Wonderland: An Inspector Matt Minogue Mystery (The Matt Minogue Series Book 7)

by John Brady

  “Well,” he managed to say. “That was Tommy Malone.”

  “And how is he,” she said in a quiet voice.

  “If I knew I’d tell you,” he said. “But according to him, I’m a head case.”

  Kathleen walked on, touching the leaves through the railings.

  I’ll Take Care of It

  Quinn was suffering now, by Jesus. Three cups of tea, Anadin, and as much water as he could drink. He didn’t want to risk eating much more than a bit of toast. He was surprised that he’d slept through Catherine going because she was always tough on the hall door. He’d been out like a light but the dreams had come back, and there was a new one. He didn’t even know if it was supposed to be Grogan, but some voice, no accent, telling him to do something or not to do something, but it had to be soon.

  He went back over last night. Canning wasn’t home even by midnight. Quinn didn’t want to phone his missus again. That was it, then: right then and there he’d decided to bloody well drive out to Canning’s and wait for him, even if he was waiting all night. He’d made it to South Circular Road, he remembered, before he pulled over and gave in. He was shagged.

  Canning would have been jarred anyway. Why would he have heard a word he’d tell him. He’d gone home with Catherine and Brittney earlier, tried Canning’s number a few times, and then headed out. Catherine hadn’t been too thrilled.

  He’d started in Murphy’s, where Canning used to call his local. He’d ended up in Hedigan’s, too well aware that he’d spent nearly forty quid trying to find Canning, at the same time as forget the shitty day he’d had, and that weird talk with Grogan. Grogan wasn’t one for mind games either. Maybe the others up there were just winding him up. But why?

  The crowd in Hedigan’s had been okay for the first while. He’d almost put Grogan and his weird conversation out of his mind at last. Even that look from Catherine, after him going to all that trouble to show up for the stupid dancing thing. Sitting there in a crowd of gobshites, with those iijity grins on their faces. Looking up at kids doing their little dances, the half of them hardly able to put one foot in front of the other. Dressed up like dolls, some of them with makeup. There was something not right about this stuff, for sure.

  He’d thought things were going well all the same, especially with the rushing back from Drogheda and all that had been going on. And there was Catherine, almost hovering on her fecking chair at the recital, looking like she’d been hit by fecking lightning or hypnotized or something. Brittney up there tapping away. For Christ’s sakes, he’d been driven to say afterward at home, she’s a kid not a doll, Catherine. And you wonder, says she and her eyes scrunched up like a cat’s, why we don’t have more kids, and you wonder.

  He shouldn’t have said it. But she shouldn’t have said what she said, should she.

  It had been a warm night, and there had been crowds still around the take-outs, a small crowd of lads drinking and sort of carrying on down the lane near The Barge. He’d driven down the road once without stopping. Nothing strange that he’d noticed anyway. The lights had been off, upstairs too. He remembered sitting in the car a while, having a smoke and a think. Decided at some point that they wouldn’t go around him to Canning. They had too much invested in things going smooth here, especially after the other day.

  As knackered as he was, as late as it was, he’d known even when he came in the door that he still wouldn’t be able to sleep. He was kind of proud of the fact that he had enough self-control even with all the drink, not to bang into things, not to bother her. He’d watched television with a bottle of duty-free and finally headed to bed when the fags ran out. It must have been about three. Catherine had stayed well over on her side. He was sure she had woken up when he came in.

  He rewrote the note to Brittney, signed it “Love, Your Biggest Fan,” and wrapped it around the tenner. That’d make up for things a bit, so it would. He phoned Julie again. Canning hadn’t shown up yet. By Christ he was going to have it out with the bollocks, hangover or not. No wonder they’d think he was touting the way he carried on. He stared at the phone as the light on the display went out. He let the question finally come to the front of his mind. OK: what if Grogan’s mob were right about him?

  He got up quickly from the table, tried to shove the question back somewhere, thought about the god-awful ache all over his face and his sinuses and the empty, wormy feeling running through his guts. He washed the breakfast things quickly—see, Catherine?—and headed for the jacks.

