by John Brady
“No, it damned well isn’t.”
Tynan’s murmur drew Minogue to check the anger in the commissioner’s dull stare.
“Everything costs something, Matt,” he said after a few moments. “Eventually. Sometimes a lot more than it’s worth. What I have from the minister is that you and Malone walk from that mess back at the hotel. ”
“It was obstruction,” said Minogue, “whatever way you want to dress it up. ”
“You should have listened,” Tynan said, “before you bounced them and whipped this Freeman off in the car. So. Hear me out now? You standing down means there’ll be no comeback from King or the minister, even. As for Hayes, I’ll deal with him myself, but part of the horse-trading on the phone this morning saves Hayes’s neck. If he wants to work for the minister, then he gets out of the force. And I’m going to see that he does within the week. Now, that’s what’s been happening this morning in my little world.”
Tynan’s stare returned to a gaze at the glasses on the countertop.
“This started as politics,” he said. “Or culture. Or heritage, whatever that is anymore. But it’s going to end as justice.”
CHAPTER 25
O’Leary drove them down the quays after he had dropped the commissioner at Harcourt Street. The giddiness was gone but so was the panic: Minogue just felt more jittery now. O’Leary didn’t try any small talk.
“I have such a bleeding headache,” said Minogue at last.
Minogue knew that Kathleen would be at the squad by now.
“What are you going to do then?” Malone asked. “Go home and put the feet up?”
“Maybe.”
The Four Courts slid along the top of the quay walls. It looked ragged today.
“Hey,” Malone said to O’Leary. “Were you ever shot at?”
O’Leary nodded.
“Where, in Dublin here?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“In a small town in the middle of nowhere. Near the border with Sudan.”
“And what was it like? Not the place, but what did you do, like?”
“I ran the other way,” said O’Leary. “They were robbers. I was on leave with another UN fella. We probably shouldn’t have been there.”
“You weren’t a basket case after it though?”
“I don’t remember really.”
“Well, I thought I’d be a basket case by now. After this, I mean.” He turned to Minogue. “But I feel, like, up. I’m actually very fu — , very annoyed, like?”
Minogue shivered. O’Leary had them in the car park in short order. Minogue looked over at his Citroen. It looked damned fine. He longed to sit in and coast off, away out to the west in it. Himself and herself, the Galway road, no hurry. He returned O’Leary’s wave. There was a bite to the breeze now. He looked around the sky.
“So, are we going home or what?” Malone asked.
Minogue wondered what Kathleen would say. She hadn’t freaked entirely during the phone call, but she was damned if she wasn’t coming in to see him. How could he fight that off without hurting her.
“I’m going to do a bit of reading and a bit of thinking,” he said. “Maybe a bit of talking. I don’t care where I do it. But, I’m not sitting and waiting.”
Malone looked around the yard.
“Plans, have you?”
Minogue nodded.
“Was that an order from Tynan or a suggestion?”
“An order, Tommy. He has to answer to people too, as well as we do. ”
“There’s no way this was the Smiths’ caper then. Is that what you’re telling me?”
Minogue nodded. Kathleen appeared in the doorway. Minogue went for her. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, hugged him tighter. She was fierce annoyed. She let him go and held him at arm’s length. Her eyes were red but the anger made them bright and steady.
“They were after the other man,” he tried.
“How do you know?”
He shrugged.
“And does that matter anyway?” she insisted. “Does it?”
He gave her another tight squeeze when he felt the tremor in her chest. She sniffed and detached herself. She turned to Malone, his hand on the door.
“You look after this iijit, Tommy Malone,” she said. “You hear me?”
“Yeah, Kathleen. Sure all the culchies need hand-holding up here.”
They followed Malone in. Farrell and Eilis met them in the hall. The squad room was quiet. Kilmartin’s door was shut. Minogue wondered but didn’t care where Purcell was. Eilis drew on her cigarette and studied the boards.
