by John Brady
“What’s in the place then?”
“Built five years ago. It’s a two bedroom. She has a computer in one of them. Tidy enough. Kitchen’s well looked after. Tins of beer, some wine around. Locks are good. Place left tidy. She has a deadbolt and a serious chain on the door. Neighbors, well one is a couple, no kids. Meagher. Works in the bank, wife’s in insurance. Other ones not home. He thinks it’s a teacher or the like. Lecturer. They’re renting.”
“No stash?”
“Jewels, prize bonds, the old heirlooms? Not yet.”
“Where’s the car parked? Her spot, like?”
“I think there’s rows of places out the front of the whole place with numbers. Wait a minute, here’s your man back — ”
The phone changed hands.
“- I can’t see her car!”
Minogue heard panic clearly in Nolan’s voice now.
“Do you think she left it at the airport?”
“God, no — why would she…?”
Minogue knew by the tone that Nolan didn’t think so either. If you lived in Dublin, you wouldn’t park overnight at the airport.
“She could have driven to Belfast for a flight,” said Nolan. “Or Shannon… wait, who’d fly from Shannon to… Jesus. Listen, look…”
“Mr. Nolan. Give me some time here now. Have you a pen and paper?”
“You think something’s happened to her but you won’t say it straight out.”
“I don’t think anything. Help us on this. Can you — ”
“Wait a minute. This is upside down here. You’re telling me you want me to help you, or should I say help these Guards here going through Aoife’s belongings? What’s going on here? You haven’t told me half of it.”
“Give me a minute,” Minogue said “And I’ll tell you what we know — ”
He held the phone away from his ear when Nolan interrupted Malone glanced at him and rolled his eyes. He had wolfed down the Big Mac. Now he took the straw out of his drink and began stroking his nose with it.
“No,” he said when Nolan paused. “I’m not suggesting that Your sister-in-law met him several times.”
“I never heard of him, well, until this thing.”
“She was seen at at least two functions he attended. I want to ask her a few questions about him.”
“But she’s not actually ‘missing’ is she?” said Nolan. “I thought you had to be gone for weeks before they — before you — used that term. Right?”
Minogue listened to Nolan breathing through his nostrils, the phone moving about. Malone began to crush his straw.
“Listen, Mr. Nolan. I don’t want to alarm you or cause distress now. Miss Hartnett can’t be found. We have to step through this door. You can help us, help all of us, and speed things up.”
“What, then? I mean, of course, but this is such a shock.”
“We have the number of her car, the Micra. I’m going to issue an appeal on it. Tonight, even, on the news, but certainly tomorrow. It’s green?”
“Light green,” said Nolan. “A mint kind of green. It’s about four years old. Aoife bought her apartment two years ago. I remember helping with the move.”
“No fella?”
Minogue didn’t care how it sounded. He eyed Malone.
“Current, like,” he added.
“No. There was Gerry Whelan until last year. We got to know him fairly well. He’s off in Brussels. I think it was the long distance thing wore them out.”
Minogue’s Biro had hit a greasy patch on his notebook. He scribbled hard to write it. The damned hamburger had made his fingertips slimy.
“W-H-E-L-A-N?”
“Yes, I think. He’s an economist. Something to do with the OECD?”
Minogue skipped down the page and found a part that would take the pen. He tried to recall what OECD stood for.
“Brussels, I think,” said Nolan.
Magritte, thought Minogue, and saw the floating loaves, the clouds, and the levitating hats. We’d all be Belgians soon anyway.
“Would you or your wife know her travel agent now? Had Aoife done other trips like the one she mentioned, the Portugal idea?”
“Oh sure. She used to do them more, the weekend in London kind of thing, but she was more careful with the money after she bought the apartment.”
Minogue tried Nolan for places he’d heard Aoife Hartnett traveled to by choice. Liked Pans, he knew, went with Fiona, and he’d had the kids for five days — that was a few years ago. Munich for some conferences; a university thing on archaeology somewhere in Austria. A Celtic thing, he thought. She hadn’t done a huge amount of traveling in the job this past while that he’d heard anyway. Still liked going down the country the odd weekend. Such as?
