All souls imm-4

by John Brady

  Howard chortled.

  “You still have your wits about you anyway. But I’m sure part of the plan might be to have the likes of me close shop and hide up in Dublin.”

  “Which you may do…?”

  “Hide, no,” Howard murmured. “Stay there awhile, yes. I was going to go up for a few weeks to finish off the sitting anyway. There are bills coming up for final reading and… Well, you know, the hazards of public office, I suppose.”

  “Going back up to Dublin?”

  Howard smiled. “Not that alone. No. I meant shootings. I imagine that Alo wouldn’t be so keen on this side of public life, any more than I am myself.”

  Said so easily, it took Minogue several seconds to realise that the remark had carried a charge of something else. What had he missed?

  “As to…?”

  Howard looked at some point on Minogue’s forehead.

  “You know that Alo has his own plans for public office, I take it.”

  The Inspector felt his cobwebby, morning mind awaken with a sharp stab. He looked again to Howard’s face but all he met with was the fixed look, a stare both sardonic and intent.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that Alo will be running for something. I wondered if you knew. Yes. County Council, I hear. Fine man that he is, Alo may not have considered the kinds of attention we received last night. Very effective way to get national attention, firing off gunshots in the window of the local TD’s house.”

  Howard folded his arms and leaned against the wall.

  “I’m sure someone will be happy to take the credit for last night soon enough. They’ll not be frightening me out of office, I can tell you.”

  Minogue thought of Crossan and felt his resentment grow suddenly large. The detective with the moustache crossed the foyer toward them just as a young man in a leather jacket came through the door of the hotel. Howard’s smile turned into a grin.

  “Thanks be to the hand of God,” he murmured. “Tom Neilon from The Clare Champion. The press is here-we’re saved. I’ll see you again?”

  Minogue stood aside and studied the carpet. His thoughts staggered around, colliding into one another. Was Crossan having him on all this while? He trudged back to the table. Crossan had arrived and was talking to a wary Hoey about horse-racing, something Minogue had never heard Hoey show an interest in before. The lawyer seemed to pick up on Minogue’s mood.

  “Trouble?” asked Crossan.

  Minogue sat down on the edge of the chair and looked beyond Crossan’s shoulder to Sheila Howard. To an innocent eye, she was looking through a newspaper, but Minogue noted her attention directed in her side vision toward his table.

  “That was a hell of a thing last night,” said Hoey to Crossan.

  “Don’t be talking, man,” said Crossan. “It was wild.”

  “It’s hard to imagine that whoever was doing the shooting was actually meaning to kill anybody,” Minogue said in a low voice.

  “How does it change things for us?” Crossan said. “That’s what we need to decide this morning.”

  The Inspector felt the resentment turn to anger as he turned to Crossan.

  “There’s something I just heard which may change our approach, counsellor. Dan Howard said something to me that I wish I’d known before now. Concerns you, counsellor. Or should I say councillor?”

  Minogue gave Crossan the full weight of his stare which, along with the calm tone and expression, had unnerved even the likes of Kilmartin. A screen seemed to come over Crossan’s eyes and his eyelids relaxed a little. He looked down his nose at Minogue.

  “Go ahead, Guard,” he said. “And don’t stint yourself either.”

  “You are interested, involved, planning, intending-whatever-to run for some public office, something in the line of politics, aren’t you?”

  Crossan spoke with light-hearted whimsy. “Well, I thought I might take a run at being a town councillor here in Ennis.” He arched his eyebrows. “Do you think I’d be right for the job, now?”

  “If you’re planning to waltz into public office by dragging people through the mud or, perish the thought, playing trick-of-the-loop with me, I can tell you that-”

  “That I’d be the equal of any of the blackguards in politics at the moment?”

  Hoey folded his arms and studied the sugar bowl.

  “That you’d be a damn sight worse than them,” Minogue retorted. “You won’t be making a monkey out of me en route either, mister.”

  Crossan’s eyes locked on Minogue’s.

  “That’s a very harsh judgement, Your Worship. Rest assured I’ll be launching an immediate appeal.”

