Islandbridge

by Brady, John

  “Malone gets an idea into his head, bejases, and he’ll sink his teeth into it like a badger, Matt. Obsessed, I call that. Don’t you see?”

  Minogue made a non-committal nod, and stepped up the pace. All he wanted was to be here amongst the crowds, hearing the languages, and eyeing the looming trees of St. Stephen’s Green waiting for him at the top of the street.

  “They tried to play Malone before,” said Kilmartin. “It’s the old story, isn’t it? Before, they used his brother to get at him – Terry, God rest him. And now? Malone is working GNDU here, in the thick of it? The Garda National Drugs Unit . . . no wonder someone would be trying to fiddle with his head. Even just to cause trouble with his crowd, Matt. He’ll always be a target for that, Malone. But he should have a bit of cop-on, for God’s sake.”

  “Sowing the seeds of discord, is it.”

  “Disinformation is what it is,” said Kilmartin. “Do you know what that is?”

  “Of course I do. I’m a married man the same as yourself.”

  “You’re not as funny as you think you are there, you bostún. Surely to God even you crowd in, ahem, International Liaison there, know there’s enough of the Dublin gangbangers went big here this last while. Come on now: brazen, bigger, and bolder. Sure, they think they’re running the show.”

  Minogue nodded.

  “Remember the Egans there a while back?” Kilmartin went on, as though Minogue were still an unbeliever. “Who else is there in it? The Rynns, what’s left of them? Jumbo Rynn is still in it, I hear. He’s an oul lad now, he can hardly walk. Emphymesa, or something.”

  “‘Nothing too trivial, I hope.’”

  “That’s not like you,” said Kilmartin. “Hard talk like that.”

  “That was Wilde.”

  “Wild, is right. It just sounds odd coming from you, you oul softie.”

  “Ah, things are moving too fast lately,” Kilmartin went on. “Waaay too fast, I’m telling you. There’s fellas in town here getting into the driver’s seat for gang stuff, now, fellas who have about ten words of English. Me refugee, get money, wanna drugs I get for you, friend in Moscow, let’s do deals, no wanna go back there, likee here too much, lotsa stupid people I rob and cheat.”

  “Is that how they speak, refugees?”

  “‘Refugees?’ Don’t get holy on me, Matt. And don’t be so damned naïve.”

  Minogue stopped by the lights, and waited. He knew that he would try to screen out what Kilmartin’s remarks revealed, but it still soured him. He thought of Father Coughlin, the Franciscan sitting in the church. He had left a millionaire job in London to help drug addicts in his hometown here?

  “Someone’s messing with his head,” Kilmartin said, over the traffic. “Mark my words, Matt. I’d be thinking Malone’s losing his, what’ll I call it, maybe not his marbles yet, but his perspective, you could call it.”

  “But not in a bad way,” said Minogue.

  “Don’t be cheeky. You know what, Matt? I wouldn’t put it past that bastard Lawless to hatch up a scheme to get at me – either of them. For locking up one of them. You see?”

  There was a knot of people gawking into a window up ahead, and others were drifting over to catch a glimpse of whatever it was. It was another hi-fi shop, Minogue saw. There was live coverage of the event in Malahide still. The man he had seen earlier was onscreen, and he appeared to be in tears. McCourt, McCoy – no: McCann, that was his name.

  “What gives here,” Kilmartin said. “What am I missing?”

  “I saw it earlier on. A stowaway fell out of a plane over in Malahide, apparently.”

  Kilmartin lingered, squinting into the window.

  “A stowaway?” he said.

  Someone in the small crowd turned and nodded, and said something else to Kilmartin. Minogue took a few steps to show Kilmartin he wasn’t for hanging around any longer. Kilmartin exchanged a few more words with the man, stared for a while at the screen, and followed Minogue.

  “Dropped in unannounced,” he said to Minogue, who gave him a quick glare, and began walking faster. It took some effort from Kilmartin to catch up.

  “What’s your hurry?” he demanded.

  “I’m trying to keep up with the coming times. Unlike some.”

  They had to wait a minute for botched traffic signals at the other end of the Green before they could cross and start up Harcourt Street.

