by John Brady
“From the boss, like?”
Minogue listened to the ticks he heard from the engine as Malone took it to sixty in third. He couldn’t tell if the headlights were still intact.
“I don’t have time to explain, Tony. That’s why it’s you I’m calling. We need this van. Here’s the registration.”
Malone braked behind a newish Volvo, swearing. A horn from an oncoming car trailed off behind as it passed. O’Leary asked for the number again.
“The Howth Road, where?”
“Coming up to the lights where it goes up to Raheny.”
“Decision time,” said Malone.
“Give me a minute there, Tony. Sorry.”
He strained over the dashboard to look up the Howth Road. Nothing. The Raheny Garda station was a mile up there. Was he trying to double back to the airport, to throw them off? He grabbed the map again and squinted at it.
“He wouldn’t have many outs that I can see if he headed up to Raheny, Tommy.”
“What,” said Malone, “go along by the sea there? What do you think?”
Four cars waited on the red light to turn up to Raheny.
“Go the Clontarf Road,” Minogue said. “Whatever it’s called.”
Malone pulled to the left. There were taillights in the distance. Minogue took his hand off the mouthpiece.
“Tony. We’re heading down the Clontarf Road. Into town, like.”
“Have you radio?”
“I was using a branch frequency. I’ll switch over. I was using Mazurka. Will you feed us to Dispatch then?”
The slaps from the joints in the roadway came like a slow drumbeat up from the wheels.
“I’ll get back to you,” said O’Leary
The thumping grew faster. Eighty miles an hour, Minogue saw.
“We’ve only the one headlight,” said Malone. “Which traffic lights are these ahead? The park there, St Anne’s?”
Minogue turned the map.
“No,” he said “That’s the road onto Bull Island. A golf club out there, isn’t there?”
“Yeah. But it’s a dead end though.”
“But there’s another bridge at the far end though,” said Minogue. “Isn’t there? Dollymount?”
“Yeah, but for cars, I mean,” said Malone “They blocked off the strand with them rocks to stop people racing down there. Years ago. How you go in is how you go out, see.”
Minogue tried to shield his eyes from the glare of the streetlamps as Malone eased his foot off the accelerator The lights of the south city, and the more scattered and dim points from the hills, were soon cut off by the dunes that rose from Bull Island.
Minogue looked at the streetlamps over the causeway and the darkness beyond.
“If he knows his stuff he’s not going down there,” said Malone.
Minogue saw the pedestrian light flashing ahead. This light must have been green for a good long while. The van would have been flying through, making for streets he knew. A straight road ahead, with plenty of streets to turn into now. “Go then,” he said. Malone floored the pedal as the light changed.
“This shitbox, I’m telling you…” Malone said.
“Control to Mazurka. Over?”
“Oh-oh,” said Malone and jammed it into fourth again “That was fast. We’re on the air now.”
Minogue wondered if Tynan himself had made the call. He glanced over at Malone. His colleague shook his head once and swore.
“Mazurka here,” Minogue said. “Go ahead, Control. Over. ”
“You have three units dispatched for your assistance, Mazurka. Over. ”
He eyed the map again.
“All right. Get them to call in and give location, if you please. Over.”
Malone dithered as Minogue asked for one patrol car to come out the Howth Road from Fairview. Alpha Bravo Two had what sounded like a Corkman handling the radio. They were coming out of Raheny. Minogue repeated the registration number of the van.
He waited for the third car to confirm. it was turned around on the Howth Road by Killester. The bus ahead pulled out from the stop. Two, three sets of headlights were closing the distance from the city end.
“Ah, not this!” Malone shouted. “I can’t… Now we’re bollocksed for sure…”
“Pull in there,” said Minogue. “Ask that oul lad with the dog if he saw it.”
The Opel slid before it came to a stop, and the front wheel bounced off the curb. Malone rolled down his window as two cars passed. Minogue leaned down to see the man better. The poodle had a tartan jacket.
