The good life imm-5

by John Brady

  “We’re not happy with Ms. Fahy,” said Minogue. “We’ll be talking to her again.”

  “Okay. But what happened to Mary Mullen? Come on. Save me a headache here. What’s going on at all?”

  Minogue eyed his colleague. “Right off the top of me head?”

  “Where else?”

  “In front of the new boy?”

  “God between us and all harm! Go on. I’ll protect you.”

  “Why was Mary at the canal at all?” Minogue asked. “To my mind, she shouldn’t have been there.”

  “What do you mean? Chance? Bad luck? The canal’s just a place to dump her? Egans, you’re thinking? A row?”

  “All of the above. Maybe.”

  Malone scratched at the back of his head, cleared his throat and glanced at Minogue.

  “Someone breaking into the flat is a bit too much of a coincidence,” he said. “Maybe she had something she shouldn’t have had. Something belonging to someone else.”

  “Drugs?” asked Kilmartin. “A loan? Was she in hock and she couldn’t pay?”

  “That might be why she tried to work the canal that night,” said Minogue. “A payment to keep someone off her back, maybe?”

  “She’s no good dead,” said Malone. “To a shark, like.”

  He began patting his crew-cut. He sensed Kilmartin’s eyes on him and stopped.

  “She messed up on something, you’re saying?” Malone nodded.

  Kilmartin turned away, stretched and groaned.

  “God now, Molly, if you didn’t go to school here, you met the scholars coming home. Our Mary Mullen is gone down the glen and someone’s after sending her. She had more than this Fahy kid for a friend. And they didn’t just sell Tupperware, lads. Let’s get serious about this now.”

  SEVEN

  An aging Ford Fiesta was parked in the Minogues’ driveway. The Inspector eyed the rusting paint by the wheel-wells before he reversed out onto the road. The laughter from the back garden was his daughter’s. He stopped at the end of the garage wall and listened.

  “Ah, Ma!” Iseult hooted. “He will!”

  “He might,” was Kathleen’s reply. “You know how it is with him.”

  “Da! You’re surrounded. Come out where we can see you! With your hands up!”

  How had she known he was there? He glanced down at the pathway ahead: shadow, yes.

  Pat the Brain and Iseult were sitting by the wisteria which had taken over the back of the coal-shed. Kathleen sat across from them in a deck-chair. Her hand was at her face. The grass was crunchy underfoot. He must water it tonight.

  “You can put your hands down now,” Iseult said. “What’s in the envelope?”

  “It’s a case about a black Fiesta used in the abduction of someone’s daughter.”

  He made a curtsy toward Kathleen and winked at his daughter’s fella.

  “Howiya since, Pat.”

  Tea things were all over the garden table but, God help him, no wine in evidence.

  “Jim Kilmartin maintains the heat is another grant thrown into the national begging bowl by the European Parliament. Should have kept our own independent weather, says he.”

  Pat smiled. Minogue tried to figure out what was different about Pat this evening. The t-shirt still hung off his bony shoulders, the hair was as unruly as ever, but the face had changed. Iseult was looking down at the grass not far from where she had discarded her sandals. She was smiling at some secret joke. Would this one sting? A wary, off-duty Garda Inspector looked from face to face.

  “Ye’re ornaments to the garden, all of ye.”

  “Go way out of that,” said Iseult.

  Minogue looked at the cups and plates.

  “I must say now that I am of an age and humour where I’m interested in a glass of something more bracing than, em, tea. Who’ll court a bit of divilment with me? ”

  No one answered.

  “Pat? Red or white?”

  “Well…”

  “What’s holding us back here, lads?”

  Kathleen had folded her arms. She seemed to be very interested in the apple trees. Iseult smiled again. He made a face at her and sat down.

  “All right. Congratulations, then. It’ll cost you though.”

  Kathleen started. She sat up and stared at her husband. Iseult began to laugh.

  “Black Beauty out the front, I meant,” he said. “The highway robbery of tax and insurance and petrol prices and… What do you think I meant?”

  Pat’s bashful look awakened something in him.

  “Iseult,” said Minogue. He kept his eyes on hers. It seemed harder to breathe now.

  “Is there something I should be let in on? Or am I supposed to go on looking stupid, is it?”

