The good life imm-5

by John Brady

  “Sorry,” he said. “I only meant the Immaculate part.”

  He turned aside and looked down into the street below. A cluster of young people whom Minogue took to be artists of some kind crossed the street below and disappeared into the pub. A girl with hacked hair and a green tuft shooting up from the crown pedalled by. The windows in the studio were wide open but it was still uncomfortably warm. Everything seemed very far away: the rest of the buildings, the streets and lane-ways already grey, the traffic noise from the Liffey quays a street away, his memories of Iseult’s childhood.

  “Well, maybe it’d be funny some other time,” she said. She pulled the apron over her head. “I’d never thought of Pat as the Holy Ghost.”

  She walked over to the windows and stood next to him. That cloud was there again, the one that looked like the mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb. It must be far out at sea.

  “You get really tired,” she said. “I didn’t know that happened so much.”

  “Well, this is your first time.”

  “Don’t tell Ma-ever-but I thought straightaway of going to London. You know?”

  He nodded. Like a hunter in the blind, dozing, he thought, awakening to a stampede all around him. Over him.

  “It’s true,” she said. “The thing about Clare people. How they’re different. The sixth sense.”

  “Clare people are cracked, Iseult. Everyone knows that. Exhibit number one here. Can we go out for a stroll or something? The fumes here are getting to me.”

  She stopped in the middle of the Ha’penny bridge and leaned against the railings. The Liffey below was close to full tide. Vibrations from the passing feet came up through Minogue’s knees. A bus screeched on its way down the quays. There wasn’t a breeze.

  “We must be in for a change of weather,” she said. “I’ve had a headache all day.”

  Minogue let his eyes wander down the quays, taking in the sluggish swill of the river, the quayside buildings in a wash of honey-coloured light. He felt that Iseult and he were on an island in the middle of Dublin.

  “I knew you knew,” she sniffed. “I felt it anyway. Really.”

  “I didn’t really know,” he said. “I sort of thought maybe… Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s great news. I’m thrilled.”

  She eyed him.

  “Are you okay for walking here?” he asked.

  “Of course I am. Typical man! It’s not an illness, you know.”

  Minogue glanced at her.

  “Is Pat excited?”

  “He was, last time I saw him. Then he was worried. Then he went into his moron stage. Holy water and rosary beads next. Jesus, I’m still bowled over by it all.”

  Minogue did not rise to the bait. He kept his eyes on O’Connell Bridge.

  “Pathetic, isn’t it,” she said. “I’m ‘in trouble.’ ”

  He looked over. Her nostrils were still red.

  “In trouble,” he said, and frowned.

  “Well, isn’t that the expression? Or is it only old fogies talk like that any more?”

  “Why ask me? Come on down the quays a bit, can’t you.”

  She fell into step beside him. They waited for the lights at Capel Street.

  “You like Pat, don’t you?” she asked. “Still, I mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “Even with this church stuff?”

  He shrugged.

  “Well, yes. Clumsy maybe, but decent, I say. Give him a chance, will you?”

  Iseult stepped away from him and folded her arms. Others had clustered around them waiting for the light also. He fingered the button again. Why was it taking so long to get across here?

  “What’s so ‘decent’ about wanting to get married in a church, for Christ’s sake?”

  He bit his lip and kept his finger pushed against the button.

  “I could still kill Pat, you know,” she declared.

  “A little louder there,” he said between his teeth. “They may not have heard you in Wales.”

  “I don’t bloody well care, do I? I could kill him!”

  “You told me that before. The more you say it, the worse it sounds.”

  “I could! I’d break his neck, so I would.”

  “Stop, Iseult. That doesn’t help.”

  “Huh. You just don’t like to hear it out loud. Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  “I don’t even know there are different sides really. It’s not like your mother would want to shanghai you either, you know-”

  “Oh, come on! Are you going to fall into line with Holy Ireland too?” He glared at her.

  “Well?” she prodded. “Don’t you ever take sides? Huh? Whose side are you on, Da?”

