A Carra ring imm-6

by John Brady

  “He said you might call.”

  Minogue heard music grow louder, a door close.

  “Quite the statement,” she said. “Did it surprise you?”

  “The, er, case I’m on is it, er, Rachel?”

  “The Holy Family. I really like it.”

  “Thanks — I mean I’ll tell her ”

  “Had you seen it before?”

  Tynan broke in on the extension.

  “- Well be sure to tell her,” said Rachel Tynan “Don’t forget, now.”

  He told her he would. He didn’t know if he was fibbing.

  “Excuse the hour, John.”

  “No bother. What’s the news.”

  “Nothing stirring from the appeal yet.”

  “You’re concerned?”

  “I am. I am that. It’s time to move. Let me cite your go-ahead for an active search in the western counties, starting tonight. The biggest they can mount. Overtime and leave canceled even.”

  “Tonight? It can’t be in the morning?”

  “Tonight. I’m the boss, remember?”

  “There’s no sign of her beyond what you had earlier, is that it?”

  “Nothing. We’re looking over lab results again, trying to pin anyone he seems to have had contact with here while he was in Dublin. The events he was seen at.”

  “You can place him until when, again?”

  “There’s not a sign after Sligo. The fine town of Colooney. I’m juggling the possibility that he dropped out of sight on purpose. At least he wanted to avoid being noticed. I’m thinking he went into Mayo. There’s the Carra Fields there. He might have had a particular interest in it. Aoife Hartnett is one of the nabobs on it.”

  “This Carra Fields thing, this site. What exactly is it?”

  Minogue looked at the badges in Kilmartin’s display. He hadn’t noticed the Arizona one. No doubt he’d be coming home with a half-dozen more.

  “Well it’s by way of being an organized set of holes in the ground,” he began. “They’ve been at it for six or seven years. A few prefabs and the like. European money came through last year to build an interpretive center. A half-million quid with more later. New roads going in around the place to get the buses, et cetera, in.”

  “A lost civilization in Mayo, then — or Ireland.”

  “Maybe, John, I don’t know. I’m a stranger here myself.”

  “You’d better explain that to me someday.”

  “It’ll have to be in a pub.”

  “Uh. Mayo — any word from our man in Boston?”

  “Fame eludes him yet. Not a word. It must be a very intensive conference.”

  “If he calls, tell him he’s doing great — keeping to himself, I mean.”

  “He’ll get the hint I’m sure.”

  “He’ll need to. They’ve thrown more into the stew, I’m afraid. Gemma O’Loughlin says she’ll definitely lead with that nonsense about hit squads in the Guards. The Larry Smith shooting. She’s got the Smith family all roused too.”

  “She knows that we’re reviewing it? Purcell’s crowd is, I mean?”

  “She thinks that’s just window dressing. ‘Smoke screen.’ I found this out an hour ago. I had an otherwise unremarkable chat with the editor.”

  Minogue stared at the framed picture of James and Maura Kilmartin and their son at the boy’s graduation. The Killer’s eyes were set in deep, the brow lowered, even when he tried to smile. The son’s grin was a mix of bewilderment and relief. Kilmartin hadn’t once in their years of friendship let slip that he’d considered retiring to Mayo. “Stick it out in Dublin,” Minogue had heard almost daily from him.

  “John. I’ve got to go. I’m going to phone Mayo Division and get a search of this Carra site first.”

  Tynan hummed.

  “The Escort got rough treatment somewhere,” Minogue said. “The underside of it had dings galore. Rocks and stones, I don’t know, but something banged a hole underneath, where the spare is.”

  Minogue wondered why Tynan was keeping him. He heard a door close in Tynan’s house. Rachel Tynan, he wondered, or one of the security squad coming in for a leak. Tynan had insisted on the squad members using the kitchen and toilet when they needed, instead of sitting for hours in their cars manufacturing piles.

  “Matt?”

  “Yes…?”

  “Smith… do you think it’s — No, no. Forget that. Yes — forget I said it.” Minogue stared at the badges again.