  She threw her head back. Her black hair whipped back and settled. She hugged her stomach while she laughed.

  “Well, Iseult,” he muttered. “Is it what I think it is?”

  She recovered enough to nod her head twice. He glanced at her teeth and her bobbing throat. She rubbed tears from the corners of her eyes.

  “Da, you’re a howl! I told them you’d know! I bet Pat a fiver you’d cop on.”

  Minogue looked over at Pat the Brain. This was something which only happened on iijity television shows. So this was one of life’s moments, something which was already absorbed into family stories: Will you ever forget the evening Iseult… Remember that hot summer, when…? Something was passing, he knew, and it would never return. How was he supposed to react? Pat looked over and smiled. Nice lad, Pat, thought Minogue. Gentle, dry humour. A bit bookish, but his own man. He looked around the garden and thought of the photos Kathleen looked at more often now. Iseult in her First Holy Communion dress, Iseult’s graduation pictures. Iseult on a beach somewhere in Turkey.

  The sun was behind the trees now. Dulled by the haze, it made the leaves shine and even glow at the edges. Nothing moved in the garden. A grasshopper took Minogue’s attention from the birds. He had put in the apple trees when Kathleen was pregnant with Daithi. The rockery with the pirated wildflowers from the Burren in Clare had taken him three years of intermittent, pleasurable work a decade ago. His eyes strayed from rock to rock, plant to plant. He had intended to reform it, recast it sometime, but something in him had resisted. His eyes began to sting.

  “I’m very happy for you,” he said.

  Iseult swallowed and grinned and rose from her chair. Kathleen dabbed at her eyes. He looked over at Pat’s distracted smile as he kissed Iseult. Her cheek smelled of peaches.

  “That’s another fiver,” she whispered.

  Minogue woke up thinking about Jack Mullen. Jack Mullen was off his rocker. He’d stalked his wayward daughter. He’d argued with her, pleaded with her. She’d refused, and probably ridiculed him. She’d gotten one of the Egans or their gang to lay the heavy word on him: leave our Mary alone-or else. She was too far gone then, wasn’t she, and the only way to bring her home, to bring her back to Jesus, was to kill her?

  He sat on the side of the bed and opened the curtain a little. Not a cloud in the sky. Day what of the drought was it? Day eleven. The last rain had been a ten-minute shower a fortnight ago. His mouth was chalky from last night’s wine. Where the hell had Mary Frances Mullen spent her time? She was a live-in with the Egans or one of their hangers-on, that’s what. “Drug-barons” was the latest cliche. Go into this meeting this morning and cobble together a warrant, take crowbars to their places. He tried to shake off his rancour. Wasn’t his daughter going to get married? Daithi’d come home for the wedding. Maura and Mick, the whole Clare contingent, would come up, by God. Hoey, Kilmartin, John Tynan. Kathleen’s crowd, Iseult’s mad friends… It’d be one good hooley. My gods are household gods, he thought. He tapped the radio and plodded into the bathroom.

  The talk over breakfast was brittle. Iseult had been adamant about the registry office. Pat had maintained the vague smile as he slumped in a deck chair rubbing at his lip. It’s more than just the two people getting married that are
involved, Kathleen said. Was it too much to expect Iseult to get married in a church? He didn’t know, he said. Surely Iseult would realize that when she sat down to think things through. Hadn’t she thought things through already, he dared. Kathleen’s expression told him that she didn’t believe that their daughter had. Couldn’t she find some other way to make her statement? She could, was his answer, and it had stopped their conversation on the topic: she mightn’t bother to get married at all. He sat in his Citroen relieved to be on the move: my rows are household rows.

  Eilis was collating bundles of photocopies. The Inspector studied the notice-boards which had been wheeled out to the centre of the room. He stood up close to the photocopies of the Dublin street-map taped next to Sheehy’s name. Pink fluorescent, lime green, Blessed-Virgin-Moving-Statue blue for the door-to-door teams Sheehy had set up. He recognised Murtagh’s handwriting on a column titled “Bail/released” and the Garda stations he had phoned to tap those suspects. None of the seventeen names was familiar. Only one entry, with a question mark after it at that, under the Incidents column, again in Murtagh’s writing. The Known Offenders list comprised twenty-three names. It must have taken him half the night to amass this. He looked toward Murtagh who gave him a lazy smile in return. Kilmartin’s door was shut. Minogue opened his folder and took out the points he had marshalled on a sheet of photocopy paper last night.

