by John Brady
“I’ll layve you here in the street, so I will, if and you don’t come on!” the mother shouted. She had rested one hand on her hip, the other laying the handle of the pram.
“All right, then! Bye-bye.” The child wailed and sat down heavily.
“I’m going!” said the mother. She turned and pushed the pram.
Minogue watched her staged resolution and he wondered how far she’d walk before she turned for another ultimatum. Some vague feeling rustled in his chest. The child howled wait, mommy, wait. The mother walked by the Fiat and glanced in at the two detectives. Reflected sun from a window was on her face as she turned. The glare caught every line, the cast of her mouth, her eyelashes. Wait, mommy, wait, cried the child, but he stayed on the footpath.
“I’ll do no waiting! Get up off the ground this instant and hurry on with you, you bold boy!”
The threat of abandonment worked. The child tried to swallow his cries and rose to his feet. Boys, thought Minogue, and remembered Daithi’s infant temper-a lot more work than girls. Little pleased with her victory, the mother had more conditions.
“And no more whinging out of you!” she warned.
“I’d say she’s something, that one,” murmured Hoey.
“With the pram?”
“No. Sheila Howard.”
The surprise worked its way down to his stomach. Hoey’s mind was off on its own course. He was giving his colleague and nominal boss a cool survey. Minogue started the car hastily enough to grind the starter motor. He gritted his teeth, tightened his seatbelt and busied himself lickering with the controls for the choke and then the heater. Up the Listowel Road and on to Tarbert and the ferry to Clare; meet with Crossan, see if he had anything new; try not to take a swipe at him. Try not to have a row with Hoey en route either. He took a deep breath and released it. Hoey was still eyeing him when he turned to check for traffic. The Inspector trod heavily on the brake pedal.
“What the hell are you looking at?” he growled at Hoey.
Hoey said nothing, but he kept looking at him. Minogue searched his colleague’s face. Hoey’s expression reminded him of one of those bench-marks of marriage, a high-water mark, when one partner looks at the other in the wake of a thoughtless hurt. He disengaged the clutch.
“What’s up with you, Shea? Quit giving me the treatment.”
“What’s up with you, you mean.”
“This is not a good time to be playing games with me. You’ve got something on your mind? Do you resent being dragged up and down the country, is that it? Well, if that’s the case, all you need do is-”
“What the hell use is it to me to say something to a man with his fingers stuck in his ears?”
Minogue understood that something had lurched out into his path like an inescapable drunkard weaving toward him on the footpath, mirroring his efforts to sidestep him. He had defended the Howards to Crossan, a man who knew them far better than he, Minogue, did. Now he was annoyed that he had to defend them again to Hoey. He, Minogue, had turned away from something, but part of him-that part of him which over the years had become his real intelligence-had been trying to make itself known to him.
“It was just you and Crossan the other night. Going to see her,” Hoey said. “I wondered why you didn’t ask me along.”
“I didn’t want two Guards, Shea. It’d change the atmos-”
He saw her in jeans then and the Fiat seemed to get unbearably warm. Sudden heat prickled under his armpits and by his ears. Her blonde hair, her head turning in the lamplight, the swell of her breasts under the sweater. His heart kept up its tattoo and he knew that it was futile to try and disguise the colour rising in his face. He looked away down the street and switched off the engine. The car rolled back half a foot and the tyres bounced dully on the curb. The street ahead was a striped and jumbled shadow play, glare adjoining gloom under a sky already lightening at the edges. He didn’t bother to look at his watch. An hour and they’d need headlights. It’d be dark and them getting into Ennis. What the hell would he say to Sheila Howard?
Hoey looked away down the street before taking out a cigarette. The mother with the pram and the laggard infant were crossing the street in the middle distance. She yanked on the child’s arm as Hoey tapped a fresh cigarette on his knee and led it to his lips. There it rested for several seconds. Then he gently plucked the cigarette out again. His dry lips stuck to the filter. He replaced the cigarette carefully in the packet and then nudged his colleague. It was a gesture of intimacy that startled Minogue.
“What’s the big hurry back up to Ennis anyway?” said Hoey. “I’ll stand you a mug of something.”