  “Here, I never asked you,” said Kilmartin, beginning to breathe heavier from the pace. “Who are you working with now?”

  “Same as before. International Liaison.”

  Kilmartin was like an old woman more and more, Minogue had decided. Maybe it was since the move out of the Squad that his friend had become even more of a gossip and a collector, and a cynic. But there was no-one Kilmartin didn’t have a yarn about, or couldn’t dig up one with a few phone calls.

  “But who’s your minder there, day-to-day, I mean? Your ‘mentor’?”

  “Tadhg Sullivan.”

  “Aha! I know Tadhg. Tadhg is Kerry – no prize there, with the name, I know. Fenit, is he from?”

  “Worse,” said Minogue. “I actually suspect he might be from Dingle.”

  The sun came out then, without warning. It blasted over this small part of Minogue’s city, lighting up the trees and the glass. He looked up, in hope. There’d be a bit more of it, he believed, maybe even enough for him to get the last of it this evening down at Killiney Strand.

  “Listen, what are you doing later on?” Kilmartin said.

  “After I’ve concocted some excuse for getting out of the meeting?”

  “This evening, I mean.”

  “Herself might have plans, maybe. Maybe I’ll study for me French exams.”

  “You blackguard, you’ll do no such thing. Next thing you’ll try is ‘herself wants the rockery rearranged.’ Christ man, that rockery of yours – you must have moved it ten times.”

  Minogue took in the passing cars and the pedestrians as he strode along. He didn’t care if this was a bit taxing for Kilmartin. He began to imagine a camera on him, someone taking notes: “Collusion with others to leave their post. . . . Heart not in his work. . . . Appears skeptical of value of Euro-conference and intelligence-sharing, especially if presented onscreen . . . .”

  He looked over at Kilmartin, who was huffing a little now, and trying not to show it. He had gone a bit stout lately. Maybe it went with his bilious comments about foreigners that Minogue wished he hadn’t heard earlier. He slowed a little.

  “Look,” said Kilmartin. “Will you come by the house tonight?”

  “To your house?”

  “Not to the house,” said Kilmartin. “No: I have to get out of the damned house. It’s that frigging kitchen thing of Maura’s. Without a by-your-leave, she has the kip turned upside down. There’s fellas working there until eight and nine at night! ‘Can’t get them any other way,’ says she.”

  “What had you in mind?”

  “I mean a bit of gallivanting. You go round and about some nights, don’t you? A healthy stroll, and all that. Come on now. Keeps you fit, right?”

  “I don’t do it for that, Jim.”

  “Well, whatever,” said Kilmartin with a touch of annoyance. “Up them lanes and hills and whatever. Let me try it out.”

  The irritation rose up suddenly in Minogue.

  “You have plenty next door to your place, Jim. Killiney Hill there, Dalkey?”

  When Kilmartin said nothing, Minogue stole a glance over.

  “Fair enough,” said Kilmartin then.

  Chapter 5

  MINOGUE HAD PICKED UP a copy of the summary from the session with Moser.

  “So, was he good?” Tadhg Sullivan asked.

  Minogue looked over at his colleague. Sullivan, a Kerryman, with all the Kerryman’s propensities, would probably have heard about the truancy already.

  “The Austrian fella’s thing? Moser?”

  Sullivan nodded.

  “It was great,” Minogue replied.
/>   “Just great? Not brilliant, or anything?”

  Minogue gave him a wary scrutiny to see any sign Sullivan was winding him up.

  “He is very up on everything, Tadhg.”

  Sullivan flicked the pages, pausing to study some of the maps.

  Minogue’s thoughts began to drift back to the church, and again to Lawless’s glittering eyes reflecting the candle flames, as they blinked and darted about the church. So Garda Emmett Condon had died of an overdose. Wasn’t that fairly common knowledge by now? This girl that Lawless had said Condon had been been mixed up with, this foreign one that nobody knew about, well Minogue could check when he had time if there was any mention of this in the case. Or not.

  The real item that Lawless wanted to use to crowbar snitch money out of the Guards – “remuneration” Lawless had called it, in that quasi-legal wordiness so typical of a Dubliner chancer – seemed to be the story of the senior Guard on the payroll for someone big here in Dublin. Details to follow on receipt of substantial cash, no doubt. Maybe Jim Kilmartin’s instincts were right on: a con.