“Oh, B amp; Bs. Hotel packages. Galway, I think. She really likes Clare, a lot.”
“Little wonder ”
“Pardon?”
“The west, you say ”
“Yes. She’s been up to her eyes at work, you know. It’s not that she doesn’t like it. She was out to Mayo and Galway there over the summer. That was work, I think, but she’d stay on until Sunday or even Monday morning.”
“The Carra Fields?”
“You know about that? Yes, that’s starting up. That’s right — look, I’m going to have to tell the mother-in-law. Right?”
“That would be a good idea, Mr. Nolan.”
“I don’t know what, or how I’m going to do it. Mrs H is just out of the hospital, you know. Maybe Fiona will. — Christ…‘ Excuse me. She’ll flip. It’s all so, you know, so sudden. What am I going to say anyway?”
Minogue looked at a passing bus painted over to look like a soccer match.
“Make a list,” he said. “Look it over a few times and then phone every third or fourth. Tell them to phone the others. It takes the pressure off you.”
“She loves her job, you know. She’s not the type to, you know?”
Minogue tried to figure out who the goalie making the impossible save was up by the back of the bus. Bonner? He wondered if Nolan would say it.
“… To do something to herself, I mean.”
Minogue let the pause stretch.
“I hear you,” he said. “It makes it all the more important to get details from people who know her.”
“The kids just love her. She brought our Emma on a dig there last summer.”
Emma. He’d overheard Iseult trying out that one on Kathleen one evening. She’d been slagging? Emma; Rebecca. What was wrong with Pat and Mary?
“Aoife never forgets a birthday. As busy as she is, and all… ”
“Will you ask at home, Mr. Nolan, and get back to me, soon as you can?”
“The mother has high blood pressure you know. She nursed the husband after the heart attacks.”
“I’m sorry now, Mr. Nolan. Far better that a member of the family relays it first. Here are two phone numbers for you — ”
“Maybe she just had it, you know? Got sick of work? Everyone gets that… ”
“True for you.”
“Just needed a break, a bit of space? Well she’d like to have kids, I know that. The whole career thing, the biological clock, I mean. It’s so tough.”
A hiss from the phone caused Minogue to check the battery strength.
“There’s no way I can say ‘foul play’ to Mrs., you know. No way.”
“Say we’d like to get in touch with her, Mr. Nolan. That we’re concerned.”
“Christ, wouldn’t it be a gas if she just phoned tonight from somewhere. London, maybe? ‘Changed my mind, stayed in London! Surprise!’”
“To be sure it would ”
“When will this go to the media again?”
“I’ll be asking the press office to issue it as soon as I can. We’d like to be okay with the next of — her family, I mean, before it comes up on the news.”
“That gives me a few hours, I suppose.”
“We can’t be waiting The nine o’clock news tonight will be definite.”
“You’ll phone as soon as you have news?”
That’s my question, Minogue wanted to snap at him.
“Depend on it.”
“Okay then, I have to work on this. Okay. I’m going to start on it. Okay?”
Minogue pushed the end button several times. He stared at the charge level. Malone had rolled the wrapping into a ball. He was chewing on ice cubes now.
“What’s the story with the brother-in-law? Freaking, is he?”
Minogue nodded.
“Her car’s gone, right?”
“It’s not parked there anyway. It might be in a garage getting serviced while she’s away. Have to chase that now. I don’t see her driving to the airport, but.”
Malone lifted a bag of chips from his lap.
“No thanks,” said Minogue. “How much do I owe you?”
Malone shifted in his seat and stretched his neck.
“You’re all right. I’ll eat them. Buy me ten or twelve pints sometime.”
An ambulance with flashing lights sped by. Minogue thought of the evening ahead of them. He’d just have to take the time to map it all out tonight.
“Shit,” said Malone. He threw the empty chip bag on the floor. “Rain’s back.”
