by John Brady
“Asked for a van, did you?”
“Wild West here sometimes, Jim. You never know.”
“ ‘Sometimes’? Christ. Understatement of the year. Okay. Are we right?”
“Yep. Let them go in first.”
“I thought-”
“I don’t want the glory, Jim. I just want the arrest.”
Kilmartin rubbed the passenger-side window as the three figures passed along the footpath. Minogue saw the passenger door of the van open, a uniformed Guard step out.
“Oi! Who’s number three of ours there? Christ! Where’s the bloody winder for the window?”
“The ignition has to be on. It’s electric.”
“Let me out of this bloody box! Where’s the door thing? Jesus Christ! What kind of a shitbox am I stuck in here? Bloody Frenchmen! They shouldn’t be let near anything to do with cars!”
He turned angrily to Minogue. The Inspector ignored him. He switched on the ignition and pushed the wipers. Two detectives were at the door already. Fergal Sheehy was the back-door man.
“Open the frigging door, for Christ’s sake! They’re nearly in the house already.”
“Sorry, Jim. It’s that sideways-looking thing there. Yes. Don’t break it off now…”
Kilmartin was out. He slammed the door hard and took off at a trot down the gleaming footpath. Minogue winced before completing his sentence.
“…you clumsy bullock.”
The hall door was opened. One of the figures stepped in smartly. Someone tried to close the door but Murtagh had already put his shoulder to it. Minogue heard a shout. Kilmartin was almost there now. A second Guard had emerged from the van. A scream now, a woman’s. Minogue stepped out of the car. It was Patricia Fahy’s da all right. The door was being pushed and pulled. Kilmartin skipped in and pushed at the door alongside Murtagh. The Guard in uniform stepped around them. He reappeared almost immediately and came out the door backwards, his arms tight around Fahy’s neck. Kilmartin followed them out onto the terrace. Murtagh slipped into the house. Kilmartin slid a leg behind Fahy’s knees and the Guard turned Fahy as he fell. The second Guard stepped around Minogue, bent down and yanked up Fahy’s arm. Kilmartin stepped away. Minogue asked the Guard with the knee in Fahy’s back if he wanted help with the restraints. Fahy stopped groaning and began shouting.
“Shut up,” said Kilmartin. “You’re in enough trouble.”
“Don’t you fucking touch her! Yous don’t know anything about what goes on out here, you bastards! Useless, yiz are! The crimes is going on all around and yous are blind!”
“You’re under arrest too, Mister Hard-Chaw. Is your daughter inside?”
“None a your fucking business! Why aren’t yous tearing into the Egans and their like?”
The two Guards lifted Fahy to his knees and pulled him upright. A shriek erupted from the top floor of the house. Minogue looked up and down the street. The rain had lightened to a patter on his crown. He caught one Guard’s eye and nodded.
“We all right inside then?” said Kilmartin.
“ ’Course we are. Come on in and we’ll see.”
More shrieks from upstairs. A woman screamed No. Kilmartin looked into all the rooms. Minogue stepped into the kitchen and made for the back door to let Sheehy in.
“Action’s all upstairs, Matt.”
“I’ll follow you up, I just want to get Fergal in.”
Minogue watched Kilmartin lumber up the narrow staircase. Patterned socks again today, he thought. Over the lumpen tread of the Chief Inspector’s leather-soled shoes, Minogue could hear the crying still. The detectives’ voices came to him in tones only. Kilmartin reached the top of the stairs. Minogue looked up at the ceiling and tried to follow Kilmartin’s passage through the bedrooms. Another shriek. Patricia Fahy’s mother called out. Something heavy clumped on the floor. Minogue studied his own face in the hall mirror. It looked jowly, different. Fergal Sheehy appeared at the top of the stairs. He descended sideways, his hand on Patricia Fahy’s elbow. No cuffs, thought Minogue. Mrs. Fahy told someone to get out of her fucking way. An answering growl came from Kilmartin.
