The good life imm-5

by John Brady

  “Leave us a few lads to secure the site if you please, Donal. Might as well start the others up along the banks now. We’ll have the lights on proper in a few minutes, now.”

  Callinan nodded and plodded off. Minogue sought out Dillon.

  “Parked cars too, Paddy. Both sides of the canal and the opposite sides of the street.”

  Dillon wiped his brow again. Heat or concentration had made his tone querulous.

  “Right ye be, Matt. God, it’s dasprat hot.”

  Minogue eyed Dillon’s jacket again.

  “Give me a Polaroid, Paddy, will you? I want a few things here.”

  Dillon nodded toward the van. Another technician Minogue could see only in silhouette against the interior light was setting up tripods under the lamps.

  Kilmartin coughed next to him.

  “There they are,” he said. Minogue turned and saw two vans from the Garda Sub Aqua unit reversing up the footpath. Kilmartin continued to adjust the sit of his trousers by standing on one leg and stretching out the other as he pulled at the waist.

  “Man alive. Taking a leak behind a tree in the middle of Dublin. It’s degrading. It was that bloody punch at Hoey’s wedding, I’m telling you.”

  “Not the few pints and the small ones?”

  “Shag off. Get a real job. Away we go, now. Are we right?”

  Minogue winked at Malone and followed Kilmartin under the tape.

  Kilmartin sat down heavily on the bench, tore off the plastic gloves and lit a cigarette.

  “The hair’s caught all right. Give the frogmen another minute.”

  The smoke from Kilmartin’s cigarette rose and was caught in the glare of the lights.

  “Damn,” he muttered. “This’ll shape up to be a right pain. Between the bloody water and the filth all up and down here… Hope to God we nail an admission or bulletproof evidence well away from this kip. We’re sunk if we have to rely on site evidence here, man.”

  Malone stepped up the bank, shielding his eyes from the glare around the lock.

  “Hoi, Molly. Any breakthroughs on the case yet?”

  Malone’s face didn’t register the jibe. The gawkers had thinned down to a half-dozen. There were uniformed Guards from Donnybrook and Harcourt Street up and down the banks now. Feeney, a doctor on the coroner’s panel, was sitting in his car reading by the interior light, his legs out the door. He had wire-rimmed framed glasses with a tint and styled hair, something Minogue regarded as flagrant vanity in a man trying to walk away backwards from fifty.

  “Got ahold of the lock-keeper,” said Malone. “Says the lock hasn’t been opened since the day before yesterday.”

  “Unnk,” said Kilmartin. He cleared his throat. A frogman surfaced and grasped a rail by the lock. The slick black head gleamed and the goggles flashed as he shook his head.

  “Can hardly see a bleeding thing down there,” said Malone. “Even with the lights.”

  He had already relayed the frogman’s description to Missing Persons, Minogue knew.

  “Well,” said Kilmartin. “Have to get her out. Let’s decide.”

  “Open the lock a few inches, I say,” said Minogue. “Let her out slow.”

  “Why not cut the hair?” asked Kilmartin. “And not risk flushing evidence down?”

  Minogue didn’t know. He wished Hoey were here.

  “We could secure her and open the gates a bit,” said Malone. “Pull her back then, like.”

  “‘Loike,’” said Kilmartin. He alone smiled. Malone kept looking at the frogman’s head.

  “All right,” said Kilmartin then. “Best idea I’ve heard yet. Go tell ’em to set it up.”

  Minogue checked with Callinan. Still no shoes or handbag. Both officers watched Malone take the rope from the diver’s hand. Callinan scratched his armpit.

  “Yiz are going to pull her out, is it,” he said.

  “Send yours down to the bridge. See if anything goes through when we open it.”

  Callinan joined the dozen Guards in shirtsleeves gathered by the lock. They stood shoulder to shoulder with the gawkers who remained, watching as the lock-keeper, a middle-aged man with no neck, white hair and a black moustache which had strained plenty of drink earlier in the night, readied the boom. The frogmen surfaced and moved to the bank. The stink they drew out of the waters wafted across to Minogue. Kilmartin and Malone stood next to the anchor of the railings where the nylon rope was tied. Malone signalled to the lock-keeper who pushed at the boom. Water began to spout, then to gush through the gap. The body stirred and drifted against the wood. Over the cascading water Minogue heard a low moan from the bystanders. It stopped abruptly when someone shouted. The shout had come from one of the frogmen. He donned his mask, chewed onto the mouthpiece and slid into the water with the pink safety rope trailing behind. The hair seemed to be sinking. Minogue stepped over to Kilmartin and looked at the rope tied to the body. It had grown slack.

