The good life imm-5

by John Brady

  Minogue picked his way back up the bank until he was almost under the bridge. The water ran fast after its drop from the top of the lock. Bored teenagers, he thought, standing around here over the years smoking and drinking cans of lager. Worse, probably. He took a few steps in under the bridge along the ledge where barge-horses must have plodded. The noise of the traffic receded to a resonant sigh. He looked at the wall. There were initials and burn marks on the stones which formed the arch. No paint, oddly enough. Stone loves Jane XXX. Bohs are the greatest. Jacko had had, had wished he had had perhaps, sexual congress with Cathrine: he had not had spelling lessons from Catherine. Kimmage rules. The Doors. Were they big again? Lower down on the wall, on one of the largest stones, he spotted faint colours. He half-closed his eyes and looked again. Now it looked like a picture of a face. He bent over and studied it. No pattern now, no shape. Chalk? Whatever it was, it wasn’t paint. It could be years old.

  He let his eyes follow the canal banks down toward the docks. If you kept your eyes up from the immediate surroundings, he thought, and if you ignored the stink off the water and the rubbish all about, and if you pretended that no one came down here to piss or to drink or to fight, or to buy or sell sex and drugs, and if you didn’t know that a woman had been battered and thrown in here or somewhere near here to drown-if you could forget all that-the view framed by the arch of the bridge was beautiful.

  He made his way up the bank. Sheehy was marshalling the bags in the van, checking the labels against the diagrams of the site. He watched the Guards congregate by the van and the two squad cars. He helloed some of them and listened half-heartedly to their jokes and grumblings. The sky over Dublin had taken on the colour of milky tea. Haze hung under the trees’ canopy by the banks. The sulphury tang of exhausts mingled with the decay breathed up from the water and the weeds. Drivers continued to slow and eye the goings-on. One old man with a terrier on a leash stood on the far bank staring at the Guards while they took off waders and boots. The traffic was beginning to move again. Minogue watched a couple stop by one of the trees to embrace. Something erased their reflections on the surface of the canal. He looked down to see a floating island of scum take over the surface there. He waited for it to go by and restore the image but the floating mass seemed to be getting bigger, broader. The couple moved off.

  Sheehy offered him a cigarette and asked after Kilmartin. Minogue read the smile as invitation to a yarn which would glaze the Killer’s legend into an even harder monument. He told him that Chief Inspector Kilmartin was in the pink. Sheehy gave him a wink. A Guard began to relate a story he had heard about prostitutes. Minogue looked over to the far bank. The man with the dog was still there.

  He crossed the foot-bridge which said “Not for public use,” pausing in the middle to look at the rills cascading into the lock below. He eyed the dog for a friendly reception. Did dogs take on the character of their owners?

  “Warm still,” the Inspector called out.

  The dog didn’t reply. The owner looked myopically through his lenses at Minogue. He pulled on the leash. Minogue took in the long nose, the pouches under the eyes, the hair brushed back in a style of fifty years ago. Dubliner for sure, he thought: seen it all.

  “I hear there’s a chance of rain though,” Minogue added.

  “You must have come down in the last shower yourself if you believe that one.”

  Minogue managed a smile. The old man adjusted his glasses.

  “A bit late, aren’t yiz?”

  “Late for what, now.”

  “Like the saying goes, prevention is better than cure. What are you then, a sergeant?”

  “They made me Inspector some time back.”

  “So you’d hardly be patrolling the streets then, would you? To my mind, things went downhill when they took the lads off the beat and put them in cars.”

  “Well, you’re not alone in that opinion. You know the place well, I take it.”

  “Too well. Make a guess if you like.”

  “All your life?” Almost a smile.

  “Oh, very sharp there. You’re a veteran.”

  “It certainly feels like that this time of the day. Do you live local?”

  He nodded toward Mount Street bridge.

  “The flats in there by the Turk Dunphy’s pub.”

  He gave the policemen across the canal a bleak survey.

  “I was born and reared in City Quay. Do you know where that is?”

  “I do.”

