by John Brady
Hughes made a fluttering motion with his fingers. Minogue thought of the missing pages from the file fluttering higher up the more desolate slopes.
“Or just doesn’t like having to deal with coppers,” Hughes added.
Hughes stretched, and spoke in a faux-Polish accent.
“‘Arrangements will be made.’”
Minogue tapped his file folder, and silently cursed the slow lift here.
“I wonder,” Hughes said then, shaking off a yawn at the same time. “What it costs anyway. You know, ‘the arrangements’?”
“No idea.”
“‘Cargo’ and so forth,” Hughes murmured. “Cost a fair whack, I’m sure. Whatever the going rate is for-”
Minogue looked over at Hughes’ abrupt pause. Hughes grimaced and said something under his breath. Great, Minogue thought: he’d be taking Hughes’ flu, or whatever he had, soon enough himself now.
“Funny phrase,” Hughes said, letting his breath slowly out his nose. “That ‘going rate.’” I suppose things stick in your head, like that.”
“‘Young people of Ireland…’” said Minogue.
Hughes smiled. “The Pope,” he said, quickly. “The old pope, I mean. John Paul. The Polish pope.”
“I thought it might be a bit far back for you,” Minogue said.
“No way. My family went to that big mass, above in the Phoenix Park. And me dragged along with them.”
“You and the rest of the million people.”
“You too?”
“Ah no,” said Minogue. “I was out of the country. Unfortunately.”
“But you’re right,” said Hughes. “How a phrase sticks in your mind. You see, I was on to a certain party yesterday, beating the bushes for any info on street crime there around where the poor man was beat up. Murdered I should say. Something in the drugs and street crime line, I was angling for, pointers, like. This fella I was talking to is the man to go to, I hear. Drugs Central, but runs his own thing.”
“Ah.”
“So, I’m talking to him, you know, see if he or any of the other cowboys — sorry, Drug Squad — will put out feelers about Klos. ‘Up to our necks,’ he says. Tells me about the shootings, you know, the gang stuff and all.”
“It’s always that way in Drugs, I hear.”
“I know that,” said Hughes. “But it would mean a lot to us, I says to him, you know. ‘Okay,’ says he, and I think I’m getting somewhere. ‘How much would it mean,’ says he. ‘I don’t get it,’ says I. ‘What’s the going rate?’ says he.”
“Quid pro quo,” said Minogue.
The lift bell rang at last. Three detectives went in first.
“Well what have I got, I could give him? More like a ‘get lost’ to me.”
“Tommy is sound,” Minogue tried. “Lot of pressure on the job there.”
“You know who I’m talking about?”
For a moment, Minogue believed that he was well and truly had, that Hughes was setting him up.
“Tommy Malone. Yes, I do.”
“Well small world,” said Hughes, following Minogue into the lift. His tone seemed genuine to Minogue now. They stood next to the doors.
Minogue could almost sense Hughes thoughts turning over.
“I wonder,” Hughes began, hesitating over his words. “If it’d be out of order asking you, if you could maybe, you know…?”
Minogue thought of Mrs. Klos, her hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. Bed-and-breakfast, Fairview. A stranger in a strange land.
Chapter 15
Malone was in a car somewhere when Minogue called. He was more than a bit surly.
“Hughes is being taken care of,” he told Minogue. “Tell him to get his hearing checked.”
“He believes that I have an in with you,” Minogue said.
“Really. Well I believe Posh Spice is my half-sister.”
“It’s working its way through, I’ll tell him then?”
“Tell him what you like.”
“Did I tell you it’s murder, that the man is dead?”
“Twice already. Is it your case?”
“I sat in, that’s all. He’s a Foreign National. But the man’s mother is here. An only son. The father is a ne’er-do-well, not involved at all. The mother’s on her own here, well except for someone from the consulate.”
“Sounds to me like Hughes is after guilting you. So now he can jump the queue here and get the glory.”
“He doesn’t want the glory, Tommy.”