“Did a white van come flying by here,” Malone asked. “Going like hell?”
The streetlamps caught the man’s glasses. Seventies, Minogue guessed. He put his hand to his ear. Another car passed between them. The fine spray landed on Minogue’s face too.
“A van,” Malone shouted. “A white van going like bejases?”
The man shook his head.
“Are you sure?”
A few nods of the head. The shrugs didn’t help.
“The fucking bastard,” said Malone. “He did it. He fucking did it.”
He looked down at the map, and followed the lines with his finger.
“He could go around the corner there and head back out. Ah jases!”
Minogue turned. A steady row of headlights filled the rear window now. A car pulled out from behind them. The driver looked across with a raised eyebrow as it passed. Minogue decided he could at least have one of the squad cars roll down Vernon Avenue.
“Mazurka to Control,” said Minogue. “Over.”
He wondered if Tynan was listening in to the radio traffic. The driver would hear it anyway.
“Go ahead, Mazurka. Over.”
“Put the van out to all units, if you please.”
“North and south, Mazurka?”
“The both, yes. He’s done a bunk on us for the moment. Over.”
Malone drove the Opel up onto the footpath. The tilt made Minogue lean on his door. The two policemen listened to the radio traffic, the desultory reports from the squad cars trolling the area. A car going along Dorset Street called in inquiring the number of the van again.
Malone said nothing. He began a slow tattoo with the knuckle of his forefinger against the window, shifting several times and tugging at his jacket.
Minogue switched off the light and rolled down the window. The smell of seaweed was stronger. He heard lapping against the seawall.
“We’re fucked, aren’t we,” said Malone. Minogue rolled up the window again. He held the map up, turned it to face the streetlamp.
“Well?”
He held his thumb and forefinger on the scale and then tried to measure.
“We’re waiting, Tommy, that’s what we’re doing. Waiting.”
He’d been out here maybe twice in the past twenty years. That uncle of Kathleen’s: Tony. Heart attack at fifty-eight; nearly twenty stone when he dropped dead on the floor. Got up to switch stations when his team were getting hammered in the FA Cup one year.
“Let’s bring Daly in then,” said Malone, “and take bits off him. ”
“Soon enough,” Minogue said.
“How soon?”
“We’re full of holes still, until this van turns up.”
“Come on now, boss. Put this Halloran in the blender, at least.”
Minogue held the map up to the window.
“You and Jimmy,” he murmured. “Twins, you are, but born a generation apart. A miracle entirely.”
“Well what’s your suggestion then?”
Minogue put down the map again. He radioed the Raheny car.
“The causeway,” came the Cork accent from Alpha Bravo Two. “Next to St Anne’s? Over.”
“That’s it. Station yourselves there and keep us up on it. Over. ”
“Are we conducting here, Mazurka, or just roosting? Over.”
“Sit tight for now. You’ll have company there if we can’t turn up the van. He might abandon it down there on the i
sland or that. Anything coming or going down that bit of road, you open it.”
Malone ran the wipers. The grit scratched even with the fluid going constantly.
“Go down there to Dollymount, Tommy. The other bridge there.”
“And park it?”
“For now, yes.”
Malone drove off the footpath without slowing. He slowed a little as they passed the Dollymount Inn to eye the car park. No van there. He turned onto the bridge and stopped at the red light. The streetlamps from the Clontarf Road behind shivered on the waters of the channel below. Minogue rolled down the window to get a better look at four cars parked by the cottages attached to the old coast guard station. To Malone’s side the lights of the city docks and Liffey Basin shone yellow and white over the blackness by the side of the road.
The light changed. Malone took it slowly. Minogue didn’t remember the bridge being this long.
“Park it awhile, Tommy.”
Minogue radioed their location to the squad cars. The car from Fairview had reached Clontarf. No van. Minogue told them to go around Castle Avenue and come back by Vernon Avenue.
The breezes came in short gusts around the car now. The road ahead was empty.