  “That’s nothing to what will happen if I find out that you’ve been codding me here.”

  “Don’t be such a gobshite, Minogue!”

  The Inspector leaned forward in his chair.

  “Don’t you be stupid, counsellor,” he retorted. “If I think that you inveigled us down here or concocted bits of information to suit your own ends, all as a way to run the Howards into the ditch because you have some grudges-”

  “Hah! You must be the right gobshite entirely! Do you think I’m interested in making you look stupid while Dan Howard gets dirt on him, is that it?”

  “Declare your interest then,” Minogue growled.

  “I belong to no party. No faction, no jobs-for-the-boys, no backscratchers! No fat-arse gombeens! What I would like to do, you probably wouldn’t understand. But for the record, I plan to go for election to Ennis town council. That way, I can get houses built for poor iijits so that they won’t end up breaking-and-entering and robbing and beating the shite out of one another, and then sloothering up to my door bothering me. I want to be put out of business. So there.”

  Crossan leaned in over the table and pushed aside cups and saucers. Hoey blew smoke out the side of his mouth and blinked at the Inspector. Sheila Howard glanced over as did the detective at the table next to her. Crossan waited until she had returned to her newspaper and then he spoke behind his hands.

  “They’re trying to derail you with this case-”

  “This is not ‘a case,’” Minogue snapped. “And, for that matter, it wouldn’t take much this morning, with you trying to hang some class of a Chappaquiddick around Howard’s neck.”

  “Don’t walk away from it now,” said Crossan.

  “What are we walking away from? Except for finding out that people did stupid things. Guards included.”

  Crossan pointed at the table as if explaining a route on a map.

  “Lookit,” he said, “Jamesy Bourke is dead. Whatever life he had before that was torn away from him by the State. Jane Clark went back to where she came from little more than a bucketful of cinders.”

  “And you want to tar-and-feather the Howards and a few Guards on the head of it?” Minogue asked.

  “Are you going to ignore what we’ve discussed? Bourke’s trial?” Crossan raised his hands. “Can you? Do you think for one minute that I’d sit here telling you this if I didn’t believe in what I was doing?” He looked to Hoey as though he were a judge considering an appeal.

  “Don’t look at me,” Hoey murmured. “I’m from Galway.”

  Crossan turned his attention back to Minogue again. He spat out the words in a harsh whisper.

  “You’re backing away from your own instincts. Covering for your pals beyond in the Garda Station. For all I heard about you, Minogue, now I know you’re a quitter.”

  “Oh, so you did some research, did you, before you put out the bait?”

  “Yes, I did-I freely admit it. It was too good a thing to pass up when your nephew hired me. I began to think you weren’t the common-or-garden cop so then I thought well, this must be meant to happen. The fates had turned kind to Jamesy for once in his bloody existence!” Crossan sat back, his eyes still blazing.

  “But what I had underestimated was the degree to which Guards will cover up for one another.”

  “I do not,” said Minogue
. “So shut up throwing things at me. I have enough lumps on me head from pulling down things off high shelves, things I didn’t know were so damned heavy and awkward when I got the notion to take a look at them.”

  “What is it, then?” Crossan pursued him. “Is it frightened you are after last night?”

  “I think differently about the Howards after last night.” Minogue heard the defensive tone in his own voice. “So I don’t much like you sitting in their house, slashing away at them, in however clever a manner.”

  “Hah,” Crossan growled, and sat back with an expression of disbelief. His eyes widened in glee and he glared at Minogue.

  “You like her nibs, do you?” He nodded toward Sheila Howard but kept his eyes on Minogue. “And the heroic Dan standing steadfast here in outlaw country and won’t be intimidated? Our Clare Camelot, by Christ!”

  Minogue said nothing but returned Crossan’s look with the policeman’s neutral observation of a specimen.

  “Heroes, is it?” Crossan went on. “Well, you wouldn’t be the first to fall under her spell, so you wouldn’t. Dan the man owes half his success to her. Twice the man he’ll ever be. He has the charm and the rest of it but she’s the backbone of the operation. Make no mistake, Minogue. The Howards are going places. ‘She’ll drive Dan to the Park,’ they say here. And that’s his supporters saying that behind their hands, too.”

