by John Brady
Kathleen pursed her lips and shook the book as though to wring more satisfaction from it.
“Why don’t you go back to reading what he sent you in the envelope,” she murmured. “Can’t you always say no to him?”
“Shit,” he whispered. He felt the pliers still in his back pocket as he hunkered down. Be a really stupid thing to be running and drop them and have the bloody Guards find them and trace the tool to them. He drew them out, put them in his jacket pocket and buttoned it.
“What?” said the other man.
“Nothing.”
He had snipped the phone line easily at the gable-end of the house where it came down from the pole. Scurrying back toward the ditch, however, he had slipped in the wet grass. He was angry and embarrassed at looking clumsy. He searched his companion’s face for any sign of a smile. As if he himself had been drinking and deserved a going-over this time-a taste of his own medicine. His companion waited, preoccupied, the gun under his jacket. He patted the pocket to feel the pliers secure now and looked back toward the car they had parked in a recess by the wall. He could just make out the dark strip of its roof.
“Jesus. Pitch-black tonight,” said the one with the gun. His friend was pleased to hear the tension in his voice. No drink on the job tonight. Maybe he was coming around at last.
“That’s because you were looking at the lights in the house. Your eyes’ll get used to it in a while.”
“They’d better…”
“We’re gone inside of a minute now, right?” The other man nodded. “Hold it up near as you can to the sight, remember. There can’t be slack in the strap. Okay?”
“Okay, chief.”
“Otherwise it could fly all over the place or go high.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Shut up with the smart remarks. Have you set it?”
“‘Course I have.”
“Check it-”
“I did fucking check it! Ten times! Give over, can’t you, for Christ’s sake.”
“No closer than about twenty feet now,” the other went on, his voice strained with the effort to remain patient. “I don’t want you hitting anyone in there. That’s not the idea.”
“I heard you the first time,” snapped the one with the gun. “Wouldn’t want the little man to be getting hurt now, would we?”
He took the gun out from under his jacket, shouldered the strap and stood up.
“Just let me get on with it, for fuck’s sakes! Go on back to the car, you.”
The curtains were drawn in both lighted windows. The gunman looked back down at his companion.
“Go on, fuck you! Don’t be worrying! Git!”
The other moved off reluctantly. He reached the wall and looked back toward the house. Then he cleared the wall and got into the car. It took enormous effort to control his urge to stay by the wall and make sure his companion wasn’t screwing up. Both windows in the Escort were rolled down. He stuck his head out and looked up at the sky. A patch of stars had appeared. He looked across the passenger side then. No sound. Christ, he had screwed up. He looked at his watch and the jolt of fright beat hard in his chest. Four minutes already. Lonely as the place was, a car could come by. He mentally reviewed the way home and tested his night vision by staring at the outlines of the walls. He knew he’d have to drive up to a mile with the lights off, and smartly too.
Jesus, do it, or get to hell out of there! He swore and slapped the passenger seat. He was about to get out and head for the cottage when he heard the hammering stutter of the gun. His heart leapt. Not too loud, he thought with relief. Glass tinkled and what sounded like a ricochet followed. The silence after the shots seemed even deeper. He strained to hear running feet. The burst had been about two seconds. He hadn’t given in to the temptation to be a cowboy about it. The gunman came over the wall wide-eyed, his teeth showing. The driver had the door pushed open. The gun clattered against the door and the chortling man fell into the seat, breathing hard. The driver had the engine started. He let in the clutch and moved smoothly away onto the dark road.
“Make sure the safety’s on.”
“I did it already before I headed back,” the other whispered breathlessly, and began giggling. He fought to get his breath back as it turned to laughter. “Just after you went, the light in the jacks went on. Here’s me chance, I said to meself!”
He paused to laugh again.
“Keep it down!” said the driver, his eyes boring into the darkness ahead.
“I gave him a few seconds to get the trousers down-ha ha ha-and then I gave him the surprise of his life, so I did. Oh, Jases, such timing! Perfect!”
