A Carra King

by John Brady

  He sat in the passenger seat and listened to the radio. He played with the fader and the balance and the presets and the idea of Patrick Leyne Shaughnessy as a killer. He stopped a search when he hit upon something orchestral. It turned out to be a rather stiff rendition of Handel. The rain on the sunroof had almost stopped now. He looked across the deserted car park. He imagined the gush from a nearby gutter was keeping time with the music. He’d ask the bland Freeman how long ago his boss had had the heart surgery. Interesting to see if Freeman balked.

  He slipped out of the Citroen, locked and alarmed it and hot-footed it across to the door. He had forgotten the new dip in the tarmac left after last summer’s heat wave. He managed to splash right up to his chest and even flick drops on his chin. He was in the foyer using a lot of bad language when Malone found him.

  “That’s desperate language. Who’re you hanging around with?”

  “Get away from me. I should have stayed in the damned car and driven home, so I should.”

  “Why don’t you, so?”

  Minogue shook two pills into his palm.

  “Because I’ve nothing to sleep on, that’s why.”

  “Oh here we go. Are you the one preaching the Watch and Wait stuff at me a while ago? The black art and the Zen thing? ‘The devil’s in the detail, Tommy’?”

  “I could have said anything by closing time in Willie Ryan’s.”

  Malone followed him to the kitchen. Minogue half-filled a mug with water.

  “We’re firmed up on Donegal, at least,” said Malone. “Those two places he stayed. One of the statements is in already. They have Guards doing the rounds in the pubs to ferret out more tonight.”

  Minogue let the water wash the pills off the back of his tongue. He stared at the chipped enamel by the front of the cooker.

  “What’s the link between the places he stayed?”

  “Who knows,” Malone said. “Except they’re B & Bs, not the Hilton.”

  “If we could find her car,” Minogue muttered. He drank the rest of the water and turned to Malone.

  “We’d be clued in as to whether our man was acting the maggot. Prior intentions, plan. He must have said something to someone. ‘Touring the West’?”

  Malone leaned against the countertop and stretched his neck. Minogue heard a crack.

  “She drove somewhere to meet him,” Malone said. “That’s where her car is.”

  Minogue’s eyes felt like bruises now. Even when he closed them, they felt they might pop out and roll down his cheeks. The flu, maybe?

  “Hey boss. Go home. We’re all right.”

  “Phone Fergal at the airport again, Tommy. We really have to get a time — a day even — for the love of God.”

  Minogue trudged back down the hall to the squad room. The splashes on his trousers made the fabric cold and gritty on his skin. He rubbed his toes around and felt the itchy slip of wet socks. He stood in front of the boards.

  Shaughnessy had started in Donegal, that’s how it looked. He’d spent at least a day there. He’d been with Aoife Hartnett. They’d been in her car. Why? He wasn’t scrimping: he was keeping his head down, out of sight. Shaughnessy had, as Minogue had heard so many times in the dry language of the books of evidence being quoted in court, formed an intent. He imagined him sitting in the Micra while Aoife Hartnett did the dealings: buying petrol, meals, booking a room.

  He squinted at the map and let the names slide around in his mind. Ardara, Falcarragh, Gortahork; the Glengesh Pass down into Glencolumbkille. Up again along that mountain road, out to Killybegs and on to Donegal town. Down by Bundoran the marker’s blue line went, through Sligo and out to Collooney where it stopped by the question mark. He took the marker and uncapped it. He found Ballina and then the village of Cahercarraig. He drew the dotted line slowly and put his initials by the question mark.

  John Murtagh yawned loud and long. He stood and groaned and stretched and groaned again and ambled over to Minogue.

  “The guide books, you’re thinking,” said Murtagh. “Aren’t you?”

  “The crease on the page for Cahercarraig, John, yes. Right by these fields they’re going to open up. The Carra Fields.”

  “And the interpretive centre thing, right. She’s the boss — ”

  Minogue’s sneeze caused Murtagh to take a step back.

  Murtagh was still poring over the list when he finished blowing his nose. The phones had been silent for a half an hour. Murtagh pointed at the 8 x 10 of the group at the museum party.

  “She’s the head honcho on that place, right?”

  “The photo there, John. Yes. The unveiling of the exhibition.”

  “What else is marked in that guidebook from the car?”

  “Just Glencolumbkille.”

  “Nothing for Mayo?”

  Minogue shook his head. He stepped over to the photos. Wineglasses, panels with pictures and columns of words behind the group. Aoife Hartnett: a fairly public smile, if he had to find a word for it. Shaughnessy standing off to the side. Garland mightn’t have realized who he was if it had been a big enough do.

  Murtagh was back at the map with his finger in Mayo.

  “Cahercarraig then,” he said. “Five or six miles?”

  “About that, John. Is it time we got our hard-working colleagues in County Mayo out on the roads too?”

  “You were promised the world, I heard,” Murtagh said.

  Minogue looked over at Pat Curran, the lone remaining Guard on the call-in line. Curran had turned out to be a rower. Minogue had forgotten which Garda Rowing Team had gotten into a drinking spree at the Garda Boat Club two years ago and started throwing one another into the river.

  “Thanks, Pat,” he called out. “Go home, like a good man. We’ll call you for follow-ups if we get inundated here.”

  Curran smiled and nodded. He stared at the phones for several moments as though to reproach them for not ringing. Then he rolled back from the table.

  “John,” said Minogue. “We can’t sit on our hands waiting. You’ll make the call to Galway. I’ll call Mayo.”

  “Feed them the Micra, and this monument stuff too? Vague, isn’t it?”

  “The car for sure then. And tell them there’ll be overnight faxes on Aoife Hartnett. Call us if they haven’t received by ten tomorrow morning.”

  Murtagh exchanged a look with the Inspector.

  “He or she, he and she, went on west to Mayo,” Minogue muttered. “Every member, patrol schedule or not, has to have her picture and the details and Shaughnessy’s, too — in their fists by dinnertime tomorrow.”

  He looked away from the map again. Murtagh hadn’t moved.

  “Go on with you, John Murtagh, and don’t be looking at me like that. I know it’s nine o’clock at night. We would have moved to an active search soon enough anyway. Any duty officers humming or hawing, or bellyaching, refer them to me.”

  Minogue used Kilmartin’s office to phone Tynan. He hung up when the voice mail took over and dialed the cell phone number. O’Leary answered. He had dropped the Commissioner home an hour ago. Did Minogue have the home number? Minogue pretended he didn’t.

  He was too bewildered to frame a witty reply to Rachel Tynan when she said his name.

  “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 concerne
d?”

  “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 Cancelled 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 Collooney. 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 centre. 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 manufacturing piles in their cars for hours.

  “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.”

  FOURTEEN

  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 screensaver 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 goodnight 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 black-out 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 from 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.

&
nbsp; “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 teabags. 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 the Cahercarraig Road.

  “Boreens,” Malone declared.

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