Minogue nodded and kept his eyes on the opening of the street where the mother, pram and child had disappeared. Swallowed up, he thought, as they turned the corner. He wanted them to return but he didn’t know why. The anticipation he felt while staring at the corner made him alert again. His body felt flabby and loose in the seat. His eyes ached and he rubbed at them. The more he rubbed, the more colours appeared. He thought of his brother’s family sequestered on the farm with the night about to come down over their fields, the bleak heights of the Burren which rose around the farm given over to winter again. He stopped rubbing his eyes but held his eyelids closed and watched the wash of red and yellow, the dark blotches spreading. Still as the land might look, there were squad cars parked on sidestreets, Guards sitting by phones waiting: a shooting, a suspect on the move again, a vehicle approaching… For a moment, Minogue was hovering over it all again, as in that dream. Fire blazed up from the thatch, the screaming Bourke, the firelight dancing on the stone walls.
“Well, what do you say?”
Like the yarns he had heard as a child about travellers falling into the underworld, he had fallen through a hole somewhere, he saw then. There the pookas and fairies still held sway, marshalling spells and riddles to entrap the arrogant who had inherited the upper world. Great God, what an iijit I am still. Decades in Dublin, cute from years of dodging traffic and chancers, criminals and superiors, later content in interior victories. Almost educated, he liked to think. Now he saw that his judgement had gone out the window. Sheila Howard, thinking about her half the day. Hoey had been sitting next to him to witness his blunders. Upside down, reversed: measures confounded, rules obscured. Humiliation grasped at his guts and held. God, what an iijit. Hoey opened his door gently and waited. Minogue looked over at the open door but didn’t see anything. He felt he was nearing the surface now, but he was still pursued by images and words. Iseult’s hunger for life, her scorn keeping her keen; Daithi working toward an immigrant life in the States; Kathleen’s steadfast love, her patience and indulgence. Kilmartin pausing in mid-oratory, face framed by anxious cynicism. The porpoises alongside the boat, carefree taunts from their world.
“She’s probably up in Dublin by now,” he heard himself mutter.
“What?” asked Hoey, and bent down to look in the car.
“She’s up in Dublin with Dan Howard, I imagine.”
He rubbed his eyes again. His eyelashes clung together when he stopped. When he tugged his eyelids open, there was still no sign of the Superman who had been dragged into oblivion by his mother. The shadows seemed deeper now.
“I’ll phone the Killer,” he said.
Hoey nodded.
“But Shea.” Hoey bent down again. “When we get back to Ennis, when we walk in the door of Crossan’s office…” Again the words disappeared, despite his wish to sound resolute.
“We’ll tell him what we know,” Hoey said quietly.
“Yes, I know. But as for speculating, that’s not really on, okay?”
“Look,” said Hoey, and he looked down the street. “There’s an eating-house down there. Maybe they’ll have something there.”
Minogue tumbled wearily out onto the path.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Had he slept? Jesus Christ. Minogue’s heart gave a leap, and he grasped the steering wheel tighter. He stared toward the limit of th
e headlight beam and flicked it on to full. A red band of sky bled into honey was alongside them, whipped by passing trees. Branches wrung from the trees by last month’s gales still lay in ditches, their white stumps catching the headlights. How had he got this far on automatic pilot? Hoey was half-slumped, half-curled into his seat. Minogue had seen his eyelids batting occasionally. Where the hell were they now? As if on cue, a sign to Kilmihill lit up on the curb ahead. Another twenty minutes to Ennis, so. Closer to the sign he made out the white paint on the wall underneath: “Brits out now.” He slowed and decided that the clumsy picture drawn on the wall was a rendition of an M-16. The paint had dribbled down, like white blood, the Inspector thought. The Fiat’s lights followed the bend, straightened and dropped the slogan into the night again.
He remembered coming over the bog roads from the ferry, the boot-lid rising and falling, snapping against the string which had slackened. The River Shannon had been silver as the ferry nosed out into the estuary toward Clare. He remembered the salmon light from the west reaching out to cover the water too, and he had looked for the fins and backs on the water. Ten minutes of strained searching over the water had yielded nothing more than disappointment. The two cups of coffee in Tralee had kept him going until they drove up the ramp on the Clare shore. Minogue was perplexed by the strange fusion of relief and foreboding he felt as they hit the back road toward Ennis.