  “Bollicks,” said Malone. “Have we lost her?”

  Kilmartin laid a hand on Malone’s arm and snorted.

  Clearer as it ascended, the three policemen saw the blonde head appear, then the dark clothing Minogue took to be a blouse. A hand. A Guard hurriedly blessed himself. Malone began pulling on the rope. A blood vessel stood out on his neck. Then he relaxed.

  “Close it up again!” Kilmartin called out. “She’s free.”

  TWO

  Dillon was sitting in the passenger seat of the van taping labels onto videocassettes. Minogue’s back ached now. He looked back at the white boiler suits by the water’s edge, the torch-beams wavering in the weeds.

  “Anything yet?” Dillon asked.

  “No, Paddy. We’ve sent the prints off.”

  “Looks to me that she wasn’t long in it.”

  “Do you think.”

  “A few hours.”

  “Is the side of her face clear on the tape you took?”

  Dillon nodded.

  “Hell of a belt and that’s no lie, Matt. She bruised. Died in the water too, I’ll bet you.”

  Minogue returned to where Kilmartin and Malone were crouched. The woman’s body had been cradled in the water-stretcher and hoisted onto the bank. The Sub Aqua team had left the water a half-hour ago. They sat in their van waiting for Kilmartin to decide. The Chief Inspector stood up and took a deep breath. He unrolled the gloves, picking at the tips where they clung, and frowned into the lights trained on the water.

  “No match to any recent call-ins?”

  “No. They’ve started into Missing Persons.”

  “Christ. Let’s see what Feeney makes of her now. We’ll let her go then.”

  “Do we give the Sub Aqua mob the billy to leave, like?” asked Malone. Minogue saw the Chief Inspector’s lip curl a little. The Sub Aqua squad would never have asked Kilmartin himself.

  “Yes, indeedy, Molly. They’re done with. Is Feeney ready to sign her over?”

  Dr. Feeney stepped out of his car with a clipboard under his arm. He looked down the form.

  “Body temperature…colour…well, she’s not dead more than six hours. A good look at the tissue on the table will tidy up that, but I’m pretty sure.”

  Kilmartin raised an eyebrow.

  “Anything you can make of the big bruise on the side of her face?”

  “She was hit,” said Feeney. “I wouldn’t be surprised if her cheekbone’s fractured. I didn’t look at her teeth. Somebody, something big walloped her. The skin’s not split.”

  “Her head rapped off a wall maybe?” asked Malone. Feeney blinked.

  “A reasonable guess, er…”

  “Garda Malone,” said Kilmartin. “Molly Malone, loike.”

  Feeney’s grin fell away when he looked from Kilmartin to Malone’s face.

  “Best I can do,” he said. “Leave it for the PM now.”

  The three detectives watched as the body was carried to the van.

  “Typed up, for the love of God,” said Kilmartin to Callinan. “And photocopies of the lads
’ books. One of us will phone in the morning.”

  “Okay,” said Callinan. “Yiz have your work cut out for you here by the look of things.”

  The van door slammed. Kilmartin’s gaze lingered on Malone.

  “Well, I don’t know now,” he said to Callinan. “We have one solid lead here.”

  Callinan scratched under his arm again. “The trade here by the canal, like?”

  “It’s relating to the perpendicular parking all right,” said Kilmartin. “She’s definitely not from Dublin.”

  Callinan stopped scratching and eyed Minogue for a clue. Kilmartin’s eyes were wide but he wasn’t smiling.

  “Didn’t spot it? Easy enough, I’d have thought. No? She had her knickers on.”

  A startled look came to Callinan’s face. Malone looked down at his shoes. Kilmartin trudged off toward the lock again. Minogue followed him.

  “Jimmy. Give over with the digs.”

  “What digs?”

