A Carra King

by John Brady

  “Here, look,” said Malone when Minogue came on. “You’re baldier than I thought you were, er, boss.”

  The next shot was of Tynan. It was prefaced by a remark that the Gardai needed the help of the public. The Garda Commissioner stared out at the viewers as he spoke. The Iceman indeed, thought Minogue. The help-line number appeared on the screen. Then the newscast veered off to a civil war in Africa.

  A phone was ringing already. Murtagh lifted it and waved it at Minogue.

  “You’re on the telly,” said Iseult.

  “You’re in the paper,” he said. “A paper, anyway.”

  “Looked quite extinguished I’d have to say,” she said. “Tie done up, the hair combed.”

  Minogue’s head had begun to feel very heavy.

  “Thanks for the slagging now,” he said. “I don’t get half enough on the job.”

  “Ah grow up,” said his daughter. “Has Ma seen the Neighbours thing yet?”

  He watched Sheehy pointing to the entry to the car park on the map of the airport. Eastlands, they called it. They christened car parks now?

  “I don’t think so, love. Why don’t you phone her, find out?”

  “Ah, I couldn’t. That’d be showing off!”

  “Better you explain it before she sees it cold herself.”

  “What do you mean, ‘cold’? And this ‘explain’ bit?”

  “Well, phone her up and do whatever gostering and the like you want.”

  “I thought you were beyond that kind of thing. Since when does art need to be — ah, now I get it. She’s going to think it has to do with . . .”

  “That’s right. Think it over, now. I have to go. We expect to be busy. People phoning like.”

  “Oh, the brush-off now, is it? Well I’ve me own things to do, you know.”

  Minogue pushed his fingertips hard into his temples. Touchy, he’d forgotten.

  “We’ll talk later, can we, love? You’re taking everything handy now, I hope?”

  “It’s not a disease, Da. You’re like Pat: ‘Sit down, dear. I’ll do that, dear.’”

  The Inspector squashed the urge to ask about Pat, how his lectures were going. Iseult’s husband lectured three days a week in Limerick. Kathleen had been sharply rebuffed again the other day with her inquiries. She had been petrified to learn from Iseult herself that she, seven months pregnant, had been waist high in the sea by Killiney one evening recently. What in the name of God did she do that for? Wasn’t it cold, wasn’t the water dirty, couldn’t she have lost her footing even with Orla there? Didn’t she know how dangerous the tides were there? Iseult had cut her off. Didn’t Kathleen know about intrauterine intelligence? That babies learn so much in the womb? Imprinting? That they respond to music and talk?

  Minogue remembered Kathleen trying to understand what Iseult was saying. He had turned up to a lunch date with Iseult to find her sound asleep on a seat in a great hall in the National Gallery. She was sprawled under an enormous picture, with a guide tiptoeing up and down next to her. Imprinting, she told him while she ate a meal bigger than his: her baby would feel the beauty she felt. A piano recital at the opening of a Cubist exhibition was proof, she told him. She’d never felt him — or her — move around so much.

  “It’d please me to know you’re not going to be bungee jumping or the like.”

  “Ah, don’t be fussing! I’m only going out into the bay proper, for a real dip.”

  “You’re serious? I can’t tell. I want to sleep — ”

  “It’s all arranged. Orla’s da. He has a boat.”

  “Any chance you’d swap that for a walk in the woods by Katty Gallagher?”

  “What are you going to do, roll me up to the top?”

  “I might. Tully, then — no climbing? A little pick-me-up in Jerry Byrnes on the way home — ”

  “— Oh you’re cruel, so you are! I haven’t had a pint since I found out.”

  “Sorry. I forgot. Watch me drinking one then, can’t you. Imprint that?”

  “Ah, you’re a bad pill, Da!”

  The smell of fresh tea brewing had made Minogue even dopier. He nibbled slowly on the biscuits. Nearly eight million a year passing through Dublin airport. He listened to the two detectives Murtagh had detailed to handle the call-ins. No, he assured one of them, they didn’t have to okay a follow-up by him. Murtagh was the ringmaster for communications within the squad, or what was now technically a task force. What procedures need they follow to secure resources from other Garda departments, a Serious Crime specialist, for example, one of the detectives wanted to know? Demand instant compliance, Minogue had murmured. Only half joking, he told the most visibly surprised, a Liam Brophy new to the pool from Kevin Street station. Run it first by John Murtagh if he, the Inspector, was not there.

