by John Brady
“All right. Here, I got a call from that bollicks Hynes. Asking when you were due back in Dublin. Have you something going with him? I hope to God for your sake you don’t. Because if you do…”
“All right.”
“What does ‘all right’ mean?”
“It means, mind your own business, James.”
“Oh, tough talk now, is it? You’re the right hoodlum and you on the phone. Come up here and say it to my face. I dare you.”
“I need the Howards’ address up in Dublin.”
“Take your time, there. Are all your little deals going sour?”
“The address, man. Stop fighting with me.”
“Oh, too busy to talk, are we? Don’t be so stuck-up. I say you’re right to get out of this in one piece. Leave Tynan swing. Leave them to their manoeuvres down in Clare. Stay out of the way. Did you know there’s a big operation on to flush out the Libyan stuff that’s buried around Clare?”
“Hard to miss it,” said Minogue. “The Howards’ address.”
“The Howards. What are they up in Dublin for? I found out, bejases, that the Branch has men by the house out behind Leeson Street. Someone let fly at their house in Ennis, I find out. Did you hear anything about that?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And you didn’t tell me? Well, Christ, man, keep well out of the way of flying shite.”
“Your advice is well taken, James. Give me the address. Now.”
Kilmartin gave him the telephone number first and told him to okay it with Special Branch before going for a visit.
“All right. I’ll be seeing you.”
“Is that it? You’re not going to sneak off to the airport and head for that sanatorium place, what do you call it, on the sly?”
“Santorini. S-A-N-T-”
“Whoa, boy! Christ, you’re in a royal snit this morning. Just tell me that you’re not keeping something up your sleeve here. Fair and square now, Matt. I scratch your back and all the rest of it, hah?”
Mrs McNamara came from the kitchen with a laden tray. She smiled at Minogue and toed open the door to the dining-room. Hoey followed her and nodded at the Inspector.
“I was talking to the Guard who was first to the house that night. Tom Naughton. He’s retired a few years now, in Limerick.”
“When that young one, the Canadian, was killed?”
“Yes. The fire.”
“What did he have to tell you, so?”
Minogue heard the gunshot again, and he swallowed.
“Well, Shea and myself were talking to him and, well…”
“Well, what? You’re holding out on me. You found something, didn’t you? What about this Naughton fella?”
“Well, he pulled a gun out of a drawer and he shot himself.”
“He what? What did you say?” Kilmartin shouted. “He what?”
“He killed himself. I’ll tell you when I get back-”
“Wait a shagging minute! Don’t just land this on me and-”
Hoey had an appetite. He finished Minogue’s bread and poured more tea.
“You dropped the phone on him,” Hoey murmured again. “He’ll be dug out of you for that.”
Minogue studied his lukewarm tea and nodded.
“I don’t doubt it,” said Minogue.
“I’m going to phone the Howards and set up a meeting. Then I’ll settle up with Mrs Mac here and we’re off up the road to civilisation.”
Hoey saluted him with a full cup of tea and looked out through the window at the foggy shroud over the Clarecastle Road. Minogue returned to the hall and opened his notebook to the Howards’ number.
The embossed wallpaper had had several coats of paint. The Inspector studied the pattern and traced his fingertips over its curlicues and ridges. Mrs Mac kept her house well, he reflected. Parts of the pattern had been flattened and further smoothed by the coats of paint. He could not make out the pattern completely with his eyes but his fingers picked up the pattern as they moved across the wallpaper. He dug a fingernail into a rise in the paper but it failed to pierce it. He stopped and looked down at the phone as if he knew it was about to ring. After a half-minute of staring, the phone still did not ring. Mrs McNamara came out the kitchen door.
Mrs Howard, did you not visit Jane Clark at her house the night of the fire? Did you, upon hearing of the incident with your husband, take it upon yourself to have words with Deborah Jane Clark? Did you not drive away from the pub, go to her cottage and then return to the pub less than a half an hour later? Why did you not tell us that you had left the pub that night?
“I am, thanks. I reversed the charges, like the other call.”
“Great, so.”
Mrs McNamara smiled and entered the dining-room. Hoey stepped into the hallway after her. His look to the Inspector was an appeal to get him out of the clutches of Mrs McNamara.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Hoey. “Hit the road.”
“Sheila Howard is still in Ennis.”
Hoey frowned and blew smoke out the side of his mouth.
“I phoned their place in Dublin, talked to Dan Howard. He told me she decided at the last minute to stay and get the place fixed up. She had to farm out the two horses to be looked after while they’re away.”
“I want to see her on my own,” Minogue said.
Hoey tossed his packet of cigarettes into the air and caught it with a limp palm. “You’re going to ask her where she went during the time she left the pub,” he said. “Aren’t you?”
“Of course I am.”
Hoey looked at the frosted glass on the front door and threw the packet into the air again. He grasped it on its descent with a firm hand.
“You’re the boss.”
“Give me an hour, hour and a half. I’ll pick you up in front of here.”
