by John Brady
The news reader reappeared. Gemma O’Loughlin’s name, a columnist with the Irish Times. Papers turned over, the next item the camera slid left: a European Union meeting of agriculture ministers.
“Shite, meet fan,” said Malone.
“What did I miss?” Minogue asked.
Malone looked around.
“‘Allegations of a cover-up,’” he said. “And Christy Smith sitting there with Larry’s wife. He has a leg up on her, I heard. Tough talk. ‘Hold them responsible.’ Finger pointing. ‘Public inquiry.’ Shite like that.”
“Names mentioned?”
“No, I didn’t hear them. They mentioned the squad all right. But no names. ‘Senior Gardai’ aware of it, it said.”
Minogue made his way back to the doorway into the foyer.
“Any reply from us?”
“Something about Garda sources denying it. And saying that we’d been bollocked by the family when we’d gone looking for clues anyway. Jases, the nerve.”
The coffee had been too good probably. Minogue adjusted the seat belt again. Malone sat woodenly in the middle next to the driver, O’Callaghan. He looked over his shoulder several times through the tinted glass. Their carry-alls and evidence bags weren’t moving around.
Minogue looked at the air-conditioning controls again. O’Callaghan noticed, started an explanation. The thermostat was always set low, he said. There was no need for it, to tell you the God’s honest truth. But people wanted to know you had it. Why? They’d heard about it, that was all.
He’d made the Dublin run before, but not in this direction. A lot of people living in Dublin even fifty years wanted to be buried at home. Home sweet home. Or people coming in from the States. There was a man of ninety-seven flown home from Los Angeles to be buried and two fellas from a funeral director’s there came with the remains, if you don’t mind. The money involved! No place like home. First thing they looked for, would you believe it, was an air-conditioned hearse.
It was dark by Foxford. The roads were dry here. Did they mind if he smoked, O’Callaghan asked. Minogue hadn’t the heart to refuse. Swinford, eight miles. The Inspector looked down at the clock. They’d be lucky to be back in Dublin by eleven. A signpost by the bridge over the River Moy sped by. Fishing, he thought, there’s a thought. Couldn’t you read and fish at the same time? O’Callaghan smoked heavily, savouring it. The smoke was yanked out the sliver of window by O’Callaghan’s ear into the dark wake of the car.
What the hell did Shaughnessy get himself into here? Minogue listened to the changing notes of the wind from the window. Éist le fuaim na habhainn, mar gheobhiadh tú bradán: If you want to catch a salmon, you listen to the river. He’d phone Kathleen from Longford. A pint with Malone at Ryan’s by closing time.
“Will you make it to Dublin before eleven?” he murmured.
No bother, from O’Callaghan. Something in the brash assurance told the Inspector that he knew the reason the question, that he wouldn’t mind being included in the arrangement for the pint. Strange isn’t it, he began to talk in a monotone, how people are about certain things. Minogue rested his head on the headrest and leaned harder against the door. How people wanted to be buried and where. Tells you a lot about people, doesn’t it. I suppose, from Minogue, a maybe, from Malone. O’Callaghan warmed to his subject.
Minogue watched the speedometer stay steady on one hundred. He wondered how well O’Callaghan knew the roads. He looked out at the dark shapes falling behind the headlights’ glow. Not three feet behind him, through the glass, in a chilly space being driven through the Mayo night was the body of Aoife Hartnett.
O’Callaghan was beginning to annoy him seriously. Home, he was saying, sure home is only where you come from these days. And that’s about it, wouldn’t you say? Malone said he didn’t know. The States, Europe, said O’Callaghan, we were only catching up. Mobility is the future. God knows where we’ll end up with that stuff, hah? They’d have computers the size of a book soon and you could talk into them. Minogue let his eyes close. The monologue moved to cars.
Minutes passed. He had to talk to Mrs. Shaughnessy. She must know something of the son’s recent shenanigans, for God’s sake. He thought of the tracks out over the bog, the one that led to the cliff where Aoife Hartnett’s car had plummeted to the rocks and water below. Bogholes, ponds, loughs of water even. But that track had been passable. Who’d know that? Noonan’s reply last night on the phone — you’d get a car up there maybe but you wouldn’t get it back down again too easy.
