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

by John Brady

  He found the new number and dialled. He counted five rings. Today was the day nobody was at home then. He slid his thumb over End, but the click stopped him.

  “Hello?”

  The voice was all wrong.

  “Hello?”

  “Who is this?”

  Maybe Grogan hadn’t cleared the recall list. Maybe they had a way of seeing his number there.

  “You’re looking for Liam, is it?”

  “Who are you?”

  The hesitation again.

  “I’m a friend of his. He said you might be calling so he asked me to take the call here. He’s in the toilet.”

  All wrong. The back of Quinn’s neck crawled.

  “Give me the message and he’ll get back to you.”

  Quinn took the phone from his ear.

  “Hello,” he heard again. He’d have to do something, he knew.

  “If you give me your name there—”

  He held his thumb over the button and switched the mobile off. This wasn’t panic yet, he said to himself.

  He looked up and down the street. Everything looked different now. He knew he couldn’t delay, but he didn’t know what he needed to do. He thought about Catherine, going to her place and telling her everything. Getting the money out of the pipe he’d dug in the woods up near Ticknock.

  Someone was calling his name. He put his hand up under the jacket but didn’t look around.

  “What’s the story, Bobby, are you looking for a job?”

  The mocking sounded familiar and he glanced over his shoulder. He couldn’t remember the name. The fella worked in the markets somewhere. A bit of a head, he remembered from not too long ago, something to do with car parts. O’Hare? O’Hara?

  “Are you lost then, Mr. Quinn?”

  “No. No, I’m not.”

  “Well, you look it, I’m telling you. Aren’t you boiling there?”

  “I’m all right.”

  The man’s smile faded a little.

  “Are you sure . . .?”

  Quinn stared at him.

  “Okay, well,” he said. “It’s just—well, I seen you with Beans, the odd time. You know?”

  Quinn said nothing. The man took a step back, cleared his throat.

  “Okay well,” he said. “See you around then?”

  Quinn watched him kick gently at the curbstone.

  “How’d you know Beans,” he said to him.

  “Well, who doesn’t. The brother and him used to have schemes going inside in Smithfield.”

  “That’s back a while.”

  “You’re telling me, it was.”

  Quinn studied the glaze of mockery over the man’s eyes. Hughes, he was. “You’re Aidan Hughes aren’t you.”

  “Ah no, Mr. Quinn. That’s the brother.”

  He drew on the cigarette and squinted at Quinn. Cheeky, Quinn saw, and with drink on him.

  “I do me own thing,” he said. “I’m Barry. The smart one. Ha ha.”

  “The smart one, are you.”

  “I have me own doings. And I think you might be someone who might be interested.”

  Quinn looked up and down the street as a van passed them.

  “I’d be interested,” he said.

  “That’d be great, Mr. Quinn, do you want—”

  “—interested in seeing Beans real soon.”

  “Beans? Isn’t he here with you?”

  “Does it look like it?”

  “Let me tell you something.”

  He moved in close to Quinn and looked down at the curb as he spoke.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Hughes said. “But by the sounds of things he needs to be on his own a while.”

  Quinn looked at him.

  “You were talking to him? When, today?”

  “Wait a minute. Do you know what I’m saying here?”

  “Where did you see him?”

  “Whoa there now. Everyone has fallings-out and all, and I’m not saying it should stay that way. All I’m saying is that I’m good, you know—I mean, I can fill in for him until it gets sorted—”

  “Listen, you stupid git. Before I brain you.”

  “I didn’t mean to cause any—”

  “—Tell me where you talked to him.”

  “Right here. Connaughton’s Pub, right there. That’s where.”

  “When?”

  “Jaysus. Half an hour back? Three-quarters maybe.”

  Quinn headed for the door of the pub.

  “But he left,” Hughes said. “He left.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “I don’t know. He came in, had a pint, was talking to the barman, Mick what’s his name. So I sort of knew Beans, well I’d met him hadn’t I, when he did jobs with me brother.”