  “Homicide, Iseult, if you really want to know.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Kilmartin had gone home. Minogue perused the note the Chief Inspector had left him. Jack Mullen was now down to one twenty-minute span-trouble was, the time was around nine o’clock. The note from Eilis was cryptic but complete. GTI-Br. in A.-yes. Brothers in Arms was the title of the tape. Hickey was closer to being in the clear. Now, how the hell was he supposed to get back on board if Hickey turned out to be going nowhere?

  Murtagh was reading the evening paper. The Inspector saw no sandwich but he could smell onion somewhere.

  “Well, John.”

  Murtagh looked up. Minogue became suddenly baffled. What had he wanted to tell Murtagh, that it looked like he was going to be a grandfather? Iseult had rebuffed his pleas to come to Kilmacud for the night at least. No amount of talk about croissants, hot baths, sitting in the garden, doing nothing or catching up on her reading persuaded her. He had left her at her studio. She had not asked him in. He had nearly clipped the end of a van coming down through Kilmainham, a place he shouldn’t have been in but which he couldn’t remember turning into. Was this the same as being drunk?

  “Well, boss?”

  Murtagh was still looking at him.

  “Sorry, John.”

  “Are you all right there?”

  And what did that mean? Giddy. Everything so vivid and changed as he’d driven through the streets.

  “I think so. Yes. You’re er…?”

  “I was going over the timetable again, looking for cracks.”

  Minogue looked up to the notice-board. Kilmartin had updated the line for Mullen. The gap began with “20:45?” and the thick green line resumed with “21:20 (log).” He walked closer, looking down the names. Lenehan filled in completely, three names to account for him. One, a J. Mahon, did not have an X for criminal record. His eyes slid down by the Egans to the orange line leading out from Leo Hickey’s name.

  “Still no word on Hickey?”

  “Nope,” said Murtagh. “He did a natty disappearing act after the call, and that’s a fact.”

  “Talk to anyone about him recently?”

  “All the patrol units have the description. The Killer got Central to leave two cars set aside. They’re out there until midnight.”

  He let down the paper, stretched and scratched at the back of his head.

  “What’s the world coming to?” he sighed. “No United in the cup. The first time in five years.”

  Minogue flopped down at his desk and stared at the notepad he had left. Ryan-photo files; Alan Kenny-he looked back up at the notice-board. The gaps for Kenny remained but the alibis had names now. He recognized the names of the two pubs in brackets. Upmarket, he believed, all the rage in the lotsamoney eighties. Weren’t they too bloody busy in those pubs to reliably keep track of the likes of Kenny? Murtagh was looking at him.

  “Yes, John?”

  “You’re, er, well, you’re sure?”

  “Sure of what?”

  “That you’re okay, like?”

  Minogue blinked.

  “You’re gone kind of red… Is it sunburn, maybe?”

  Minogue began moving the folders and papers about. Murtagh took up the paper again. Would Iseult’s baby be a few lines in the Births, Marriages and Death columns ea
rly in the new year? His eyes stayed on the headline over the photo of a sweaty headed player holding his head in his hands. ‘The Good Life Over.’

  “What’s that good life they’re talking about being over, John?”

  Murtagh smiled.

  “Ah, United had their name on the F.A. Cup this last few years. Injuries done them in this year but. They’re out of the running now.”

  “Since?”

  “Last night really. Ah, sure it was time for them. They were in trouble from last month when what’s-his-face got a broken ankle. Brown. Downtown Brown? He was the heart of the team. Should have seen the tackle that brought him down. Oh, yes. That’ll go down in history books, so it will.”

  “When was that?”

  “Last Thursday three weeks. It was about seven minutes to go and… What? Did I say something?”

  “How do you know it was seven minutes?”

  Murtagh smiled.

  “Taped it, didn’t I.”

  “I didn’t know that this soccer mania had taken over in the Guards too.”

  “Are you, er, finally going to break down and take an interest in the oul soccer, boss?”

