All souls imm-4

by John Brady

  He glanced over at Hoey. His colleague’s face looked a little puffy. Lack of sleep, bachelor diet. Drink, of course.

  “Well, Shea,” he said. “Can I leave you in the lurch with Jelly Nolan? It’s well cooked already.”

  Hoey blinked and cleared his throat.

  “No bother,” he said.

  The tight smile looked bleak to Minogue. Murtagh, another of the detectives permanently attached to the Murder Squad, walked through the office with file folders under his arm. He whistled softly around the pencil protruding from his mouth. Minogue found himself smiling at the sight, then he remembered Hoey. How could policemen be so different? Hoey, the dark horse, moody and reserved; Murtagh, surely beloved and spoiled as a child, a cocky athlete who gleefully chased nurses in night-clubs.

  Minogue closed the folder on Tommy-John Casey and sat back. A countryman himself, Minogue understood rows about land. Dublin people wouldn’t, he believed. The primal hunger for land bred during starving centuries wasn’t imprinted on them. Land hunger, land disputes, wills’ probate fought over, aging bachelor farmers, family farms. But Jelly Nolan and his likes still remained ciphers to the Inspector. He wanted to know as little as possible about Nolan’s life. Self-protective, he knew, and he felt himself recoiling from the thought of just how cramped and ugly Nolan’s life must have been. There had to be a better line of work than sitting across a table from the Jelly Nolans of this world.

  His thoughts wandered to Kilmartin’s probes about the Commissioner. Damn him for sending him like a spy to Tynan. What the hell use was it trying to explain to Kilmartin that he had no influence with Tynan? Tynan: a jigsaw with no guarantee you’d find all the bits, ever. Maybe Tynan was trying to get Kilmartin and Minogue amp; Co. ready for the end of an era. The soft glove of a blunt hand in elegy, a broad hint that Kilmartin and Minogue would do well to retire before the Squad was dispersed. His eyes focussed again on the papers. He considered phoning a travel agent and trying to book some airline seats but realised he didn’t know how many days they’d be staying in Clare. Damn again. He shoved the Casey file in the Current Trial cabinet and saw that the rain had stopped.

  Minogue in Bewleys was a happy man. The stained glass below the restaurant’s skylights seemed to be moving. Clouds, he judged. He stood in line for coffee and noted that the racket from dishes and chairs and cutlery seemed muted today. Minogue had just deployed his coffee and bun when the clink of china on the marble table-top drew his head up from his newspaper. John Tynan, Commissioner of the Gardai, edged into the booth next to Minogue.

  “Damn,” said Tynan and headed out again. “Sugar.”

  Minogue tried to gather his wits as he studied Tynan’s well-tailored frame marauding around the cashier’s desk. What was Tynan doing here? Coincidence?

  “Slow day?” said Tynan. He sat on Minogue’s side of the table.

  “It’s always murder,” said Minogue. “I’m charging the batteries. I was late into the night on a case. Just a break to, em, build morale.”

  Tynan eyed Minogue while he stirred his coffee.

  “‘Building morale’? I phoned the Squad and was told that you were, quote, ‘doing research.’”

  “Eilis might have given me the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Anyway. I’m on a walkabout myself.”

  Minogue smiled.

  “That’s it. Look surprised. No minders, no gun in my pocket.”

  Tynan plucked a slim cellular phone from his jacket pocket and showed enough of it for Minogue to recognise the device.

  “What do you think?”

  The Inspector knew of Tynan’s ways. The new Garda Commissioner had taken to walking about town in civvies, getting a feel for how Dublin was policed. It didn’t seem to bother him that he was annoying several senior civil servants and Gardai with his perambulations.

  “Great,” said Minogue.

  Tynan looked around the restaurant.

  “And how are you all?” he said.

  “Good,” said Minogue. “Jimmy’s as ever. You know the style.”

  “I meant Kathleen and the children.”

  Minogue squirmed a little in the seat. “Great. We’re empty-nesters now. Discretionary income up. We’re getting quite selfish, I suppose.”

  “Oho,” said Tynan with no real enthusiasm. “And the children?”