  “All right, fine,” said Tynan then. “Issue it tonight. And make it public too with a release tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I’ll phone you in the morning.”

  CHAPTER 14

  She had kept walking until the water reached her chin. He couldn’t catch up with her. Worse: he couldn’t make out what she was saying to him. The sea off Killiney was like glass, the surface dotted with the heads of swimmers. And no one on the beach or in the water seemed to notice that his daughter was trying to walk across the seabed of the Irish Sea in the general direction of Wales, toward the continent or even the coast of Africa.

  Malone’s eyes were baggy. Maybe he’d had forty winks and didn’t realize it. He rubbed at his face. It felt blubbery. His nose was blocked solid again. He wanted to rest his head against the cabinet again, doze off. He shivered instead.

  “Cuppa tea?”

  “No. Thanks.”

  He looked around the squad room. The screen saver on the computer irritated him. Why was it left on anyway? Kathleen had said that Iseult and Pat could have come out tonight. It wasn’t a conscious reproach, he knew, but her resigned good-night at ten felt like a dig: why, at your age, are you not delegating more so you can be at home in bed at a decent hour?

  Two detective units from Castlebar and eight other Gardai were at the Carra Fields, walking around in the dark. It was lashing rain there. A Chief Inspector Noonan was continuing to have trouble with blackout areas on the walkie-talkies. Search teams had to relay messages to a farmhouse a mile from the site where there was a phone. Why not wait until morning, from Noonan. Minogue had prevaricated: it was a time thing; the squad would need to move quickly if they found the car there.

  Malone stood and began stretching exercises.

  “What’s the big deal,” he grunted. “It’s always pissing rain out there, isn’t it?”

  Minogue didn’t answer.

  “They have a map of the place, haven’t they?” Malone went on. “All they have to do is folley along any tracks you could get a car up. What do you call them, boreens? Couldn’t they get the lowdown from any watchman type of a fella there?”

  Minogue rested his head on the panel of the cabinet and stared at the clock. It was Murtagh who had taped up the newspaper ad for the contest to design a new friendly logo for the Guards that kids could fall in love with. Teddy the Safety Bear. Garda Jim, the Friendly Giant. FIDO, the Garda mascot from rank-and-file entries.

  “It’s all closed up, Tommy,” he murmured. “Since they finished their digging and called it a day there after Christmas.”

  Malone rose from his toe-touching, his face flushed. He cracked his knuckles.

  “What, before they got the money from Europe to build the place?”

  Minogue wondered if he should phone Kilmartin in the morning. He always had the pretext of telling Kilmartin how the case was running: there are about three dozen very wet, very annoyed Guards here, Jim, with a dozen and more very bloody-annoyed Guards. What Malone could be whistling about at ten o’clock at night while he filled the kettle, Minogue couldn’t imagine. Couldn’t do it without a cup of something, but there was only instant coffee left.

  The phone seemed unusually loud. Minogue picked up the extension on Murtagh’s desk. Noonan wasn’t irritated this time.

  “Are you sure?” Minogue asked.

  Noonan said he was. One of the Guards had actually gone down a part of the cliff to get a better look. They had a quartz searchlight from the car. Minogue stepped across to the boards and pulled the thumbtacks f
rom the top of the site map. He spread it out on Murtagh’s desk.

  “Sorry, er — ”

  “Tom. Tell me, how’d you know it’d be there?”

  “Well, I didn’t,” Minogue said, “to tell you the God’s honest truth.”

  “But listen now, it’ll have to wait until the morning. Get fellas down the cliff or a boat in.”

  “The cliff is…?”

  “It’s like the side of a wall, sure,” Noonan said. “There’s a bit of a ledge there near the top. The lights can make out the wheels, they think.”

  “And it’s on its roof.”

  “Upside down. That’s how it looks.”

  Minogue ran his finger along the dotted lines to the cliff

  “So the car was driven up this track and over the top? Can’t you get a squad car up there?”

  “I might be able to get one up,” said Noonan, “but I wouldn’t be sure of getting it down again. Bucketing down here, the rain.”

  “How far is it from the site?”