Minogue studied the fine drops forming on the windscreen. He hoped Malone wouldn’t turn on the wipers yet.
“Will we head?”
“Wait and let me call into Tynan. Before I forget.”
Malone tugged at the collar of his coat, grabbed the steering wheel, and then flicked at the wiper stalk
O’Leary had kept him on hold for two minutes.
“It’s all right, Tony. I don’t need to bother him if that’s the case ”
“Are you in town?”
Minogue slapped Malone’s arm. He’d kept jerking the stalk to get more windscreen fluid on the glass. The wipers squeaked. Minogue flicked them off.
“Nassau Street, Tony. I’m on a cell phone.”
“He’d like you to come by then. Soon as you can.”
“I’ve nothing, Tony. We’re still clearing a path here.”
“He’s in a meeting. He wants you in on it. So: will I tell him you’re on the way, Matt?”
Brusque for O’Leary. Minogue studied the raindrops on the bonnet. O’Leary said, “Concerns your case, says to tell you.”
“What can I tell him that I didn’t tell him two hours ago, Tony?”
“It’s different. There’s people pushing info here. The father, Leyne, is here. There’s a meeting, in the commissioner’s office.”
Malone drove along Andrew Street. He barely stopped at the junction of Wicklow Street.
“Is this a regular gig or what,” he said to Minogue.
The inspector had been thinking of a hot whiskey.
“What gig,” he said.
Malone accelerated hard up South William Street.
“Well I don’t recall any get-togethers between Tynan and the Killer, do I.”
“Really.”
“Well, fella might think, you know.”
“A fella might think what?”
Malone raced through a red light by York Street flats.
“That you have the inside track here with the Iceman. Mr. Excitement.”
Minogue looked at the parked cars. An Irish coffee would do it. For the taste, not for the bite from the whiskey.
“A fella might get a puck in the snot,” he murmured. “For insinuating.”
Malone waited for a lorry to move out of the junction by Kevin Street.
“Why are you so touchy about it, then?”
“I’m not.”
“See? I told you you were.”
“There’s no inside track. It’s social with him.”
“How could it be social only?”
“Because I say so. Because it can’t be any other way.”
Malone looked over. The hooded eyes, the tightening to one side of his mouth, could only be Dublin, Minogue knew.
“That a fact, boss? Twice today we’ve been bounced around.”
“It’s part of the investigation. There’s pressure. Don’t you be adding more.”
Malone’s eyebrow stayed up. He dropped a gear and raced the engine.
“Get used to it,” Minogue said. “There’ll be others looking over our shoulder on this one. Ask Jimmy about his digestive system when he gets back.”
“Is that the one about the surgeons being able to make a map of his guts based on the big cases he’d run?”
“That’s it. So don’t be picking on me. I’m only an innocent countryman up here in the Big Smoke trying to get by.”
“Me arse and Katty Barry to that,” said Malone.
Minogue couldn’t but laugh. It turned to a cough. He tried to volley back with his own concocted Dublin accent but he lost it halfway. Malone kept correcting him on how to pronounce bollocks, a la East Wall. Minogue started laughing again. “Owney a culchie,” Malone said. He kept jabbing the inspector all the way up Camden Street. Sodbusters. Sheep shaggers.
Minogue hadn’t realized just how good a mimic this gurrier colleague was. Cork met Kerry, Kerry met Mayo and even Clare. Malone got better the more he said. Minogue heard Kilmartin, his own throwaway expressions, even Sheehy’s aggressively laconic tones.
Malone didn’t let up until he had pulled in by the checkpoint at Harcourt Terrace. Beads of rain flew off the car when Malone slammed the driver’s door. He looked over the roof at Minogue. The same look an opponent would get as the bell rang to start the round, Minogue decided.
“I’ll wait here,” Malone said. “Polish the car or something while I’m waiting.”
“Don’t start up this again, Tommy. For the love of God, man.”
Malone held his coat tighter.