  He reminded them that all lines in were monitored and recorded. He warned them again that while most of their calls would be coming in through the switchboard, there could be directs. These were often the most valuable. They needed to be handled with extreme care. The request for a trace was automated now: the orange button to the side of the redial. Signal immediately to a squad member if a direct came on: don’t worry about being overcautious. A corpulent, fuzzy-redhead detective named Boyle asked if they’d be detailed interviews on follow-ups.

  It was only when Minogue was listening to Sheehy explaining why it would take so long to go through the flight lists for stand-by passengers that he remembered he had meant to phone Kathleen. He thought of the barbed wire, how Iseult had wound it around the piece. What have we done, have I done, Kathleen must wonder, that my daughter could think like this? Nothing personal Ma, it’s art.

  Sheehy moved on to a summary from Serious Crimes. A Danny Donegan from Fairview had tried a small ring of car specialists at the airport several years ago. One of his cronies, Peter “Bongo” Murphy, had been done for breaking into cars there. Murphy was currently in jail for later offences: house breaking, several shops, a lorry load of beer he’d robbed at a new stop on the N11 and tried to fence solo in Galway. Serious Crimes were stuck for staff as usual. They’d try to get time for follow-up on them. Drug Squad and Intelligence were compiling a list of operations they’d handled that had any airport connection.

  Charlie Blake was the current liaison officer between the Gardai and the Airport Police and Fire Service. Minogue studied Blake’s profile while he spoke. What kind of a bird would have a beak like that nose of Blake’s, he wondered. The divinity that shapes our ends indeed. The way he tugged at his nose: was that body language for I don’t want to be here or I don’t really know what I’m talking about? Minogue picked up another biscuit, eyed it. Shouldn’t, he thought, and bit into it.

  There was no organized ring working cars at the airport recently, Blake believed. The passenger baggage flows had all been done since the new terminal went up. Hoax runs had turned up excellent results. Money spent on state of the art electronics, the imaging and the sensors, was paying off. The last paramilitary run on the place had been two years ago: a header from a breakaway bunch of the UDA tried to place incendiaries. The APFs had done a joint snatch with some of Trigger Little’s squads. Minogue remembered a would-be bomber claiming that one of Trigger Little’s squad had shoved a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  “Fergal,” said Minogue. “We keep on hearing video and electronics and the whole rigamarole. So how come we find nothing on the car park?”

  “‘Upgrading,’” said Sheehy. “‘Updating.’ ‘Long-term area’s not a priority zone.’”

  “It would be if there was a shagging car bomb parked there,” said Malone.

  Sheehy put up his hands. Minogue studied the map on the board again. He followed in his mind’s eye the access road in from the motorway.

  “So I think we’ll have to ask . . .” Sheehy was saying. Minogue scrambled to retrace the comments he’d been half-listening to.

  “To be sure, Fergal. I’ll phone myself and turn the wheel.”

  Promised the
world, he thought: seconding two detectives from Serious Crimes, short of staff or not, to go full-time on airport leads was little enough for Tynan to take. He looked at the blank TV screen. No phones ringing. The nine o’clock news would deliver?

  “‘Touring the West,’” said Minogue. “Where’d that one start?”

  “The girl at Emerald,” Murtagh said. “She’s certain. He asked how long to Donegal. She advised going through Sligo and staying out of the North.”

  And he might well have taken her advice, Minogue thought. He’d push that over to Tynan too. The Commissioner could decide for himself who’d put in the request for assistance from the Brits on border traffic. The phone rang.

  “Yes, it is,” the detective said. He waved at the group by the boards. “Good. What’s her number?”

  “John,” said Minogue. “The one who thinks he was travelling with a woman. Did you get anything there?”

  “It’s the one in Sligo. Mrs. Rushe. I had a chat with her about four o’clock. She said that Shaughnessy showed up looking for a place. ‘Nice enough, American.’ Half an hour later, a woman shows up and signs in. ‘Irish, well dressed.’ She had her own car, but Mrs. doesn’t know what kind. Signed in as Sheila Murphy. ‘Nice girl,’ mid-to late-thirties. Well spoken. It was only the next day Mrs. got the idea that the woman and Shaughnessy might be connected. Chatting at the breakfast, they were, says she.”

