by John Brady
“You’re sure she didn’t mention anything about a row with Tidy Howard that night?” Hoey asked. “Or that she had left the pub either, in the car-”
“Just let me talk to her first,” Minogue murmured. “Hear what she says. Then we can alibi her or look for corroboration.”
Hoey looked away and took a long drag on his cigarette.
“You’re shielding her from someone, aren’t you?” he said then. “Crossan, is it?”
Minogue blinked. He was ready with a retort about Hoey himself being shielded from Kilmartin when he spotted Crossan tramping across the dining-room carpet toward them. A relieved Minogue glanced at his colleague. Hoey’s stare stayed on the Inspector until Minogue looked away again to Crossan.
He pushed home the padlock on the cottage door, tested it and walked to the van. He was bone weary. They’d be finished this job in three weeks but he already planned to pad out the bill with a few days’ dossing. Plenty of money in Germany. The bastard’d never get tradesmen like him for twice his pay back in frigging Germany anyway. Nearly pitch-dark already, God. The radio was on in the van.
“Did you pack the blades and the masonry bits?” he called out.
“What?”
“The saw and masonry bits?”
“Yep. Are we right?”
An ad for holiday get-aways in Spain came on the radio. He clambered in and pulled the door behind him. The driver wriggled in the seat and started up the van. Get away from all this crap. Spain’d be nice. Take her too, do it in the water. Swimming and drinking and eating right. The lust hovering in his belly met with the misgivings sliding down his chest. She was getting out of hand: nearly running the show.
He looked across at his friend. Him, this, the dirt caked under his nails, the slogging away renovating this cottage for a German. And then to have people tell you that you were lucky to have a bloody job! Germany, he thought, and a little hope flared. Maybe. Drop everything, just walk away from it all and get a job over there. Be nobody there for a while. Tell nobody, just pack up one morning and go. No more worrying, holding back. No more watching and waiting. When was the money supposed to be rolling in anyway? You have to be patient, he was being told all the time, the insurance business takes time. Your clientele has to know that you’re serious. What about all the fucking Guards crawling all over the county this last while, he had protested. Be more careful, plan better and go at it, came the answer. They need to know that the cops can’t protect them, so they’ll have to strike a bargain in the end. The money’ll come in soon… Hah.
“You’re buying,” said the driver. The van wallowed at the end of the laneway.
“Aren’t you?”
“Amn’t I what?” The driver shifted in the seat and sat up from the chair-back.
“It’s your turn to buy the jar now.”
He didn’t answer but looked out into the night instead. Christ, the place had been emptied by emigration and famine, and now the rich wanted to take their holidays here. Culture, for God’s sakes-you can’t eat culture. They had money and they wanted culture: We have no money, just loads of culture. Sick joke. And he wanted receipts for every damn thing, this bloody German. He’d be flying into Shannon for the afternoon at the end of next week, coming to the cottage to inspect the work too. Suspicious, complaining. What effect would the Spillner thing have on them? They never just tell you that you did a good job. No thanks, just pay. Flying in for the afternoon, being driven up by a chauffeur probably.
The driver sat upright over the wheel and squirmed a little as he whistled to a tune on the radio.
“What are you doing? Is it fleas you have?”
“Ah, no. Are you buying or aren’t you?”
“Think of something else instead of the drink, can’t you?”
“Wouldn’t mind a ride, so…” The driver looked over knowingly and squirmed again.
“It must be fleas you have.”
“It’s my insurance policy.”
“What in the name of Jases are you talking about?”
“Well, I’m not going to be a sitting duck-”
The passenger suddenly understood. He lunged across and shoved his hand under the back of the driver’s jacket.
“Here! Fuck off, Ciaran! I’m driving!”
He felt it but the driver sat back and pinned his hand against the seat.
“Stop, can’t you, or the van’ll be in the ditch!”
He leaned over with his other hand and levered the driver forward. As he did, he grasped the pistol and yanked it out of the driver’s belt. He held it and ran his thumb toward the safety.
