All souls imm-4

by John Brady

  Kilmartin lit his cigarette. It was time, Minogue decided.

  “By the way. Bumped into Tynan the other day.”

  Kilmartin turned around one-eyed through the smoke. He stared at his colleague.

  “Told me he’d pay us a visit,” Minogue added. “To, em, throw a few ideas around.”

  “You don’t say, now. Tell him, if it’s not too much trouble, to throw his ideas out the shagging window, would you? They’re giving me heartburn.”

  “I’ll see what he has in mind, I suppose, later on sometime.”

  “Sometime? Jesus Christ, Matty, don’t pretend it was the dog that farted! Ever so sly, you drop this in my lap. What the hell does Tynan want? Come on now!”

  Minogue shrugged and looked back into Kilmartin’s stony glare.

  “Wait a minute there, you. Whoa right there. What are you trying to tell me? That there’s some connection between Hoey making a gobshite out of himself and Tynan’s blackguarding? Call a spade a spade, man!”

  Minogue looked Kilmartin up and down before reaching into the cache of phrases he had built up over the years to deal with the likes of James Kilmartin. He allowed his eyes to open wide and he spoke in a whisper.

  “Good God, Jim, what sort of man do you think I am?”

  Kilmartin put his hands up.

  “Oh, Christ, will you listen to that? Oi! Don’t piss on my shoes and then tell me it’s raining. Why did you wait until now to tell me that Tynan’s on the prowl our way? Is this what loyalty means to you? That you’ll run to Tynan if I don’t cover for Hoey here?”

  Fully inflated now, the Chief Inspector disdained further words. He shook his head in disgust as he moved around the office. Minogue wondered if Eilis were recording all this.

  “You’ve known me long enough, bucko,” Kilmartin resumed in a low growl. “I’m surprised at you. I eat threats and then I spit them out.”

  “I sort of thought it’d be nice to, you know, get an idea of what’s on Tynan’s mind.”

  Kilmartin spun on his heel.

  “What the hell does that mean? Aren’t you in here to con me into something for Hoey?”

  “You know Tynan’s under pressure to disperse us, Jim.”

  “Thanks for the tip there, Sherlock. Tell me something I don’t know. Tynan’s top dog, in case you didn’t know. He tells us all when to jump. Frigging Tynan. What’s his thing, Tynan? Jesus, I still can’t get a fix on him. The bastard.”

  Kilmartin stopped by the window. The two policemen fell to watching this patch of the world.

  “Listen, Matt,” Kilmartin said at last. “I’m not questioning your motives. You’re saying to me keep Hoey aboard or else-”

  “-it’s not-”

  “Shut up. I know what you’re saying better than you seem to. I’m saying to you that I’ll weigh things in the balance as I decide. Like the quality of the job you do on Tynan.”

  “What job exactly?”

  “You know what I mean. Get Tynan off my back. The Squad’s back. Maybe he doesn’t believe me when I tell him. You try it. Tell him the Guards down the country would make a pig’s mickey of a murder investigation. Tell him. Show him.”

  For an instant, Minogue saw Bourke’s shadowed face in the sun outside the hotel in Ennis. He watched Kilmartin grinding his cigarette into the ashtray.

  “I’m going to look around in the files,” he said, and rose from the chair. “Pretend I’m not here.”

  Minogue didn’t need to look away from the riot of sunshine to know that Kilmartin’s face was telling him he wished that were indeed so.

  Fifteen minutes later, Kilmartin stopped by Minogue. The Inspector stayed on his hunkers by the filing cabinet, ignoring Kilmartin for the most part.

  “What are you looking for? I probably know it already.”

  “Negative, Jimmy. Remember, I’m not here.”

  Minogue’s eyes darted to the thumbed-back folder as his fingers dawdled through the files. He held the folder with his left hand and reached in with his right to turn back the tag.

  “Bingo,” he whispered.

  Kilmartin was lighting a tigarillo. Minogue reached down, loosened the folder from the press of its neighbours and stood up. He kicked the drawer shut while Kilmartin blew gusts of smoke toward the ceiling. Minogue cleared a path through the smoke with his free hand.

  “Well, seeing as there’s nobody here,” said Kilmartin.