  “Oh, do you now. What age do you think I am?”

  “Late middle age?”

  “Hah. ‘Late middle age.’ I never had that one pulled on me before. I’m seventy-six! The wife is seventy-five. Do you know how many times I’ve walked this canal?”

  “A good number of times, I’d say.”

  He pinned Minogue with a look that told him his measure had been conclusively taken.

  “You’d be right. I calculate some days. Something to do in me head when I’m out for a walk. I like it, the mental arithmetic, like. Everybody’s talking about exercise and clean living and diet nowadays. All me arse. If you don’t have the oul head in order, sure you’re bound to fall apart. In one way or another, like. What the hell use is running around and eating bits of lettuce if you’re a thick?”

  “I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there.”

  “You’re telling me I have. Rashers and sausages every second day with me. A few pints of the Friday. Have a cigar the odd time. And look at me. Never better. But the wife! The wife’s gone a bit slow this last while so I’ve had to put on the brakes. The better part of seventy years, I’ve been by here. Now, put your thinking cap on. Do you like doing sums in your head?”

  Minogue looked to the reflections of the trees on the water.

  “My strong point was more the reading and writing, I think.”

  “Huh. Say five times a week, say maybe 250 times a year. How much is that?”

  “Probably several times around the world at the Equator.”

  He rubbed his chin.

  “God, I never thought of it like that. No. The trick is to multiply by a thousand. That’s easy done, did you know that? You add noughts. Then divide your answer by four. Anyone can do that. Loved sums in school. I like to keep the head working. Even sitting in front of the telly. But, sure, what good does it do you, I ask myself sometimes. You need the bit of exercise, don’t you? Me and Timmy. You need a dog with you around here.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “There’s the four-legged rats do be out here. And then there’s the rats with just the two legs. Know what I’m saying?”

  Minogue nodded.

  “The whole place is gone to hell in a wheelbarrow. But maybe you wouldn’t see that. Being brass and all. When’s the last time you were on the beat here in town?”

  “Close on twenty years ago. A bit more, actually.”

  “Huh. Well, it’s die dog here now or eat the hatchet. Dublin’s gone. ‘Dublin in the rare oul times,’ my eye. No comfort in it any more. Oh, I know the canal was always the place for courting, but you’ve no idea what goes on here now. It’s kind of like, I don’t know what. A zoo.”

  “There’s a thought, now.”

  “Oh, the things you see these days.”

  “What sort of things now?”

  “Well, if you have to ask, it’s too late with you, isn’t it? Who’s supposed to be policing this place anyway?”

  Minogue made a guess.

  “Harcourt Street station. Maybe Donnybrook at this end. There’s plainclothes too out of Harcourt Terrace. Vice and probably Drugs.”

  The old man gave a breathy sigh and yanked on the leash. The dog sat down, its ears twitching.

  “Well, double that-no, triple that-and it still wouldn’t be enough. The whores. The types what are on the prowl for it too. Drugs. I’ve seen men here selling themselves. Boys, I should say. I’ll tell you one thing. Yous are never around when ye’re wanted.”

 
“Do you see much of that then?”

  “What does that mean? Do you think I do be coming around here spying on the types that does be here at night? ”

  “I meant that you seem to me to be an observant man, Mister, er…”

  “Byrne. Joey Byrne. You’re not telling me something I don’t know already there now, pal. The wife says I should ignore the half of what I see. That I’d be better off, like. I don’t go along with that but I can’t be arguing with her all the time, can I?”

  “You’re telling me. I forgot to introduce myself, sorry. Matt Minogue.”

  “Inspector?”

  “I’d prefer Matt.”

  Joey Byrne fell to watching the policemen by the van.

  “Well, what’s up?”

  “We found a body in the canal.”

  Minogue watched the glaze fall away from Joey Byrne’s eyes.

  “My God. Go on, are you serious?”

  Minogue nodded.

  “When?”

  “Last night.”

  Byrne blessed himself.

  “My God in heaven.” His tone had lost the Dubliner’s protective irony.