  “Did he say where he’d be?”

  Hughes shrugged.

  “He was talking to Mick about credit cards or something, if a lot of people used them in pubs.”

  “Credit cards?”

  “Yeah. And then I says, how’s it going there, Beans. And he’s not in the best of humour, I can tell right off the bat. He didn’t know who I was until I told him. So he’s asking about Barry, what’s his line nowadays, dah dah dah. So I says, well you can phone the Governor up at Mountjoy now, he could tell you, ha ha.”

  Hughes looked to him for effect.

  “Barry broke his bleeding leg trying to do a drive off of an artic down the Naas Road or somewhere. They gave him three years.”

  “Did he say anything else, like where he’d be in a while?”

  “God, no. But he was grouchy, I’m telling you. Credit cards on the brain. Even started asking me about them, did I know anyone knew a lot about them.”

  Hughes flicked his cigarette into the street.

  “I knew he was with you—I mean, the way people would talk, you know?”

  Quinn eyed him.

  “It’s just talk, I’m telling you. So I says, well any chance of putting in a good word for me with Bobby—you, like. You know? ’Cause like I was saying, I been around and—”

  “What does he want to know about credit cards? Did he say?”

  “Damned if I know. He was off on his own angles there. But he gave me the brush off, see. Says he, you don’t need to go astray for that. It’ll only hold you back, like it’s doing to me. Now that’s all he said, honest to God. Didn’t say ‘Bobby Quinn’s holding me back,’ no, it was ‘it’s holding me back.’ It, like.”

  Maybe he’d do a quick look through the markets again then. Canning might be still around.

  “It didn’t make any sense to me. I mean to say you do what you like, as long as you do right by your mates. Right? That’s what I do, that’s why I’m here.”

  “Okay,” Quinn said. He turned back down the footpath.

  “So what do you think,” Hughes said. Quinn looked over his shoulder.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “He told me you were holding him back, you know.”

  Quinn stopped, half-turned. He watched the eyes slide around, a stupid cautious smile play around his lips. For a moment he saw himself shoving the gun into his face.

  “Is that a fact,” he said.

  “Swear to God, Mr. Quinn. Do you have my number?”

  “I’ll be able to find you,” he said.

  A Real Work of Art

  Minogue perched on the edge of a desk while Malone went in search of the folder on street drugs. It had been produced for teachers and social workers mainly. It had been written by someone in the Department of Health.

  Minogue had had a walk-through of Drugs Central before. A crony of Kilmartin’s, a Super McKeon had done a tour for them. Minogue didn’t remember the batteries of walkie-talkies, phone rechargers, the computers everywhere. The armoury door was new of course. He got the once-over from more than a few of the Guards going by. They looked like soccer players in a post-game conference, he thought.

  He fell to thinking about numbers again. Where had the 15,000 heroin addicts in Dublin f
igure come from anyway? He should ask Malone. And a fiver for a pill for ‘E’? Was it really true people took them at work even? Some people had a daily thing with them. What was the difference between that and a packet of fags each day anyway?

  Malone returned with a badly bound photocopied booklet, “Guidelines for Health and Education Staff on Ecstasy and ‘Rave’ Drugs,” by Dr. P. Crosby, Department of Health.

  “That comes from a nurses’ training thing,” Malone said. “There’s a chapter ‘Symptoms’ you might want to look at. An overdose bit in the middle. This other one here is kind of technical, ‘Supply and Purity Issues,’ I think.”

  Minogue leafed through it while Malone checked his voice mail.

  “I owe you a pint then,” he said finally, and stood to go.

  “At the very least,” Malone said. “Here, before you head off. You might as well have a gawk at something. The bollocks who nearly did me in there, in the chipper?”

  Malone led him out toward the lift. The corkboard was close to full. Minogue recognized two of the faces from a while ago in the newspapers. He read the details under a blurry photo of a man who looked Arabic, one Imir Zoldi.