“Plane?” said O’Callaghan again. “From Dublin down to Knock Airport?”
“Right,” said Malone. “A plane.”
“And now ye’re heading back in a hearse. A howl or what?”
Malone didn’t answer. Did they mind him turning on the radio, he asked instead. Minogue opened his eyes: anything, anything. Malone found a live chat show from Galway. The question was: Had GOD sold out to the recording industry? A caller argued that women were still treated like shite in the rock industry and GOD had definitely sold out. She’d never listen to GOD again. Ever. Were they allowed to say words like shite on the radio now, Minogue wondered. O’Callaghan had to stop for a leak and a package of cigarettes. Did they want anything? Fishing about to see if they’d frown on having a few pints.
“The blather out of him,” said Malone. “Be better off in the back with her.”
Minogue fiddled with the radio. Not a gig out of it until the key was in.
“I can’t figure it out,” muttered Malone. “What am I missing here?”
“Who drove the car,” said Minogue and yawned. “That’s the key here now.”
“Yeah. Right.”
Malone turned to face him.
“I can see them driving out there,” he said. “I can even see them — or him or her or whoever — driving up that track a bit. Why? To keep the car out of sight, say. They don’t want people knowing they’re around. Why? She’s dead already? He plans or they plan to dump the car somewhere ’cause he doesn’t want to be spotted on the road. I mean it sort of fits, being as what we’re seeing people who kept off the beaten track on purpose.”
“They had a tent, say.”
“Well, yeah. But would you actually want to rough it out here? The bleeding rain and everything?”
Minogue surveyed the dashboard again. Blaupunkt, electric windows; the climate controls for the back: invincible. Who won the war again?
“Was she the outdoor type? I don’t know, but I don’t think so. Him?”
“Don’t know, Tommy. We’ll have to get better background. You’re right.”
“She was done there though. Yeah?”
Minogue nodded.
“You think he raped her? That was it?”
“The thought crossed my mind,” Minogue said.
“Huh. How does he get out of there and wind up in Dublin, then? Unless he’s dead too, with her. A double. But who’d kill the two of ’em, then take him off to Dublin in a car? Unless he’s an outsider himself, heading out of the country too.”
“This third party,” said Minogue. “What’s the point of trying to bring Shaughnessy back to Dublin?”
“Okay: he’s alive then, say. Kidnapped.”
“No. There’s no sign of that, Tommy. Notes, calls. No PM signs.”
“Okay. He’s in cahoots with someone they meet on the road. Another Yank, say?”
“That’s open, yes.”
“But we can’t even start on that until we get to place him — them, I mean. Or get through all the airline and boat lists. Back to Shaughnessy being the killer. Unless he’s Mister Cool, he’s out there in the bog freaking out entirely. Yeah?”
Minogue nodded.
“He’s got a dead body,” Malone went on. “Her car, it’s dark say . . . Where’s his car, the rental one, all this time? Parked off in Dublin? No. He’s gone on his drive a day before she takes leave. So he’s gone in his own car. But there’s no sign of the car at all, the rental car.”
“You’d have to wonder about them checking in at night and leaving early. Want to bet they parked their car away from the B & B? There might have been separate cars all the while.”
Minogue shrugged.
“Yeah,” said Malone. “That’d fix the business about how did he get out of the place handy enough. He has his own motor, like, so dumping the Micra is the thing to do. It buys time. A lot of time if it’s done right.”
“We’ll be needing a blue Escort on the roads around there, Tommy, for this to hold. A clear, dependable sighting.”
Malone yawned now.
“There had to be times he parked his somewhere though, I mean,” he said. “They’d want to be together, wouldn’t they? I mean what’s the point of . . .?”
O’Callaghan opened the door. Minogue caught him halfway in. Would he mind letting him get something out of his bag in the back, he asked. He followed O’Callaghan around the back, wondered if he had downed more than one pint.
“Is that peppermint you have?”
O’Callaghan gave no sign he’d picked up on the sarcasm.
“It is,” he said briskly. “Would you like one, there . . .?”