Hoey nodded. He let a mouthful of air balloon his lips before he let it out with a soft pop. “You’re clear on what you want from her, right?”
“How many more times are you going to ask me?”
Hoey pursed his lips and nodded again, as if he were resigned to the score now that he had heard the final whistle.
“So I’ll meet you here outside the gate about eleven. Did you check to see if she’s in the house?”
“The phone’s still out from last night.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Minogue drove slowly. The fog seemed thicker outside town. Trees and houses materialised and then slipped back into the whiteness as he passed them. Fields were swallowed up a hundred feet beyond the roadside walls.
He could not see the Howards’ house from the gate. He stuffed the Fiat into a spot by the gates and turned off the engine. He was standing outside before he wondered what the hell he was parking there for. He shook his head at his own confusion. Was it a subconscious thing, not wishing to bring the poor Fiat back to the scene of its despoiling in front of the Howards’ house? Embarrassment at driving this wreck, full of uxorious litter? He unlocked the door and prepared to get in but then decided to leave the damn car where it was. Perhaps, he reflected as he locked the door again, it was vestigial caution after seeing the police cars and vans swarming around the gates the other night, wisely left outside until the Fiat had been probed for booby-traps. A walk up the avenue would give him another chance to clear his head anyway. He looked into the window of the Fiat, ran his comb over the top of his head and set off up the avenue.
The trees and bushes seemed to move as they came to him from the fog. The house appeared first as a darker patch, grey, then as the outlines of roof and corner. A Hiace van was parked by the steps.
C. Loughnane
Home Repairs, Restoration and Renovations
We’re Not Happy Until You Are.
He walked past the van. He saw no workmen about but a stepladder was next to the window. Minogue stood and studied the damaged plaster around the window opening. The frame was still attached and there were shards of glass in the flower bed below the window. He remembered the whacks a
s bullets hit the wall. He looked closer and detected the deeper points to the centres of the scooped-out gouges in the plaster. A breeze caught his coat and moved it across his legs. He shivered. Did Sheila Howard have her own car? The damp air seemed luminous now. Minogue’s eyes ached when he looked up at the sky. What approach would he use? Mrs Howard, I was just mulling over our chat and…
The steps seemed steeper. He grasped the brass doorknocker but the door moved slightly. He let down the knocker and pushed at the door with his fingertips. On the latch to let the workmen come and go? Maybe she had done what she had to do with the bloody horses, or whatever she had stayed for, and she was on the high road to Dublin already. Iijit. He saw his own bulbous face reflected onion-like on the doorknocker as he took his hand away. Better knock. He passed a hand over his hair. Something suggested to him that knocking or calling out here was vulgar, disturbing. He went for the knocker again and he heard a short cry from inside the house. His hand stopped inches from the knocker but his other hand pushed the door a few inches back into the hall. A radio announcer issued news indistinctly from somewhere in the house. An ad jingle started up.
“Go on,” he heard a man’s voice say. Taunting, urgent, whisper and hiss together. The Inspector put one foot on the threshold.
“Do it, can’t you?” said the man. “Like we do. Come on!”
“Leave me be,” Sheila Howard said. “I don’t want that. Not today.”
“Ah, Jesus, don’t be worrying!” The man’s voice rose. “You like it,” said the man, less pleading now. “Don’t play Lady Muck on me! I know how you like it. Tell me now. Go on, tell me!”
Minogue’s feet were leading him across the hall. His mind had gone away. The radio ad ended and a bubbly host announced a top hit from the charts while the music started up. The man’s voice had a warning tone to it now.
“Are you too good for me today, is it?”
Her voice strained and wavered as though she were exerting herself in some chore. “Not now,” she said. “Not here. I can’t.”
“Prince Charming ran away, so what are you fluttering on about?” He sounded breathless now. The words slowed as though he was concentrating on something else.
“He’s having his ride up there. It’s your turn. Come on.”
“Stop it Ciaran! Take the stuff and go. We’ll meet later on.”
“Give me a little souvenir, can’t you?” His voice fell to a low growl: Minogue heard a grunt.
“No,” she said.
Minogue’s stomach was tight now and his shoulders felt as though they were sinking down along his sides. He knew something, and he was losing a battle that he didn’t remember starting to fight. Better say something, he thought, but his hand pushed at the door anyway. The opening door fanned the scents to him and he knew he needn’t fight any longer. Along with those of sweat and the secret, scented clefts, he made out the musky smell. She saw him in the doorway but the man astride her kept pushing his hips into her. She stared at Minogue without fear or surprise. The Inspector himself felt no shock. Although he could not take his eyes from hers, he saw and understood all he needed to. Her blouse open, naked from the waist down with one of her legs lying on the arm of the sofa. Her jeans were on the floor by the coffee table and black knickers lay next to them. The man’s pants still clung to his ankles. He pushed faster, gasping, and began to mutter. Her eyes were flat and dull but they stayed on the Inspector. She began to move under her partner’s thrusts. Doesn’t she care at all, Minogue wondered? The man’s buttocks squeezed as he pushed hard into her.