  Minogue remembered Murtagh’s good-natured jibes at the height of last year’s hysteria when Ireland looked like making it to the semifinals in the World Cup. Dublin had closed down on the days the Irish team played its matches. Novels were written around the World Cup fever which gripped Dublin. Housekeeping money disappeared into pubs. Newspapers reassigned staff-even their luminary pundits normally only content in their great task of reprobating everyone and everything-to issue pensees on the skills, accomplishments, history, status and future of Irish soccer. Pubs became choked with guff about whether one player’s ankle was up to par, another’s knee. Had Eddy Gagan, our glorious full forward, looked a bit peeky on his last outing? What about that Danish striker, the one who had destroyed England’s defence? Well, the Irish would show that fella a thing or two about defence: offence too, for that matter!

  Minogue had watched and wondered while Ireland suffered and enjoyed another of its galvanic spasms of underdoghood: weren’t we great, our gallant little country taking on the world? Soccer had floated the entire nation on a rising tide of hope and pride. He had heard Kathleen detailing scores, moves, prospects and hopes at great length on transatlantic calls to Daithi. Unwise enough to query what all the fuss was about, Minogue had staggered into a blitzkrieg of taunts from Kathleen and Iseult alike: Stuffy! Snob! Culchie! Begrudger! Cynic! Get wir’ it-soccer’s bleedin’ brilliant!

  “Have you got a copy of the press release we fired out the day after the murder?”

  Murtagh yanked open a drawer and began flipping through files. Minogue phoned Kathleen.

  “You’re serious, I take it,” was her reply to his request.

  “As ever.”

  “You sound a bit odd, that’s why.”

  “Odd?”

  “Something in your voice-ah, don’t mind. Look, try and get to bed early. You want newspapers for the night this girl was…?”

  “Exactly.”

  “They’d be gone, Matt. Sure bin day was yesterday.”

  “Would you forage around there with the Costigans or somewhere?”

  “Tell me again.”

  Murtagh laid the copy of the press release on Minogue’s desk. Stapled to it was a clipping from one of the evening newspapers.

  “I want to know about a soccer match on Monday night.”

  “What match?”

  Minogue tossed the file papers to find the copy of Tierney’s statement.

  “Hold on a minute. Here. Everton were playing Spurs. Did I say that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “When it was on, when it was over, etcetera.”

  “All right, love. Listen, were you sitting in a draught or something? Your voice, well-are you a hundred percent?”

  Minogue was trying to find the times in Tierney’s statement.

  “Draught,” he said.

  “Oh, don’t mind me! Listen, did you get ahold of you-know-who?”

  “Who’s you-know-who?”

  “Je-! God forgive me! Who do you think!”

  “Oh, yes. Sorry. She was working in the studio, so she was. She’s going home to the flat tonight.”

  “And how is she? Is she going to at least visit us in the next fifty years?”

  Only once, he recalled, had he found himself imagining the baby. Not as a boy or a girl, just as a toddler learning to walk.

  “Probably.”

  “And how does she look?”

  “Never looked better, I thought to myself.”

  “You mean she’s over the row with Pat?”

  “Not quite. She still wants to claw his eyes out so far as I know.”

  “Well, how do you mean she never looked better, then?”

  Minogue groped for decoys.

  “Well, you know how she is when she’s talking about something she feels so strongly about, how she’s so full of life.”

  “Full of life? She’s supposed to be depressed, if you ask me.”

  He let her words drag about in his mind.

  “Can we talk later, love? I’m a bit addled here. I only stayed late out of guilt really. John Murtagh’s been here every evening since, and I was gambling that maybe a suspect would be picked up earlier on in the evening.”

  Minogue put down the phone and sat back.

  “Highlights, John.”

  Murtagh swivelled around in his chair.

  “The football?”

  “Yep. There’d be highlights on the news or the sports part of the news, wouldn’t there?”

  “Yep.”

  “More than the one station?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  Minogue sat forward, elbows on his knees.

  “Okay,” he murmured. “Okay.”

  Murtagh was still looking at him.

  “Thanks, John.”

  He pulled his chair into the desk and grabbed the phone book. It might take a while. He could probably get the numbers of the British stations from RTE anyway.