“You stupid, fucking iijit!”
“Gimme! Come on!” His voice was just short of a roar.
“You think this is going to help? Is this fucking cowboys and Indians you’re playing here or something?”
“Gimme, it’s mine!” The van was slowing. The driver held out his hand for the gun.
“Some kind of a fucking film you saw, is it? Jesus Christ, Finbarr! The place is rotten with fucking Guards and you’re walking around with a-”
“I’m not going to be caught with me pants down! I’m never going without a fight! Give it back, it’s my decision!”
“It’s not even your fucking gun, any more than it’s mine, you gobshite! He got this out of a dump along with the other stuff. We’re not supposed to have it-”
“It’s us that’s doing the dirty work! Don’t mind him! We’re the ones putting our arses on the line! And what do we have to show for it? Nothing! Fuck-all, that’s what! So don’t tell me how to carry on!”
The passenger laid the pistol on the floor and covered it with newspaper. To his astonishment, his anger had vanished. In its place was an overpowering feeling that he had lost something. It brought an ache of regret and hope to his chest. The driver picked up on the change in his friend and he returned his hand to the wheel.
“Come on now, let’s not be bickering,” he murmured. “We have to look out for one another, hah? Come on, now. We’ve always done it, haven’t we? It’s me and you, Ciaran.”
It was a sorrow he hadn’t felt since childhood, that sense of injustice and things going irretrievably astray which caused the passenger’s eyes to sting. What was the point, he thought. He couldn’t fight this. Spain. He knew then that tomorrow he’d be thinking about it all again. Maybe even Germany, work a few years away from all this, get a stake and buy a house back home. He thought about her then and that familiar turbulence began in his stomach. What would she do?
“Well?” said the driver.
“Shut up awhile, can’t you?” he mumbled. “And just fucking drive.”
“That’s right,” said Minogue, and reached for his cup.
“Up in Dublin,” Crossan added.
“That’s how it looks,” said the Inspector. He adopted a patient tone which he hoped the barrister would decode.
“So when I find out where, I’ll be talking to her.”
Hoey dropped a depleted ice-cube into his mouth and crunched it.
“You’ll let me know, so,” said Crossan.
“You may rely on it,” said Minogue with a heavier emphasis.
“Is there going to be an internal Garda investigation about Naughton?”
“We’re back off to Dublin tomorrow,” said Minogue. “Until I find out what Sheila Howard tells me this time around, I don’t know about any internal investigation.”
“But what Naughton told you about the fire suggests there was some kind of collusion going on,” said Crossan.
Minogue laid down his cup with a solid thud. “Collusion isn’t a term we should be throwing around here now.”
“Yet, you mean,” Crossan tossed in. “Step back a minute and look at what we have. Fact: Eilo McInerny was paid money to leave Ireland. Fact: We cannot account for key people the night of the fire. Fact: Naughton had a nice fat pad to his pension. Fact: Naughton knew plenty about that night, more than he was willing to tell you. Fact: Naughton killed himself
out of some sense of duty or loyalty,”-he paused and looked from Minogue to Hoey-“to someone or something. It’s time to raise dust here, I say. Make it official. Time for your ‘inquiry’ to grow up into a proper investigation.”
Hoey looked up at the ceiling and blew smoke toward a lampshade.
“I think we need to talk to her first.” Minogue realised that his words had betrayed something. “I mean that I need to assess how, er, Eilo McInerny’s allegations may affect the situation and so on.”
“Aha,” Crossan barked. “Allegations. We have allegators now, do we? Maybe we’re getting somewhere now.”
Trapped, Minogue floundered further. He heard his words sound an ignominious retreat into the formal, public language of a policeman. He did not look at Hoey as he spoke.
“I don’t need to remind you that this is a delicate matter. We’re obliged to respect the parties’ rights. Things must remain as allegations-”
“Naughton blew his brains out,” said Crossan.