  “It’s not the best time for Tommy to appreciate your, er, sense of humour.”

  Kilmartin gave his colleague a hard look.

  “That a fact now? He acts like he knows it all. The gloves on, the site taped up before we even get there. Calling in the frogmen. Walking around with the phone in his pocket. Cock of the walk.”

  “So he’s keen, Jimmy.”

  “Keen? He’s a gurrier is what he is. Hair-style cop. Television etcetera. Where does he think he is, LA, is it?”

  “Just for the record-”

  “Record-hah! It’s his brother has the record, isn’t it? Assault, three convictions-starting from the age of fourteen. B and E list the length of the Naas Road. The brother’s a druggie-”

  “You’ve done a lot of homework on the brother, I can see.”

  “A damn sight more than you have, and you handing Molly the frigging job! Ever hear the word genes?”

  “Is he his brother’s keeper?” Kilmartin snorted and lit a cigarette.

  “Oh, very slick one there. Very slick, to be sure. Say a decade of the rosary while you’re at it. Have you heard of heredity? How come one’s a Guard and the other’s a gouger?”

  “Give him a chance at least, Jim. A fair trial, then you can hang him.”

  Kilmartin pursed his lips. His eyelids drooped a little.

  “There was a time when no one looked twice at the Squad, mister. I hired, I sired, I fired. It’s your mate, Mr. Refrigerator Tynan, left this bloody bomb behind him, the way he wanted the hiring done. He had me over a barrel, by God.”

  “Look, Jim. Something has to give here with this. If it’s you and Tommy Malone together on this, there’ll be-”

  “Skin and hair flying. I know, I know. It’s the heat. It’s his gurrier accent. It’s-”

  “Let me put him through this one then. Himself and myself. I’ll show him the ropes.”

  Kilmartin studied the lights playing on the water.

  “Huh?”

  “Well, all right. Better your rope than the one I’d like for him probably. Me and John Murtagh’ll hold down the back line then. I’ll pull him off the reviews. He can do the desk and feed us what comes in on the hoof from the teams. You and Molly can sweat it out here. Maybe being a Dublin jackeen might help on this one. Oh, yes.”

  Minogue caught up with Malone.

  “It’s you and me from here on, Tommy.”

  “You mean it’s your turn to pick a row with me, is that it?”

  Minogue stared at him.

  “Sorry. It wasn’t you at all. It’s you-know-who.”

  “James is from the County Mayo, remember. They were hard hit during the Famine.”

  “So what’s his gig then, the Killer? Is he a shagging cannibal or something?”

  “He wants you to prove yourself,” said Minogue. “Education by provocation.”

  Malone frowned.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Go home, can’t you,” said Minogue. “I’ll close up shop. It’ll take a few hours at least for the prints search. First thing in the morning we call a meeting to get everyone on board and go over what we have. Unless we get something coming up in between.”

  The Inspector watched the Sub Aqua van inch down off the footpath above the bank. The driver raised a hand from the window as he drove off.

  “We should have a preliminary with a cause of death by dinnertime. A bag or something might turn up in the daylight tomorrow. Might get a call come in from someone worried about her. We really need a name to get going in earnest here.”

  It took Minogue a few moments to realize that there was no point looking for his jacket on the seat: he hadn’t brought one. Why bother with a jacket if it was going to be another day like yesterday? He remembered the feeling of being incomplete and the sense of freedom when he had backed out of the driveway. It was a quarter to nine. The heat wave hadn’t abated. He was dopey. That yellow, metallic tint in the sky he’d noted on his drive through Ranelagh was something he associated with the end of a hot summer’s day here in Dublin, not the morning. As he penetrated through to the city centre, it seemed to him that the streets and even the buildings had changed colours in a subtle way his eye registered but his brain couldn’t confirm. A cement lorry trapped him for several minutes by a building site. Dust in the air seemed to vibrate with the thumping of pneumatic drills. Through an opening in the hoardings he spied foundations of yet another office building. His back was wet when he stepped out of the Citroen in the carpark.

  “Ah. Eilis. La brea brothollach.”

  She spared him a smile for his recollection of the cliches beaten into generations of students by schoolteachers exacting essays in Irish.