“You didn’t shoot in the window of the jacks, did you?”
He wanted to clatter his companion but he couldn’t take his eyes from the road.
“No, I didn’t! Don’t be getting yourself in a state. I went for the living room. But you can imagine the state your man is in now, ha ha ha…!”
He laughed again and couldn’t seem to regain control. The driver smiled. His passenger drew up his knees and panted, helpless with laughter. Relief, he knew, must have been very tense, of course, he must have been. He’d done all right-they’d done all right.
“All right, all right,” he said. Ahead he could make out the coast road. “Don’t get carried away now. Let’s drop it off.” He nodded toward the submachine gun resting in the passenger’s lap.
The gunman turned suddenly calm and his eyes grew wide again.
“That’s some gun, that,” he said with whispered fervour. “It’s the best fucking thing since-”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“What are you fretting about? We did great. Don’t be fretting, for Jases’-”
“I’ll fret if I fucking want to!”
The sudden return of his anger surprised the driver. He immediately tried to lighten it.
“Someone needs to fret about you, you bollocks,” he murmured.
His passenger folded the stock and laughed. The driver turned the headlights on and sped up.
“Sounds to me like you need another bit of how’s-your-father… Wouldn’t you try a pint or something instead?”
The driver felt some relief taking the place of his anxiety. Why get annoyed now?
“Are you buying, is it, for a change?”
“And fuck you too,” grinned the passenger, and he slapped the driver hard on the thigh.
CHAPTER THREE
Minogue awoke early to the sounds from the yard. It was seven. He must have fallen asleep immediately last night. He did not try to get back to sleep but lay still for ten minutes, the eiderdown up to his nose. Faint dawn light brought depth to the forms in the room, sharpening the corners and picture frames. He listened to the rhythmic humming suction of the milking machine before he tiptoed into the hall. Maura was setting the table. She smiled at him and went to crack eggs into a bowl. He wondered if she had slept at all. “Howaryou, Matt?” she whispered. “Are you good?”
“Powerful,” he said. He put on his coat. “The air here is mighty.”
“There’s spare wellies there,” said Maura. “They’d be a fit.” He slid into them and stepped out into the yard. A bright dawn was soaking in between the hedges on Drumore Hill. The sky was clear and sharp, and Minogue rubbed his hands against the chill. His eye caught the silver edges in the yard, the ruts and holes where water had frozen. Mick was watching his son moving cattle through the milking parlour. He nodded to his brother.
“The happy lot of the farmer,” Minogue tried. “At one with nature and her bounty.”
“My eye,” grunted Mick.
The brothers watched Eoin washing teats. Minogue helped Eoin move cattle out until he received a tail flicked across his face for his troubles.
“God, these are very boisterous creatures,” said Minogue. “Are you sure they’re not goats?”
Mick shook his head but did not reply. Eoin wore a frown of concentration as he moved about between the cows. Minogue blew into his hands and wa
tched his breath vapour and trail off in the morning air. A sudden shaft of light struck at the side of his head, the sun cresting over the shed across from the milking parlour.
“Fresh,” said Minogue. He turned to his brother. “Aren’t you cold?”
“If and I am, I can’t feel it,” replied Mick. His hands came out of his pockets. “I might as well have bits of stick on the ends of these arms this morning.”
Minogue held back from words of encouragement, knowing that his brother would hear them as pity. The sun blazed in the doorway now. The glare caught the nap on a cow’s rump and outlined every hair. He looked around the parlour again and smelled the milk and the dung and the straw and the sweetness in the cows’ breath. What the hell more can I do that I’m not already doing, he thought. He walked to the doorway to get some sun.
Two cars were entering the yard. One stopped within feet of the milking parlour, the other by the back door of the house. Minogue tried to shield his eyes but the low sun blinded him. He knew the cars for what they were when he saw the antennae still quivering after the engines were shut off. A young Guard with a crew cut and a long bony nose with a kink in it was out of the car quickly. Another in a soft leather jacket followed him from the passenger side. Minogue stepped out of the sunlight to see the farmhouse better. Two other men were gone in the door of the house.