  The phone in the hall stopped him.

  “Bobby?”

  It was Julie’s voice.

  He stared at the photos of Brittney in her ballerina outfit from last year. This year it was tap, right. The studio pictures had been a hundred and something quid.

  “Bobby, someone just phoned looking for him.”

  Beans, Quinn had to think.

  “Who was it?”

  “They didn’t say. A man. Just now.”

  “What did they say?”

  “It was a man, and I didn’t recognize him. I thought maybe it was Larry, the new driver, or the other lads.”

  “No, what did he say, Julie, not who, okay?”

  “He didn’t say anything. He just said, is Mr. Canning about.”

  “That’s it?”

  “He was kind of, I don’t know how you’d say it.”

  “Just tell me, Julie, will you?”

  “Well, I don’t know how to say it . . .”

  Quinn held his breath.

  “I’m sorry, Julie. Sorry, I’m just kind of, you know, a bit screwed up. Go on.”

  “He wasn’t trying to be funny or that, Bobby. But he had this kind of sing-song voice, like he was trying to be pleasant or cheerful. Oh, and super polite. ‘Good morning to you, I wonder if I might be able to speak with Mr. Canning, if you please.’”

  The tea or something was moving around somewhere in his intestines.

  “Is that how he talked,” was all he could say.

  “Well, yeah. But it was a bit weird, like, ’cause for a while you couldn’t help but wonder was he being sarcastic like. Like it was some kind of joke, but it wasn’t, like? Like he was trying to explain something to a kid, or an iijit maybe?”

  Quinn had to get to the toilet. He pulled up his leg to try to stop the pain.

  “Was he Dub?”

  “God no, he wasn’t, Bobby. He was sort of a culchie, for sure. But I think he might have been from up there, you know, except it wasn’t the usual kind of whinge you hear when they do be talking on the telly, you know the North.”

  He imagined Julie sitting in the office, the glass door with Mighty Quinn Haulage letters backward, the corridor, the steps down.

  “What did you tell him, Julie.”

  “I told him nothing. Nothing.”

  “I mean, what way did you tell him. Like the words.”

  “‘Mr. Canning is not in the office,’” I said. “‘May I take a message.’ And he says, ‘Ah, a shame I missed him.’ But then that was it. He didn’t say goodbye or good luck or anything at all. Just hung up.”

  “Julie. Are you listening to me?”

  “I am.”

  “Don’t bother trying to reach Beans anymore. His missus does be out most mornings, right?”

  “There’s no answering machine there, Bobby. She just mightn’t be picking up the phone—”

  “Don’t worry about that. Listen, now. I want you to close up shop there. Did you hear me?”

  “Close up?”

  “Yes, close. I want you to lock up like it’s the end of the day.”

  “What about Larry and the other lad, they’re due to pick up the baby food and the other stuff?”

  “No, no, Julie. They’ll be grand. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Are you sure, Bobby?”

  The pain in his gut moved around like a snake. He’d have to go, but quick.

  “Go, Julie. Really. Right away—look, I have to go meself, I’m in a hurry. I’ll be in touch.”<
br />
  “Is everything okay?”

  “It’s grand,” he managed to say between his teeth. “Now, go.”

  He messed up with the phone trying to get it back on the knobs. He let it dangle and doubled up. He made it up the stairs. He paused a moment and thought about reaching in for the gun, but it’d be too late by then.

  He yanked at his belt, and backed up over the bowl.

  “All messed up,” he groaned, as he let go. “The whole lot of you. Messed up…”

  And as for you, Beans, he thought, after all I done for you.

  He didn’t finish the sentence. He shifted on the toilet seat and pushed his knuckles hard into his eyes.

  You’re Lost. Aren’t You?

  Minogue stayed away from Donnybrook, of course, and headed instead to the Ranelagh Road, on his way to Harcourt Terrace. Malone said he’d buy. Minogue had protested a bit, but Malone had said he had a head on him so he’d be eating two breakfasts and a bucket of tea. He wouldn’t even notice the price of a fancy coffee on top of that.