“-while we sift through what’s to be had in the line of information-”
“Are you or aren’t you going to press for a full investigation when you confer with your, em, colleagues?”
Minogue took a few seconds to absorb Crossan’s sarcasm.
“I give my word that I-we’ll-keep you as fully informed as we possibly can.”
He waited for another dig from the lawyer but none came. Crossan’s gaze lingered on him, but then he swept it away. The waitress timed a visit to coincide with the truce.
“No, thanks,” Minogue said, and held his hand over the glass. “Put it all on the one bill, if you please.”
“I can’t be bought off,” said Crossan. His voice had lost its edge, the Inspector noted. “But that’s not to say that you shouldn’t try again with other blandishments.”
Minogue decided it was time for a Parthian shot.
“You can return the favour if you carry an election sometime in the future, counsellor. Only as long as it’s won fair and square.”
“Oh, the sting off that,” said Crossan, regaining some vigour. “Dublin hasn’t softened your tongue as regards digs.”
The drowsiness was heavy across Minogue’s chest now, cocooning and holding him fast in the chair in Ennis, County Clare. The curtains were drawn in the dining-room. Half-seven. Should he have tried to drive back to Dublin instead of sitting to a dinner with Crossan? All the lawyer had done was to grill him about why he wasn’t doing what Crossan himself thought needed done. Even Hoey was looking askance at his judgement. If he closed his eyes, he’d nod off, he believed.
“You’ll be in touch,” said the lawyer.
The smell of a fry woke Minogue. His whole body ached. He felt as if he were anchored to the bed, like Gulliver pinned. Is this what a stroke does, he wondered, and thought of Tidy Howard. The mattress was too soft, and he had rolled into a hollow where he had been boiled by a heavy eiderdown into a state of sweaty, aching immobility. Ten to nine, he saw on his watch. And he had worried that he was too wound up to sleep.
He struggled to sit up in bed. A fragment of a dream slid by him before he could see it clearly: a fire, he knew, but… He rubbed at his eyes for a full minute. Then he picked up his watch again and strapped it on. He had slept for eleven hours. He remembered that Mrs McNamara had kept him talking through the news when Hoey and he had come in last night. He had phoned Kathleen, he recalled, and had done a good job of editing out the greater part of the day’s proceedings.
He drew the curtains back a little. For a moment he wondered if he were still asleep and dreaming. As his eyes became used to the light he could make out the looming forms in the fog beyond Mrs McNamara’s tidy, wet garden. He dressed and packed his bag. At least he’d get to steal into Bewleys in Dublin today. He knocked on Hoey’s door but there was no answer. He opened the door to find Hoey’s bed made. His toothbrush, several packets of Majors and pieces of folded paper were on a dressing table. One of them was an airmail envelope with jagged paper by the opened flap. He closed the door and headed for the parlour. Mrs McNamara’s head inclined out the kitchen door to intercept him.
“Come in,” she called out. “I thought I heard someone stirring.”
“Hello, missus. Is there any sign of the other lad?”
“Oh, Seamus?” she beamed. Mrs McNamara was holding a spatula aslant across her chest. “He’s gone out, so he is.”
Minogue followed her into the kitchen. A stirring in a chair by the Aga drew his eyes to an elfin figure sitting next to the range. The old woman looked out over her hands, which rested on the handle of a blackthorn walking-stick, and issued a myopic smile. Were there more dwarfs hiding about the house? He turned to greet the old woman.
“Good day to you, ma’am.”
“And yourself, now,” she croaked back.
The Inspector turned back to Mrs Mac.
“Excuse me now, but did he say where he was going?”
“He went out to get sausages. Such a memory I have, I didn’t have a sausage in the house and he offered to go out.”
Maybe gone AWOL to get a bloody half-bottle of whiskey or something. He turned to head back to the hallway.