  “So that’s what yiz are up to over there? I should have known. I must be slipping. Well, what I’m saying is, it’s bound to happen.”

  “Were you here at all yesterday?”

  ‘“Deed and I was. Me and the wife and his nibs here. Timmy. Around the eight o’clock mark. Was it on the news?”

  “I’m not sure. It probably was. We’d be looking for any witnesses here, you know. Passers-by.”

  “Over there? Well, I don’t remember us going up that far now. We sort of sat down here on the bench a while. The wife, you know. She had an operation last year. She’s not firing on all cylinders yet.”

  “Did you see anything peculiar?”

  “Well, everything’s peculiar, that’s the trouble. Do you think she was done in here too?”

  “There’s the problem now, Mr. Byrne. If I knew that for sure…”

  “But sure there’s traffic here all evening. After dark now, that’d be a different matter entirely.”

  He pivoted and elbowed Minogue’s arm at the same time.

  “If you take my meaning. But you wouldn’t go down here now, by God. No sir.”

  “You didn’t notice anything different yesterday evening then? On your walk.”

  “Oh, no! Years ago, you might worry about finding a few tinkers or winos or the like that’d be bothering you for the few shillings. But, sure, even the winos and what have you won’t come near the place. They were nothing to the people what come by here these days. God, no. Do you know what I came around to thinking?”

  Minogue raised his eyebrows.

  “We’re going backwards, that’s what. Like I was saying to you. Not revolution, not evolution even. It’s devolution.”

  He stretched out his arm. Minogue followed the waving hand as it swept across the buildings.

  “All this,” said Byrne. “All this stuff. The fancy new offices and apartments and everything. It all goes fast and looks shiny, doesn’t it? Well, let me tell you this. I see through all this. All this rubbitch. Look close up and what’ll you see? Fellas with telephones stuffed into their ear and they whizzing along. Women with their skirts up to here. Don’t they cop on to the fact they’re asking for it if they dress like that? Asking for it, they are.”

  “Mr. Byrne. I need some way to get in touch with you again.”

  “Wait a minute there, chief. What do I know?” Minogue took a breath and held back his irritation.

  “Just in case, Mr. Byrne.” He looked into Joey Byrne’s eyes. “Guards can’t get anywhere without the help of the responsible citizens, can they now?”

  Byrne frowned and looked away.

  “Do you have a phone number, Mr. Byrne?”

  “Tell us again, Mr. Mullen,” said Minogue. “What she said to you that time.”

  The chair creaked as Jack Mullen sat back. What was he like when he lost his temper, the Inspector kept wondering.

  “Again?”

  Minogue nodded once.

  “Again.”

  Mullen scratched at his scalp. Aside from the fact that he sweated like a sumo wrestler and that he had ears like the FA Cup, Jack Mullen looked healthy. Three times a week he worked out. Part of the recovery process, he had said. Like hounding his daughter, Minogue wondered.

  Mullen let his gaze rest on the dusty windowpanes which looked out over a cut-stone wall topped by shards of glass next to Pearse Street Garda Station.

  “You see, if you’re going to change your life, you can’t leave anything out-”

  “Start from when you saw her.”

  Jack Mullen looked away from the window toward Minogue but his eyes did not stop on him. They travelled on around the walls, over the discoloured ceiling and to the floor. Minogue counted himself lucky never to have been posted to Pearse Street Garda Station. He had used this room a half-dozen times before. Here he had watched Kilmartin demolish suspects, gut their alibis and their beliefs that they could leave here without telling him the truth. He had seen Kilmartin throw a suspect in a shooting incident across this room. The smells of polish and paint, of long-gone sandwiches and cigarettes, along with the smells of sweat and desperation soaked into the walls over decades were being drawn out by the heat.

  “But that’s only a small part of it. You don’t understand.”

  “This was in March, you said. You were driving up by Baggot Street. How long had you been looking for Mary?”

  “Look. How many times is this? I’m willing to put up with this, this abuse from yous. And a lot more if need be.”

  Have a gander at the medical records of Mullen’s injury, Minogue decided.