“Matt. Thanks.”
Minogue took out the folder Mairéad O’Reilly had given him. He sat back in.
“Peppermint, Tommy?” Malone’s reply was just as leaden.
“It’s all right. I’ll wait till we get to Dublin for me, ah, peppermints.”
EIGHTEEN
Minogue wondered if O’Callaghan had been daring him to say something. The Mercedes had been doing one hundred and forty coming in the Lucan bypass. Malone had been dozing. He’d opened his eyes when O’Callaghan braked for the end of the motorway.
“Turn left there, if you please,” said Minogue.
O’Callaghan left them by the door.
“Technical Bureau,” O’Callaghan said. “Is that like a lab?”
“Adjacent,” said Minogue. “We moved from across the river two years ago. Will you give us our bags now, and thanks very much.”
It had rained recently. Malone stretched.
“Only half-ten,” he said. Minogue took the bag from O’Callaghan.
“You know how to get to the city morgue, do you?”
“I have it here. Down by the Custom House.”
“You’ll wind up there yourself if you keep driving like you were.” Minogue looked down at the evidence bags.
“Sign them in, Tommy, will you. And drop in the cassette for duplication.”
He nearly dropped the videocassette taking it out of his carry-all. He shoved the folder into the carry-all and zipped it up again. Malone watched him.
“Do you want to go over anything before we knock off?”
“No.”
Minogue fingered his key ring and pushed the remote. The lights on his Citroen flashed and the alarm chirped once.
“It’ll wait until the morning. I’ll drop this in the car and do a quick check of what’s come in.”
Malone followed him over. Minogue set the video case on the bonnet.
“The airport,” Minogue murmured.
“Yeah?”
“Any closer on when the Escort was parked. If any of Shaughnessy’s stuff has turned up. Her effects too. Call-ins from outside Dublin. See if we can find Aoife Hartnett too on any of those days.”
Malone cleared his throat. He was about to spit, but he turned aside instead and gently let it go on the tarmac. Minogue looked around the night sky and listened for trains in the tunnel beneath this city end of Phoenix Park where Garda Headquarters was housed. His mind wandered back to the empty hills, the cliffs.
“With her,” said Malone, “can we wait till the morning, like? The news?”
“We can,” said Minogue. “The crowd she worked with. Garland. After the next of kin. I’ll phone her brother-in-law at home first thing in the morning. There’ll be nothing on the news until tomorrow. Let ’em sleep if they can tonight.”
Minogue slowed when he saw the thumb out. He’d at least drop a hint to this gawky, bedraggled teenager that standing on the side of the Bray Road after midnight thumbing a lift should have a health warning.
The girl noticed him slowing. He had almost stopped the car when he spotted the two fellas sidling out from the gateway behind her. He didn’t hear much after the first shout. It was the girl doing most of it. Maybe they were too drunk to try to chase him. Annoyed and disheartened, he sped up to eighty, passing Belfield. He thought about phoning them in. Or worse, go back and pick them up and speed off back to Donnybrook Station. Sit across the table from them and give them a bit of grief. Drugs, he wondered. No: he was overreacting.
He imagined Kilmartin in a swanky conference facility retailing war stories from the squad. Profiling: when, in the name of God, would the squad ever be using FBI profiles? He thought of Larry Smith, the brother finger-wagging at the camera, the dark warnings to the Guards. How the other drug gangsters must be laughing. The Citroen wavered only an instant as he turned sharply up the Rise. It was enough to alert him. He geared down. Why the hell was he driving like a madman? He was still thinking of Kilmartin’s junket when he turned into the driveway.
He pulled out the key and waited for the Citroen to settle. The edges of his keys felt like teeth against his thumb. Vegan, that was it. Iseult was a vegan, according to Kathleen. Iseult mightn’t be getting some vital vitamin or something. Unhinged her, couldn’t think logically. How could he check? He stepped out onto the driveway but he turned instead and walked back to the gate.
The pillar had never been straight. The gate had always scraped even in the days when he’d made a point of closing it. Iseult, wouldn’t you know it, had found a way to unlatch it soon after she had learned to walk. Meat is murder, wasn’t that one of the slogans? Drisheen, eggs, sausages: the Holy Family, though? Low.