“Lookit,” Minogue began. “There’s only the woman of the house and my-”
The Guard with the long nose brushed by him. The other stared at Minogue and stood to the other side of the doorway. The Inspector made for the doorway but Leather Jacket stepped in front of him. He heard running footsteps in the yard. Another Guard, a curly-headed older man with a pepper-and-salt moustache and a bomber-jacket, entered.
“He’s out here, all right,” he said, with barely a glance at Minogue. “Who are these fellas?”
“Who are you?” Minogue asked.
The one with the moustache looked at Minogue and then beyond him.
“Down here,” said Crew Cut. “Him and the da.”
“What the hell are ye doing?” Mick Minogue began.
“Take the da and this fella out to the house,” said Moustache. “Or sit one of them in the car.”
Minogue started to follow Moustache down to where Eoin was standing. He had gotten two steps before his arm was pinned. He was down on his knees with his head twisted in a lock when the shouting began. He too tried to shout but the Guard’s arm covered his mouth. Minogue inhaled the leathery scent from the arm over his face.
“This one’s trouble,” the Guard called out.
Minogue’s mind flared with the sharp pain as his arm was pushed farther back.
“What the hell are ye about?” Mick was bellowing.
“Keep off now,” said Moustache. He and the other detective closed on Eoin. Minogue heard more footsteps behind him.
“Lace him up,” said the Guard holding him. “The oul’ lad might be throwing shapes here in a minute.”
With the headlock released, Minogue bent forward to ease the armhold. His other arm was grabbed and he heard the soft clicks as the plastic restrainers were cinched home.
“Bloody gangsters, the lot of ye!” Mick shouted. Eoin’s eyes darted from one Guard to the other.
“Shut up,” said Moustache. The Guard who had been holding Minogue stepped by him and faced Mick. Eoin had a pitchfork in his hand. The Guard in the leather jacket drew a pistol from under his jacket and held it at arm’s length, pointing it at Eoin.
“Eoin!” Minogue shouted. The cattle began lowing and stamping their feet as they jerked at the chains. “Leave it down, Eoin!”
One of the cattle began kicking at the bars. The milking machine droned on: sum-sum, sum-sum. Eoin dropped the fork and the Guards were on him.
“Jases,” Minogue heard the Guard with the gun mutter. He realised that he was still on his knees.
“Get up and let’s have a look at you,” said the Guard. He slid the pistol under his arm and pulled Minogue by the armpit. “You’re not here to help your man here pike hay, are you?”
Minogue turned to face him. He was a stocky, tired-looking man in his late thirties. His hair had receded to a point directly over his ears. His breath smelled of cigarettes. He narrowed his eyes as he searched Minogue’s face. Minogue watched the surprise roll down his face until his mouth opened.
“Divine Jases,” said the Guard and he looked over Minogue’s shoulder at his colleagues. “This is what’s-his-name. Up in Dublin. I done a stint, a training thing with the fingerprint section in the Bureau up in Dublin.” His eyes returned to Minogue’s. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? One of us, I mean.”
Cuddy shook his head again and scratched at his scalp. Minogue sipped at his mug of tea. Cuddy lit another cigarette. He breathed out the smoke and used the spent match to poke at the other butts in the ashtray. Cuddy was a sergeant in the Special Branch. He had driven in from Limerick just after midnight.
“All right,” he said in the middle of another yawn. “Point taken. But this isn’t Dublin where help is thirty seconds away.”
Minogue pinned him with a glare.
“No offence now,” said Cuddy. “Oh no.” He placed the cigarette between his lips to free his hands. “But look at it from our point of view.”
He began counting on his fingers, pausing to grasp each finger for several moments. “Three ton of stuff from Libya dug up out of the dunes there in near Bracagh over the summer. Semtex. Thirty-odd assault rifles.”
He drew on his cigarette to give Minogue pause to look impressed. He feigned an earnestness which Minogue knew was not native to the man.