  “I can take punishment. Even if it’s unfair.”

  “Punishment for what, Mr. Mullen?”

  Mullen sighed again.

  “You know. You’re slagging religion. I know. You don’t understand the recovery process. People pretend they can run away from themselves, don’t they?”

  Minogue shrugged.

  “In denial, that’s what it is. And that’s sin. It’s turning away, isn’t it? Not facing up to yourself. Or God. It’s only when your eyes are opened to what you’ve done wrong… You have to make amends. You have to come home. God doesn’t just pull a miracle out of his pocket, does He? He says, ‘Here, this is the way. It’s up to you.’ He empowers you, like.”

  Empower, thought Minogue. Relationship. Process. Development. Some days it took almost too much work not to be cynical. He breathed in slow and deep.

  “Mr. Mullen. You tried to persuade Mary to come home. To your home? Your wife’s?”

  “Home to God, that home. Back to God in her heart. That’s the first thing.”

  “She rejected your invitation, you said. In what manner?”

  “There you go again. You’ll probably agree with everything Irene says then.”

  “About what?”

  “What she told you already about me. You know what I’m talking about. The marriage breaking down. The lies about Mary and-”

  “Ah, come on now. You clattered your wife. She says you clattered your daughter. You at least threatened to clatter your daughter. You told us that yourself.”

  “Yes, I clattered her, as you say. My wife, Irene, was with another fella when I was away working in England. I’m not saying it was right though, did I?”

  Minogue said nothing.

  “Deep in my heart-even then, when I was a slave to the drink-I knew she’d gone into a life of sin. Deep down, people know what’s stopping them being healthy. Everyone has an instinct for good. Everyone wants to heal themselves and become whole again. Sin is a wound, like. To others too, of course.”

  Minogue pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “You can shake your head and everything,” Mullen murmured. “I know.”

  Minogue opened his eyes again.

  “What do you know?”

  “I know the kin
d of mind you have as regards religion. I can tell.”

  “It’s the heat, Mr. Mullen. Go back to the actual meeting now. You were driving along Baggot Street. You saw her. She was on her own. Now-go ahead.”

  Minogue listened. He could detect no inconsistencies this time either. Mullen had finished speaking for several seconds before Minogue looked up from his fingers.

  “Since then, Mr. Mullen?”

  “Nothing. Like I said. I knew nothing.”

  “You thought about her a lot?”

  “What father wouldn’t worry about his daughter?”

  Minogue met his eyes. Mullen raised his hands and let them drop in his lap.

  “But you didn’t try to find her?”

  “What could I do? I knew she was in bad company. I prayed. The thing that you forget when you see that your life is out of control is that God gives you choices. But at the time, well, I was lost. Just lost.”

  But now I’m found, Minogue almost said aloud. He wondered how Hoey was doing in London.

  “But now I… know there is a path. The drink thing, the alcohol thing, is what you’re trying to win over on its own, of course. But that’s not the victory you’re really looking for, is it? I mean, when you finally get up off your knees and you get out of the bottle, where do you go? Where’s home then, if you don’t have the bottle to live in-that’s the question.”

  Minogue imagined Hoey motoring around some postcard English dales. Would the heat wave there drive him to sample the local beer maybe?

  “It’s ourselves, isn’t it, our natures. It’s sin. Sin is the proof that we’re free. I mean to say, God doesn’t waltz in and pick up the bits, does He?”

  He’s asking me, thought Minogue.

  “Mary was free, so she was. She turned away. She lived in sin. I knew she had to fight her own battle herself. I knew that in my head. But I wanted to help. I’m her father. I… I loved her. ”

  Minogue picked up his biro and drew another box on the paper.

  “How long after that when you got the warning, Mr. Mullen?”

  Inside the box he drew a circle. Mullen folded his arms and followed Minogue’s progress.

  “Couple of days.”

  “Two fellas?”

  “Yes. Two fellas. I recognized one of them from a long way back. He was local to us. I couldn’t remember his name. A pony-tail on the other one.”