“Ah, sit down, can’t you? He’ll be back in a minute.” Mrs McNamara’s voice began to go up. “Sure he’s only gone a few minutes.” She pushed Minogue toward the old woman. Maybe he’d pushed Hoey too hard or something?
“Mrs Moran here comes by of a morning,” Mrs McNamara went on in a louder voice. “Don’t you, Mamie? And we have a cup of tea and a chat so as we catch up on the news about town.”
The seated elf must be in the high eighties, Minogue decided.
“Don’t trouble yourself to get up, now,” he muttered. He leaned down to grasp her bony fingers. Her skin reminded him of boiled chicken skin slipping over the bone.
“If and I don’t give it a try,” she answered back with a shrill, mewing voice, “I mightn’t be able to get up when I’d be needing to.”
Her denture slipped as she smiled up at the policeman. Minogue readied himself to catch her.
“Matt Minogue, missus. How do you do?”
His hands had ideas of their own. They stayed up, waiting for her to totter. She did not. She sat back with a sigh and the blackthorn wavered in front of her again.
“Yerra, there’s no good in grousing,” she shouted at Minogue. “And that’s a fact.”
Now Minogue knew why Hoey had gone on an errand so readily. Mrs McNamara shouted and waved the spatula at the window.
“Please God, we’ll get a bit of sun before dinner-time, Mamie.”
“Please God,” echoed Mrs Moran, and she shuddered. She clasped her blackthorn and, to Minogue’s consternation, licked the tip of her nose. How long a tongue did the woman have? Mrs McNamara turned from the cooker.
“Matt is a Guard, Mamie,” she roared. “He’s here on a holiday. Lot of excitement in town,” Mrs McNamara went on. “You heard someone took potshots at the Howards’ house, Mamie?”
Mrs McNamara swivelled around with her eyes wide and gave the Inspector a conspiratorial smile.
“Merciful hour,” said Mrs Moran. “Imagine that!”
She gave several spasms which Minogue suspected were poorly governed shrugs and her dentures came into play again.
“The times that we’re living in. ’Tis like The Troubles again.”
“If I might use the telephone?” asked Minogue.
“Oh, fire away, can’t you?” Mrs McNamara shouted over the spitting rashers. “But ye’ll not leave here without a proper breakfast.”
Minogue backed away toward the door.
“Very good of you.”
He phoned the Squad office number and waited. Murtagh answered with a fluid delivery of the “Investigation-Section-may-I-help-you” which Kilmartin had directed the people-friendly detectives to answer inquiries with. Partnership, PR, the Human Face were some of the terms Kilmartin had relayed back from meetings with senior Gardai. Serving the public. Eilis h
ad a varied repertoire but she sometimes recited the user-friendly incantation. Such was the charge of sarcasm Kilmartin had noted in her tone one day that he directed her to return to her former delivery of “Yes?” or “Murder Squad.”
“Where are you now?” Kilmartin barked.
“I’m in Ennis.”
“Hah. Signs on you’d be in the thick of it, you chancer. Ennis is a hot part of the country today. Did you know that, bucko?”
“You hardly mean the weather.”
“Damn right I don’t. How’s Hoey?”
“He’s gone out to buy sausages. We slept it out. We were up and down the west of Ireland yesterday.”
“I wouldn’t mind being in your boots if that’s all you were doing. Have you come up with anything?”
Kilmartin had heard nothing of Naughton, Minogue believed. He considered his answer but came up with the truth instead.
“I don’t know, James. But something stinks.”
“Ho, ho, mister. I don’t want to know about it. Save your problems for Monsignor Tynan. He’s the one who shanghaied you into this caper, pal.”
Minogue ran his finger along the top of the phone. Hoey opened the front door and stepped in. Minogue nodded at him and mouthed Kilmartin’s name. Hoey blinked, shrugged and headed for the kitchen.
“Well, it’s a mixed bag, really,” Minogue said to Kilmartin. “I’ll tell you when we get back up to town. We’ll be off within the hour.”
