The Going Rate

by John Brady

  “Well good for her. Is she up to it?”

  “More to the point, is he? He’s fiftysomething.”

  “I saw his name in credits going back to St. Patrick: “Director – Joe Rattigan.”

  “Well he’s still a biggish wheel.”

  “All those wankers. ‘I could pass your name on to Colm Breen, Colm and I go back a long way.’”

  “Age hasn’t dimmed your kind regard, I see.”

  “I’m talking about when I was a kid, even. Well, a teenager.”

  “Lizzie says the separation from his wife made a teenager out of him. Spare me the details, I told her.”

  He knew there were bottles of Heineken left from the weekend, but they were in the cupboard. Still, he’d drink one.

  “She says he’s not the way people think. ‘Joseph’ he likes to be called.”

  Fanning walked slowly to the doorway and leaned against it. Bríd sighed and sat up and opened the paper again.

  “Why are you telling me this,” he said.

  She seemed surprised.

  “Lizzie happens to be my sister. Anyway. It’s just talk.”

  “Networking, are we?”

  “Maybe. What of it?”

  “Leave me out of it.”

  “Did I say you were in it? In what, anyway?”

  “You know. ‘Putting in a good word for good old Dermot Fanning.’”

  “Is that what you’re thinking? Really?”

  “Some of it, yes. It’s not like, well, you know.”

  “‘It’s like it’s all about me’?”

  “Give me a break, Bríd. Christ’s sake.”

  “I will if you let me take you out for a pint with Lizzie and him.”

  “A pint,” he said, “with Joe Rattigan. I’d sooner kick myself in the head.”

  “Well there you go. True to form, anyway.”

  “That was a setup.”

  “You mean self-sabotage. That’s what I’m hearing. Again.”

  “Don’t we have a deal, that we never use crap words like that? Like the shite you have every day in school? Empowerment, facilitate – all that bullshit?”

  Bríd stared at him.

  “Why are you raising your voice?”

  “Because, because I’m annoyed. Is that still allowed?”

  She blinked several times and then abruptly returned to her marking. He watched her but she did not look over. Soon she was absorbed in what she was reading. He took two bottles from the cupboard.

  “I’ll do an hour or two,” he said, “at the desk.”

  The desk was a family heirloom passed on from his great-grandaunt, a teacher all her life in Waterford. The desk had become his magic carpet, his portal. He’d even drilled a hole to bring the laptop’s cable into the drawer.

  He slowed as he passed her. She dropped her pen and reached out around his waist.

  “Just let me do it,” she murmured, “Joe knows your work. Lizzie already asked him about you.”

  It was almost more than he could muster to wait with her and to caress her hair. He knew early on there’d be no chance tonight anyway. The desire had left him quite suddenly, and in its place was the familiar, dense unease.

  Things used to be different, was all he could think.

  Chapter 20

  THE SITE PHOTOS HAD BEEN ARRANGED on two notice boards, with more slotted into a binder. A third notice board – the back of a mobile whiteboard, actually – contained the timeline for Tadeusz Krystof Klos’ last hours. The last entry of 22:30/23:00 was followed by three question marks. Minogue saw an entry for a shop, with “Marlboro” written next to the entry; an Internet kiosk, again with notes that Klos had been there before. “Slovenian” was written after a name, Peter somebody.

  On the far wall was a large-scale Ordinance Survey of Dublin, with dates written on the coloured disks spotted about the map. Textbook setup, Minogue saw: effective, accessible, clear. He did not see a key to those colours yet. Wait – of course: green for reliable placing/witness. How could he have forgotten?

  “The black ones are…?”

  “Street-crime with violence. There’s only five years on the map. The black you can guess.”

  “Three murders in five years?”

  “Surprising, maybe.”

  “I remember only one,” Minogue said. “It was one of the last we dealt with directly. On the Squad, I mean. The nurse?”

  “It is. Another one was a brawl from a pub. But there was an execution one there from two years ago. That one on the right, the body in the car one, was the fella missing from Newry. Paramilitary thing. Both of them are open. I have the files up on them if you want them.