  Minogue knew that Tynan had no children. Tynan had studied for the Jesuits many years ago. Rachel Tynan was a Protestant, a former teacher. Her laughter and pottery studio intrigued Minogue. He had watched Tynan at functions, exchanging asides with his wife between speeches, she laughing, he with a straight face. Tynan the cold fish, many thought; Rachel Tynan, whose face reminded Minogue of a peach.

  “Oh, we monitor them at a distance. The routine seems to be that I reassure Kathleen. Then I get the willies myself when I see what they’re actually up to.”

  Tynan took some more coffee from his cup and sat back.

  “I need to pay yous a visit soon.”

  Minogue nodded as though considering the news.

  “Throw around a few ideas, you know,” Tynan added.

  “Great,” said Minogue. Had Kilmartin been tipped off about this?

  “Busy enough, are ye?” asked the Commissioner.

  Was this a probe? “There’s always work. But we still don’t kill one another that much, don’t forget.”

  “Compared to…?”

  “Well, compared to the really civilised countries, I mean.”

  The Commissioner continued his survey of the clientele in the restaurant.

  “We need changes, that’s clear,” he murmured. “It’s a matter of how and where at this stage.”

  “So they say in the press, John.”

  Tynan gave him a glazed look.

  “The Delahunty Factor, you mean?” Tynan asked, his mouth set tight. Minogue nodded.

  An Inspector Delahunty, well-known and well-liked by his officers, had told a journalist that the solution to finding people with guns on them was to pull out your own-as long as you were Special Branch- and shoot them down in the street like dogs.

  “‘Make-My-Day’ Delahunty. I’ve had more letters about that-”

  “Were I not so discreet, John, I might speculate.”

  “Let fly, so.”

  “This same party let loose those comments as a way to see how our new Garda Commissioner would handle them, our new Garda Commissioner being but months in the office, I mean. And our new Garda Commissioner being a bit of an enigma as yet. One wonders if our new Garda Commissioner is one of ‘de boys’ or if he is one for rocking the boat.”

  Tynan almost smiled before turning away. Nothing to tell Kilmartin here, Minogue thought.

  “I’ve taken a long hard look this last six months,” Tynan murmured. His eyes returned to Minogue’s. “And what I seem to be seeing is something I last heard of twenty-five years ago when I studied mediaeval society. Warlords squabbling over their own territories. Some of it’s beyond an outrage. It’s nearly comical.”

  Indolent and intent, his eyes bored into Minogue’s for several moments.

  “It’s stifling. It’s bad for morale. It’s inefficient. And it’s going to stop.”

  Minogue took in the force of Tynan’s determination. Should he report the warlord term to the Killer, James Kilmartin? The Commissioner was again looking at the faces around him in the cafe.

  Minogue told him about the holiday he was planning. Tynan nodded and told Minogue that the islands were indeed beautiful. Minogue didn’t ask how he knew but he filed away this fact about Tynan to tell Kathleen later. Tynan turned in his seat and stared at Minogue. He seemed cautious now.

  “I want you to drop by my office after your jaunt below in Clare,” he said. “A chat.”

  “Jimmy too?”

  Tynan flicked away the question with a quick movement of his hand.

  “Don’t be fretting. It’s smarts that should be the basis of entitlement to comment, not rank alone. So don’t be ki
cking in the stall now.”

  “I’ll be sure and phone you,” said Minogue. He felt pleased and bewildered. Tynan finished his coffee, rose and replaced his chair under the table. He looked down at the Inspector.

  “Like the suit? There’s stripe to it but you’d need glasses to see it.”

  Minogue issued a wink that he hoped might convey a sybarite’s approval. Tynan’s baleful gaze swept the room again.

  “Well,” the Commissioner murmured. “I’m going to see if what some journalists write is true. That some Gardai are not, em, sensitive to Dubliners of lower socio-economic status.”

  A swell of sympathy and liking swept over Minogue. He hoped that Tynan was not too isolated. “See you, John,” he called after him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Minogue hummed along with the radio while he waited for Donnybrook to unjam itself. It was early in the afternoon for traffic jams, he thought. At least the sun had come out. An ambulance passed him, heading into town. A crash? Several teenagers in masks-one of Mick Jagger-trudged by carrying a shopping bag with the outlines of bottles straining at the plastic. Good day for pulling a bank job, thought the Inspector. The traffic moved. Minogue waved to a Guard directing traffic around a Toyota sports car which had taken down a lamp post on its way through the railings in front of a house. A youth with a sullen, pale face and a gash on his forehead sat in the back seat of the squad car. Joyriders, Minogue guessed. Were others hurt? The Guard was talking to himself and frowning. He didn’t wave back to Minogue.