  Minogue guessed from the forced tone that Kilmartin had probably squeezed out a sneaky fart.

  “That’s an old file copy, that. Wasn’t our work. Divisional HQ file. What are you looking for?”

  Minogue leaned against a cabinet and scanned the summary of the judgement. As he did, Kilmartin’s bygone fart insinuated itself into his awareness. The Inspector swore under his breath, held his breath and stood.

  “Well?” said Kilmartin, and followed Minogue.

  The Inspector turned on him.

  “Honour of God, Jim, don’t fart in here at least. Show a bit of mercy, man.”

  Kilmartin leered around his cigar.

  “Tell me what you’re up to, so.”

  “This case here. I just wanted to look over the summary.”

  “To what end, Mr Trick-of-the-Loop?”

  “Maybe the Tynan one,” Minogue murmured. “Eventually. A long shot.”

  He sat down and flicked slowly through the photocopies. He jotted the names down as he came across them. Dan Howard, Sheila Hanratty, Garda Tom Naughton. Sergeant Raymond Doyle, sergeant in the station in Portaree. The Coroner’s certificate presented at trial, autopsy performed by Dr J. Marum of Galway city, author not called.

  Kilmartin blew a smoke-ring across the desk at Minogue.

  “Jimmy, here’s a case that we never had a hand in. Not even consultancy that I can see.”

  Kilmartin blew another ring. “Maybe there wasn’t an unlawful killing involved.”

  Minogue ignored the sarcasm.

  “Didn’t you hear me telling you that it’s an old file copy?” Kilmartin went on. “Wherever it came from was all Divisional work. That’s before your time here. Ancient history.”

  “A girl killed in a house fire near Portaree, County Clare. Convicted for manslaughter, received a life sentence-”

  “A life sentence? Sounds tough. Are you sure?”

  “-James Bourke. No participation by the Squad.”

  “You said that already. That’s back in the time of the Rood, man. A lot of stuff wasn’t in place and coordinated back then, as I recall.” Another well-formed ring emanated from Kilmartin.

  “Common enough then,” Minogue went on, “to let the local Guards dispose of a murder case?”

  “Christ on Calvary hill, man, don’t you be listening to me at all around here? That’s what I keep on banging me head against the wall about trying to convince the powers that be, every time the bloody topic of ‘decentralisation’ comes up the shagging pipe from some crank Super in frigging Ballygobackwards. Things have improved since then, we all know that, but the same thing could conceivably happen in the morning.” Kilmartin paused and puffed on his cigar.

  “ ‘Conceivably,’” said Minogue.

  “Shut up a minute,” suggested the Chief Inspector. “Such was done, that I can say. And several times there was an almighty pig’s mickey made of things, let me tell you. Do you remember the case of that young fella killing the married woman, the Shaughnessy thing in Cork? He nearly walked the first day of the trial on account of know-it-alls in Mallow that decided they could handle everything. They made a bollocks of it. Lost half their evidence when some bloody barrister fresh out of school in his robes drove a coach and horses through the exhibits.”

  Kilmartin perched on the edge of his desk and leaned in over Minogue. “Christ, tell that one to Tynan if he gives you the chance. Don’t you remember that one? Jesus wept, man. Some of the exhibits were kept in a drawer along with first-aid stuff and leftover egg sandwiches. Stuff wasn’t even catalogued! And then the fella who a
ttended the PM got sick and left the room for a half an hour, bejases, so the defence nearly put it over that the Guards didn’t even have consistent control over the bloody corpse to be sure of cause of death! Such a mess! Comical.”

  “I had a conversation with a barrister below in Ennis-”

  “Your time is your own to waste, man. It’s a free country.”

  “-and what he recalled of the thing is true so far. According to him, the whole thing deserves a good scrutiny at the very least.”

  “A good scrutiny indeed,” Kilmartin whinnied. “Sue us, then. The bollocks.”

  “Sue the Guards in Portaree and in Ennis, you mean.”

  “But maybe they had an open-and-shut case then. Christ, maybe the local Guards actually got it right for once and someone’s taking you for a gom, pal.”

  “Count in the last ten years the number of murder cases which didn’t have our involvement.”