The lamplight from the road showed patches of wet on the driveway. The faint bass thumping came on the breeze from the neighbours. Gearóid, Una Costigan’s youngest, the one giving her the willies, no doubt. Still at it in the middle of the night. Shaved head, history graduate, unemployed. Nice lad; bone lazy. Or just unwilling to head off out on a plane somewhere? Gearóid thought he’d had a break at Christmas with a concert in the community centre but it didn’t come off. Gearóid wore sunglasses, the insect-eye models, nearly all the time now.
What was Aoife Hartnett trying to do for God’s sake? Did she and Shaughnessy have a thing going? There were no stars that he could see. The breezes barely stirred the hedge. Park the damn car in Cabinteely tomorrow evening no matter what, by God, and walk up by Tully, sit awhile, down Bride’s Glen and . . . Inveigle Iseult out, too. Try and get her to drink milk at least. Was that music getting louder?
The hedge should really be cut back. Why hadn’t he? Only the hall light on. He and Kathleen had a house to themselves. Stuff forgotten about was turning up: Iseult’s carving behind the lawnmower. Yes, Iseult called home her dacha. It had been months since she’d stayed overnight with them. The sudden ache reminded him of a paper cut.
Maybe that’s why Gearóid Costigan’s comings and goings had set his teeth on edge. It wasn’t the smell of dope drifting in over the hedge last summer. It was the fact that Gearóid was at home. He’d never actually left. His own son Daithi was on the American express, going wherever his training and job took him. There were twenty-two years of his son’s life upstairs in boxes and drawers. Lately he had found Kathleen’s mantras of when Daithi comes home again unbearable. At least he wasn’t the prodigal son.
Had Mrs. Shaughnessy written off her son? Johnny Leyne greasing the wheels and paying off predators to keep his one-and-only out of jail. Minogue ran his hand along the top railing of the gate, flicked off the drops of water. Remorse, that’s what had them there. They knew they’d messed up. What could he do, sit Mrs. Shaughnessy down in back at an interview room at t
he squad and work on her to give him the True Story? Would they try to offer money to Aoife Hartnett’s family if it turned out that way, her mother, her sister, her nieces, her nephews . . .?
He stared at the area carved out by the light over the hall door. He followed the sharp lines between the light and shadow by the garage door, the weakening ambit of the light as it lost out to the darkness by the hedge. When Daithi comes marching home again. The sharp stab over the heart stopped his thoughts. Football games, swimming down at Seapoint and Killiney, meeting him for a pint after he started college. He’d loved going up in the woods at Katty Gallagher before it had been turned into a managed park. But that was when he was eleven or twelve. His friends still phoned: Barney, Lorcan, Sarah who’d finally given up on trying to hook Daithi but wanted to stay a friend. The bent for mathematics, the indifference and even exasperation with English. At least he’d stopped smoking. Caty had put him right. She’d look after him.
Minogue squeezed his thumb harder on the key and stared at the hall door. Maybe that’s what Iseult had been doing those times he’d found her standing out on the bloody road staring at the house, sizing it up. No place like home. No place. Is that what the Holy Family came out of?
Before him was the step up, the mat underfoot, the key sliding into the lock. The Burren print on the wall then, the hello from Kathleen. Home. He’d been hearing that there was no place like home all bloody day, it seemed — Kilmartin knew something. The thought froze him there. No, he thought; it was pub talk, spoofing. Close ranks though — the Old Guard. He swore and pushed the hall door.
He closed the door and headed for the kitchen with the folder under his arm. The light over the counter was on. Kathleen had left a copy of the newspaper there. He could make out the photo of the Holy Family from across the room. He wondered if Kathleen had tried to get in touch with Iseult.
The cupboard door creaked. He reached in before it opened enough, felt the neck of the bottle, drew it out. He ran the tap slowly, took down a glass and filled it. He downed three-quarters of the water, then he sized up the remainder and poured in as much Bushmills. The edge of the countertop bit into his hip but he didn’t shift. He took another mouthful and eyed Mairéad O’Reilly’s folder again.