  The Inspector stopped in Donnybrook and quickly settled on a bottle of wine to celebrate the beginning of his break from work. Couldn’t be worse than the bottle of home-made plonk that Iseult’s boyfriend, Pat, had opened for dinner last week, the red stuff with the homemade label “Banshee.” Kathleen was on the phone when he turned the key in the hall door. “Maura,” she mouthed at him. “Matt’s just in the door,” she said. “Yes, that’s the job, come and go as you like…”

  She handed the receiver to her husband. He exchanged it for the bottle of wine and raised his eyebrows. Kathleen shook her head.

  “Down in the dumps again,” she whispered. “I told her we’d be down for sure tomorrow.”

  Minogue tried to hide his irritation. He picked up one of the bars of chocolate that Kathleen had lined up for the Hallowe’en callers tonight.

  “Hello, Maura, and how are you all below?”

  “Hello, Matt. Arra you know how it is. We’re nearly swimming. The Stone Fields and Durrus are under water these three weeks. It’s fish we should be farming.”

  A name for every field and ditch, Minogue remembered. He had his nail under the wrapper now.

  “Was it ever any other way, Maura love?” he tried. The foil slid up under his thumb and chocolate showed. “And how’s Mick?”

  “Well enough now. The joints are bad with him in the morning, what with the weather and the time of year. And of course there’s the age. Like they say, closer to the wood. There’s no avoiding that, is there? God has His own plans.”

  “We’ll be down by tea-time tomorrow, Maura. Make sure you have a pack of cards in the house and a bit of meat.” Kathleen laughed, at his pronunciation of meat as mate, he believed.

  “God, Matt, you’re a caution. But listen now. I phoned for a reason. It’s to tell you or Kathleen that there’s an envelope of stuff here for you. It’s from Mr Crossan, the man we talked to about Eoin’s predicament there…and he gave us the best advice. Very nice man, but his own way about things. Maybe you know him, do you?”

  “The barrister Crossan?” He recalled seeing or hearing the name somewhere. Yes, with one of Kilmartin’s cronies, that was it. Grumbling about Crossan demolishing some case brought against an IRA man.

  “The very one. It was his work that got the charges dropped against Eoin the next day.”

  Maura’s voice dropped lower. Minogue imagined her shielding her words from someone passing in the hall, Mick most likely,

  “Well, it came up in the course of a chat that you were a Guard, and, of course, in no time at all he knew your exact department. Very interested he was and all. Well, Matt, I don’t know how I should put this to you, I’m not much good at this…”

  Minogue sensed the awkwardness betokened some transaction in the rural commerce of obligations felt and favours returned. He could feel Maura’s nervousness, the effort it had taken her to tell him, and his irritation disappeared.

  “I’m not the sworn enemy of the legal profession, Maura. Officially, at any rate. What’s Crossan about here now?”

  Her voice was almost a whisper now.

  “He mentioned the name Jamesy Bourke to me. Do you remember him?”

  “Bourkes out by Kilrannagh? Wasn’t there some trouble with them years ago?”

  “That’s them. Jamesy’s the only one left. He was in prison these years. He only got out a few months ago and he’s living up above in the mother’s place since. It’s only a shed really. Walks the roads like Methuselah with the beard and a big stick he carries. Talks to no one except himself or his dog. They say he went cracked in prison. The locals’re afraid of him too.”

  “Do you recall what he ended up in prison for?”

  Maura’s reply came in a whisper. “He murdered a girl.”

  Minogue placed the chocolate on his tongue.

  “And that’s what Crossan wants to get in touch with me about?”

  “Well, to make a long story short. Mr Crossan had left an envelope about it with me a week ago so’s I’d give it to you and you coming down. But he phoned today, asking would you be down soon-”

  “Was he, em, in some class of a hurry with this, er…?”