  “It’s not statutory procedure that we invade every town and village in Ireland when there’s a murder,” said Kilmartin. “I’ve seen murder cases put to rest with a coroner’s inquest. But if you think any case was made a bollocks of, or hushed up… Far be it from me, etcetera.”

  Minogue flipped the folder shut. The pungent staleness of the papers lodged in his nose.

  “The fella who was convicted, he’s back on the streets. I saw him.”

  Kilmartin put on a biddable expression.

  “Look, now. If you’re fishing for prime examples of Guards down the country making iijits of themselves when the Squad is not called in, you should find something more recent to feed Monsignor Tynan with. I’m all for that.”

  Minogue looked at his watch. Hoey’d be finished by now. He stood up.

  “Here, lookit,” Kilmartin said brightly. “Are you planning to kill someone below in Clare, yourself? And then close the case in record time to make headlines? Public relations, like? What about the potshots they’re taking at the tourist cottages down there?”

  “You’re a laugh a minute, James,” said Minogue, barely listening.

  Something remained just outside his grasp as he sat there. Kilmartin issued smoke-rings indolently into the squad room. Minogue’s eyes began to smart from the smoke that now hovered in layers around him. He looked up at his tormentor and friend. Up, he decided. Out of here to get Shea Hoey. He rose and picked up the file.

  “Tell me something. Are the records for sittings of the Central Criminal Court from, say, more than ten years back or so still kept in paper?”

  “The books of evidence, yes,” Kilmartin declared. “The summaries of judgements, yes. You know yourself that transcripts are typed up in full only if there’s an appeal launched-and only then if it’s not ab initio.”

  “ Ab inito?”

  “Will I turn that into normal conversation for you? It means you throw the old trial out completely and start from scratch again. That’s what it means.”

  “I didn’t know you spoke Latin.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, jack. I could nearly say the whole Mass in Latin. Yes I could, by God. Memory is a very odd thing, the way it all comes back to you after I don’t know how many years. I remember the whole thing nearabouts. The whole mass.”

  “I should ask you to say it, so.”

  “Huh. A lot you’d know about going to Mass. I’ll tell you this: you could find out a lot more that’d surprise you, if you try to give me the shitty end of the stick with this, this…whatever bollicking around you’re going to do between Hoey and Tynan.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind now, James.” He waved the file at Kilmartin.

  “Watch your back, that’s my advice,” Kilmartin called out. “And keep your eye on the ball.”

  Did he mean Tynan? Hoey? Crossan? Minogue rolled his eyes at Eilis as he hurried out into the sunlit morning outside.

  Minogue caught sight of Hoey immediately he turned the corner by the National Gallery. He stopped behind a lamp post to observe him. Hoey was leaning against the lip of a water trough set into a monument opposite the Gallery. Sunlight filtered through the branches hanging over the railings of Merrion Square. Very occasionally, a leaf fell to the footpath, unhurried by the passage of the constant traffic on Merrion Row.

  Framing Hoey with its tired splendour was a memorial fountain erected two centuries ago to the Duke of Rutland. Dublin’s coal-smoke winters had rendered most of the cornice moulding and the edges of the pilasters above Hoey indistinct. It had been over a century since either lion’s head had spewed water into the troughs. Minogue had been used to seeing down-and-outs lying on the stone benches at the foot of the monument. He watched Hoey watching a couple as they marched by arm in arm and kicking at the leaves. His features were tight and drawn as though a wind unknown to others on the same street was blowing dust into his face. The Inspector took a deep breath, put on a smile and skipped across the street. Hoey watched him approach.

  Minogue gained the broad footpath, and the stone mass loomed over him. Hoey stood on his cigarette and shoved his hands into his pockets. Minogue glanced up at the monument. Sculpted stone panels that had contained figures in mourning were incomplete. Other sorrowing figures in Roman dress were missing heads; supplicating arms had broken off at the forearms. Noble death in classical relief, Minogue thought. And here’s Hoey, a round-shouldered and pasty-faced survivor in a creased coat, looking small and defeated. Minogue’s stomach went wormy and the fake smile began to lock his jaws.

  Hoey nodded and looked to a passing bus. Minogue nodded back but could think of nothing to say.

