by John Brady
Wrong, thought Minogue. Mary Mullen didn’t belong there. She had worked her way out of that place. She had been determined never to go back.
“You were late, Kenny,” he murmured. ”That’s what did it.”
Kenny’s stare slid to the table-top. His hands began to work through his hair again.
“You wanted to teach her a lesson,” Minogue went on. “Didn’t you?”
“I never thought…”
“You wanted to show her that you weren’t going to be pushed around by a-well, Mr. Kenny, perhaps you have the word for her? No? ‘Who does she think she is,’ right?”
“You’ve got it wrong. The most of it anyway.”
“Okay, Mr. Kenny. This is why I said I am puzzled. You have told us things that could incriminate you further. And still you haven’t gone baying for a solicitor.”
“I’ve nothing to hide.”
“I’ve worked on the Squad a while, Mr. Kenny. I have this picture of you in my mind’s eye, driving over to the canal. On time. Ahead of time, even. I see you annoyed at her. Ready to lose your temper. You look after yourself, Mr. Kenny. In the physical line, I mean. Bet you have a substantial arm from that squash, don’t you?”
“Squash? What does that have to do with anything?”
“You have means, Mr. Kenny. You have motive. Client or no client, dinner or no dinner, you cannot yet account for all of your movements that evening. So now I see that you have opportunity.”
He stopped and looked at Kenny’s head going from side to side. Were the roots a different colour?
“All right. Let’s go at it again. The first time, she dropped the bag onto your lap…”
“Are you sure?” asked Kilmartin. Minogue’s mug slipped and hit the desk-top with a bang.
“Not once,” he repeated.
“Ah, go on with you. I bet he knew, the bugger. Accountants aren’t stupid, you know. He’d have guessed you’d be looking for the giveaway. ‘Expecting’? ‘Pregnant’?”
Minogue said nothing. He looked over at Malone. The detective was still talking quietly into the phone. Leaning in over the desk-top, Malone seemed to be trying to smooth the deep lines in his forehead.
“Not even ‘in trouble’?” said Kilmartin. “That’s a good old reliable, isn’t it?”
“No. He thinks he had been set up from the beginning. He puts it down to pressure on her from the Egans to rope him in good and proper.”
“Huh. Maybe he thinks he has us codded. Kenny. Any percentage in us picking him up again and working on him tonight?”
Minogue looked down into his own mug. Paris: capitale du monde. Kathleen had bought it for him four years ago. He had mended the same break in the handle twice now.
“No, Jim. Let him sit in it. A sleepless night will do him good.”
“Joseph Byrne,” said Kilmartin. “The oul lad with the dog and the honest wife. He hears the row at ten o’clock. Kenny gets there late for the showdown, the final payment. It could fit.”
Kilmartin pushed a folder in toward the centre of the desk-top and folded his arms. He stared at Minogue’s mug from Paris for several moments. Then his face wrinkled up and he twitched.
“Ah, Christ,” he hissed. “What am I thinking? Sure Byrne is half blind! I saw a copy of his prescription that you got. Jesus, he couldn’t see the Holy Ghost if He appeared to him at the end of the bloody bed. Couldn’t put Byrne in a witness box, man. It’d be a circus.”
Minogue took another mouthful of coffee. He held it at the back of his mouth before he let it drop down his throat. Malone was nodding slowly now. He could see the mark of the ear-piece on Malone’s ear as he shifted it. He looked at the clock. Phone Iseult’s again. Kilmartin rubbed his eyes.
“Kenny didn’t think she was bluffing about getting a heavy to work him over,” said Minogue.
“I’ll buy that all right. He believed her enough to rake up a good lump of money.”
“So did she, could she, would she?”
Kilmartin looked across at Malone. Still yakking away. Looked worn-out.
“If it was a planned job from the start, in with the Egans, I mean, she would have called in the likes of Lenehan… Ahhh. A load of crap!”
“What is?”