“It has to stop,” Kathleen declared to no one in particular. “The place is being run by gangs and mur — ”
Her voice broke. Minogue smelled shampoo from her hair, felt the folds where her strap had dug in a little tighter over the years. She had asked him out of the blue if she looked fat the other day. He hugged her tighter and listened without much interest to a two-way about a man who had collapsed in a pub. In his twenties, he thought vaguely. Overdose, he wondered.
Minogue felt her relax. It was Kathleen who pulled away this time. Eilis slid a box of paper hankies across the table. Farrell looked up from his study of the floor.
“Cup of tea,” said Eilis at last. “Or a smathan from the cupboard?”
“Tea’s grand, thanks,” said Kathleen a little too quickly. “You’re a star, Eilis ”
Eilis stubbed at her cigarette and looked up warily at Kathleen.
“Tell us about Iseult, will you,” she said. Eilis. “I’m dying to know how she’s going on ”
Kathleen sat back in the chair and closed her eyes.
“Sacred Heart of Jesus, Eilis. Between Iseult and your man here…”
“I’m going to make coffee then,” Minogue said. He waited in the kitchen for Malone.
“Worse, are you?” he asked.
“It’s got to hit me sometime. But I’m still so bloody wired.”
Minogue took down the kettle and began filling it. Malone was fidgeting with a fork.
“Boss? If we’d stayed we’d a been in Hayes’s pocket, or King’s. Wouldn’t we?”
“Probably. Hard to say. I don’t know, Tommy.”
“Well that’s what I need to think right now. You know what I’m saying?”
Minogue glanced over. The tremor in Malone’s voice was quickly disguised. He plugged the kettle in and leaned back against the counter. Malone breathed out between pursed lips several times.
Was that laugh he heard from the squad room Kathleen? He toyed with the filter as he drew it out. Malone was staring at Minogue’s coffee jar.
“Well?”
The kettle ticked. It was Kathleen’s shriek of laughter he’d heard. What was Eilis talking about? A man’s voice, could only be Farrell, derision; more hoots of laughter. He opened the lid and shook the jar of beans.
“Well what?”
“What’s the story now?” Malone asked. “We sit around this kip chewing our nails, is it?”
Minogue was not really surprised to realize that he had made up his mind a lot earlier. Maybe it was even when Tynan had led the way leaving the pub.
“The story is this, Tommy.”
Malone stopped hopping the fork off the countertop.
“Sooner or later I’m going to try my hand at a bit of, what would you call it, treasure hunting. Looking through haystacks, you might call it.”
Malone’s eyes narrowed.
“Still the job, like? This case…?”
“That’d be it, Tommy. Yes.”
“You’re not too pushed that he’ll be dug out of you, Tynan?”
“Well, no. In a word.”
He eyed Malone.
“I have three murders to solve,” he said. “We can’t stop the clock on them.”
He poured the beans into the grinder. One by one he picked up the half-dozen that spilled onto the counter. The laughter was louder. He cocked an ear. Eilis, that gift for making people laugh
.
“Would you be considering going a bit of the road with me, Tommy?”
“Am I going to get a sudden attack of lead poisoning if I say yeah?”
“Doubtful.”
“Who minds the shop here?”
“John Murtagh. Farrell too. We’ll pull Fergal Sheehy in here to do his interviews.”
“Will I be on the dole if I survive the lead poisoning?”
“There’s always room in the dole queue, I suppose.”
“You’re not much on the hard sell here, boss…”
“Do I need to be? Give me a couple of hours to get started.”
“Started on what though?”
He closed the lid and looked up at Malone.
“It’s out there somewhere, Tommy. It exists. Whatever it is.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“He had it in the boot It’s heavy. It broke the panel over the spare wheel, it was so heavy.”
“What is? The thing you were telling me about on the way back from Mayo?”
“He had it. He told his da he had it.”
“This stone?”