“Hey, don’t get me wrong, boss. I like the variety, et cetera. But I’m not a fucking gofer here.”
“It’s part of the case here, man.”
“Oh yeah? Isn’t the whole idea to get out of our way, let us do the job?”
“ ’Couse it is. We get the staff, the OT. The lab priority, the carryovers from the other branches, Intelligence — ”
“Then how come we’re heading up to talk to the Big One here?”
“Call it an education then, Tommy.”
“Me bollocks. We’re on a leash, I say.”
“Tell him then. Don’t be annoying me.”
Malone cleared his throat, looked around, and spat. He followed Minogue at a distance. O’Leary met them by the door to the commissioner’s office. He ignored Malone’s glare.
“Poxy out,” he said. “Isn’t it?”
“Good for the greens, Tony.”
“Ah. A sign you’re finally coming around?”
“I can’t take it seriously, Tony. Sorry and all. It’s the clothes basically. Himself is free now?”
“In a manner of,” said O’Leary. “He’s with those people.”
O’Leary’s face betrayed nothing. Minogue understood again that he couldn’t help liking this how’s-it-goin’-drop-dead Garda sergeant. Wasn’t shy of a dust-up, loyal, quiet. Still waters, etc.
Tynan had told Minogue about several incidents involving O’Leary while he was doing his stint with the UN. O’Leary had knocked down a fellow UN policeman, a Dane he had become friendly with, for coming the heavy when a food riot was feared in a godforsaken village in Ethiopia. Self-preservation had been O’Leary’s explanation. A mob had been restless and then angry after a badly parachuted mess of supplies had fallen on fresh graves where mostly children had been interred. The golf course that O’Leary had made was rumored to still exist and be maintained. It had been play a bit of golf or go off the deep end, he had told Tynan. The Dane visited Dublin almost yearly. O’Leary was said to know every bar in a particular part of Copenhagen.
“So,” Minogue said. “Leyne. Who else is in there?”
“Billy O’Riordan. There’s a handler too, a Yank. A lawyer fella, I think.”
“Freeman?”
“The very one.”
“Tony, I don’t want to be giving you grief, now. But we don’t work for Foreign Affairs or Industry and Commerce. Much less Bord Failte.”
O’Leary glanced over as Malone crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.
“I know, Matt,” he said.
“So I want a word with himself before we’re dropped into this whatever you call it. This, er, cabaret.”
“I’ll tell him.”
Malone stared at the door after O’Leary closed it behind him.
“Fucking golfer,” he said. “Paper boy ”
“Give over, will you, Tommy. He’s holding his nose too.”
Malone strolled down the hall toward the lift. Tynan’s head and shoulders appeared leaning out of the doorway. For a moment, Minogue didn’t recognize the face sideways. What was the name of that header from Monty Python years ago?
Malone came in from the hallway last. Tynan sat on the edge of a secretary’s desk. O’Leary stood by the door to a conference room. Malone began to take a keen interest in a postcard on a partition wall.
“Long day for you,” said Tynan.
“It is that,” said Minogue. “But there’s plenty more of it left.”
Tynan nodded toward the door by O’Leary.
“There’s Leyne, Billy O’Riordan. A fella by the name of Freeman. You met him earlier on the way in from the airport.”
Minogue nodded. Malone folded him arms again and leaned against a wall.
“I asked them in,” Tynan went on. “They’d phoned earlier.”
Minogue rubbed at his nose. It was getting sore from wiping and blowing.
“Can we park the badges a minute here, John?”
“Certainly.”
“How much do we have to deal with these people in the near future?”
“As you need them. They’re here to talk. It’s information and it helps.”
“Talk about what?”
“The deceased.”
“Why are they in here, and not down at the squad?”
“They could and would if I’d told them. If I couldn’t have raised you here on the phone while you were in town and handy to here, they’d have been dispatched there. He wanted to get my advice first.”
“The deceased,” said Minogue. “Our case.”
“There’s history to him,” Tynan said.