“Almighty God!” Kilmartin cried out. “Maybe he didn’t clock her, but by God, he knows more than he’s told you! This Kenny creature… He’s lying, lying, lying. Frigging lying! Come on, man. Hold him over. Let him get as scared of us as he is of the bloody Egans!”
Minogue shrugged off Kilmartin’s pique.
“I still say leave him out there. Let him sweat.”
“If she’s freelance trying to put a con on Kenny, would she bluff about calling in a heavy? I don’t know… Hhhnnnkkk. God, the wind.”
A whiff of Kilmartin’s burp came to Minogue. Bluff, he wondered; would she have given Kenny another chance to come up with the money? Or had she run out of time?
“Never screeched for the solicitor in the end.”
Kilmartin wheezed and coughed and belched again.
“Huh. You’d expect the likes of him to be all over the shop, calling in the UN. Stampedes of barristers running down the halls.”
“Point in his favour, I had to conclude, James.”
“Really, Captain? So’s the fact he puked all over the jakes, you’ll be telling me next.”
“So’s the fact he pu-”
“All right, all right! Very smart.”
“Tell me something now before I go, Jim. Do you remember Maura being pregnant?”
“Maura? My Maura? My current wife?”
“Yes. That Maura.”
Kilmartin gave his colleague a flinty glare.
“There are some things I don’t mind forgetting. What about Kathleen? Shouldn’t your memory be twice as good as mine? Sorry. Three times, I meant to say.”
“I remember Kathleen being sick with Iseult.”
“Long before she got to be a teenager?”
“I’ll tell her that one, James. She’ll love that one. Your timing couldn’t be worse.”
“What is this anyway? Are you after joining up some group to get in touch with your feelings or something? Who was it put out the idea that life is a shagging holiday anyway?”
Kilmartin paused to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. “’Cause if you’re into that stuff, you better keep way to hell away from me. I can’t abide that shite.”
“You do remember then.”
“Damn right I do.”
He leaned toward Minogue to whisper.
“Why do you think we have only the one?” He sat back again and examined his nails.
“World War III around the house, as I recall. Jases, we could have had the Russians bet into the ground with a platoon of expectant mothers. Honour of God, man! And the humours! Floods of tears and then the next thing she’d look like a holy picture or something. All cuddly and what have you, full of plans, talking all night long. Oh, well I remember that bit. Too well! ‘The nesting instinct.’ New curtains, crockery, furniture, paint the house-God in heaven, man, sure I was years paying it off! Running around like a red-shank I was. She was ordered off the feet in the finish-up. Swelling in the legs.”
Kilmartin swilled the remains of his tea in the mug.
“Hormones, man. Sure you know yourself. Giddy: pure giddy. Wild out by times.”
“Did she ever offer-threaten, I mean-to maim you? In a red-hot row, like.”
“Mind your own business. That’s personal.”
“Did she, Jim?”
Kilmartin gave him a limpid stare for several seconds.
“What kind of a question is that? Of course she did. Is there a married man above ground that hasn’t had that? Wake up there. It’s par for the course, that stuff.”
“Out of character for Maura, of course.”
“To be sure it was. Oh, now I get it! You’re playing doctor! This diagnosis of Mary Mullen flying off the handle due to having a bun in the oven?”
&n
bsp; “Pressure, Jim. She was desperate.”
“Christ, she’s not the only one. You’re telling me that she lost the head? It’s not the same these days, you know. ‘In trouble’: I’ll tell you who’s in trouble-it’s the likes of you and me what’s having to pay Social Welfare for these single mothers sitting around the house on their fannies.”
Kilmartin’s epiglottis issued a wet flap as he downed the last of his tea. It was followed by another gassy belch between his teeth.
“Plenty of work to be done,” he growled. “I don’t care what they say in the lab. They’re going to go over the videos again, bejases. And all this talk about computer enhancements! Sure, the frigging machine does everything. What are they complaining about?”
It took several moments for Minogue to realize what his colleague was talking about. The video footage of the site, the gawkers that night, the parked cars.
