switch off the still-running engine.

‘I’m terribly sorry about that,’ said the furiously embarrassed Kate, ‘I really don’t know what’s wrong with him.’

The tall young policeman offered her the ghost of a smile, ‘That’s all right, Miss.  It’s an attitude we’re used to.  Until we’re needed, that is.  People usually change their tune pretty quickly when they’re in trouble.  Then they absolutely love us.  But in fairness he’s
probably just worried about you.  People behave strangely after getting a fright, you know.  Though he’s just plain wrong about our response time; we were here literally two minutes after we got the call.  It was a priority alert, you see, so we dropped everything, and we were only just up the road anyway.  But like I said, a fright makes people react strangely.  Well, we’ll be off then, miss.  Good night.’

‘Good night, and thank you.’ said Kate, turning away to hide a weary smile.  No one knew better than her the strange ways people behave, particularly -as he had said- after a fright.  But in spite of their intimacy the previous night Michael was practically a stranger to her, which made his reaction odd.  Modesty aside, she doubted that he had fallen desperately in love with her
quite
this
soon.  So why such an extreme reaction?  Perhaps he just had a short fuse generally.  She sighed and began making her way down to her flat; she was in no mood for any more riddles just then.  As she walked she was more aware than ever of her neighbors’ curious eyes following her, but by this stage she was pretty much past caring.  As far as she was concerned they could all drop down dead in front of her just so long as she got a good night’s sleep.

She was hardly in the front door before Michael jogged down the steps behind her, muttering as he entered the flat, ‘Bunch of bloody idiots!  Lazy, incompetent fools!’

They hadn’t struck Kate as being any of those things but she was in no mood for an argument and made no reply.  Instead she simply gave Michael a weary, speculative look as he closed the front door behind him.  Exactly what had given him the idea that he was being invited inside?  She very nearly asked him but then changed her mind; after all, he had come charging out from town to her aid, and hence could reasonably expect a little gratitude.  Or at least basic courtesy.  So she drew a deep breath and said, ‘Would you like some coffee?’