  A cease-fire arrived in the form of the waitress who began unloading plates. Hoey might be right, the Inspector reflected. Get the hell out of the way of whatever was going to happen in the wake of last night’s shooting. Leave County Clare to the brick-faced gymnasts and ditch-crawlers with their submachine pistols and their souped-up, prowling Granadas.

  “Don’t be rehashing public house gossip about the Howards to me,” Minogue murmured. “The Howards can do what they want.”

  Crossan slouched back in his chair and joined his fingertips under his nose. Now, looking over at Minogue, his searching eyes seemed monstrous. Minogue looked away in exasperation toward the window. For a split second he saw the tall, bearded Bourke and his dog at the wall across the street. He shook his head and blinked. His nerves were more rattled than he had realised. When Crossan spoke again, his voice had taken on the scornful, challenging tone of the courtroom.

  “So tell me what you want to tell me then, and get it over with.”

  Minogue let him hang for several seconds. The same Bourke screaming in his dream last night, the circle of faces gathered around the blazing cottage.

  “I want to eat my breakfast,” he said.

  Crossan rounded on him.

  “So you’ve been put off by Dan Howard putting a flea in your ear then? Or is it because her nibs has put stars in your eyes?”

  There were small trembling shapes in front of Minogue’s eyes when he looked away from the window at Crossan. His chest was swollen with the anger and his arms tingled. Hoey divined his anger and sat forward, closer to the lawyer, staring across at his colleague’s face. Crossan looked away momentarily, then returned to the Inspector’s reddening face. Crossan dropped his knife and fork on the table and reached into his jacket pocket. He drew out an envelope and dropped it in front of Minogue’s plate.

  “What’s this?” he asked. “More snapshots?”

  Crossan didn’t reply.

  Minogue flicked it over and saw that it was addressed to himself. He fingered through a hole in the flap and tore open the letter. The page was a photocopy of what looked like a bill.

  “There are two names on there that you’ll recognise,” said Crossan. “I didn’t anticipate having to give you this so soon, but I’m not going to sit here and fight a losing battle with the pair of ye.”

  Minogue read the name Thomas J. Naughton. Hoey wiped his fingers on the serviette. Minogue handed him the paper.

  “That’s a dividend statement for Naughton. He’s a shareholder in that outfit. Dalcais.”

  “What’s Dalcais?”

  “Dalcais owns four hotels, one folk village and a castle where the Yanks sit down to mediaeval banquets after they are carted off the jumbos down in Shannon.”

  “Put things together then,” Minogue said to Crossan. “Let me hear it from you.”

  “I’m giving you this to catch Naughton on the hop. He might just clam up on you. Naughton was the first Guard to the fire that night, remember. Ask me who owns 53 per cent of Dalcais.”

  “The Howards.”

  “Not bad,” said Crossan.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this last week?”

  “Because I didn’t need to and you didn’t need to know either. It’d prejudice matters.”

  “My God, man, I didn’t know you had such delicate nerves,” said Minogue. “No more shenanigans. What the hell else have you up your sleeve?”

  “I admit that I need ye here to shake up the place. That’s my strategy here. Ye’re Guards, ye’re down from Dublin. We need to shake up the box and see what falls out-”

  “Give us a bit of plain English, man,” Minogue cut in.

  “I told you that I couldn’t find anything in the trial records that’d help Jamesy. And I’m not optimistic that anything can come from a full transcript of the trial either. My only real chance is to put a bit of pressure on people and see what happens.”

  “Damn-all will happen except buckets of trouble if you’re playing us for iijits,” said Minogue.

  “You want a token and you got it,” Crossan resumed in a scoffing tone. “How did I get it and copy it? I tracked down the firm that handles Naughton’s stuff-his will and deeds and the rest of it. I paid a clerk by the name of Margaret Hickey a hundred quid to get me anything on Naughton. Christ, man, that’s the damn prejudice I’m talking about! To hell with Naughton and the rest of them-it’s myself I’m throwing to the wolves here!”