  Minogue realized that Sullivan was still hanging on the divider. He sat back and eyed him. There was always that stray cowlick of hair, a slight crossing of the front teeth, and an earnest, almost startled look to Sullivan, and his squat mesomorphic trunk seemed to insist that his shirt tails erupt out, right from the start of a workday.

  “Anything we should consider using right away, Matt?”

  Sullivan was talking about the presentation, of course. Minogue looked over, but could not detect any mischief. He took that to be evidence of the contrary. It would be a battle of the straight-faces then. A bit of entertainment was welcome, he decided, now that Minogue realized that part of him believed what Kilmartin had said about a con.

  “Well, Tadhg. It was all fascinating entirely. The big picture, as they say?”

  “Every little bit helps, I daresay,” said Sullivan. “God knows, we’ve had it easy here long enough. With the Euro-crime I mean.”

  Sullivan shifted his weight. Minogue registered the bulk of the belly shift and swell the shirt over Sullivan’s belt.

  “How right you are, Tadhg. Part of the package. Now that we’re in the big leagues.”

  “That’s why ich spreche Deutsch, Matt. Goes with the territory now. By the by, how’s them French lessons going?”

  “Maith go leor,” said Minogue, in the Munster Irish of his youth, fairly sure that Sullivan wouldn’t miss it. Maith go leaor, or “good enough,” was a phrase common to any dialect of Irish, alluding to a person who was plenty under the influence.

  “Bet your missus has a keener interest in you now, with you enjoying that facility now.”

  Minogue might as well be looking at the sphinx. A true son of Kerry, this silver-tongued rogue.

  “No success with the German, Tadhg?”

  Sullivan scratched himself gently under the arm.

  “They’re not so hot on the oul pillow talk. That I know of, anyway.”

  Minogue looked down at the heap of files he had culled on Intermatic, a recent shell game that Revenue had come up with almost by accident. Intermatic had been a front for smuggling in dirty money that seemed to be coming in through Germany – from Thailand, of all places.

  “Tadhg, tell me something. Have you got a minute?”

  “Are you sure I’m not interrupting a meeting now, or a conference call with you know who?”

  “Who, now?”

  “Malone,” said Sullivan.

  “Was it that noticeable?”

  Sullivan issued a wan smile.

  “Matt, you were in a room full of cops. We can’t all be iijits at the same time.”

  Minogue balanced his anniversary pen, the ten-year one that Kilmartin had paid for personally, for the Squad.

  “I hear you, Tadhg. And thank you. But tell me about someone. Emmett Condon?”

  Sullivan’s eyes lost their glaze.

  “Tell you what?”

  “Well, you keep your ear to the ground.”

  “Why are you asking me, though?”

  “Because you’re a knowledgeable man.”

  “Is that what you’re working on?”

  “No. The name came up recently.”

  “Is this an ‘I have a friend who . . .’?”

  “Well, do you know anything?”

  “I only know what any Guard in Dublin knows, Matt.”

  “Do you mean something like what I was told already, ‘the Condon thing is a shambles’?”

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself. How bad? Well, some of that might never come out. That’s all I heard.”

  Minogue waited. He watched Sullivan’s fingers tracing something on a file folder.

  “Come on. You’re the one’d have the contacts, Matt. You’re the Murder Squad veteran now. You and Big Jim. Glory days, were they?”

  “At the time, you wouldn’t think so.”

  “Well, how is Kilmartin getting on now, anyway? Still a character, I’ll bet you.”

  Minogue raised an eyebrow in return for Sullivan’s mischief.

  “He’s great. Nearly too much so.”

  In Sullivan’s face Minogue now read the signs that he needed to plot a diversion, without delay. The topic, as so often before was: yarns of the Murder Squad, and Jim “The Killer” Kilmartin, its last and legendary section head before its honourable dissolution and folding back into the Garda Technical Bureau. Minogue had yet to hear any request for tales of the Technical Bureau. The Bureau, and the staff of the State Lab contributing to it on so many cases, was merely a body devoted to police science and procedure, a place where striding giants like James Kilmartin were seen plainly of another age. Oisín I nidaidh na Féinne.1

  Minogue cast about for anything, and was relieved to remember that Sullivan had asked him about a bed-and-breakfast in Paris. Sullivan and his missus, a formidable primary schoolteacher with the red hair and the face of a tinker, had never been there.