“He wanted his da to tell him how to get it out to the States.”
Malone took a step back. He spread his hands on the counter.
“Leyne had it done before, you’re saying. The robbing. Right?”
Minogue nodded.
“Or he knew someone who could do it.”
“Lookit,” said Malone. “What if this goes all the way to gang stuff, paramilitaries? They’re crossed over anyway, half the time. Hey, I’m not stupid. Tynan could be kicking us off the field for a good reason. Jases, you can see that, can’t you?”
“See what, now?”
“If they’re all tied in, boss. Scratch one and it all goes back. To the IRA, their outfits — we’d be in the ha’penny place if we found ourselves, just the two of us, up again them. ”
Minogue pushed down the lid. He held the grinder, shook it. Malone stared at it while it spun Minogue. lifted the lid and sniffed the ground coffee.
“I’m in then,” Malone said. “But just so’s you know. I’m not going up against the IRA or their fucking partners.”
Kathleen sank into the front seat of the Toyota. Minogue wondered where he’d seen the driver, a detective from Store Street, before. She wound down the window.
“Look at those trousers,” she said. “The rip there at the knee. You look like a tinker, God…!”
“I’ll be all right. Thanks.”
“But your knee…!”
“It’d be locked up by now if it was serious, love.”
Kathleen began to say something but stopped.
“And you’ll phone Iseult, won’t you?” she said instead. “Tell her she could come over with us to Daithi’s at Christmas.”
“I will”
“And we’ll pay, of course, right?”
“To be sure, love ”
He nodded and stepped back. The driver took the hint.
“You’ll stay well away from whatever commotion has come out of this’ Nothing more than the stolen property case you were telling me about?”
“Exactly. The best thing is to be busy, they say. I’ll phone you.”
“Think about Iseult,” she said as the Toyota pulled away. “And the baby.”
Malone accosted him in the hall on his return.
“So Kathleen sorted you out, then?”
“I’m to stay out of the way of trouble, and work only on, er, stolen property cases.”
“Fair play to her,” said Malone. “Now you have to sign on to my contract.”
He wiped away a dribble of water from his forehead. Why did this gurrier keep running water on his face and on his hair so much, Minogue wondered.
“What are you on about, man?”
“Here’s what: you sign for a gun. So’s I don’t have to worry about you.”
Minogue looked at Eilis and Murtagh poring over some files. Malone pointed a finger at him.
“Start arguing and I’m walking,” he said. Minogue looked back at him.
“A gun? For tracing stolen property around the airport, Tommy?”
“Don’t try that on me. It worked for the missus, but I know what’s going on. Get the equipment. And don’t roll out the excuses. This isn’t Dear Oul Dirty Dublin any more. Wake up, man.”
Minogue said nothing. He returned to his desk and opened the file Mairead O’Reilly had given him. He couldn’t remember where the part about the stone was. There was a page and a bit at least, though. How could O’Reilly ever know anything about the Carra stone except what he’d made up in fancy? Eilis was standing by the desk when he looked up.
“So you’re staying, your honor?”
“For a while, Eilis. Yes.”
“I’m to phone Purcell to tell him when you’re gone.”
“Who says, a stor?”
“I says. We asked him to absent himself when we got the news you were on the way here, John Murtagh and I. In the event there might be friction. Emotions running high, your honor.”
Minogue watched her light another cigarette.
“He’s away off in C Wing. He took some files with him. Smith and that. So: I’ll be phoning him…?”
“Would you phone Firearms Issue for me first, please.”
“Firearms, you said?”
“Exactly, Eilis. Firearms Issue. We’re still on alert. Tommy needs a replacement. His was bagged at the scene, the shooting.”
“Fair enough.”
“And I’ll be wanting one.”
She drew on the cigarette. Minogue looked up at her. Her face remained impassive. “Then we’ll be off,” he said.