  “Nice going there, John,” he said. “I feel a crushing guilt for leaving early. The daughter announced that she’s going to get married. ”

  “Great. Congratulations. Has she anyone particular in mind?”

  “She asked if you were still available. Had to tell her no. Sorry and all that now. Don’t take it personally. ”

  Murtagh shrugged.

  “Is Himself inside?”

  Murtagh leaned in closer. He nodded at the door to Kilmartin’s office.

  “He went in there ten minutes ago with Mick Hand. ‘Conferring.’ ”

  “The Egans?”

  Murtagh stroked his neck and studied the ceiling.

  “On the agenda, you can be sure, boss. He came out a few minutes ago looking fit to brain someone. ”

  Murtagh was about to add something when Kilmartin’s door was jerked open. Sergeant Mick Hand emerged ahead of Kilmartin. Something about Hand’s gait and expression reminded Minogue of teams leaving the field at half-time trailing by three goals. He looked to Kilmartin. The Chief Inspector shook his head once, stalked to the boards and stood with his hands on his hips.

  “All right, all right,” he called out. “Away we go. We’re going to get an education about the people that Mary Mullen was mixed up with. But first we’ll take a few minutes to update ourselves. Can you wait, Mick?”

  Hand nodded. He caught Minogue’s eye for a moment.

  “Thanks, Mick. Site report, forensic and door-to-door for starters. Who wants to go first? Don’t all rush, now.”

  Minogue observed Kilmartin’s slow passage around the room. Murtagh talked on. There was no yield yet from Mullen’s Volkswagen. Spotless for a taxi, said Theresa Brophy, Kilmartin’s favoured conduit for early forensic leads. Jack Mullen could reasonably claim to be a conscientious taxi-driver concerned with the welfare and comfort of his passengers. Passengers, thought Minogue. He carried maybe a dozen different people a day. That’s upwards of a hundred people a week. Five thousand a year. He made another effort to listen carefully to Murtagh. Known offenders, prostitutes known to the police in that area… Offenders on bail, recent parolees… Addicts known to frequent the area, assaults in the area in the last year… Minogue underlined addict.

  “Well, why not?”

  It was Kilmartin who had barked at Murtagh. The detective looked up from his papers and pushed a strand of hair from his forehead.

  “Which now, boss?”

  “The brassers, man! The ladies of the night! Why were none of them plying their trade at that hour of the night, we want to know.”

  Murtagh glanced at Minogue.

  “Doyle maintains that there’s a hiatus around that time of the night,” said the Inspector.

  “Hiatus?” said Kilmartin. “Isn’t that from lifting stuff that’s too heavy? Try a bit of English there, Shakespeare. For working men, the likes of Voh’ Lay-bah there and meself.”

  Malone’s expression didn’t change. He tapped his pencil on his notebook several times.

  “The business only really gets going when the pubs close,” said Minogue. “Donnybrook station did a sweep of the area three weeks ago. Doyle says the drive-by trade has slackened off there anyway.”

  “Let me guess,” said Kilmartin “Telephone dates and the Companions Wanted ads do the business now, is it?”

  Minogue nodded.

  “So says Doyler.”

  Kilmartin tugged at his ear.

  “Fergal?”

  Sheehy delivered in a rococo Kerry accent.

  “Well now, door-to-door, we have nothing yet. We’re doing a quarter-mile radius. We’re a bit over half-way through the pubs, clubs, eating houses, hotels. I’m chasing down cleaners and night staff in offices near the canal too. Potentials from residents too.”

  He turned his notebook sideways to scrutinise a drawing he had made.

  “There are video cameras on a place two hundred-odd yards up,” he said “But they’re the wrong side of the bridge ”

  “Speaking of which,” Kilmartin broke in and turned to Murtagh, “you’re working through the video of the site, aren’t you?”

