A GARDA SERGEANT named Ciara Douglas met with me the next day in the small police station in Dungloe. The cop at the front desk, a chubby and ruddy officer, had given me a hard time when I asked to see someone in charge.
“What exactly do you need?” he’d asked. “To file a complaint?”
“No, I just want to talk to somebody in charge.”
“Are you a journalist?”
“I already told you, no. I’m a resident of Clenhburran. I just want to meet with an officer.”
Thinking back on it later, I should have said I was a writer or a criminology student.
Honestly, I probably shouldn’t have even gone. Why, after all? To ask if some characters from my nightmares were actually real? But that morning, I felt like I had to do something, to try to take control of the situation somehow.
“Look, all appointments go through city hall. You should start there, and they’ll assign the appropriate . . .”
“Honestly, buddy, it’ll take ten minutes, tops. Isn’t there someone here who could take ten minutes out of their day to speak with me?”
Ciara Douglas was a tall woman with a stern look, and black hair and green eyes. I waited for her for half an hour, and when she arrived, you could tell she thought this was a big waste of her time and wanted to get rid of me as quickly as possible.
“Tremore Beach? That’s the little beach in northern Clenhburran, right? Didn’t know there were many houses up there.”
“Just two. My neighbors, the Kogans, and me. They live there full time. I’m just renting out there for a few months.”
“All right, Mr. Harper, so how can I help you? What would you like to know?”
Faced with this serious-looking Sergeant Douglas, with all those stripes on her sleeve, I realized how stupid this was going to sound. I decided this was going to require a little imagination.
“Well, see . . . the other night over dinner, a couple of neighbors mentioned some . . . security issues. They said they heard about some criminal activity in the area. Something about a band of Eastern European thieves, or something like that. And, well, since I live alone . . . and actually, my two children are in town visiting . . . Well, I was just wondering if you thought it was worth getting a monitored alarm or something like that. . . .”
Sgt. Douglas stretched her long lips into a smile, something I figured took some work for her.
“Look, Mr. Harper. I can’t tell you whether you should get an alarm or not. What I can tell you is that there have been a couple of break-ins, but mostly in empty summer homes, and certainly there hasn’t been anything major. There was a big robbery of construction material from a site near Letterkenny two weeks ago, and we apprehended two suspects, both of them Irish. Nothing to do with any Eastern Europeans.”
She sat quiet for a moment with the tips of her fingers together in a little pyramid and an expression that said, “Is that sufficient?” But I wasn’t going anywhere just yet.
“Have you heard about anything like that happening out in rural areas? Something like, say, a group of international smash-and-grab thieves. Guys who ride around in a van robbing houses . . .”
Sure, it was something I’d seen once on COPS. And maybe Sgt. Douglas thought I was some kind of amateur detective or a bored tourist. Maybe he’s waiting for his wife to finish up at the beauty parlor, she must have thought.
“No, sir. This is Donegal,” she replied. “We don’t have those kinds of problems here, thankfully. For those types of crimes, you’d have to be in southern Europe or someplace like that, where all the rich people vacation and the real crime is. Here, people break in to steal copper pipes or plasma TVs or maybe rip off a car to take it to a chop shop. Little more than that. You can rest easy, Mr. Harper. Now, do you have any other questions?”
She drummed her fingers on the desk. She looked at me impatiently.
“One last thing, actually. Have you ever had any calls over on Tremore Beach? Anything . . . out of the ordinary?”
“You mean from one of the two houses there?”
“Yes.”
“I can look into it. But you know what? I think there’s a reason you’re asking me all these questions.”
“Excuse me?”
“Is there something you want to tell me, Mr. Harper? I’m curious about all these questions regarding your house. Maybe you’re having some kind of issue with your neighbors?”
I was tempted to tell her everything. But I resisted the impulse. Oh, sure, I’ll just tell this cop I’ve been having nightmares, and that’s why I came down to see her. I’d sound like a serious head case. And with my kids visiting (and my recent divorce), that wasn’t the kind of attention I wanted or needed.
“Maybe it’s just that the house is so lonely,” I ended up saying. “The real estate agent warned me about it, but I didn’t listen. Sometimes, I hear noises at night and it keeps me up, worried with all those rumors about foreign bandits invading homes. I guess I’m a city boy at heart.”
Sgt. Douglas stared at me, not quite believing my story.
“It happens,” she said, finally. “Especially if your kids are visiting. Maybe your antenna is up a little more because of it, Mr. Harper. Relax. It’s probably just nearby sheep or the wind. In Donegal, we sleep with our doors unlocked.”