Patricia Fahy’s hair looked like it was glowing. Her head bobbed at each step. Behind her came Malone, each step almost grudging. He caught Minogue’s eye but did not smile. The mother was shouting now. Minogue leaned around the banister and looked up to catch a glimpse of Kilmartin’s back pressed against the banisters on the landing. That’d keep him busy for a while. Patricia Fahy didn’t look at him as she passed. He said her name again. She told him to fuck off. A handful of neighbours had gathered on the path outside. Two Guards in uniform were standing in front of them. Let me down the fucking stairs in me own fucking home, Mrs. Fahy was shouting at Kilmartin now.
Malone looked like he had fallen into the sea. Minogue followed him outside and watched Sheehy lead Patricia Fahy to the Toyota. Patricia Fahy’s father was shouting inside the van. He began kicking the panels as it pulled away. Another unmarked car drew into the curb across the street, splashing a puddle across the full width of the path. Three Guards stepped out. Minogue heard the footsteps clattering down the stairs fast. He turned to see Kilmartin coming out the hall door. The Chief Inspector had his head down and his arms were out from his side, the hands clawing at the air.
“Get in there to hell and put that woman in order!” he barked at one of the Guards. “She’s off the deep end.”
Kilmartin had stopped to talk to the Guard. He stayed put, his hands still working, glaring at Minogue. Malone came up the path behind Minogue and stood next to him. Minogue saw Kilmartin’s chest heaving. Kilmartin began to walk slowly toward them.
“This… is… fucking… serious… messing,” Minogue heard him say. Kilmartin stopped abruptly in front of Malone.
“Molly. What the hell are you doing here?”
From the tone, Minogue knew that Kilmartin was still off-balance.
“Helping to arrest the person who murdered Mary Mullen.”
Kilmartin’s jaws opened for several seconds and then closed. Two teenaged boys on bikes, soaked and euphoric from cavorting around in the cloudburst, Minogue guessed, stopped their bikes next to them.
“What’s going on?” one of them asked.
“Bugger off,” said Kilmartin. He hadn’t taken his eyes from Malone’s face. He took a step closer to Malone. His voice was a monotone now.
“What are you doing here then, Molly? You’re supposed to be sick or something.”
“Oh, right. Yeah. Well, I’m feeling better now, like. Thanks. Yeah.”
Loike, thought Minogue. Betther. He smiled.
Kilmartin blinked and looked from Malone to Minogue. His hands fell limp by his sides now. Patricia Fahy’s mother was shouting again. Kilmartin pivoted to have a look at the doorway and turned back with a look of distaste. The Chief Inspector had put his hands in his pockets now too. He leaned toward Malone as he spoke.
“You…” he began. He stopped and shook his head. “You got beat up, did you?”
“Yeah. But you should see the other fella.”
Minogue turned away.
“What other fella?”
“The brother.”
“The brother,” said Kilmartin. “The brother? Tell me something, Molly. Where is that brother of yours right now?”
Malone stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked down at his sodden shoes.
“Terry?”
“Terry. The fella with your face.”
Malone looked up with a frown.
“Terry’s in the nick.”
Kilmartin glanced at Minogue.
“Your brother got out of the nick was what I heard.”
“Oh, he got out all right. Yeah. But he got back in again.”
“He got back in again.”
“Yeah. It’s a different nick, though. It’s a treatment facility with a lockup. The new one up by Clanbrassil Street. Drugs and all, you know?”
Kilmartin cleared his throat. Minogue studied faces in the kn
ot of people on the path.
“That’s, er, good, Molly,” said Kilmartin. “You did the right thing there. He was after falling into the hands of the Egans, I believe.”
Kilmartin nodded at Minogue to indicate the source of his intelligence.
“Oh, you heard.”
“Matter of fact, himself and myself bumped into him there in a shop belonging to one of the brothers. Looked like he was in a bad state, I don’t mind telling you. Right, Matt?”
Minogue nodded. Malone frowned, took his hand out of his pocket and began scratching at his scalp.
“You met Terry?”
“Your man here decided to do a bit of crusading there. Let them know who’s boss and all the rest of it. He sort of told me that, well, the Egans wanted to use your brother to get at you. To get at us, I mean. The Guards in general, like.”
Malone nodded.
“Well, yeah. They were up to that, all right. Tell me, when were yous up there?”