  Minogue turned to him.

  “Nothing to take to the bank yet on our Polish man, is there Kevin?”

  “That’s about the size of it,” said Wall after a moment. “So far, we see him as an ordinary punter wandering in there. Is he trying to score something, is he lost, expecting to meet someone, has some arrangement…?”

  “Well,” said Minogue, and took off his coat. “That’s what we’re paid for, I suppose.”

  He flipped open the file and glanced at the copies of the statements. On top was one Marion Mullen, employee of a cleaning company. Ms. Mullen had been coming off shift in the financial centre.

  “Before you get dug in now,” said Wall. “It looks like we might have some give. Coming in just now. Mossie is working on something.”

  “Linked to the case?”

  Wall nodded.

  “From a phone-in earlier on this afternoon. It’s not printed out yet but I know it’s entered on the database.”

  Minogue watched Wall hanging his jacket on a wooden hanger, flicking at the lapels and shoulders to make sure it sat straight. His shirt had been carefully ironed. Minogue wondered why he had not noticed the long unfashionable tweed tie already.

  “Apparently a woman, the mother of a girl over in Whitehall, was eyeing what the young one was doing on the computer.”

  “A chat thing.”

  “Yep. Twittering, or MSNing or something. Her young one was over and back to someone, a pal. The mother got a bit suspicious. She doesn’t like the other young one. ‘Bad influence.’”

  “Always the other one,” said Minogue.

  “Well. The daughter was in this to-and-fro. Very secretive. Got into a set-to with the mother. A row ensued, and the mother got her dander up. The last straw, etc. Daughter ends up in tears. The mother says the girls were talking about doing an anonymous call or something.”

  “Anonymous, like to the tip line?”

  “Didn’t say. ‘Whatever else you can say about that daughter of mine,’ says the mother, ‘at least she has a conscience.’”

  Wall examined his tie then, as though consulting notes.

  “Yep,” he said and he looked up. “There was talk of some prank that she pulled on someone. ‘Some foreigner,’ says the mother. Gave him wrong directions.”

  “How old are the girls?”

  “Fourteen. The friend is thirteen.”

  Minogue knew that Wall was waiting for a reaction. He turned a page that had a thick bookmark.

  “Where’s it at now?”

  “Mossie went out about half an hour ago. The mother is picking up the kid from school, taking her back home to talk to Mossie. He’ll be phoning me – us – here.”

  Minogue looked down the page at a mobile phone number.

  “The mother found it in the girl’s room.”

  “Recent calls?”

  “They’re working on it,” said Wall. “There were no calls to Ireland anyhow.”

  Minogue looked at the email addresses.

  “Phone shops, Kevin, what’s the story on them?”

  Wall used his ring finger to scratch his crown.

  “City Centre has been done, and they have his photo. Nothing yet. Some staff they haven’t reached, and that’s going to stay leaking until we find them. Holidays, two – wait – three of them. One quit, hasn’t been
back. Dublin fella. Likely nothing to it.”

  Minogue sank back slowly in his chair, and resumed scanning the pages. Soon enough, his eyes slipped out of focus and they came to rest somewhere near the broad margins of the page, or the desktop beneath. He heard Wall at the keyboard, and looked over. Wall had put on glasses.

  Something stirred in Minogue again. Several moments passed before he realized that he had been remembering how she too had looked over her glasses every now and then yesterday. Maybe Danute Juraksaitis’ glasses stood out in his mind because of the absence of things he had expected – earrings, makeup, necklace. She had worn a white blouse, that could equally have been a man’s shirt.

  Wall was going through the file log on the screen.

  “Someone must have suggested Ireland to him,” Minogue said to him. “As a destination.”

  Wall craned his neck.

  “If he did, we haven’t a sign of him yet – or her.”

  “And the police over there?”

  “Four years ago, he showed up, but nothing since. He was a passenger in a stolen car. There was public drunkenness, name taken and cautioned.”

  “He’d fit right in here, you might think. But did he have any reason to leave there in a hurry?”