“Wait a minute, will you, hold on, I think I see Santa Claus here, oh look, it’s the Tooth Fairy as well.”
“Did you hit the sack at all over the past few days?”
“Oh, I know where this is going. ‘You sound contrary.’”
Minogue had to smile at Malone’s effort at a country accent. A pang of nostalgia arced in his chest when he thought of the sessions back in the Squad, with Kilmartin and Malone going at it. There was no going back.
“Look. Hughes is not being bollicky. He knows how busy you are.”
“Busy? Nice of him. Tell him we’re in the middle of a war here. Mulhall, the other day? I was working him, trying to work him, you know. Wouldn’t listen to me. I told him he wouldn’t last. I told him…”
“All hands on deck then, is it.”
“You’re telling me. It’s like last year’s big thing never happened. Oak and Anvil…? Might as well be ancient history.”
Minogue recalled the haul displayed on the television and in the papers. Over five hundred kilos of cocaine was on show, close to a million Euro, an assortment of pistols, submachine guns, and two assault rifles. He never found out who had called it Operation Oak and Anvil in the first place.
“Okay,” he said to Malone. “I’ll relay that. Sin sin.”
“What shin?”
“Sin sin. ‘That’s that.’ You should have taken Irish lessons.”
“There’s a thick idea. A dead language, for culchies.”
“How’s the Cantonese then?”
There was a pause.
“I’m jealous,” said Minogue. “That’s all.”
“I’ll bet. Tell you what. Stick to your fecking French lesson things. French is a joke compared to what Cantonese is doing to my head.”
“You’ll have a lifetime of peace from the in-laws. Respect too, of course.”
“My arse, I will. Her ma’s grand, but that oul lad of hers will never change. Sweet and sour I call them now. I leave it up to you to figure out which is which. You’re the Detective Inspector, after all.”
Someone asked Malone a question then. Minogue waited for the hand to be taken off the mouthpiece. He couldn’t make out the words but he was reasonably sure that Malone swore twice.
Whoever was in the car with Malone was using the radio. Malone’s hand came off his mobile.
“Leave it for now,” the Guard said. “Wait ’til he comes out.”
“Look,” said Malone then. “I’m on the job here, I have to go. I’ll see you Monday. The usual.”
He meant the get-togethers, Minogue knew. The Club Mad had moved location to Clancy’s on the North Strand. It was the only pub that remained locked in the 1970s, reliably dreary and down-at-heel, and all due to a long-running dispute between two brothers over a will. The mixture of heavy daytime drinkers from the corporation flats nearby, the few greying Bohemians, and a changing set of petty criminals half-pleased Minogue. Neither Plate Glass Sheehy nor Jesus Farrell — not even the tee-totaller Shea Hoey — had complained about the place. Kilmartin had nevertheless pronounced Clancy’s a dump, but still attended.
“Monday’s a long way away, Tommy. Can’t you do better?”
Malone didn’t answer.
“Hughes has done fantastic work here,” Minogue said. “More in two days than we’d have done in a week, I have to say.”
“Good for him.”
“But he’s run ragged, Tommy, spinning his wheels.”
“Happens to the best of us.”
“The mother, come on — you can imagine, hardly a word of English. An only child.”
“Everyone has a mother,” Malone was saying. “You never knew that?”
“You’re a hard man, Tommy. A real desperado, these days, I tell you.”
“Ah don’t start that crap.”
“Just give Hughes a start.”
“What do I have?”
“One of your touts.”
“I don’t believe you actually said that. I don’t.”
“Just someone who’s not in this big war thing you’re in the middle of.”
“I can’t believe you’d ask me for the loan of a source. Jesus.”
“Anybody. This Klos man is showing up with cocaine in his system.”
“Who doesn’t, these days? Any club now, you see people snorting.”
“Be that as it may. Give the mother something to hope for, and she taking him home.”
“You are frigging piling it on, so you are.”
“You know I’ll be above board with whoever you give me.”
“What do I tell him? What’s in it for him?”