Kilmartin looked at Minogue.
“Earlier on today,” said the Inspector.
“Today? No. You must have gotten your days mixed up. Couldn’t have been today.”
Minogue shrugged.
“It was today,” said Kilmartin. “And well I remember it. Brother of yours is hardly civil to the Guards, is he? He gave us-well, he tried to give us-a bit of a bollocking there.”
“Today?”
Kilmartin cleared his throat and took out his cigarettes. Malone looked him in the eye.
“What’s the story there, Molly? What are you looking at me like that for? You’re the one should be answering the bloody questions here. As a matter of fact, now that I have the both of you here…”
Kilmartin’s words trailed off. Minogue and Malone both studied the smoke flowing out of Kilmartin’s open mouth.
“What?” Kilmartin murmured.
“I got Terry committed yesterday,” said Malone. He nodded at Minogue. “His idea. Gets him off the streets. It was either treatment or arrest for assault, right?”
“Right,” said Minogue.
“No, no, no,” said Kilmartin. “I-wait a minute-Matt, you were there with me…”
This time Minogue saw that Kilmartin knew. His eyes opened wide and he leaned in toward the two policemen.
“That wasn’t Terry up at the shop, like,” said Malone. “That was me.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Minogue wiped at the smudge again but got nowhere. It had to be from the photocopier. He and Malone had taken her statement, had her charged and had signed over just before one o’clock. He let the copy of Patricia Fahy’s statement drop onto his desk, leaned back until the chair bit into his back and stretched, Eilis wandered over and dropped a yellow phone-message sheet on the desk.
“Waterford city,” she said. “They’re far from sure. He was missing for two days. Someone spotted the car under the water yesterday evening and they walking by. The rain delayed them getting it out.”
He searched over the note.
“Lost his job, they said… Who reported him missing again?”
“Oh, I forgot to write it in. Sorry, I’m half asleep, so I am. Will I phone them back?”
Minogue shook his head.
“No, I’ll do it.”
Kilmartin sauntered in from the car-park. He had draped a double-breasted jacket over his shoulders. The debonair air puzzled Minogue. Kilmartin looked like a cross between Maurice Chevalier and a bouncer. He surveyed the squadroom as though visiting it for the first time.
“Oh, oh,” Minogue heard Eilis murmur before she walked off.
Kilmartin seemed to be examining the surfaces of the desks now. He turned to the notice-boards and studied them with the respectful interest of a visiting civilian. Minogue decided to test the waters.
“How’s Jim this fine morning?”
Kilmartin’s brow shot up. He looked over with a smile.
“Oh, fine, thanks, Matt. And how’s yourself? Family well?”
“Topping, thanks. Nice jacket there.”
Kilmartin looked down at his shoulder.
“Do you like it?”
“I certainly do. Well wear to you.”
Kilmartin smiled faintly and returned to his survey of the squadroom.
“Nice to have the change of weather, isn’t it?”
Like a tourist in the National Gallery, Minogue thought. Should he wait until Kilmartin brought it up before asking how the summit with Serious Crimes and Co. had gone?
“Couldn’t be better, Jim. Couldn’t be better.”
Kilmartin smiled again and squinted close up at a photocopy of Leonardo Hickey’s mug shot. His tone was warm and inviting when he spoke.
“Any sign of that trick-acting bastard?”
“He’s getting better. He’s taking counselling already. Wants to go into acting now, he says, after his taste of the big time lying in that van. He’s even willing to take the rap for doing that car. Says those few days changed his life.”
Minogue stopped and watched as Kilmartin gently tore down the photo of Leonardo Hickey and crumpled it in his hand.
“It wasn’t that Hickey character I was referring to,” said Kilmartin,
He began to scrunch up other papers on the notice-board.
“Oh, em, Tierney? He’s appeared and got remanded-”
“No, no, no. Not him either. No, I saw his statement this morning before I went off to Keane. No, no. His goose is cooked. So’s the Fahy one, for that matter.”
Was he to expect a compliment from Kilmartin?
“Er, who then, Jim?”
“Your sidekick. Molly. Al Capone. Voh’ Lay-bah. The Play Actor.”