  Five pints he’d had, not four. He belched again. And only the crisps for grub. What time was it? He moved his arm about to get enough light from the lamp at the end of the lane-way. Half-nine. He shifted his stance. Something broke underfoot. He stared down and saw bits of glass. A needle. Christ! He moved off into another doorway. The sheet metal felt good under his palms. He lit a cigarette. Maybe the guy’d have a stash with him too. He’d have to remember to hold the knife away from him, against the blade. No, no, no: this was stupid. Just score, pay up and split. He could phone his ma then. She’d have an idea. Maybe there was some relative she had that he had never been told about, someone in Australia or something. How long did it take to get a passport?

  There was that whistle again. He leaned out and looked down toward Mary Street. That was him all right. He could tell by the shape of the hair-do. About bleeding time too. He stepped out into the lane-way.

  “How’s it going, man?” The guy nodded.

  “You still want that stuff?”

  “Well, yeah. I’m waiting long enough. Where were you? I could have gone off and sorted it out in a half a dozen other places, man.”

  The guy wasn’t more than eighteen. He’d followed him into the jacks back at the pub. He wouldn’t be a narc if he was eighteen. Sure, he’d said. He needed ten minutes to sort it out. Friend of his, etcetera. Meet him down Jervis Lane there. Pimples and an attitude; big shirt, baggy pants, high-tops.

  “So? How much’d you want?”

  “Gimme two. Twenty right?”

  He watched him rummage in the deep pockets. It was the scuffing of the shoes behind which alerted him. The other fella was running fast.

  “Hey!”

  He had his hand on the knife but the guy with the top knot had already hit him. It didn’t hurt but somehow he was against the wall now. The second guy came right at him, kicking. He turned sideways and took a kick on his
leg. Did they have knuckles?

  “Fuck off!” he shouted. “Or I’ll do you!”

  He kicked back but missed. The first guy had taken something out of his pocket and he was swinging it. A stick? Looking down at the hand for that moment cost him. The kick came in just above his hip. The lane-way went suddenly bright with the pain. He couldn’t stop himself staggering and sliding along the wall.

  “Stop! I’ll give you what I got, just don’t…”

  It was a chain, he saw.

  “Turn ’em inside out then!” the second guy was shouting. What? Pockets. He had a glimpse of the second face as the guy circled around. Twenties, no pushover.

  “Fucking do it, man, or you’re gonna die right here!”

  If he let his hand down, they might come at him again. He couldn’t stand straight. If they’d only stop moving around him…

  “Okay, okay, I will! Just don’t fucking-”

  “Drop everything you got there, man!”

  He scattered the money on the ground and pulled his pocket out.

  “The other one too, you bastard! Come on!”

  Where were the cops? Where were the million people who lived in this bleeding city? If he hadn’t stayed in that kip and had all those pints… He should have just bought cans or something and gone back to the Park to have a think. Christ! He thought of the shadows in the grove of trees, the fields…

  Hair-do was on him and he was trying to knee him in the nuts. He saw the older guy coming in now. The knife slipped out cleanly and he had the full swing of his free arm. It ran along the shoulder and the kid started screaming. He fell back, tottered and looked down at his hand.

  “He’s got a knife, Andy! He’s after cutting me, man! I’m bleeding like fuck, man!”

  He couldn’t take his eyes off the kid. He watched him reeling away down the lane holding his shoulder. Was it that easy, he thought. What if he’d cut across the kid’s neck. There were drops falling from the kid’s elbow and he watched them. The screaming turned to groans and wails.

  “Andy! Man! I got to get to a hospital! It won’t stop!”

  Too late he realized that the older guy hadn’t been taken up watching his mate staggering around like he had. The kick cracked against his cheekbone and he went over. He felt the concrete of the lane-way on his cheek now. There was a noise like running water all through his head. He knew he had to get up. The guy was calling him names now. The next kick caught him under the armpit and his arm buckled under him. He held on to the knife as he rolled and tried to get his knees under him. The groaning and crying was further away. He got one knee down but everything exploded when the boot connected with the side of his head. This is it, he thought, this is the end of it. He couldn’t see now but he knew he had let go the knife. He felt around for it on the pavement. A kick caught him in the shoulder. The kid was back to shouting now.