“What about the Big Bust, James.”
“What are you on about now? Elizabeth Taylor, is it?”
“Keane. The police officers here and in our brethren European countries who are waiting for D-Day on the Egans.”
“Oh, very clever. Ask me something else.”
“Plate-Glass Sheehy’s brigade. Have they new stuff?”
“Nothing since this Kenny lead.”
“No bag?”
“No bag.”
“Jack Mullen?”
“Much as it pains me to tell you, pal, Holy Jack Mullen is almost in the clear. John Murtagh traced a fare last night, a drive-off what never showed on the meter.”
“No Hickey?” Kilmartin cleared his throat.
“No Hickey. But maybe these Egans’ll get him first.”
Minogue picked up his mug and stood. Malone was walking in arcs the length of the phone wire now, nodding and listening. Minogue eyed Kilmartin.
“Listen, you big Mayo bullock. I’m taking time to rake over all the statements again. We’ve missed someone or something. I’ll even pick up Patricia Fahy again. Kenny. Anyone. Who could Mary have called in, if she wasn’t bluffing-that’s what we have to know.”
Kilmartin began pushing his mug around the desk-top.
“Listen to you,” he muttered. “You Clare gamog. Tough guy, are you? Maybe the answer is right under our noses but we’re too busy gawking all over with binoculars. Think Hickey, man. What have you got stuck in your brain there with him, anyhow? Is it just because he does a bit of the art stuff that you think he could never commit a murder? Sure man dear, the wind is whistling through his alibi.”
Minogue decamped to his own desk. Malone was still on the other phone. By the look on his face, Minogue judged that he was trying to explain something that he knew his listener couldn’t or wouldn’t understand.
TWENTY-ONE
Minogue phoned his daughter’s flat. He let it ring seven times before he put down the phone. Malone was peeling back the Elastoplasts from his knuckles, rolling them back on. He looked up as the Inspector sauntered over.
“A bit more of the other stuff, Tommy?”
Malone nodded.
“Trouble all right. Terry. He’s left the house. Said something about going over to see Bobby Egan. What am I going to do?”
Minogue shrugged. Malone nodded at the door to Kilmartin’s office.
“It could screw up everything,” he said. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know what to tell you. Except to keep away from him. Can you do that?”
“Christ. It’s like a game they’re playing. I could kill them for this.”
“How’s your ma?”
Malone sighed. He yanked one of the plasters clean off his knuckle and studied it.
“In bits.”
“Go visit her then.”
“Aw, Jesus-excuse me. I can’t. Really. I mean I’ve already taken time off yesterday-”
“Go, will you. We’ll be okay.”
Malone looked up from his raw knuckles at the Inspector.
“You think I’d better get away from here so’s you-know-who in there doesn’t get under my skin enough to… You know?”
Minogue nodded.
“What am I going to do though? Here’s me own brother being pulled into this crap and I’m going to sit by? I can’t. But if I have him picked up… I don’t know. I just don’t.”
“Go to your ma’s, Tommy. Phone me.”
“You sure?”
“Go. I’ll square it with the Killer. But phone me.”
“Well,” said Kilmartin. He capped the marker and stepped away from the board. Minogue put down the copies of the statements. He looked at Kenny’s name and followed the line for the evening.
“Julie Quinn,” said Kilmartin. “Kenny’s fiasco. Spotless alibi all evening.”
Minogue pressed his fingers harder onto the desk-top until the nails went from pink to white.
“Does she know anything about his extra-curricular activities, the night-clubbing? Mary Mullen?”
“She said that she’s been to the clubs with Kenny. Never heard of a Mary or anything about the case. I told her then what was up. She came on strong, Matt, I tell you. Shocked that his name would have come up at all. She started giving me a list of people I could call to check on her little Alan. References, the story of their romance, what she had for breakfast-”
“They live together, right?”
“They do,” replied Kilmartin. “Didn’t hesitate to tell me either. She’s as clean as a new brush.”