  She paused before replying. “Well, Matt, now he didn’t say as much, but…I think so. But if it’s any trouble to you, don’t have anything to do with it. I told Mr Crossan that you were a very busy-”

  Minogue thought of her laughter, her radiant smile, the hospitality she had showered on them over the years. She and Kathleen had grown to be like sisters.

  “Ah, you’re all right there, Maura, oul’ stock,” he said. “Don’t be worrying. Keep that thing out of the floods you have and give it to me tomorrow evening.”

  “God bless, Matt!”

  Kathleen watched her husband unwrap another chocolate.

  “Leave a few for the children, can’t you.”

  He rolled the foil into a ball, placed it on the telephone table and began flicking it about.

  “Did you know anything about that?” he asked.

  “The barrister fella? Yes I did. If you want my opinion, he put her in a corner. If I meet him, I’ll tell him to his face, too. They’re all the same, that mob.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “‘The best in the county, Mr Crossan,’ Maura tells me. Of course she went straight to his office in Ennis when Eoin was arrested. She would have sold the bloody farm if that was what it’d take to get Eoin out. As it turned out, this Crossan wouldn’t take any money from her.”

  “So why are you dropping rocks on him?”

  “I maintain that he knew all along that Maura was related to you and that he knew she’d feel under the obligation to him. That way she’d put him in touch with you. That’s the way country people are.”

  “Tell me more about country people, Kathleen.”

  Kathleen didn’t take the bait but examined her nails instead.

  “Probably knew they were hard up for money as it was. Probably has some dirty work for a client that’s willing to pay him buckets of money.” She looked up from her nails. “Wants something under the table from you, no doubt,” she declared.

  An IRA lawyer, Minogue reflected again, or so described by a disgruntled senior Garda friend of Kilmartin’s. Conniving afoot?

  “Maybe I should give him a well-aimed kick so,” said Minogue. He reached for another chocolate. “And tell him it’s from you.”

  The shot cracked in the dusk like a branch snapping. He laughed and lowered
the gun.

  “There’s a grand kick off this,” he said. “Not too much, and not too little.”

  “Jesus Christ, Finbarr!” shouted the other man. “Don’t be such a fucking iijit! What the hell do you want to be doing that for?”

  “You’ve had your bit of fun for the day. Why can’t I have mine?”

  The other man, a little taller than the one with the pistol now dangling loosely at the ends of his fingers, bit back a retort. He swung the stock of the machine pistol back and stuck it in his armpit. Too short. Not meant to rest there? He stood up and slung the strap over his head before returning the stock to his armpit. He pulled the strap tight by shoving the gun forward. That’s more like it, he thought. He looked down in the grass by his feet where he had laid the plastic wrap and the ammunition clips which he had been filling.

  “Was it good?” asked Finbarr.

  “Was what good?”

  Merry, heavy-lidded eyes met his. “The ride. Was she good today?”

  “Shut up. I told you before about that.” He pulled the barrel down to feel the strap on his shoulder again. Good, steady. He spread his feet.

  “Only asking.”

  “Don’t ask. Mind your own business.”

  His companion looked down into the bottle. “Very touchy today, aren’t we, Ciaran…darling?”

  The other man ignored the gibe. Finbarr suddenly raised the Browning and loosed off another shot.

  “You stupid fucking yob!” hissed Ciaran. He reached for the pistol but Finbarr turned and held it out of his reach. “Put it away and stop playing with it. Do you think it’s a bloody toy or something? Give it to me!”

  His friend chortled, thumbed the safety and dropped it onto the plastic. He raised the bottle again.

  “Well now, Ciaran. For a man who was supposed to have had a good time there, you seem awful jittery to me.”

  “If I am a bit jittery, it’s because I’ve been watching you swallowing vodka and waving that gun around!”

  He unhitched his gun and laid it carefully next to the pistol. As he stood stretching, he turned on his heels. Around him lay the Burren. Like the last place on earth, he thought. He had worked on the buildings in England for six years until the slump came. This is what he had wanted to come home to? Below him was the cottage they had been gutting and renovating for the new owners. They had been hired by Howard whose company acted as a go-between for the Germans who had bought the place. Do it right, Howard’s foreman had told them, and there’d be plenty more work like it.