  “A quarter mile or so. I won’t be risking anything or anybody here tonight.”

  Loud and clear, Minogue almost said. Couldn’t blame him.

  “What are the tides doing to it?”

  “Well it’s low tide now, so it’s half submerged. There’s rocks there below.”

  Minogue didn’t want to ask Noonan again.

  “So it’ll be tough enough getting down there in the daylight,” Noonan went on, “to see if there’s anyone inside the car.”

  “Work well done. I’m obliged to you.”

  “We’ll seal up the place for you now, will we?”

  “If you please. And a Guard at the site. I’m a bit anxious now about evidence. If we can make sure to preserve any tire tracks and the like — shoe prints too if the car was pushed, now.”

  “Good luck to you there — it’s muck entirely. Have ye rain up in Dublin?”

  “Oh enough, but intermittent now.”

  “Bucketing all the long day here, yes.”

  Minogue waited.

  “So will this be from Dublin?” Noonan asked. “Whoever’s taking this over?”

  Minogue didn’t much mind the acidy aftertaste of the tea bags. Malone tapped his finger down on the dotted lines that led to the cliffs.

  “The spiky bits are the cliffs, right?”

  Minogue nodded and traced another path in from Cahercarraig Road.

  “Boreens,” Malone declared

  “You’re coming on great with the languages since you started here.”

  “Bogs. Boreens. Bogmen. Sheep. More bogs. Sheep that look like bog-men. Bogmen that look like sheep.”

  He squinted at Minogue

  “Answer me this: how in the name of Jases did you figure on looking there?”

  “Police science,” Minogue said.

  “No how?”

  “Ah, Tommy, I don’t know. It’s, ah…”

  Malone shook his head and turned to the map again.

  “So there’s the places they were digging.”

  “About a quarter of a mile, yes.”

  “Bog roads. Turf and that, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “Culchie priests and nuns they sell / Nightmares, fear and holy Hell.”

  “Is that Public Works?”

  “No it isn’t,” Malone scoffed, “it’s GOD. Culchie is from Kiltimagh, right? That’s Mayo.”

  Minogue nodded. He studied the faint vapor rising above the rim of his cup. He wondered but didn’t much care if the tea would keep him awake. If they had to go to Mayo tomorrow, it’d be five hours sitting in a car, thank you very much.

  “See what turns up in the morning,” he said. “There’s trained site staff in Galway can go up and work it.”

  Malone swilled the remains of his tea in his cup. He belched behind his fist.

  “Say she’s in it then,” he said.

  Minogue sat down on the edge of the desk.

  “Do you see him doing it?” he asked Malone.

  “His oul lad would, I’ll bet. If we asked him, straight up.”

  “Maybe his mother knows him better.”

  Malone placed his cup on the desk, and looked at the pins on the map.

  “Or, the same crowd who did her, went after him too. Caught up with him here or there and — boom.”

  Minogue yawned. He thought of the pictures soaking in on Dermot Higgins’s computer screen. Point and click. Malone was counting on his fingers.

  “One: he’s killed her,” he said. “Two: a double — whoever killed her killed him too. But what’s he doing in Dublin Airport in the boot of a car?”

  Malone held on to his index finger and began gently waving his arms.

  “Try again a double murder. He wasn’t topped at the same time as she was. Okay, say he doesn’t know she’s been thrown off a cliff. That’s why he’s not running to the Guards. They catch up to him and he’s gone. But where? Here in Dublin?”

  Minogue had had enough. He got up to go.

  “You’re a veteran now,” he said to Malone as he passed him. “Last thing you think about before you go to sleep, first thing you think about when you wake up.”

  “Listen,” Malone said. “Here’s what I can’t get me head around still.”

  Minogue gave him a knowing glance.

  “If he killed her, is it?”

  “Yeah. If it wasn’t people robbing, or some half-arsed effort at extortion or kidnapping your man, even: who folleyed him somewhere? Who made it quits?”

  “You should have seen them,” Kathleen said. “Or maybe not.”