Minogue stopped pressing down with his fingers and watched the nails turn pink again.
“So Alan Kenny has all the more to protect then,” he said.
“Meaning?”
“That we really don’t know how he’d react if Mary Mullen tried to blackmail him with snapshots. Would he care a damn? Would this Julie Quinn? I just don’t know. He’s no mug. I think he’s the kind of fella who’d want to see them, to prove they exist.”
“So there’s still the two separate worlds: Ms. Quinn the fiasco, all the linen and lace, and then the slumming and slagging around with Mary Mullen. How’d he hold it together?”
“ ‘The edge’, Kenny calls it.”
“ ‘The edge’? Slinky suits and hair-dos. Telephone in the pocket. I see more of them every day. The type’d cut you in two in the traffic. Frigging counter-jumpers. And they want everything now, right this minute. A crooked breed we’re rearing these days, with our United Europe shite. Christ, man, we were better off in the bog.”
“You were maybe.”
Kilmartin’s eyelids drooped.
“Is that the way with you? Busy pissing on the Kenny blackmail idea, but I don’t seem to remember you leaping across the floor and into my office there with the case cleared. Did I miss that?”
Minogue kept his gaze on the statements on his desk. Kilmartin turned his head.
“Whose is that?”
“Tierney, James Tierney. Patricia Fahy’s beau.”
“Are you getting anything from it maybe?”
“A headache.”
“Speaking of which, where’s Molly? Voh’ Lay-bah, the owil yuu-nion’s nummbahr waahn!”
The Chief Inspector suddenly waltzed across the floor.
“ He wheels his wheelbarrow
Through streets broad and narrow
Crying cockles and mussels
Alive-alive-O ”
He turned on the balls of his feet and let his imaginary partner rest on his arm.
“Next dance, please. Well, where is he?”
“Jimmy: give over. He has stuff to deal with.”
“And we don’t?”
“Don’t come to me looking for half your jawbone if you push him over the edge. Call it quits.”
“No sticking power, that’s the problem. If Molly can’t-”
“Who scored the winning goal for United on the night of Mary Mullen’s murder?”
“What? Who cares? Why the hell would I know that?”
“James Tierney knows. It’s in his statement.”
“So?”
“And the other goal-scorers. The penalty that was missed. The fella given the yellow card.”
“Oh, great. Soccer is a load of cobblers anyhow. Curriers, beer cans, riots. Like England.”
“I wonder if his girlfriend is so keen on it. Patricia Fahy.”
“On what? The you-know-what?”
“The soccer.”
“I hope not-”
Minogue grabbed the phone before it had finished its first ring.
“My God, you’re fast,” said Kathleen. Minogue sat back and let out a breath.
“For a married man,” he said. “Is it yourself that’s in it, love.”
Kilmartin nodded and moved off. Kathleen asked if he would be home for tea. The Inspector didn’t know whether he had an appetite or not. He told her he’d probably have to stay late. She talked about an apartment which had come on the market today. He felt the outside of his coffee mug. The back of his tongue was still sour and chalky nearly an hour after he had drunk the last cup. He looked down at the file folder of statements he had been reading and began to push the cup around it. Like a boat trying to land on an island, he thought. The mug slowed. He pushed harder and it tipped.
“Goddamn that bloody-!”
“Pardon?” asked Kathleen. “Pardon?”
He grasped the corner of the folder and yanked it up. Sheets slid and darted out, floating down to the floor. The coffee spread in a pool the size of a saucer. A map the shape of Africa, he thought.
“Spilled something,” he said. “Give me a minute.” He laid the receiver down and dithered. Kilmartin reappeared by the desk.
“Christ, you’re an awful messer,” said the Chief Inspector. He took out a packet of paper hankies, dropped them on the desk and began picking up the statements. Minogue dropped the tissues at strategic intervals over the spill.
“Use the tail of your shirt,” said the Chief Inspector. “Like the rest of the Clare crowd.”
Minogue lifted a saturated hanky and squinted at Kilmartin.