“You might get fellas coming and going to the clubhouse,” said Malone. “Gargle and that. Couples coming down for a wear maybe. In their cars, like.”
Minogue shoved his hands in his coat pockets. The strap around his shoulder began to bite again. Prickly heat under the leather. He shuffled in his seat, tried to move the lump under his arm better. The strap pulled at the hairs in his armpit.
“Enough of this,” he said “Damn it to hell. I’m crucified with this thing.”
He slid the pistol out and laid it on the floor.
“Ah, Jases, come on, will you? Don’t leave it there, boss. You’ll forget it and it’ll be robbed. Or you’ll kick it and shoot someone’s shagging foot off. Like mine.”
Minogue held back the retort. They listened to a two way about a hit and run in Drumcondra.
“How long more?”
“How long more what?”
“Until we get out of here and start trying to pick up the bits? Until you make the call on Daly? Until we start pushing?”
Minogue was not surprised to feel almost indifferent. Sitting here listening to the wind rising, the dull lisp of the tide: not such a bad prospect at all. “Look,” said Malone. “Is this guy going to drive onto Bull Island and sit there until the morning? You can’t swim off it, and you can’t walk off it or drive off it without coming this bridge or the other one. It’s a no-go here, boss. Come on, park one of those patrol cars here and let’s get back to civilization there.”
“Who was he phoning,” Minogue murmured. “That’s the thing.”
“Who? The driver? Ah, he’s wised up. I can see him sitting somewhere, laughing his head off now, with his phones and his scanners and everything. Let’s go, come on.”
Minogue dropped the map in Malone’s lap.
“Show me where these barriers are, will you,” he said to Malone. “Here, on the map. Those big boulders you told me about, the ones the Corpo rolled out across the beach to stop the racing up and down?”
He called the car down from Castle Avenue. Malone placed his finger on a red line that divided the island.
“I don’t know,” he said. “There, maybe?”
“Let’s have a look then. Come on.”
Malone looked back down at the map.
“What, you want to walk out there, halfway into Dublin Bay, in the dark?”
“Can’t we drive?”
Minogue nodded at the Guard behind the wheel.
“Good enough, so,” he said. Malone turned the Opel back toward the dunes. Minogue looked back to see the squad car being reversed across the road by the lights.
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“No,” said Malone. “But I’ll find a way out onto the bloody thing somehow. What if it’s six-feet deep in water?”
“Does the tide come in like that?” Minogue asked.
“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out, aren’t we.”
The headlight slid over ash colored sand.
“That’s the clubhouse there on the left,” said Malone, “the Royal Dublin. If we go this way… Yeah, look: that’s a sort of a car park.”
The city lights slid into view as the Opel came around the dunes and onto the open strand.
“Turn off the lights a minute, Tommy. I can’t see with them.”
“What’s this — you’re coming out of the closet here, are you?”
Minogue rolled down the window further.
“I can hear the water, but I can’t see it.”
“Famous last words,” said Malone. “Come on.”
“Drive over there so we can see where the tide’s in.”
The waves broke gently in white, curling strips at the outer limits of the car’s high beams. Malone slowed as they approached the water’s edge.
“That’s them up ahead, isn’t it? The boulders.”
Minogue couldn’t make out anything. He followed the tire marks crisscrossing the sand ahead.
“There. Now do you see them?”
Like dumplings or something, he thought, or the rocks on the Burren. The beam of light wavered as the car bobbed in soft spots in the sand. The rocks seemed to move as they drew closer.
“Lawrence of shagging Arabia, here,” said Malone. “But in the middle of Dublin Bay, like.”
Minogue radioed in his position. Control asked him to confirm it.
“Boulders,” said Minogue. “Out here halfway down Dollymount Strand. Bull Island.”
Malone turned slowly. The headlight flickered on the sand in the spaces between the rocks. He stopped.
“Well?”
Minogue uncoupled his belt and pulled the door release.