  “Not according to the coppers there anyway.”

  Minogue narrowed his eyes. “Payback, Kevin? Someone collecting, revenge?”

  Wall folded his arms, and seemed to consider it. Minogue saw how the folds from the ironing remained sharp.

  “If he did put something over on one of his cronies beyond in Poland, and then he flew the coop, there’s no sign yet. Might be worth asking them again, of course.”

  Wall might have been going to say something, but the phone went. Minogue returned to Mrs. Klos’ statement, but kept an ear open to eavesdrop on Wall’s conversation. The statement been sent over today – this morning – translated. The footer gave the email address of Danute Juraksaitis.

  The phrases were empty, but hard to read now. “A fresh beginning.” “Maybe to study there.” “To improve his English and also try for the U.S.” “To get out into fresh country side.” “He always liked the sea on our family holidays.” Later: “to make new friends.” “To get away from other people who were not helping his life.”

  “Helping his life?”

  There was no mention of his past, or his troubles, in her statement. It was a list of her ruined hopes she had had for her son, and reciting them had been like her prayer, her eulogy.

  He heard Wall say his name into the phone, repeat it, and then hang up.

  “Mossie’s coming up,” Wall said. “It’s a go.”

  “Grand. Is it something we can move on right away?”

  “It looks like it. The girl has admitted she met him, Klos. She was with her pals.”

  Wall was waiting for a reaction, Minogue realized. He nodded approvingly.

  “She’s no daw, this kid, says Mossie. A bit of an operator. Wised-up, like.”

  “Covering for her pals no doubt,” said Minogue. “The usual.”

  “Well yes and no. Gangs are big here, I suppose you know?”

  Minogue hoped his surprise didn’t show. How could he not have thought about that?

  “First mention of gangs in this case anyway,” he said. “I have to say.”

  “We sort of take it as a given up here.”

  Minogue detected no one-upmanship in Wall’s voice. He remembered the Apache Country routine from Ward and Callinan.

  “She told Mossie he gave them a bit of a fright. Asking about ‘the river.’ The Liffey like, down by the quays. We’ll see what her pal says, the other one who–”

  As though on cue, the door opened, and led by a long beak of a nose that preceded a tightly cut frizz of wiry, rust-coloured hair over a pale face, Detective Garda Mossie Duggan arrived. Minogue rose and shook hands with this too-tall, bony-shouldered man with an Adam’s apple half hanging over his collar.

  “Kev brought you up to speed here?”

  “So far, so good,” said Minogue. “I think.”

  “Well your timing is good,” said Duggan. “This young one I talked to, she was with her friend – and their boyfriends. Four of them.”

  “Now there’s a picture,” said Wall. “Give me names, will you.”

  Duggan flipped open his incident book. Minogue began to copy the names that Wall transcribed on the board. Tara Lynch (14); Alison (“Ali”) Rogers (13); Aidan Matthews (?); Justin Twomey (?).

  “Thirteen-year-old girl,” Wall said. “What does that say. Skangers, is what.”

  “Have you run the boys’ names yet?” Minogue asked.

  “Not yet,” said Duggan. “But I could take bets before I do.”

  He walked to the end of the boards, and tapped at the timeline with his knuckles.

  “This Tara Lynch puts Klos there at about half-eleven,” he said. “‘We just happened to be going that way, it was a shortcut to catch the last bus.’ My nose isn’t the only one twitching, is it?”

  “Did she say how he looked?” Minogue asked.

  “‘Scary.’”

  “Drink? Soliciting? Lost?”

  “She thinks he might have had a few, but not falling-down drunk or anything. Said she couldn’t understand him. ‘The river I go, the side,’ she thinks he said.”

  “The hostel,” said Wall. “He was trying to get back to base.”

  “So they sent him up toward East Wall,” said Duggan. “And off he went.”

  “She saw him walk off, she says?” Wall asked.

  “Didn’t get to that,” said Duggan. “That’s when the father walks in. The mother was grand with me asking a few questions, but then in comes your man. Very het-up, very belligerent. Starts telling me the law.”