  “A colour even?” Minogue tried. “The car, I mean?”

  “Nothing on that. I’ll have to try again.”

  “They left around the same time anyway,” said Murtagh.

  “Does Mrs. know who was sleeping where that night?” Minogue asked.

  “She doesn’t be inquiring, she says. As long as there’s no messing going on.”

  B & Bs in rural Ireland not checking for wedding rings or the like? Now there was progress, Minogue reflected. He’d tell Leyne that too, if he were asked.

  Murtagh nodded at the computer screen.

  “There’s no Sheila Murphy in the crime box,” he said. “Social Welfare has thirty-seven Sheila Murphys. Twenty something of them could match the age.”

  “Any description of this woman to go on, John?”

  “‘Refined.’ ‘Casual, but well turned out.’ She thought Dublin first, but says she heard a country accent under it. Very fair hair, stylish do. A page-boy kind of cut, Mrs. said, the way you see it in the magazines. Jeans, though. An overthe-shoulder class of bag was all Mrs. saw. Paid cash.”

  “She went out later on in the evening?”

  “She did. So did Shaughnessy. Mrs. heard one of them coming in about twelve. Only one, she thought, but then she heard some whispering. She didn’t check who went where.”

  “A one-night stand?” asked Malone. “Did you ask her about the sheets?”

  Minogue leafed through the photos again. He lifted out the one taken at the opening of the art exhibition. The woman’s back was to the camera. You could only see from her shoulders up. Her hair was blond.

  “A hairdo like that, maybe?”

  Murtagh sat back.

  “I suppose. I’ll be looking out for it.”

  One of the detectives handed an information slip to Murtagh.

  “Call in from Donegal, a garage in Gweedore. A fella thinks he sold petrol to Shaughnessy awhile back. He doesn’t remember any red car. He’s going to go back into the books and see.”

  “Follow it,” said Minogue. “Get a statement out of him. The day’s the first thing we need — and if there was a woman in the car, too.”

  The phone rang again while Murtagh was plotting a route on the map with the end of his Biro and guessing the times it took to drive without stops. Minogue watched Brophy writing up the information form. The other line rang.

  “A bit of life now,” said Sheehy. “Maybe we’ll get the jump yet.”

  Minogue wrenched his gaze away from Brophy’s Biro. The biscuits had done in his appetite. He wondered about soup. He should phone Kathleen and let her know he’d be late. As if she didn’t know. He was getting a headache. The phones had gone silent again. He didn’t want to go checking in with Tynan.

  Éilis was signing for an envelope from a courier when he stepped out into the squad room. Murtagh had taken the package already and had opened the flap. Photos slid out. Contact sheet, seven or eight 8 x 10s with yellow stickies on them.

  Murtagh laid them out on his desk.

  “These are the indies your man contacted for us.”

  It was Sheehy who spotted her first. Minogue looked at the tag.

  “That’s the same gig,” said Murtagh. “The art exhibit. Look: Shaughnessy there next to her. Give us the other one there — see: the hair, the collar. That’s her.”

  “Here she is again,” said Sheehy. He pointed to a group standing in front of a blown-up shot with fields and stones stretching to the horizon.

  “Not the one with the belly and the dickey bow,” said Malone. “The Humpty Dumpty–looking fella.”

  Murtagh had pulled off the tag.

  “. . . that’s some European Commission somebody. And that’s her, according to this guy O’Toole. Aoife Hartnett. The Humpty Dumpty fella there is Seán Garland. Dr. Garland, a big one in the Museum. The opening of some exhibition at the National Museum. The . . . C-a-r-r-a? Carra Fields, it looks like.”

  “O’Toole,” said Minogue. “The photographer? Have we a phone number for him there?”

  Murtagh scribbled on a notepad and slid it whole across to Minogue.

  “Casual enough there,” Malone murmured. “Shaughnessy, I mean.”