A half-dozen cars trailed an articulated lorry driving against them. Their lights burned into Minogue’s gritty eyes. Hoey blew out a cloud of smoke. He seemed little concerned with concealing his sarcasm.
“Any more dispatches from HQ?”
“No,” replied Minogue. “He said he’d locate the Howards for us. I’ll phone in the morning to find out from him.”
“You didn’t go into any detail about how we’re getting on, though?”
“No. I don’t know how we’re getting on, that’s why.”
“And being the man he is, he’s waiting to see what comes of it,” said Hoey. “At a safe distance, of course.”
Minogue detoured around by Market Street, drove by the Friary and parked outside the Garda Station.
“Let’s check if there are any, em, breakthroughs here,” Minogue said to Hoey’s unspoken question. Hoey followed the Inspector through the towering gate pillars.
“Whoa,” said Minogue, slowing, “Look at them.”
Two vans with Dublin registrations were parked on a tarred island in front of the station door. Orange glare from quartz lights over the avenue fell on a car which Minogue and Hoey recognised.
Ahearne, the sergeant, came through the doorway behind the counter and said hello to Minogue. He was in civvies, brown corduroy jeans and a hand-knit beige jumper over his blue uniform shirt.
“And how are ye?” he whispered.
“A bit on the tired side.”
“Aha.” Ahearne’s eyes went from Minogue to Hoey and back.
“We were passing so we just dropped in to see what headway there was with this incident last night,” said Minogue. “Over at the Howards.”
“Oh, that business,” said Ahearne. Now Minogue was sure that Ahearne was buying time.
“Yes. The shooting thing,” Minogue repeated.
“Terrible, to be sure, wasn’t it?” said Ahearne. “Well, I’m not very well up on that at all, being as I’m-”
Through the doorway at speed came Superintendent Russell. His eyes were on Minogue’s the moment his head appeared around the swinging door. Minogue felt his throat constrict. The light in the room seemed to become a little dimmer. Russell came to an abrupt stop by the counter in front of Minogue.
“Thanks, D.J.,” said Russell.
Ahearne had to work his way around the now firmly planted Superintendent. Minogue sheltered in a slow official monotone.
“We came in to find out if there was progress in the investigation of last night’s shooting at the Howards’ house.”
The door to the public office had stopped swinging but Minogue believed that someone was right behind the door, listening.
“I was in touch with the Commissioner some hours ago,” said Russell. He paused to press his tongue against his front teeth. “And I tried to impress upon him that you two should be hauled back to Dublin and put in front of a Disciplinary Tribunal.”
“ Quam celerime?” asked Minogue.
The sarcasm from Russell was laboured. “I beg your pardon?”
“How soon would you like us to go?”
Russell drew a finger up from his side with a motion that reminded Minogue of a cowboy drawing a gun. He jabbed his finger in the direction of Minogue’s heart.
“Yesterday. That would have left Tom Naughton alive.”
Hoey shuffled his feet. Minogue wanted to tell him to stop.
“I don’t know what yous fellas learn by way of technique in your line of work,” Russell continued, his finger still aimed at Minogue’s chest. “I heard ye could be rough enough if the job had to get done. But, by Jesus”- he directed the finger up to Minogue’s shoulders now-“harassing a retired Guard to the point of doing what he did, or what you say he did-”
“Where did he get the pistol?”
“Shut up, Guard,” Russell snapped and he leaned over the counter. “Dirty work, bucko, that’s what that was. Very dirty work. I can tell you that if I had the full authority, I’d have you two in a cell here or in Tralee or somewhere and then kicked off back up to Dublin to face the music. That way, you’d cause no more havoc here!”
Minogue studied the red-faced Superintendent. The corrugated, wiry hair stayed in place. Like steel wool, he thought, stapled to his head. The furrowed brow like someone had scraped across it with their nails many years ago, the eyes set back in his head, tiny and fierce. Minogue’s eyes moved purposely and impudently down from the Superintendent’s face. Four-button cardigan bought in a shop, a sports shirt which cost a lot.
“Where did Naughton get the gun?” he asked.
Russell slapped his hand on the counter-top. “We’ll find out in due course-not that it’s any damn concern of yours! You’re bloody lucky he didn’t turn the thing on you.”