  Minogue and Kathleen had sat in the kitchen for a long while after they’d come home from Bray last night. Quite a row, it had been, the Bray episode, and whiskey or not, he remembered everything. She had taken out the quarantined Jamesons from behind the Ajax under the sink and poured herself a small one after his. A big gesture, he knew.

  “Just a tincture for me,” she said. “Or do you want to be on your own?”

  “I don’t mind.”

  The sea air has me knackered.

  “You’d do well to avoid it so.”

  She didn’t fire back. He knew she wouldn’t finish even the small amount she’d poured. He found the brochure for one of Iseult’s early exhibits and went through it. That was back when she believed she could make a living as an artist.

  “Pat took a few days off,” she said. “He came back up last night.”

  Minogue wondered if it was an effort to save their marriage.

  “Iseult phoned. I forgot to tell you. She said they were probably going to go away a few days, the three of them. The B&B down in Wexford they like, the child friendly one.”

  Through the open window came the sounds of cats fighting somewhere. Birds twittered, squawked, and hit leaves as they left their perches. Minogue tilted the glass, watched the whiskey curl and level as he turned it.

  “Declare to God those feckers are gone wild entirely,” she said. “Did you hear them the other night?”

  “It was dogs I heard the other night. Costigan’s old gámóg, I think.”

  He finished the drink.

  “Go on,” she said. “Have another.”

  He gave her the eye. These truces brought out odd things. The making up after a fight thing they talked about was overrated. He knew somewhere that he’d be angry for a few days at what she had done. It was manipulating, he’d argued, and was not ashamed to remember raising his voice for all to hear on the seafront in Bray. Goddamned Bray. Going about like that, the best of intentions or not, worried about him or not, soliciting Malone to phone his old boss, to keep him in the picture on account of how Minogue was off his game ever since the Squad had been closed. Pity, he read it as.

  He had been close to furious when she’d told him about Kilmartin a few weeks back, retailing confidences from Kilmartin’s wife, Maura. Harpies, he’d said, unfairly. Couldn’t they just leave their husbands alone? Couldn’t they stop interfering? Stage managing things and playing frigging amateur psychologists? It was like having some damned Mother Superiors or something, who always knew better.

  Well, we wouldn’t damned well have to, was Kathleen’s fair shot back, if you and Jim knew how to fecking well express your feelings, in the name of God. Or had the good sense to use some bloody psychology, or talk to a psychologist or something. Where was the shame trying that, in this day and age, especially seeing as how well he himself had done by Herlighy in the bad days after the bombing? Well?!

  The image of Kilmartin marooned in that big living room he was proud of, with the big television whose technological features he had detailed to Minogue several times, watching the satellite programs of bighorn sheep charging head first at one another could be comical. Except that Maura Kilmartin, damn her, had told Kathleen Minogue something. And same Kathleen Minogue didn’t know better, it seems, even after all these years of being married to a fella who held some strange pact with aloneness that he never asked for and barely even understood himself . . . and Kathleen Minogue had passed on to him that Maura had discovered Kilmartin crying one evening. Kilmartin crying was something impossible. To turn the knife, Jim Kilmartin wasn’t aware that his wife had noticed. So now, it was Minogue’s secret too. He hated it.

  “No more, thanks. I’m actually going to hit the sack.”

  “You’re not sleeping the best, are you love.”

  “It does be warm at night I find,” he tried. That’d do it.

  “Will you have a talk with Dr. Herlighy, you know?”

  “I won’t. And I don’t want—”

  “—Can I tell you something? Can I? You’re not supposed to know this.”

  Minogue fixed an eye on her.

  “If it’s about Jim, Kilmartin, I don’t want to hear it. No way.”

  “It’s not really,” she said. “I can’t help worrying. Don’t give me that look. If it’s about Tommy, I’m sorry. I said I was already. He was the only one. I was worried.”

  “And you’re not worried now.”

  “I am. That’s why I was asking you if you’d see Herlighy. Because Maura Kilmartin let slip—well, you know what I’m going to say.”