  He found the address, and said he’d phone for Sullivan and sorry he’d forgotten. Sullivan asked about food, a topic close to his heart, Minogue had discovered a month back when he’d started here on this, his third three-month stint working his way through the Garda sections. Sullivan left happily enough, for lunch, with a yarn that Minogue conceded about Kilmartin stepping on dogshite at a scene a few years ago, and having to put his own shoe in an evidence bag.

  Having his own religion, Minogue had for many years now been imposing his own penance also. Today it meant working through lunch, as repentance for slipping away from “Policing the Frontiers of the New Europe.” He used the pretext of Intermatic’s money-laundering trail to phone Dan Kiely in Criminal Assets, and half-enjoy a longish exploration of why Limerick city’s reputation and nickname – “Stab City” – was undeserved. Then he re-read the statements that had come in this morning from Amrobank, on an island he knew was somewhere in the Caribbean, but was also the name of some kind of spirits – Curaçao.

  He marvelled a lot less about the ingenuity of the laundering operation now after working on it for two days. Last week it had been a builder Mulcahy. That had been a right monkey puzzle that involved fake invoices for cement, the Cayman Islands, and the hospitalization of a foreman on a building site of the shopping centre in Baldoyle.

  After a half-hour, Minogue ate a bit of a Mars bar and some crisps and he headed to the toilet. It was too early for coffee. Actually it wasn’t, he reflected as he stood with his hands under the dryer, staring at his own face in the mirror, and wondering yet again how much more of this dream job he could take.

  It was half past two before Malone finally phoned. Right away he wanted to know what he thought of Lawless, and what the latter had said. Minogue tried to evade him.

  “Ask Jim first, why don’t you,” he said.

  “I know what he’d think before we even went there. It’s you I want to hear.”

  Minogue thought of the flickering candlelight on Lawless’s face, his
incessant blinking and his fidgetiness. Lawless had reminded him of that American actor they raved about, what was his name – of course, De Niro. He remembered that Lawless’s teeth were grey, they went in, instead of out. Like a rat, maybe. Was it drugs did that?

  “Look, Tommy,” he said after a while. “It all means nothing. That’s what I really think.”

  He wasn’t aware of having decided to be brutal about it. Malone fell silent.

  “Your informant spent a bit of time on his script, Tommy. Mr. Lawless.”

  “Well, what about the woman that Condon was with?”

  “Supposedly with.”

  “You don’t take even one bit of it seriously?”

  “Well where is she then? I’ll listen in on what she tells you, if that’ll keep you happy.”

  “Come on,” said Malone. “If I could do that, don’t you think I would’ve already?”

  Minogue pushed his chair back. Kilmartin’s words came to him too, no matter what he tried, and he couldn’t dislodge them from his brain: Malone was losing it.

  “Listen, Tommy. Did you pass this to the people on the Condon case?”

  “I won’t until I figure out if it’s a con or not. And anyway, that is iced. They’re just going through the motions, I found out. It’s pretty clear Condon was bent.”

  “Then just pass it on, and walk away from it. You have enough to be doing, I’m thinking.”

  Minogue did not like to hear silence from Malone’s end again. He thought of the contented look he’d been seeing on Malone’s face this past while, especially when he had met him with Sonia Chang, Malone’s on-again girlfriend whose family ran a take-out in Rathmines. The flak from her family hadn’t let up, flak about dating an Irish policeman, or more to the point, a Dublin Northsider who looked more like the bad guys than their idea of a cop.

  “So tell me,” Minogue said, brightly. “Any happy news coming our way as regards to yourself and Sonia?”

  “We’re doing so-so,” said Malone. “But it’s not Sonia I’m phoning about, is it.”

  There was a pause. Minogue sort of knew what was coming.

  “You think I’m being pumped,” Malone said. “Go on. You can say it.”