“Keep your hands to yourself,” Malone said. “Or I’ll tell Kathleen on you.”
“I’ll be back in a minute.”
“What? A leak?”
“A walkabout for a minute, you savage,” Minogue said over his shoulder. He slammed the door behind him and listened to the sea.
He looked into the tunnel of light made by the beam ahead. The lights stopped at the foot of what he guessed to be dunes leading up to the golf club. The sand gave way slightly under his feet. Malone’s voice carried over the dull thunder of the waves rushing up on the sand.
“Ah, come on,” Minogue heard. He shielded his eyes and looked back. He could make out Malone leaning on the roof in the open door of the Opel. The grille was in bits, he could see now, the bumper sideways and marked.
“We’ll head back and let them wait until daylight,” Malone went on. “Then it won’t be us walking up and down like gobshites here.”
He turned back and followed the line of boulders into the water. No moon. He could make out spreading movements of the waves as they slid up and then retreated on the sand. He trod hard with his heel in the sand. It barely wiggled now. The breeze was yanking at his hair. He pulled his collar tighter, looked around the bay to the south. The boulders must run down right into the water, to stop traffic even at low tide.
He rubbed his eyes again. Sheer bloody vanity, he should get his eyes tested more often. The furthest rock he could see had a more regular shape. Cement, maybe, a final wall built to finish the job. He took a few steps, trailing his hand on one of the boulders. The dull vibrations coming from the car must be the radio. He glanced back. Malone was standing in the beam of light now. Minogue could make out the walkie-talkie in his hand. The lone headlight wasn’t helping him at all: better off to let the night vision settle in for this.
He rubbed at his eyes again and waited for his vision to return. The dark shapes became sharper. The water was slapping the base of a boulder not fifty feet ahead. That one in the water had straight edges all right. He walked beyond the next boulder, let his eyes play to both sides. He shielded his eyes to both sides with hi
s hands. The water lapped not twenty feet from him now. It slapped against the rocks and slid up the sand with a hush. He closed his eyes for several seconds and waited. It was no better when he opened them again.
He turned back to the car. Malone had switched off the headlight. Maybe he had gotten the idea. Now he’d the car around and pointing the one light out over the water, see what that thing looked like out there. The engine was off too. Out for a leak maybe. He saw that the boot lid was open. Something about that caused Minogue stop. He let go his collar. The gusts played about his scalp. He shivered.
“Matt?”
He turned to the voice. A figure detached itself from the darker shape of a boulder.
“Matt. Stay put now, or there’ll be trouble.”
The shock tightened his scalp. He struggled to remember something that was familiar in the voice, but it stayed just out of reach.
“Where’s Tommy?” he managed.
“Tommy’s looked after. Don’t be worrying.”
The odd quiet he remembered was gone from the voice, but the soft ah-huh, the clearing of the throat that had become a mannerism.
“Damian…”
“I’ll drop you right here, Matt, if you don’t shut up. I mean it. Hit the dirt there and I’ll give you your chance.”
Little stepped forward. He held the gun at arm’s length.
“What are you doing?” he tried again.
“This is Tommy’s hardware, Matt. Don’t make me.”
Minogue stared into the shadows. He couldn’t see Little’s face yet.
“I’ll leave you here if I have to, Matt. Hit the dirt there. You know the routine.”
Minogue felt the breeze work its way under his coat. He didn’t try to stop the lapel of his coat flapping. Little cocked the pistol.
“He’s in the fucking boot, okay?” he said. “He’s going to wake up with a lump on his bloody head. Now move. ”
The sand under his knee gave way slowly. The rain and seawater soaked up his trousers. He hesitated, tried again to speak through the tightness in his throat.
“Damian,” he managed. Little was standing over him, his hand working down his back. He stopped at his shoulder.
“You’re carrying, Matt? Well, my Jesus. What’s the world coming to. Where is it?”
“I took it out. Tommy — ”
