A Carra King

by John Brady

  Dolan hadn’t annoyed them much with questions, especially after Malone’s angry reply to a question asked more than once: he didn’t know if the other fella or fellas had all jumped into the frigging Golf, because he was busy ducking bullets from one of them to cover their getaway, for Jases’ sake. Dolan didn’t seem to take this badly at all, and had sat behind the wheel, monitoring the radio for news of the Golf with them. Nothing was showing up.

  Minogue fingered the plaster on his palm and tried to flex his knee again. It wasn’t swollen, but it had gone warm and numb. He watched Tynan study the footpath, incline his head to listen to Murtagh.

  “Let’s have our say, Tommy,” he said, and opened the door. “And get out of here.”

  The handle felt odd: tight, well made, too springy maybe. The strangeness of everything now. He felt the beginnings of a laugh, then panic. Dolan looked over when he didn’t step out.

  “Are you all right?” he said.

  His chest was still full of that airy, swollen feeling. Maybe he should have gone in for observation for a few hours. Malone was waiting for him to step out, too.

  “Boss? We’re not carrying the can for this, right?”

  Minogue was up now. Tynan had spotted them, and had ducked back under the tape and was heading toward them.

  “They knew,” Malone went on, “they knew, there was something else going on with all this. Right? And they didn’t say a fucking word to us, so they didn’t. It’s all up to them then, isn’t it? The bastards.”

  Minogue nodded. Malone’s bastards were Hayes and company, he supposed. Tynan covered ground quickly, he thought. The handshake, unexpected, reminded Minogue of the loser in a close bout.

  “Matt?”

  “Well, I’m on me feet.”

  “Tommy?”

  Malone shrugged, took the handshake. Tynan stared at Minogue.

  “At least get a lie down, will you?”

  “No. I’m okay.”

  Minogue stared at the crowd standing by the tape. Dolan had followed them from the car. He stood back now.

  “No.”

  Tynan looked back at the sheet covering Freeman, Murtagh writing something.

  “You knew straightaway?” he asked. “After the shooting?”

  Minogue nodded.

  “Can you tell me what happened? The lead-up.”

  “The fella behind was tracking us,” said Malone. “He was good. I only spotted him later on.”

  Minogue shivered.

  “But they definitely went after Freeman,” he said.

  Tynan frowned.

  “You don’t think they put him as one of yours? Ours, I mean. A Guard?”

  Minogue waited for Tynan to out with it.

  “Smiths?” he murmured finally.

  Minogue shrugged and looked over at Malone, who shook his head once.

  “They’d know us,” he said.

  “I’m still going after each and every one of the Smiths’ crowd,” Tynan said. “Every last little hanger-on and gopher, every little worm that ever had anything to do with them.”

  Tynan turned to Dolan.

  “Can we clear these two to go?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Dolan. “We can get a car in for them soon’s we get the word.”

  “Please,” said Tynan. “And would you go into that bashed-up Nissan there and take out an envelope, a big one, with some fancy letterhead printed on it, and get it for us.”

  Tynan watched him quickstep it back to the car. Minogue looked over at the Nissan and the roadway beyond. The chalk circles around the bullet-casings looked like eyes.

  “Did you sign over your pistol?” Tynan said to Malone.

  “I did. To John Murtagh, he bagged it.”

  “Good,” Tynan said. He threw a glance Minogue’s way. “I won’t bother asking you. Have you changed your bloody mind after this then?”

  Minogue said nothing.

  “Now,” said Tynan. “We need to clear the decks sometime soon here. We’re going to sit down very shortly and sort out, try and sort out, what happened in that hotel room.”

  Minogue tugged at the edge of his plaster again. He was aware that Malone was standing very still beside him. He didn’t want to look over at him for a reaction.

  “Because that’s when things started to fall apart,” Tynan added. He waited until Minogue looked at him.

  “What were you doing in this part of town, with Freeman in tow?”

  “We were headed for the squad,” said Minogue. “An interview.”

  Tynan looked from Minogue to Malone and back.