Minogue thought about it for a moment.
“‘Assisting the Guards.’”
“Don’t be an iijit.”
“Is he coming to trial, sentencing maybe? Paste it into a plea for him?”
“Uh-uh. Anyone worth anything isn’t going to be in any position.”
“What, then?”
“M-O-N-E-Y. That works nicely.”
“You pay them?”
“Damned right we do. It gets results.”
“Really. Okay then. What’s the going rate?”
Chapter 16
Minogue ate at his desk. He was glad of the Pepsi to push the taste of the so-called brioche with its cargo of dry ham and chalky cheese, and its too-sharp crust that gouged his gums. There was nothing left worth reading in the newspaper. Still he searched. Someone had spray-painted the wall of the Muslim school in Clonskeagh. A road rage thing that led to fines of over a thousand Euro. An Aran islander who spoke no English had just died at the age of 105. The forecast said changeable, but to be on the lookout for showers coming in from the West. He almost missed the ping from his mobile. Don’t screw up, Malone had texted. The name he offered was for
someone Murph. He was to wait until Malone had gotten in touch with this Murph character. No address of course. In caps then the following: NOPRESSUREONHIM.
The low-hanging slabs of clouds that had formed the sky over the funeral this morning had now given way to masses of torn and running clouds. They lost their shapes quickly, but they occasionally revealed patches of blue. Minogue composed a rare text reply of six letters and one space: TA ASAP.
Eilis was trying to get a printer to work.
“What’s up?”
“It looks like the damned thing is broken. Do you know anything about…?”
“I’d do more harm than good, Eilis.”
“Well, horseman, pass by, so.”
He heard her cursing quietly in his wake. He wondered if every Irish speaker knew so many curse words.
On his way back from the bathroom, there were two messages in his box, proof of the mysterious dispensation of fate that timed phone calls for when he entered a bathroom.
Eilis was shoving the paper tray hard into the bottom of the printer. She spoke without looking up.
“Peter Igoe,” she said. “Wants to talk to you.”
Odd, Minogue thought, and unwelcome. His head of section loathed meetings, preferring to network at a distance.
“A matter of some urgency,” she murmured.
“Concerning?”
Eilis grunted as she pushed the tray home yet again.
“Didn’t say.”
Igoe asked Minogue to wait a moment so he could step out of the meeting to take the call. Minogue heard a door closing.
“Thanks, Matt. You got to that meeting there, the Polish matter.”
“I did.”
“Fair play to you. A good send-off for Mrs. Tynan this morning?”
“It’s how she wanted it, I believe.”
“Sad. Now listen, before I pass on the news to you, remind me what you’re at. Current casework, I mean.”
“The papers from the raid on the building sites in Cork and Waterford.”
“Right, right. How goes it there?”
“I sent off scans of them to The Hague yesterday. I’m going through the lists of contractors now for more.”
“Good, good. Listen to me, now, and brace yourself, I suppose.”
“Is it going to involve brown trousers, Peter?”
“Ah, no. Okay. I just got off the phone from the Deputy Comm. You were with a Garda Hughes? Kevin Hughes, case lead on the murder?”
“This very day — is he all right?”
“As a matter of fact he’s not. But he will be. He has appendicitis. Apparently he had to go to hospital.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Nice fella, a workhorse entirely, by God.”
Her arms folded, Eilis was standing by the printer now. There was a faraway look in her eyes and her bottom lip was working its way slowly over her upper teeth. No one in the section had yet dared ask her if she was still off the cigarettes.
“Howandever. Now. I’ve been requested to free you up, so you can stand in for Hughes.”
“Requested, Peter.”
“You know the score, now.”
“I have the impression there are a lot of people expecting CSI here, all wrapped up in forth-five minutes before bedtime?”
“Hard to argue with you there,” Igoe agreed. “A lot of publicity, over in Poland and here. Yes.”
Minogue knew Igoe long enough to recognize what his tone meant.