  Minogue glared one-eyed at the lawyer.

  “Now. Are ye still in, or what?”

  “What are you going to do if and when you have to tell anyone how you came by this?” asked Minogue.

  “Do you really need to ask me that? You’re the Garda inspector. The quiet fella here in the corner is taking it all in too. My goose is well and truly cooked now. I have no other tricks for ye. So what do ye say?”

  Minogue poured lukewarm coffee from the jug and tried to think. The most he could do was dither. Crossan had taken a big risk handing him this paper and telling him in front of Hoey what he had done. And yet it could lead into another cul-de-sac. Wasn’t Naughton entitled to buy and sell any damned shares he wanted? Couldn’t he sink his money into any investment he might have heard about during his years in Ennis? Like nuns, teachers and publicans, Guards were notoriously cute with their money.

  Minogue looked at the photocopy again.

  “How long has he been receiving dividends?”

  Crossan shook his head. “I could find out but I’d be digging me grave deeper. Listen. I was looking for where to put some pressure. Any weak point. Naughton had the name of being an alcoholic, but he had it well under wraps. Didn’t you ever meet an alcoholic that kept at it for years and years, hail-fellow-well-met? Could do his job and turn up every day but had his bottle hidden above the cistern in the jacks, hah?”

  To his side Hoey blinked and froze. Minogue nodded.

  “Well, Naughton was one but he didn’t drink all his money by the looks of that. It’s not a fortune by any means, but it’d pad out a pension into real comfort. I’m still waiting for your answer.”

  Minogue glanced at Hoey.

  “We’ll proceed with Naughton in Limerick this morning,” he said.

  Crossan’s face seemed to lift as Hoey’s frown descended. The barrister flipped his wrist over and drew his cuff back from his watch.

  “It’ll take you until dinner-time if you go to Limerick right now. I even have Naughton’s address here. Find out from him-”

  “What do you think we should be finding?” Hoey asked.

  “Ah, for Christ’s sake, don’t you start in on me
now!” Crossan snapped. “Have ye forgotten everything we’ve talked about?”

  Minogue repeated Hoey’s question. “What do you think we should be finding?”

  Crossan spoke in a controlled, even tone.

  “Garda incompetence. New evidence. Changes in testimony. Gaps in testimony. Inconsistencies in testimony. Don’t tell me that you decided to spend your off-time down here only because I put you up to it!”

  “You’re right, I won’t,” said Minogue.

  Crossan looked at his watch again and drew in a breath.

  “When do you think you’ll get back from Limerick? I mean, how long do you think you’ll be…?”

  Minogue was rubbing his eyes slowly and distractedly. He kept it up for a half-minute before he paused, opened his eyes and looked at Hoey.

  “As long as it takes, counsellor,” he said.

  Crossan bounded up from his chair, plucked the photocopy from the table and launched his lanky body toward the foyer.

  “I’ll phone a taxi for ye this very minute,” Minogue heard him say.

  “What a tricky bastard,” said Hoey.

  Minogue shrugged. His anger was gone now.

  “Well, a point in his favour has to be the way he’s put himself out with the Dalcais stuff,” Minogue offered. “But I just wish to God he had told us about his plans before Dan Howard told me.”

  “Very tricky people down this part of the country,” said Hoey. “Still don’t trust him as much as…”

  A yawn stole the rest of Hoey’s words. Minogue’s Fiat leaned into a bend on the dual carriageway that skirted Shannon Airport. The fog had given way to a blue sky. The sun was hard and bright on the windscreen of Minogue’s car. A jet passed low overhead, its shadow racing across the fields inland.

  “No rest for the wicked,” said Hoey, and returned to looking out the window.

  Minogue turned the mirror down until he saw the boot-lid bouncing against the rope he had been given to tie it down. His thoughts went to Naughton, and he recalled Naugton’s growl when he had phoned with a wrong-number yarn. Naughton was sixty-six. Still going strong, was Crossan’s arch description. Not bad for a drunkard, in other words. He thought of Hoey then. The Inspector’s misgivings broke free of their leash and tumbled into words.