  “Those papers Freeman had for you,” he said. “I know what’s in them. So did King, and so did Hayes.”

  Tynan looked at the two site technicians by the Mondeo. Callaghan, one of them.

  “Aren’t you surprised?”

  “I am and I amn’t,” Minogue said. “I thought we were first in.”

  “So did Freeman,” said Tynan. “He had called Boston to get the go-ahead after our Mr. Leyne took a turn and was put on the life support. He got the go-ahead to go to you. But we received a phone call here from the principals, too.”

  “Who, you?” Minogue asked.

  “No. Justice. Mr. Declan King.”

  “Hayes?”

  “That went around me completely,” Tynan said. “That’s why you and head-the-ball are not being given the treatment here at this very moment. At least your contrariness was out in the open — ”

  “— They were running us, John. They were trying to turn the case.”

  Tynan set his jaw and looked over at Malone.

  “Are you picking up on all this, Detective Garda?”

  Malone nodded.

  “Your CO here arguing the toss with the Commissioner? At a murder scene? Right in front of a detective Garda, detective Garda from Dublin?”

  Malone darted a glance at Minogue. Tynan’s blank stare went back to Minogue.

  “I only heard of these calls after you two clattered King and company down at the hotel,” Tynan went on. “They’d come in on Freeman, and they were going to set you straight when you showed up for the meeting. That didn’t happen.”

  “Set us straight how?”

  Tynan gave no sign he’d heard Minogue.

  “Oddly enough, Leyne seems to have formed some . . .” he paused to consider his choice of words, “. . . some attachment to yourself, Inspector. Seems to think you were all you were cracked up to be — and he checked, let me tell you, I found out. So he wanted to rely on you with this affidavit about the son phoning. But the lawyers beyond had their own ideas, and one of them was to notify the Department of Justice here that you were going to be given these papers. An insurance measure, you might say.”

  Tynan looked down the street at the cordon.

  “In my book, it’s that meddling made this come about. But now look: Freeman. . . There’ll be moves over this after the dust settles, let me tell you. Clean house, and sharpish. But this, this mess hangs on King and the others.”

  He turned back to Minogue.

  “You asked what King knew, and was going to let you in on?”

  “Money, I’d be thinking,” said Minogue.

  “Always a safe guess.”

  Minogue gave him a hard look.

  “Okay, then: when do we get some real answers?”

  Tynan looked around once, nodded at O’Leary.

  “Right now, if that’s what you can handle. But not here.”

  Minogue exchanged a look with Malone, who shrugged.

  “Let’s go then,” he said to Tynan.

  “Fair enough, then,” Tynan said. Minogue didn’t mistake the new edge in his voice. “But, before we start, know this: you’re standing down from the case for now, the both of you. No arguing here about it either.”

  O’Leary held up the cordon tape, but it was Dolan steering them to Tynan’s Grenada, brushing off a man holding out a walkman. He insisted on shaking hands with Minogue and Malone as they sat in. Minogue’s kne
e gave him a stab as he pulled in his leg. He looked over at Malone. His colleague looked like he’d just been pulled out of a car wash.

  Someone shouted Tynan’s name from the small crowd around his car. Tynan paused to answer a question. O’Leary shifted in his seat.

  “A right mess,” he murmured. “Are you okay?”

  “Not so great, Brendan. Thanks. A mess is right.”

  “You should have heard the boss,” O’Leary said. “When he found out what they’d done. Declan King and them. Never heard the like of it before. Ructions.”

  Outside, Tynan broke away from two reporters. O’Leary started the engine. Tynan sat in and pulled the door hard behind him. Minogue winced when the flash went off by the window. Tynan half-turned.

  “The both of you could be going off for a bit of observation, you know,” he said. He looked at Minogue. “Especially you. Haven’t you blood pressure or something?”

  “I’ll be all right. For now.”

  “Have you phoned Kathleen yet?”

  “No. I will in a little while.”

  Tynan took out a notebook.