  “Well,” he tried at last. “Let’s pick up some stuff from your place and put it in the car. Then we don’t have to be chasing wardrobes around the town.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Stay at our place awhile, Shea.”

  “Well…”

  He smiled witlessly at Hoey and shrugged. Hoey’s suspicious squint lasted several seconds. Minogue looked around at the trees and waited. He thought of Hoey at his desk, tired, smoking while he did the work he was best at, organising evidence. Tagging, notating, receipting, filing-preserving impeccable chains of evidence for the State case. Minogue worked well with him, believing that, like himself, Hoey could let his thoughts become still when he needed to. Methodical and routine but acutely sensitive to nuances at a scene, Hoey instinctively absorbed details. Minogue knew that his colleague left those details in suspension while he waited and then coaxed the impressions and facts into some trajectory as he felt their gravitational pull stronger. Hoey was sizing him up.

  “Come on, Shea. I have the car parked down in Nassau Street.”

  Hoey began to say something but Minogue was gone. Hoey caught up with him.

  “Your man says hello, by the way,” Hoey said.

  “Herlighy? Great.”

  Minogue kept striding down Nassau Street. Part of him observed the passing faces, the doors, the signs and traffic, the commonplace mysteries of his city. Its every detail seemed too sharply present in the November sunlight. His mind went to Ennis, Bourke’s eyes in shadow outside the Old Ground Hotel. Maybe today Bourke was standing across from Howard’s constituency office. Crossan’s wryly chiding words about forgetting to do his devotions for All Souls, to hang his cloth by the holy wells for a cure, came to him then: there are no ghosts in Dublin?

  “Are you going to see Herlighy again?” he heard himself ask Hoey.

  Hoey stopped and lit a cigarette. Minogue watched him exhale and look away down the street.

  “I will, I suppose.”

  “Good. After we get set up in the clothing and toothbrush line, what do you say to going wall-eyed looking at a microfiche?”

  Hoey kept his stare on the railings of Trinity College ahead. Minogue recalled that a car bomb had gone off by this part of Trinity’s wall, killing seven or eight people. Wasn’t one of them a child? The wall and the railings had withstood the blast, but scars remained gouged into the limestone.

  “A micr
ofiche of what?”

  “Has to do with a thing down in Clare years ago. Newspaper reports. Sort of dabble in the archaeology business a bit. What do you think?”

  Hoey’s one-eyed gaze wandered past Minogue’s. It settled on the far end of the street where sunlight cannonaded out of the mouth of Grafton Street, a golden vision that seemed unattached to the rest of Dublin city.

  “Ow!”

  “What?”

  The one with the ear-ring took his thumb out of his mouth.

  “That big stone I dropped on me thumb the other day. I don’t know if it needs looking at. Ow!”

  The driver was about to look over when he saw the figure step out from the hedge.

  “Jesus.”

  In the gloom ahead he saw the cars parked tight in to the hedge. A Guard wearing a reflective waistcoat stepped out into the middle of the road.

  “Don’t get all panicky,” hissed the passenger. “There’s nothing we have to worry about.”

  The driver rolled down the window. To his right he saw movement in a gap in the hedge. There were two men in the ditch. They held submachine pistols close to their sides.

  “Howiya,” the driver called out. The Guard was young, and he wore a flak jacket under the fluorescent green waistcoat. The driver remembered him from a checkpoint by Rannagh a few days ago. He looked cold.

  “Lads,” the Guard called out. He stood on tiptoe looking through the open window. “Are ye done for the day?”

  “We jacked it in for the day, all right,” said the driver. “Had enough battering stones and pouring cement.”

  “Open up the back and I’ll take a look,” said the Guard.

  “Fire away,” said the driver.

  Driver and passenger turned in their seats to watch the door swinging up. A plainclothes Guard joined the one in uniform. A flashlight was snapped on.

  “Are ye nearly done with it?” the Guard said.

  “Another couple of weeks and we’ll be out,” the driver replied. “A palace entirely.”

  “Good work being done, is there?”

  “Only the best.”

  The plainclothes Guard seemed to deliberate about going around to the other door. He shrugged and looked in at the two.