“But the point is,” Igoe said, “this case has moved right up the ramp. So you have the whip hand, as they say. Ask for anything, and it’s yours. You have only to ask.”
Minogue kicked back the slurs forming in his thoughts.
“Up the ramp,” he heard himself say.
“That’s right, Matt. Right to number one.”
This time when he phoned, Malone was somewhere quieter.
“Didn’t we just talk about this?” Malone said. “Alzheimer’s now?”
“Ancient history now, Tommy. The whole thing just got a kick, a big kick from on high. Here’s the short version: I’m on the job, the Polish man’s murder.”
“April Fool’s.”
“I’m not joking. The case lead detective is in hospital.”
“Well whatever you said to him, or did to him…”
“Acute appendicitis. So it’s me now.”
Several moments passed.
“Well best of luck to you,” said Malone. “Let me know how it goes.”
“Full steam ahead, is how it’s going. I was given the keys to the kingdom.”
“Everybody says that. Then they sober up.”
“Seriously, Tommy. I hit a bump in the road, I pick up a phone: it’s fixed.”
Malone had nothing to say.
“So let me get to this Murph, Tommy. If you please.”
“I told you,” said Malone. “I haven’t been able to get ahold of him.”
“Sooner the better, and phone right away? It’d be much appreciated.”
“Are you pushing rank my way?”
“Would that help if I did?”
“Like a hole in the head. I told you I have enough to do. Look, there’s not much I can do until I get hold of this guy.”
“How about I send you an email with lots of smileys? Would that do you?”
“You can shove your smileys. And since when do you use email?”
“Where are you?”
“I am in a car.”
“Where?”
“In the back seat.”
“So you’re operational.”
“I’m trying to be. But everyone’s hiding under their beds.”
“Your clients.”
“Yeah, my ‘cl
ients.’ Forget the global warming stuff. I’m already dealing with an endangered species here.”
“You’re environment is under pressure, it seems.”
“Yeah. We call it the Mulhall effect. Lead poisoning.”
It wasn’t like Tommy Malone to be flip about murders, even when criminals were doing one another in. Minogue wondered if it was a signal that Malone was ready to give up.
“Let me guess where you are: Capel Street area?”
“Not bad. Near enough.”
Over the top of his cubicle, Minogue now saw that rain was landing in streaks on the window beyond Eilis. The sky was bright behind.
“That coffee place up by Smithfield Market,” he said to Malone.
“Beanz,” said Malone. “What about it?”
“Ten minutes.”
“That’s kind of pushy.”
“I’m buying.”
“Do I have to salute when I show up?”
There were few umbrellas showing here on Capel Street. Minogue drove past a half-dozen secondary-school students who stood clumped around the entrance to a kabob restaurant. In the stop-and-go traffic he had landed in since turning off Parnell Street, Minogue’s thoughts had slipped the leash again. He eyed two slight Indian-looking men walking past, flinching from the rain. He wondered what their home streets and towns looked like. Full of people, no doubt, but sunny and hot and colourful.
Some honking started far ahead. A woman crossed through the stopped traffic, her head and shoulders hidden by her umbrella. What did Juraksaitis mean? Minogue imagined her at work listening, noting, drinking tea, walking through rooms. His unease grew. The van ahead of him lurched forward. He got the Peugeot into second gear.
He spotted the parked Octavia with a man behind the wheel just after the junction of Little Mary Street. He slowed, looking for any space at all to pull in. There was someone in the passenger seat, just the tip of his nose showing from the reclining seat. He pulled in behind a delivery lorry not far ahead, and slid his sign down on the dashboard. The Garda radio antenna on the Octavia was the new black one that looked like a claw. A silhouette moved beside the driver as Minogue approached.
Malone stepped out awkwardly. He held the door open and said something to the driver, a balding man in a Nike jacket with a mobile in his lap. The driver shrugged and gave Minogue a nod. Malone, unshaven and looking generally creased, pale, and irritated, closed the door. From the slight shrug he gave as he stepped forward Minogue knew that he was wearing a ballistic vest.