He began waving his finger in an indeterminate pattern which Minogue believed could be an ellipse.
“If and when I find out how you pressured him into doing what he did-if indeed he did it and you’re to be believed about it-I’ll personally see to it that you two go to the wall for it. Pension and all, by God.”
“No word on the shooting at the Howards’?” asked Minogue.
“No, there isn’t any word of the shooting at the Howards’ last night,” Russell mimicked. The front door opening behind Minogue left Russell’s lips shaped with what he was ready to hurl at the duo. Minogue turned to see the four men filing in. Guards, detectives, they returned Minogue’s nod. Russell took a deep breath and waved at the swing door behind him.
“Go on ahead in, lads,” he said between his teeth.
More detectives, Minogue thought. Russell here after hours, called in from his home-for what? Were they expecting an operation tonight? Russell looked down his shoulder as the last of the foursome went through the doorway. Then he looked, back at Minogue.
“I’m told ye’re not conducting an investigation but merely ‘an inquiry.’”
Sounds like Tynan’s sophistry, Minogue thought. It had probably enraged Russell. The Superintendent’s finger went back to its wavering survey of Minogue’s chest.
“I’ve let it be known that if ye two get in our way here, I won’t be responsible for you.” His finger swivelled across to Hoey but the eyes stayed on Minogue’s.
“Here’s my advice: get to hell out of here. I mean Ennis, Clare and the west of Ireland in general. If you have any legitimate reasons for being here with your ‘inquiries,’ then they have to wait. We have work to do that’s a damn sight more important. Got that?”
Minogue took a step back and put his hands in his coat pockets. Strategic withdrawal as opposed to retreat.
He watched Russell pitch a peppermint into his mouth from a considerable distance. Some trick, he thought. Big mouth?
“And another thing,” Russell called out. “I’m going to find out what you did. Then I’m coming after you. This is exactly the kind of fiasco I’ve spent years trying to persuade three Commissioners-soon it’ll be four-that we need to avoid. Dublin doesn’t rule the roost, mister. You tell ’em that up there: Those days are long gone. And tell Kilmartin too.”
“Tell the crowd sitting around the back office in that meeting we dragged you out of too,” said Minogue with an edge in his voice.
Russell hammered the counter before waving them toward the door.
“At least they’re proper professionals! They know what they’re up against!”
“The beef’s nice,” said the waitress. “They don’t overcook it like a lot of places do. Hardly a pick of fat to it.”
Minogue sat down opposite, looking a lot less annoyed. Hoey fiddled with his fork, trying to trap his knife between the tines.
“We’re expecting another one in a few minutes,” said the Inspector. He looked up sideways at her. “Put me down for the fish.”
“Something light,” said Hoey. “An omelette with nothing in it maybe.”
The waitress pencilled it in, smiled and turned on her heel.
“Do you think Russell is trying to cover for Naughton or someone else?”
“I doubt it,” replied the Inspector. “It’s more a case of look-after-our-own, to my way of thinking. Until he knows the facts of what happened down in Naughton’s place, he’ll be full of-”
Hoey shivered and dropped the fork.
“God,” he hissed, and shivered again. “Just remembering it now gives me the willies. I don’t know now if I can face up to a dinner…”
Minogue wondered when the shock would return to him in full. Would he wake up in the early hours, his own heart hammering, the pistol shot echoing in his ears, the awful liquid thud as the bullet tore into Naughton?
Again he considered phoning Tynan. Tell him what, exactly? Something stinks, John. Tynan’s subtle communication by not communicating struck him again. If Inspector Matthew Minogue were actually to phone him, the Garda Commissioner might well be obliged to recall Minogue ex officio to Dublin. Russell had probably levelled warnings at Tynan that the Commissioner could no longer fend off. Tynan had obviously not passed anything on to Kilmartin-yet, at any rate-because the said Chief Inspector’did not seem at all aware of Naughton’s suicide. But this was different now, Minogue knew as he looked across the almost empty dining-room. Guards of any stripe did not like to hear of one of their own killing himself, especially a retired one who was being interviewed by other Guards skilled at driving a man into a corner. Even Jimmy Kilmartin might have to stay on the sidelines if Russell went on a rampage over it.