  “This is him,” Malone said and tapped on the photocopy of the face with his knuckle. The pinched look had to be after arrest but there was a sneer too, Minogue thought. Doyle had sideburns, for God’s sake.

  “The little bollocks,” Malone murmured. “Look at the sheet on him, will you. Assault, with a weapon, procuring, theft, B&E, assault of a police officer.”

  “Quite a career he has going.”

  He looked down the Distinguishing Features.

  “Procuring,” Malone said. “Battering girls into it, I found out. Real class.”

  Minogue reread the features part. A career criminal with a peace sign on his arm. He stopped and turned to Malone.

  “A tattoo,” he said. “On his arm. Did you see one?”

  Malone gave him a look.

  “No. I was mainly interested in taking his head off, remember I told you?”

  “You didn’t see the tattoo? It goes right down . . .?”

  Malone shook his head.

  Minogue ran his finger along the text again. With a snake wrapped in it. For several moments, he had to stop, to wait now, to think. It was possible, he thought.

  “Tommy,” he said. “I want to know all about this fella.”

  “You do? What for?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “What do you want to know about him?”

  “If you have a file on him here. Photos.”

  “I can tell you everything in one sentence if you like. Save you the bother.”

  “Pictures, I want.”

  “Huh. How about the summary? Doyle-Is-A-Low-Life-Gouger. Get the picture now?”

  Minogue gave him the look.

  “Okay,” Malone said. “If that’s the way with you. But we’ll have to find a spot where nobody’ll see you.”

  Minogue returned to Malone’s desk. A passing detective took a pad of paper off Malone’s desk and winked at Minogue.

  Minogue told him that he wouldn’t tell. He spotted the edges of the photos on Malone’s desk where the pad had lain. He pushed aside the sheet of perspex over the map of Dublin that Malone always liked to keep on his desk. A picture of Malone and his brother at their Holy Communion, the mother and father standing next to them. How much Malone was getting to be like his oul lad. Another photo was further back. A lousy photo of Squad staff at a piss-up last year. Éilís with the worst of the red-eyed demon look and her lopsided smile. Kilmartin like a bear, grabbing Sean Murtagh around the neck, a pint in his other hand. Minogue himself with a fair flush from the drink. Malone with a rare smile.

  “Shea Hoey,” Malone said. “It was Shea took that.”

  “Excuse me.”

  “Ah, you’re all right. I forgot about them.”

  He kept the file under his arm.

  “Come on down next to the photocopier. There’s a cubbyhole there for the cleaners and that.”

  Malone stood in the open doorway whistling low.

  Minogue turned the pages, trying to find more than the mugs.

  The photo was stapled to the back of the file folder. It was sideways but Minogue had seen enough.

  “Now we’re talking,” he said. Malone turned and looked at the folder.

  “Oh, a real work of art,” he said.

  “Is that a prison one?”

  “I don’t know. To me, it looks like he paid for that one.”

  “Is it a common one, this? A gang thing?”

  Malone frowned and looked at Minogue.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  Minogue found the Associates. One was from Bray. He held it out to Malone.

  “Know any of these heads?”

  Malone hesitated.

  “Only the one in the middle, I think. I think that’s Gannon. Gaga, he goes by, I think. He’s not much. The fella I trained with mentioned him once, that’s how I know. That’s how I remember.”

  “Is this file on Doyle a match for what’s on the computer?”

  Malone gave him a disparaging look.

  “What do you think?”

  “I’m taking that for a no, then.”

  “Yeah, I mean no. A confidential no.”

  “Is it still a bit of the old school here, then?”

  “Sure is. Jaysus, half of them here don’t let on who their touts are. They’d never file it. And you know what, who’d blame them? The access to files isn’t half as tight as they pretend anyway. You know that, even.”

  “So who can I talk to more about Doyle then?”

  “What do you want to know more about Doyle for? You never told me.”

  “Research.”

  “It isn’t about the thing with him and me the other night is it?”

  “No. It’s just a very odd coincidence.”

  “Why aren’t you going official on this?”

  “I thought Kathleen told you to humour me.”