  “Really, now,” he muttered and he crossed something out.

  “Do you think a small Jameson would help the proceedings here?”

  “Only if there was a pint to go with it,” said Minogue.

  Tynan closed the book with a snap “Go to Quinn’s,” he said. “They have a snug there.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Tynan put down the envelope. He laid the sheets on top of it.

  “So that’s it,” he said. “There’s nothing here about Leyne’s response to the son’s phone call.”

  Minogue studied the countertop by his glass. The light coming through the whiskey fanned golden on the wood. He eyed Tynan.

  “Leyne collects things, doesn’t he?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Minogue had to wrench his eyes off the play of the light.

  “What I mean is that the son was here to get this damned stone and smuggle it back to Leyne, John. To get back in his good books. To get his name in the will.”

  Tynan poured water into his empty glass. Further down the bar two old men had engaged the barman in a discussion about farmers. It was a poor enough pretence at not eavesdropping, Minogue decided.

  “That’s a fair take,” said Tynan. “The son mentions that this stone had been verified by an expert.”

  “This ‘expert’ being Aoife Hartnett,” Minogue said.

  Minogue became distracted again by Malone’s hands. He hadn’t let up rubbing them, squeezing them until it seemed the knuckles would burst through the skin. O’Leary’s phone went off. He listened, nodded and ended the call.

  “No sign of those fellas yet,” he said to Tynan.

  “Not even the car?”

  O’Leary shook his head. Tynan turned back to Minogue.

  “Well I don’t see the son telling him over the phone that he’s killed someone,” he said. “There’s no point. It’d poison things for him entirely. Yes?”

  Minogue shivered. The whiskey was working against him now.

  “I just don’t know,” he managed. “Panicking?”

  “Does it sound like panic to you?” Tynan asked. “Not to me. The gist of the conversation is the son telling him this stone is a genuine find, this Carra stone. That no one knows it’s been turned up, so no one’s going to miss it. And on he goes into some story about it.”

  Tynan waited for Minogue to look his way.

  “It’s also clear to me from this flimsy statement that Leyne has doubts about the whole thing anyway,” he said. “It’s what he doesn’t put in the affidavit is what’s got me wondering.”

  Minogue thought about Eileen Brogan crying. Garland biting his lip as he tried to explain the leave of absence he’d pushed Aoife Hartnett into. He saw Dermot Higgins pointing and clicking, heard his distracted murmurs, the pictures dissolving and sliding off the screen. He rubbed his eyes. It didn’t help: his thoughts were slipping away.

  “Okay,” he tried. “The call is made ‘just outside Dublin.’ The son is in a hurry. Has he a means of getting this stone out of the country at this point, a plan? Contacts? We don’t know.”

  Tynan shifted on his stool. Wanted to get going, Minogue registered.

  “You read up on this Carra place, didn’t you?” Tynan asked. “What about this stone anyway? Is there such an item?”

  “Legend says there is. Or there was.”

  “It’s never been found though?”

  Minogue missed with his glass as he was returning it to the table. It tipped, rolled and fell on the floor, intact. Tynan lifted his feet to place them away from the spilled whiskey. Minogue reached down and brought up the glass. He fixed Tynan with a glance.

  “Okay, let me throw in a question now,” he said. “Declan King was at the airport to meet Leyne. So was Hayes. What did they know, how much, and how early?”

  “King reports to the Minister, not me. Hayes, I’ll be getting to.”

  “They colluded in keeping information from us. What’s your view on that?”

  Tynan began to stack the coins on the counter. He placed the last coin, a five-penny on the top. He looked up suddenly at O’Leary.

  “Tony. You and himself here give us a bit of room, will you.”

  O’Leary waited for Malone to rise. Tynan watched the door of the snug being pulled tight.

  “Listen here, Matt. No more noises for now, about Hayes working behind your back. King, I can’t do anything about.”

  “I had two connected murders on my hands,” Minogue said. “Three, now.”

  “You don’t. The squad does. You’re off the case, for now.”