  Minogue tied his other shoelace. The morning had started with a bit of sun at last. He felt groggy from the blocked nose, but not as shaky as he had predicted when he fell into bed last night.

  “The Smiths, love?”

  “Glaring right into the camera,” she said. “God, like animals. ‘The Guards murdered my brother’ — the exact words. Can’t he be taken to court for that?”

  “An interesting suggestion.”

  “‘An interesting suggestion.’ Aren’t you even the slightest bit concerned that you might be one of those Guards he’d be referring to?”

  Minogue looked up from his laces.

  “No, love. I’m not. The Smiths are chancers, and liars, and thieves. They’ll try anything.”

  “Well, did a Guard kill him?” Kathleen asked “I can’t deny the idea has some appeal, God forgive me, when I hear about the things Larry Smith did.”

  Minogue let his gaze drift out the window. It wasn’t the subject or even the timing. It was something about Kathleen’s tone that was getting to him. He thought of Damian Little, Trigger Little. Why had Little’s wife walked out on him?

  “We can thank Gemma O’Loughlin for stirring things up,” Kathleen said.

  “Well she’s playing into the hands of the likes of the Smiths.”

  “Gave me the creeps, I tell you,” she said. “The hate in his eyes, and the finger out, pointing. I thought he was pointing right through the telly at me. Ugh. ‘They’ll pay for this, the Guards,’ says he, snarling — I mean to say, are people allowed to talk like that?”

  Minogue shook the paper open. Kathleen sat back.

  “All right,” she muttered. “All right.”

  Minogue closed the paper again.

  “Iseult phoned last night, you said.”

  “She did,” Kathleen said. “You’d think it was me going to have the baby.”

  “Worrying, are you?”

  “’Course I am. Aren’t you?”

  Kathleen did not need to hear of their daughter stalking his dreams. Water, daughter… fought her. Iseult and her imprinting. A Mozart composing right there as he was delivered.

  “I am and I amn’t,” he said.

  “‘It’s just her personality,’ is that what you’re going to say?”

  “It’s just her personality, Kathleen.”

  “You…!”

  She put the lid on the margarine. He stud
ied the tendons by her knuckles.

  “I just wonder,” she whispered, “if it’s triggered something, like.”

  He turned back to the paper again.

  “She’s going to have a baby, love A fine, big, healthy, good-looking, and decent child from day one. Like its grandfather.”

  Kathleen waited until he looked up.

  “Well now,” she said. “You remember your uncle Miko, don’t you?”

  “What? Give me a chance. I’m only after getting — ”

  “Schizophrenia, Matt. Let’s not mince words here now.”

  “Miko? Miko Minogue?”

  “Your uncle Miko Minogue. And what about the aunt you never met: Mary, the one in America, who died in the looney bin?”

  “Ah, Miko was quare. He never married. So maybe he was gay.”

  Kathleen gave a breathy chortle.

  “Denial.”

  “Heard that before. And very recently, as a matter of fact.”

  “Oh, did you now. Well at least you know what you’re good at.”

  “Kathleen, it’s, it’s exuberance. Temporary state of being off her rocker. Come on now. You were dotty enough when you were expecting. You should hear Jim Kilmartin on the topic, let me tell you. He got stuff heaved at him.”

  “You’re not listening. You don’t understand.”

  “‘Men.’”

  “Yes it is! She’s seven months, Matt. The ups and downs with the hormones should be gone now.”

  “Oh, just steady fear now, is that it?”

  “No! More, more… serene or something.”

  “Iseult? Serene? Love — ”

  “Genes, Matt, genes! Stop trying to cod me here! I know you think about her morning, noon, and night. That’s how you are. Don’t be elbowing me because I worry! I read up on it at the library last night.”

  “What?”

  “Schizophrenia strikes young adults. -”

  “She’s twenty-three. -”

  “- but is frequent statistically in the twenties. Freud called it the Irish disease, did you know that?”

  “Freud? The same Freud who declared that the Irish were the only crowd who couldn’t be helped by psychoanalysis?”

  “Did he? If you say so. I didn’t know that, isn’t that interesting.”

  “Freud’s a gobshite.”