  “Oh, thanks. Thanks very much. My neck is out to here already, showing you internal files, and now you want the whole shop.”

  “Which are no different than what I’d get off the computer. Isn’t that so?”

  “Oh look, now you’re using that on me?”

  “Come on, Tommy, don’t push throwing triplicate at me.”

  “I’m not going to be your friend anymore, so I’m not.”

  Minogue closed the file and handed it to him.

  “Come on then,” said Malone. “Culchies. They’d take the eye out of your head.”

  “Come on where?”

  “See if Carroll’s in. Tony Carroll. He’s the one made the last entries there.”

  Picture-in-Picture

  Quinn sat back into his car and rolled down his window. The thumping from the jukebox or whatever they had up there was still loud even out here. Up by the tables it just about set your fillings rattling. How could Canning stand it?

  It was all for a younger crowd now of course. Over thirty was banned.

  Frames was open until 3 a.m. now. Cappuccino, fancy lights. Still he bet there was plenty more going through here. There had to be. Nobody played snooker these days, did they?

  It was still Chalky White though, complete with the designer duds and tan job and the dyed hair. Only trouble was the duds were seventies. Plus, he looked like Elvis, more and more, the Elvis who stayed at home eating cheeseburgers and pills. Chalky hadn’t seen Canning for ages; well, he said he hadn’t seen him, for at least a few weeks. Quinn had had a hard enough time hearing what White had said. He left White with a look that he hoped said “wonder why?”

  A traffic warden was eyeing him. He started the engine and headed back down Amiens Street. So here he was, doing what his brain was telling him to stay away from. On the way here he had heard himself even saying it aloud: “If they don’t break your legs, Beans, then by Jesus, I will.”

  Canning didn’t have the brain
s to know how to get ahead. Wasn’t that the trouble, that the people who didn’t know their arse from their elbow didn’t know that they didn’t know? Of course it was, for Christ’s sake: so simple—if the likes of Beans knew anything at all, he wouldn’t be the way he was, would he? “To The South,” the stupid road sign said. Like “The North.” What use was that to anyone? Why couldn’t they just say “Road to Bray”?

  Quinn began to think about destiny and fate. He once thought of buying some goldfish and calling them that. Irene thought that was quite amusing. That was earlier on when she didn’t know him that much. He hadn’t told her how he made a living, and she hadn’t asked. He knew that she knew something of it after a few sessions. For a while it made him feel good, knowing she was on edge. It was only today that he’d finally admitted to himself he didn’t trust her anymore, that it was all bullshit.

  Now, what was funny, but actually not so funny, was that he felt sort of cut off, like he was on his own. Going around blind, with no idea where he was headed, as if she had the map or something.

  “Jesus,” he said aloud. Maybe this is what it’s like when you go mental.

  He stopped at the lights by the Custom House. A huge ad for a phone you could watch a video on—that was Beans, right there. He’d be in there trying to get his hands on it. Like a kid with the latest toy. Maybe he’d been spoiled too when he was a young fella. Always getting his head turned by anything new, any shiny new stuff. Right, Quinn remembered, like the load of televisions that had got him his last stretch. He had still been going on about them even after he’d done his time: Bobby, they were the best, they were picture-in-picture. The best! Never stopped, until he got on to the next thing, of course. Like a jackdaw or a magpie or something.

  A black Mercedes ran the light coming out of the financial services place. Quinn caught a glimpse of the two men behind the glass. Well, they could laugh. The fancy motor, the air conditioning, the buying and selling or whatever they did for a living in there along with the rest of them. Using a keyboard to make millions, no doubt. Was there a time when everything changed, not one day, but, say one year, when all the electronic things happened? Himself, he wasn’t stupid. He’d noticed right away how much had happened since he’d gotten back out, and had known what to do. Grogan and them weren’t thick either. They’d know the writing was on the wall and it was catch on or lose it all. He looked up at the ad again. You could buy things on a mobile now, even a tin of Coke out of a machine.