  “Yup,” said Murtagh “I’ve got two fellas from CDU on it. We’re about, I suppose, a third of the way. So far, they’re all legit. Six cars were parked overnight. We got statements from five.”

  “All good citizens in that part of town, are they,” said Kilmartin

  “As good as you’ll get in Dublin,” said Sheehy. Hand smiled and crossed his legs.

  “Huh,” said Kilmartin “What photos are you using, Fergal?”

  “File mugs from her last conviction ”

  Kilmartin licked his lips and looked down at his cigarette. Minogue yawned but couldn’t stop after one. Malone was still writing in his notebook. Kilmartin waved at the notice-boards.

  “Patricia Fahy. Molly and Matt took her statement…?”

  Minogue tagged on to the unfinished end of Kilmartm’s sentence.

  “We’re not entirely thrilled. She’s scared. Her whereabouts look pretty sound. She spent the evening with her fella, James Tierney, Jammy Tierney. He appears to be a clean bill of goods. John tracked him down handy enough.”

  Murtagh took his cue.

  “They watched a soccer match on the box. Tierney’s a soccer fanatic. Arsenal and Everton. He had chapter and verse of the game. She stayed over.”

  “Say no more,” said Kilmartin. “Now, before we move on, a few things to bear in mind. She does not appear to have been a drug user. She had not had intercourse that evening. What she did have was between three and four glasses of alcohol which appears to have been vodka. What she also had was a hair-line fracture of her left cheekbone. Mary Mullen was hit hard with something which left no transfer, fragments, pigment, impression-nothing-on, in or about the tissues. She was very unconscious when she went into the water. She drowned. Her bag’s missing. Was she back on the game, for that night anyway? A ‘curb job,’ as this class of trade is called, I believe?”

  He paused and drew on a fresh cigarette.

  “Is she short of money? She’s jacked it in with this place Tresses. She hasn’t applied for Social Welfare. She’s pregnant. Does she need money for an abortion? Does she have a pimp who makes her take up the trade again? Do the oul hormones lead her astray?”

  Kilmartin arched his back and scratched with his thumb.

  “So,” he groaned. “No sign of this fella Patricia Fahy mentioned. Hickey.”

  He nodded toward one of the boards where Leo Hickey’s photocopied and enlarged mug shot had been taped.

  “Hands up those who think we’ll find him belly
-up somewhere too,” said Kilmartin, looking at Malone.

  No hands were raised.

  “Well, his mother’s plenty worried. He didn’t show up at home last night. Hickey’s a petty, hang-around type of a scut. He’s probably a drug user, to what extent we don’t know. But anyway, we’ll move ahead. We know from our fine colleagues in the Serious Crime Squad that Mary Mullen has been seen in the company of one Eddsy Egan, in a club called Too De Loos. Mick Hand has several sightings of her in the recent past there with the little shitehawk. Eddsy Egan. Are we right there, Mick?”

  Kilmartin had worked his way around to a seat next to Minogue. Hand walked to the boards. Minogue looked at the photos of the Egans. Two of the three were mug shots. There was a definite resemblance between two at least-Martin and Bobby. Eddsy, the oldest, had a heavily lined face. He looked at least ten years older than the next one, Bobby. Minogue scanned the paragraphs and let the pages slip from his fingers one by one. Tout Des Loups was the spelling of the night-club.

  “Lads,” said Hand, and smiled. Now that he was standing, there was something about Hand’s long legs and small lined face that put Minogue in mind of a camel.

  “Thanks, er, Jim. And thanks for the photocopying there. You should all have a copy of the summary we did as regards Mary Mullen and the Egans. It’s from the surveillance reports. The phone calls are marked with three fat dots at the beginning and the end. The stuff is date-ordered. We went back a month for this. If you turn to the fifth page, I think it is, there’s a surveillance log of Eddsy Egan’s house.”

  Hand flipped the board back and began tapping the marker on some words. The Inspector let his eyes return to focus on them. The Egan family had been mapped out in red, green and blue.

  “Eddsy was number one,” said Hand. “Before he was run over. It was a gang thing. He has plastic knees and pins and bits of things holding him together now.”

  “Christ,” murmured Kilmartin. “We could have saved the taxpayer a pile of money if I’d have been driving, let me tell you. At least I know where reverse is.”