  Duggan paused to set up his mimic.

  “‘That child of mine is an effin minor, I’ll have you know!’”

  “‘I know my rights!’” said Wall. “The usual rigamarole?”

  “‘No effing way is she going to be dragged down to any effing Garda station!’” said Duggan. He dispensed with the fake Dublin accent then.

  “And all the rest of it,” Duggan resumed. “Big row with the wife, right in front of me. Not the first time, I imagine. She was grand with the chat we were having, but in he barges, minor this and minor that.”

  “Was she still minor,” Wall asked, with neither amusement nor rancour that Minogue could spot, “when she was traipsing around at that hour of the night?”

  “Well don’t get started on that one, Kev,” said Duggan. “But it got better than I thought it would. I wished I’d taped it, in actual fact.”

  “The parents having a row?”

  “What she said to him, the wife,” said Duggan. “Remember, she’s the one who made that phone call. ‘My child knows right from wrong,’ et cetera. So she laid into him after he gave me the heave-ho. It was funny: there I was in the hall, him yelling at me. I’m ready to walk out the door, go back to the station here, start me paper work to get an interview with this kid, the whole letter-of-the-law routine. But out she comes, tells me not to budge. Stay right here, says she to me. ‘I’m the child’s mother! I come first, so I do!’”

  “Standing up for her kid,” Wall said. “Maybe a history of abuse there.”

  “Maybe,” said Duggan. “I don’t think she was scared of him. She was just fed up. Flaming row, but then. … He backs down. Strangest thing. I thought I’d have to call in some lads, get the thing under control. Oh but if you could have heard it: ‘I’m not having her grow up like I done! She’s not going to end up like me!’ Hell of a thing to say in front of him. But it worked. Bottom line: parents consent to us interviewing her at the family home, a proper interview. Parents attending, of course.”

  Duggan looked from Wall to Minogue and back.

  “It gets even better,” he said. “They were with two fellas that night. Boyfriends, surprise, surprise. You ask me, I think the mother knows what happened, had a heart-to-heart with
the daughter.”

  “And wants to be first in the door,” said Wall, nodding, “before the others.”

  “Hard not to think that, isn’t it,” said Duggan, and looked down at his nails.

  Minogue realized that this was Duggan’s way of showing he was excited – calmly excited. He glanced at Wall, and received a slow nod in return. The momentum would only pick up from here.

  “Go ahead, Kevin,” he said to him. “It’s your call. I’m only window-dressing here, to be honest.”

  Wall made a brief smile, and lapsed back into thought.

  “Could always start with the tough route,” said Duggan. “Set them up here in the station, the four of them, and play the game. You know: he says, she says – and then wait. Throw a few shapes if things bog down: accessory, withholding, obstruction?”

  Wall tugged gently at his tie again.

  “Ah what would Hughsie do?” Duggen asked with a pained expression after a few moments.

  “All right, all right,” said Wall, his slight smile soon pulled back. “We’d better get started. Bring in the others – and uniforms and squad cars to do it. But fair’s fair. We’ll interview this girl at her house. But the minute it turns scrappy…?”

  Chapter 21

  MURPHY ANSWERED HIS MOBILE on the second ring: but it wasn’t Murphy. “He’s busy,” said the man who answered. Fanning recognized the accent right away.

  “I’ll phone him later on then.”

  “No need. Where are you?”

  “It’s Murph I need to talk to.”

  “You said that already.”

  “So tell him I’ll give him a ring later on.”

  “He told me you’d ring. He said for me to meet you. Help things along.”

  Fanning listened for any sounds in the background. That nowhere accent still confused him, often starting as a Dublin accent but getting lost quickly, only to roll back into it for certain words.

  “Are you there? Did you hear me?”

  A dropped h: East Enders. Fanning held his thumb over the button.

  “Murph doesn’t want to work on the project anymore.”

  “He didn’t say a word to me about that.”

  “I know. That’s how he is but, isn’t he.”