  “We’re being led. Now we’re being shoved aside. And Leyne or his fixers are papering over the cracks all the time.”

  “Leyne’s in a coma. He has brain damage.”

  “He knew something was up. He’s been throwing bones to us. The private eye stuff on the son, now the affidavit — but I say he knew all along.”

  “He had his own interests,” said Tynan.

  “Two hundred million of them, is that it? Is that what concerns the likes of Hayes and King? Or you?”

  “Did Freeman tell you that?”

  “No. I asked him about the will and he got into a dander.”

  “Well, you’d just arrested him, driven around the streets, growling at him.”

  “Why did Leyne have a lawyer with him? He was expecting the worst.”

  Tynan lifted the coins in groups from the stack and began dropping them back on the stack.

  “Two hundred million, I heard,” said Minogue. “Am I wrong?”

  Tynan released the coins and rubbed his hands.

  “It’s not two hundred million,” he said. “It’s fifty. It’s part of what he’s worth.”

  He looked up from his palm at Minogue.

  “Leyne made contact with people in the last government,” he said. “He had a proposal, to donate fifty million dollars to the development of Irish culture. It was to go into history, heritage centres. Like the Carnegie libraries, years ago.”

  Heritage, Minogue thought. He watched Tynan examining his palms.

  “Let me guess,” he said then. “There’s a deal involved. An amnesty for stuff Leyne had, stuff he’d bought that was smuggled out of Ireland? Goddamn it, John, we give amnesties to tax dodgers and drug barons here every day, so why not Leyne?”

  Tynan let the seconds pass.

  “That was the deal until the son got himself jammed in the works,” he said then. “Leyne would never have to divulge who or where or how these pieces ended up in his possession. And that the fifty million would be very welcome, thank you very much.”

  “Hush money,” Minogue said. “A half-step up from extortion.”

  “Look at the results,” said Tynan. “A lot of money for heritage here, recovering missing — stolen — artifacts too. Call it restitution if you like. That would be a good day’s work. Yes?”


  Anything you want, Minogue was thinking: the hand grasping his arm.

  “I think that Leyne actually tried to make me an offer,” he said. “Except that I was too thick to get it.”

  “For all your work, you’re still a bit of a gom, I’m afraid.”

  Minogue gave him a hard look.

  “Well, here’s how I see it then,” he began. “Or does it matter, at this stage?”

  “It matters. Fire away.”

  “King was in touch with Freeman on a regular basis. King would be doing the trick-bicyclist routine, the deal-maker with the delicate stuff. Hayes, maybe the gofer to shadow Leyne or Freeman while they’re here. Fits, doesn’t it? Except that Aoife Hartnett is murdered. And Shaughnessy himself.”

  Tynan turned on him.

  “Listen,” he said to Minogue. “The clock has moved on. You have to come in now. The case proceeds, but you need to step aside for a while at least.”

  “Why? Because now Freeman’s been murdered? Because we weren’t shown the menu? Because we crashed the party?”

  “Among other reasons, because the Minister has requested it.”

  Minogue put down his glass. He studied Tynan’s face.

  “John,” he said. “Wait a minute here, now. You bought me a cup of coffee the other day. A nice cup of Bewleys white coffee. You asked about Jim dirtying his bib at the club. Fair enough, I thought. It’s wise to be on guard with this newspaper article, the Smiths stirring up trouble again. And Gemma O’Loughlin is out to sell papers. And then you talked about Shaughnessy, how you want to be in the know every day. Still fair enough, I said to myself again: a visitor, tourist, well-known family, profile — whatever. It has to be done right. Fine and well.”

  Minogue paused to get Tynan’s eyes back from a study of the glass.

  “But today, out of the blue, there’s a murder. It’s a well-planned murder. How well planned? They knew there were Guards there, and maybe even that the Guards might be armed. But they were determined enough, desperate enough . . . or maybe they were so well paid, so afraid of failure, that they followed through anyway.”

  He leaned forward. He could feel the muscles at the back of his neck quivering now, his head beginning to shake.