  “…ag scoilteagh no gcloc le teas,” she sighed. She retrieved her cigarette from the ashtray and reached for a file next to a snow-dome souvenir of Lourdes on the top shelf behind her.

  “Your business by the canal last night. Mary Mullen. She has a record. Had, I meant to say.”

  Minogue opened the file and slid out the photocopies, a summary from the CRO.

  “May your shadow never grow less, Eilis.”

  He looked at Mary Mullen’s face. Four years ago: Mary Frances Mullen, eighteen. Twenty-two and a half when she was killed. She hadn’t been at all pleased to have her picture taken. Kilmartin had guessed right. Three arrests in one year for soliciting. Either she had quit then or she had smartened up enough to avoid getting caught again. The first arrest listed her occupation as hairdresser at Casuals, South Great Georges Street. The second and third listed her as unemployed. On her third conviction, Mary Mullen had been committed to the women’s wing of Mountjoy prison. There she’d served two months of a three-month sentence. Minogue skipped through the file. Under Associates, he read “Egans?”. Mary Mullen had not been co-operative. No admission of pimp, friends, associates. An arresting Guard had annotated in pen: “v. defiant and uncooperative; bad language, etc.” What had he expected, Minogue wondered.

  Tommy Malone appeared by his desk.

  “Here we go, Tommy. Mary Mullen. Last known address was in Crumlin.”

  “Never saw heat like it,” moaned Kilmartin from the doorway. “Saw an ad today for one of those air-conditioner jobs to fit the window. I’m putting me name in for one.”

  The Chief Inspector’s leather soles scraped and squeaked their way closer. Minogue didn’t look up. He finished copying the address and reached for the telephone book.

  “Mary Mullen,” said the Chief Inspector.

  “Nothing new in from the scene?” Minogue murmured. “Bag?”

  Kilmartin shook his head.

  “And don’t hold your breath on that either. See who’s in that file? Egans.”

  “Gangsters, racketeers and thugs limited,” said Minogue. “Or unlimited, I should say.”

  “But that file’s static for over three years. I phoned Doyler in the whore squad. Left a message to look up any material they have to update us.”

  Minogue looked up from the file.

  “Did you
ever get your hair done at a place called Casuals? The bit you have left, I mean.”

  Kilmartin tugged at the end of his nose.

  “Is this one of those knock-knock jokes or something?”

  “A hairdresser’s.”

  “Are you blind, man? Short back and sides since Adam was a boy. Yes, siree, as nature intended. Grass doesn’t grow on a busy street anyway, mister. Casuals, huh? Sounds like a front office for a bit of you-know-what. Phone-a-whore etcetera. Modern times, pal. Right there, Molly?”

  Minogue glared at the Chief Inspector. Foe and accomplice both, Kilmartin could well turn out to be right in his guess. No Casuals in the current Dublin area telephone book. No Mullen in St. Lawrence O’Toole Villas in Crumlin either. Minogue clapped the phone book shut.

  “Well?”

  “Gone since the last book, or else there’s no phone in the house.”

  “Phone Crumlin station. What’s his name is the nabob since the Christmas. Mick Fitzpatrick. Yep. Nice fella is Fitz. Temper though. Fitz and Starts we used to call him years ago. Oh, but don’t you call him that or he’ll rear up on you, Tell him I was asking for him.”

  Minogue looked at the papers again. Irene Mullen, the mother.

  “We’ll go out and have a quick look first ourselves,” he said. “It’s only ten minutes up the road.”

  Kilmartin laid his jacket on a chair.

  “Course you have Tonto here to translate for you.”

  Minogue closed one eye and squinted at Kilmartin. The Chief Inspector beamed back. Minogue grabbed his notebook, rapped it once on the desk and headed for the car park.

  Everything still seemed too bright and too slow. He could almost hear his eyelids closing and opening. He wasn’t hungry but he knew he should make the effort. He made his way around the bus queues along Abbey Street and slipped down the lane toward the back door of the pool hall. Thirty lousy quid for the leather jacket that O’Connell knew cost two hundred in the shops. Bastard. The look that told him he knew it was the lowest price he could throw at him without making him walk off. The camera was a surprise. He’d said forty and gotten thirty. He’d kept the Walkman but the batteries had run out.