“And that siege with your man last year. Jesus,” he whispered. “Lawlor, the madman on the run for six years. Three solid days and three nights of shooting.”
Minogue nodded. Cuddy dug his elbows into the armrests and sloped forward in the chair, one eye half-closed as a shield against the ribbon of smoke rising from his lap.
“None of them come quiet anymore. Can you blame Reilly for using the hardware there?”
Minogue remained unconvinced. Cuddy rallied for more.
“While ago, in Feakle, we got a call there was shots up in a quarry near the town. There was a vanload of us left Limerick and a squad combing the place inside of ninety minutes that night. Nothing, of course. You can’t be taking chances.”
“But these arms dumps are for the North,” Minogue said. “And you know that. You read the same circulars as I do.”
Cuddy cocked a bloodshot eye at this Inspector down from Dublin.
“Fair enough,” he conceded. “Then how come we have a gun in the back of your nephew’s car?”
“He had no knowledge of what his pal had in that bag. And you know that.”
“With all due respect to you and yours now, your nephew has a mouth on him. It’s bad manners to be giving speeches about politics and constitutional rights to Guards who have been shot at.”
Minogue weighed a retort but decided to hold back.
“Anyway,” Cuddy continued, “the IRA has handed out guns locally, that’s plain to see. That’s what has us going in hard first time out. Can you blame us, I mean to say?”
Minogue couldn’t. He had watched the detectives shambling back to their cars where they now sat while Cuddy held this pow-wow. Maura had vacated the kitchen, her departure punctuated by the sharp thud of a pot of tea on the table between the two policemen. Minogue had liked what he had heard as Maura went back down the hall. She had stood up to her husband and didn’t care who heard her tell him to whisht and let the Gardai settle it.
“When did all this happen again?”
“Just around the eleven o’clock mark,” replied Cuddy. “One burst of shots-faster than an automatic, awful like what we took away from your nephew’s car, the way it was described-”
“Give over with that now,” Minogue waded in. “That’s Make-My-Day Delahunty’s style of management. This national sport of jumping to conclusi
ons’s turning into a blood sport.”
“The shots came in the windows high up, as if to say they were warning shots. Phone line cut, nice and neat. This fella is kicking up murder. Spillner. He’s a big shot. It’s a damn sight different than knifing tyres and painting slogans on the walls.”
“It is that,” Minogue allowed.
Cuddy killed the butt conclusively, looking down his nose as though he were putting a fallen housefly out of its misery. He spoke in a monotone now.
“If the IRA is into this kind of a stunt so as to scare off tourist money here, it’s news to me. That’s all I can say at this stage. It’d get the headlines, let me tell you, and easy enough done too: a few forays at night, a bit of shooting. Millions of pounds frightened out of the country. The likes of yourself or myself might not like some German buying up houses here, but the law is the law and the EC is the religion of the day. We have to chase fellas and kick them around for the sake of some continental you or I wouldn’t give the time of day to ordinarily.”
Cuddy’s face had lapsed into an openly cynical expression. He issued a rueful smile then and scratched the back of his neck. Minogue recalled Spillner smiling, clapping to the music in the pub.
“We wouldn’t want to have to consult you in your official capacity if things get out of hand here and some bloody holiday-maker gets himself plugged one night in his cottage. Cottage?” He snorted and threw his head back momentarily. “What am I saying, cottage? Bloody palace he has. You should see it, I’m telling you. ‘Vy vould zey doo zis to me?’ I heard Spillner saying. Hah. I heard he even speaks a bit of Irish. Sits in the pub soaking up culture. Gas. Him trying to learn Irish, me busy trying to forget mine. They have more respect than we do ourselves, I’ll tell you that. Culture and stuff, I mean.”
“They’re welcome to soak up what they can,” said Minogue. “I keep on hearing how we have so much of it to spare.”
“Ah, there’s a Clareman talking,” said Cuddy. “You Clare crowd have all your high kings and fairies, but it’s far from palaces the likes of us in Leitrim were reared. I’ll be seeing you.”