  He looked at how she had wrapped both hands around her glass. He was sure she’d have poured it down the sink if he weren’t here.

  “This is an ambush,” he said. “I thought we had a lay-down-your-arms thing after that spat below in Bray tonight.”

  “Listen, Matt. Maura has persuaded him, telling him that you got such value out of it. Now remember—you’re not supposed to know.”

  She looked up.

  “I actually feel bad telling you. But there’s nothing I won’t do, to get you back up again.”

  “I’m not down,” he said, his voice rising. “And if I am, well that’s okay.”

  “You’re in denial.”

  “Blue or white?”

  “What?”

  “I’m feeling good about myself,” he said.

  “Oh, what’s the use.”

  The whiskey’s fire glowed near his ribs yet. Oh for a smoke.

  Who was he codding here? He remembered bits of one of Kilmartin’s rants not long back, about someone’s inner child, some rock celebrity in the Sunday papers. How if that little fecker of an inner child ever turned up, someone should do this gobshite a favour and beat the ears off it and teach it manners.

  The slow, deep-throated cry of the cat was closer now. Minogue waited to hear its combatant’s cry next. Territorial, no doubt. Again, he thought of Kilmartin, carving out his fiefdom in supply and services, cultivating his vassals, showing his colours. It must be innate in him, staking out his kingdom, he thought. And Minogue had been more than content to be some kind of an agent in Kilmartin’s vanished realm, The Murder Squad. Like Camelot or something.

  So now, what had he to look forward to? Bottles of mineral water and shiny tables, meetings in exotic places like Vienna? Air miles, maybe, right. Hotels and suits on a clothing allowance. Regaling people about The Big Picture on crime across the continent. EUnuchs, had been Kilmartin’s fifth-hand term for the Euroland apparatchiks.

  He looked over at Kathleen. She had a cautious smile. He clasped her hand.

  “I’m not afraid to tell you something else,” she said.

  For a moment he felt the anger surge in, the disloyalty he had been dragged into with Jim Kilmartin. Then it just fell away. He stared at his wife now, wondering: is this what they meant by zen or things like that. How everything counts and nothing matters?

  “I think you should mee
t her,” Kathleen murmured.

  “Who, Maura Kilmartin? I’m already married, love. So’s she.”

  “The guard that did the interview, the one you were with in Fraud.”

  He waited for Kathleen to look up from her glass but she didn’t.

  “Well,” he said. “You don’t give up on this mental health issue, do you.”

  She said nothing.

  “Bray was just to soften me up?”

  “I’m sure she needs it too.”

  “Wrong. She already knows everything, Kathleen. She has everything she needs.”

  “That’s maybe how it looks to you. I’ll tell you one thing, you won’t get anywhere on your own with this.”

  He got up slowly. At least he could sit below in Dwyer’s Pub in peace. Tonight he’d smoke, yes. He thought of Kilmartin singing over the phone: ’Tis true that the women are worse than the men. . .. His eyes stayed on the empty glass.

  “No,” he said. “I did something terrible, so I did.”

  “Stop,” she said. “You’re beating yourself up for no good reason.”

  “There’s a woman dead under a train, is what.”

  “You didn’t put her there.”

  “I didn’t stop someone else putting her there.”

  “She did it to herself, Matt! You didn’t push her, and even that Guard, what’s her name, didn’t push her.”

  “Fiona Hegarty,” he said and forgot what he was going to say next. Hearing her name had derailed him. He felt a recoil somewhere in his chest.

  “You’re worried about the inquest.”

  “I am not,” he said. “It’s she should be worried. I don’t care a damn. The woman is dead, Kathleen, that’s all that matters. I should have stepped in earlier, taken over—”

  “How could you? For the love of God, you said yourself you were only a tourist! How could you see a lot of them resenting what you were about! How you were just trying to keep your head down and get through it!”

  “Well, we won’t have to be worrying about that anymore, I can tell you.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “It means I have my resignation typed up and signed—and divil damn the waiting I’ll do for Kilmartin or anyone to offer me a soft spot to land. ‘Security’ or the like.”