  Minogue studied the group again. Murtagh read out the list of names Turloch O’Toole had written on the tag. Museum staff, a member of the European Commissioner with a French name. Some smiler from Mayo Country Council, another one from Bórd Fáilte. The daughter of the schoolmaster who’d stumbled across the site. Minogue let his eyes rest on the photo for several moments. He turned to Malone.

  “Portugal, huh,” said Malone.

  Murtagh slid a file folder out from under the photos, took out two pages stapled together and laid them on the table.

  “There’s a copy of that statement from Garland there. It’s an approximate about Shaughnessy’s visit, when he showed up — as Patrick Leyne, mind you. There’s staff phone numbers and extensions there. Her address is Terenure somewhere. It’s on the search we sent to Aer Lingus to see what flight she took.”

  Minogue couldn’t make out much of the other pictures in the backdrop behind the group. There was a piece of a diagram with black spots and some pattern, half of the title visible: The Carra Fields, a Stone Age enclosure of three thousand acres that was causing people to rewrite all the history books. Was it Kathleen who’d mentioned them awhile ago? Kilmartin?

  “John,” he called out. “Can we get a hold of Garland this time of the day?”

  Murtagh was halfway through a bag of cheese and onion crisps. He looked around for something to wipe the grease off his fingers before he plucked at the file.

  NINE

  The voice was shrill, querulous. Seventies at least, Minogue guessed. Rambling probably, was Mrs. Garland.

  “Who is it again?” she demanded. “A Guard?”

  The piping, haughty tone, was sweetened with what he believed must be a Cork, a dignified Cork, accent.

  “Minogue, ma’am. I’m an Inspector in the Guards.”

  “Minogue? Clare, sure where else. You’re a Corofin Minogue now, are you?”

  “Further west, ma’am. Where might your son be?”

  “You must be some class of a fish then. Or a seal maybe.”

  “Above Ballyvaughan, I — ”

  “— There’s nothing above Ballyvaughan. Except for stones. Clouds maybe.”

  “And well I know it ma’am, from trying to coax — ”

  “You’re not trying to cod me, now, are you?”

  “Not a bit of it. Is your son expected home soon?”

  “There was a Dan Minogue in Fo
reign Affairs. Are you one of his maybe?”

  A headache had dulled his thinking, gutted most of his patience.

  “We’re better known as the Murder Squad. But for now I’m merely — ”

  “Murder? What murder? Is Seán all right?”

  “Sorry, ma’am. Of course he is. It’s a different matter entirely.”

  “Well God in heaven, man, you put the heart crossways in me!”

  “I didn’t have the chance — ”

  “All you had to do was open your mouth, sure.”

  “I really need to talk to Seán, ma’am. Could I trouble you to direct me to him, as promptly now as I can ask, without giving offence.”

  “He must be a cousin then,” she said. “Dan. Very direct but always civil. The nicest man you could meet. Oh, charm the birds off the trees. A real favourite with the lassies, so he was. This was during the Emergency of course.”

  Minogue let out the deep breath he had been holding. He slouched in the chair and surveyed the squad room. His eyes settled on the newspaper article about Iseult.

  “. . . DeValera, God be good to him,” she went on, “he put a lot on Dan’s shoulders. Churchill summoned him to Downing Street in ’41. Our neutrality was an act of war to the likes of Churchill. Of course he hated anything Irish — hated it. Dev knew he’d picked the right man in Dan, of course: with the charm came the iron. Oh I can tell you it was not business as usual for Mr. Churchill that morning!”

  “When would he be expected home?”

  “‘Mr. Churchill,’ says Dan, with that lovely soft Clare accent, ‘Mr. Churchill. We feel for the plight of your people and the free peoples of Europe. We know what it is to lose our freedom, so we need ask no lessons in tyranny or freedom from you’ — ”

  “Mrs. Garland, I have to ask you again if you would put me in touch with your son as soon as — ”

  “‘Understand that we too have beaches, Mr. Prime Minister.’ And as if that wasn’t enough, he looks the old bulldog in the eye, without batting an eyelid: ‘Speaking for my own family Mr. Prime Minister, I am from the west of Ireland. My uncle was shot dead in 1920 by Black and Tans. He was a farmer with fifteen acres. Now, with all the might and force you could muster to invade my country, you would still have to cross the Shannon to the west of Ireland. And there’ — ”