“I told him to go home and see about his family. He’s to phone in before twelve.”
Kilmartin seemed to suddenly tire of his task. He looked across at Minogue, the vaguely satisfied smile still playing about his face.
“How’d it go, Jim? The meeting with the task force-Keane and the rest of them?”
Kilmartin opened his eyes wide again. No wonder Eilis had headed for the sanctuary of the ladies’ toilet, Minogue thought. Perhaps he should join her there.
“Grand thanks. Grand. No problem.”
“No, em, questions you couldn’t answer?”
“Man dear, there are no questions that I couldn’t answer.”
“Virgin Birth, then. Start with that one. How’d they do it?”
Minogue’s taunt had no noticeable effect. Instead of provoking Kilmartin into wrath, his colleague merely looked down at the floor and shook his head.
“Ah, Matt, Matt. Will you never get sense? Always the wag. Always the tart quips. That’s attention seeking, you know. No. Keane and Co. were intrigued, I’ll tell you that. Very intrigued. Of course, I was well-briefed. I had nothing to worry about, did I?”
Minogue ran his tongue around his upper teeth while he gave Kilmartin the eye.
“Oh, yes,” Kilmartin went on. “Got the signal very early on. I knew things were going to go smooth.”
“Ah.”
“ ‘Ah’ yourself. Did you phone him?”
“Phone who?”
“The Iceman. He was sitting up there at the head of the table. Looking very pleased with himself.”
“John Tynan?”
“Did you phone him?”
“Yes.”
Kilmartin slowly nodded.
“Well, now. I sort of thought so. As I was saying. Tynan set the mood. Do you want to know what happened? Of course you do. Yes, Tynan backed us up to the hilt. What’s this he said again? Something about orthodoxy for its own sake… Very smart, I remember thinking… Ah, I forget. Anyway. It’s Keane’s stuff now. He thinks he can use the bit in Tierney’s statement more than Kenny’s. About the source of the drugs, I mean. It’s a bit better than hearsay so he might just stuff a warrant with it when they pounce. Says it’ll be a handy option for when they put the drop on the Egans.”
“The bit about what Mary said on the phone to Tierney?”
“Yup. How she was out of her mind worrying that Eddsy’d come after her if she couldn’t come up with the money. Odd she never mentioned Kenny to anyone, says Keane to me later. Who cares, says I.”
“Kenny was her own job, I think. She didn’t even mention Tierney’s name to Kenny when she threatened him with the same Tierney either. She’d learned to keep things in different compartments.”
“Um. I think you have it there all right, old bean. Yes. Keane wanted to talk to me all day about the whole thing. So did Daly, the other fella… Oh, yes. Well, I left them shaking their heads, so I did. You know the style.”
Indeed Minogue did. Few things pleased James Kilmartin more than seeing other Guards slack-jawed about how the Murder Squad closed a case. Keep ’em guessing was so often Kilmartin’s byword.
“What a dummy though,” said Kilmartin. “Tierney, I mean. Right thick. A sucker.”
Minogue sat back and looked out the window. Kilmartin’s mood seemed to be holding.
“She turned to him in her hour of need and all that,” added Kilmartin.
Minogue’s mind went to the canal that night, to Mary Mullen’s panicked vigil by the bridge. The minutes must have crawled by for her, worse as each passed. Everything was crumbling about her, slipping away, falling back into the world of fear and violence which she had grown into and struggled to shake free of. Kenny’s expression when he had talked about her that night: where did she get the ideas she had about how money was made, from the television or something? She had tried to cross the line but Kenny had left her out there in the night.
“Whatever about Tierney, that Kenny fella should swing for some of this,” said Minogue. “I’m going to look it over again and get some advice toward a file.”
Kilmartin nodded. Minogue fell back to wondering. And who else could Mary Mullen have turned to? She had learned too well how to shut others out, to keep her secrets and her ambitions free within herself alone. That was what had gotten to Patricia Fahy, that reserve of Mary’s, her refusal to admit another into her life. Her determination to win out, to make it.
“Only Tierney,” murmured Minogue.
“What?”