Malone backed the Opel out of the parking spot. He drove slowly, adjusting the mirror. Whoever had used the Opel last had smoked. Minogue imagined a couple of detectives on surveillance, smoking and eating and farting for days. Weeks, maybe. He rolled down the window more.
He couldn’t get comfortable. He reached up under his arm to pull the strap looser. It was too much trouble to take off here. The Velcro was too far around to reach without taking off his jacket. He felt the aches as a clamp across his lower back and his shoulders now. He yawned and stretched. A faint relic of Kathleen’s perfume came to him.
Malone’s driving began to annoy him.
“Why are you driving like this?”
“Like who?”
“It’s not ‘who,’ it’s ‘what.’ You’re driving too carefully.”
“Jases, if it’s not one thing with you it’s another. I’m shook, that’s why.”
Malone passed Mountjoy Prison without a glance over. Anytime he passed it, Minogue had thought of Malone’s brother. Malone made the green light at Drumcondra Road. A convoy of articulated lorries under plumes of diesel smoke awaited them. Malone swore and settled the car into second gear between the lorries.
“So we’re looking for a rock,” he said. “This ‘stolen property” gig you told Kathleen about. And if Tynan wants to know.”
“Right,” said Minogue. “A stone.”
“But there is no rock you’re telling me. Right?”
“That’s it.”
“So when we do find it we’ll know then that it’s not there. Right?”
Minogue studied the patterns of dirt at the doors to the lorry ahead.
“Now you have it.”
Malone grunted and pulled around one of the lorries. Minogue eyed the Cat and Cage Pub over the passing traffic.
“Leave no stone unturned,” said Malone. “Is that the idea?”
He had to wait until the lights at Collins Avenue to shake off the last of the convoy. Minogue thought of Leyne, the eyes set into those pouchy folds. Like a lizard. Tired of life was he. How many things had he collected over the years? Geraldine Shaughnessy must have known about them. The son too. He thought of the winding bog road up by Carra, the ditches… He opened his eyes as Malone took the curve leading to the roundabout for the airport.
&
nbsp; “Where am I going?”
“What?”
“You dozed off,” said Malone. “Where am I going, I said?”
“Turn down the first chance you get to the freight end. The South Apron, it’s called.”
“Is it that we don’t want them to know we’re poking around here or that we don’t care?”
Minogue was stiff. There couldn’t be bruises everywhere, he thought. He moved his neck slowly. The strap for the pistol harness was biting across his ribs.
“The former,” he managed and levered himself more upright. “Here’s the routine. We’re just looking around to double-check we didn’t overlook anything in the area.”
Minogue didn’t expect a checkpoint just inside the entrance to the freight terminals.
“There’s an unmarked over there,” said Malone.
The Guard was brash, puzzled. Malone took his card back.
“It’s a walkabout,” said Minogue. “Just in case we missed something.”
“The American fella? In the boot of the car?”
“Yeah,” said Malone. “The pressure’s on. To make sure we covered everything.”
“Fair enough,” said the Guard.
“Thanks,” said Minogue. “By the way, are you permanent here? This checkpoint, I mean ”
The Guard made a face as he tried to dislodge something from his eye.
“Ah no, we’re only here for autographs.”
He stopped poking and looked back down at Malone.
“Only joking. The Works are due in sometime this evening.”
“So,” said Malone. “No more scaring the shite out of some sheikh’s wife for the fans.”
“Right,” said the Guard, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Ah sure, we’ll be out here again in a few days to get rid of them again.”
Minogue leaned over and looked up at the Guard.
“The band, you mean?”
“Yep. They go on tour in the States, I heard.”
Minogue looked over at the freight buildings.
“The big time,” said the Guard. “That’s how it is.”
“Is there an office out here with a layout of this end of the airport?”
“Go over there. That’s the start of the Customs Hall. Shipping and receiving’s down the far side of it. There’s offices there, the Customs and Excise mob. Federal Express, other ones. ”