“Now,” he hissed. “Tell me. You bitch! You fucking bitch!”
He grasped her neck and rose up over her. Her legs moved limply with every thrust he made. They were tanned, Minogue saw. Her eyes grew larger and turned to her partner. One side of her blouse fell away. Her breast shook as he began to buck.
“Tell me now,” he groaned, and looked down toward her belly. “Tell me, fuck you!”
Her eyes darted from her partner back to Minogue. The man’s head turned suddenly. A concentrated, brutal rapture contorted his face. His face was red. He kept his hands on her neck. Dark hair, strands of it hanging over his eyes. Hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. Late twenties. Ciaran. Minogue remembered the face: one of the two men who had lurched into the pub that night he and Crossan were trying to steady their nerves after the shooting.
Embarrassment won out over his curiosity and Minogue stepped back. The ugliness of what the man’s hands were about stopped his retreat and he stared into the eyes again. The man frowned and began to let himself down. Minogue couldn’t take his eyes from her now. With her partner reaching for his pants, she drew her legs together and tugged at her blouse. Her face was flushed and, while her eyes seemed bright, they retained the dull stare. Like a painting he half remembered, Minogue took in Sheila Howard’s body as she rested on one elbow, her brown legs one over the other.
The words of the tune on the radio, a familiar ballad, kept coming into his thoughts. Without taking his eyes from hers, Minogue could make out the patch of dark hair that stopped half-way to her navel. Some distant disappointment in her look began to work on the Inspector and he began to feel the dismay and desire flood into him. Her body seemed carelessly thrown there, as if it were something she had little use for anymore. But that couldn’t be, he realised. Her body did not fit with this man’s lust. A slob: how could she? No coy or whorish scorn in her expression. Unconcerned, as if all had been lost some time ago and there was no place to begin trying to explain. How could she? How could anyone, you gobshite? You know people and what they can do. Are you blind or just stupid? Romance. Do you think people are angels? Wishing your life away. Don’t you know anything?
The Inspector’s words came out in a whisper. “I’ll wait.”
The radio went to ads again. Sheila Howard’s partner had now turned his back. He was working his trousers up. Ciaran somebody. The air in the room was suddenly overpowering: pungent bleachy mix of genitals, the cheesy stench of the man’s socks, his cigarette smell. A picture of him pushing into her flashed into Minogue’s mind again. For the first time, he felt angry. Is this what she wanted? You know she did. You know it. “We can meet later on.” Didn’t you hear her? She doesn’t care. The man she had called Ciaran glared at Minogue and flicked his hair back from over his eyes. His sleeve brushed Minogue’s as he walked by, hopping slightly to right the sit of his trousers. Minogue smelled sour sweat from his clothes as he passed.
“Well,” came the lilting sarcasm in a man’s voice from the hall.
“It’s all right,” Ciaran grunted.
Minogue headed out after him.
“Go back, can’t you, go back,” Ciaran hissed, and waved his hands.
“You came up short, did you?” the voice taunted. “Here, maybe I should have a go-”
“Fuckin’ move!” Minogue heard Ciaran reply.
The Inspector reached the doorway and saw him push another man back toward the kitchen. The drinking pal from the night before at the pub, he noted. A stricken look came into the second man’s face and his bloodshot eyes bulged. Minogue’s eye was drawn to the stud in the man’s earlobe. He smelled whiskey-breath now.
“Who the fu… How did he…?” and his mouth stayed open.
They know me, thought Minogue. Sheila Howard’s interrupted lover, whom Minogue wanted to believe was not her proper lover, at least not in the way he imagined lovers, pushed the other man again.
“Cause you were pissing around, drinking in the fucking kitchen,” he whispered fiercely. The man’s eyes were still on Minogue. “So go and do your fucking job!”
The Inspector decided to wait on the steps outside. He wanted to take this Ciaran aside and give him a going-over. At the same time he knew how absurd that was. As Minogue turned, the man with the earring stumbled and fell backwards. He swore as he fell, landed first on his backside and then turned on his forearm to stop himself rolling back feet-up.
“Stop fu
cking pushing,” he grunted as he came to rest. Minogue gave him a contemptuous glance and the man started to get up.
The gun clattered onto the floor from under his jacket. It lay there, still, while the three men looked at it. Minogue held his breath and looked from the gun up to Ciaran and then to the other man. For several seconds, the Inspector could not get beyond bewilderment. Were these two lesser species of Special Branch assigned to guard Mrs Howard? He imagined tumbrels clicking into place somewhere in the back of his addled mind. His heart seemed to be soaring into his throat. He heard a soft slap of elastic clicking over the sound of an ad for fertiliser. Sheila Howard putting her knickers on again, a part of his mind registered.
“Look what you’ve gone and done now, you fuck-” said the one with the ear-ring.
“Are you Branch-” Minogue started to ask.
Ciaran dropped to the floor. In one smooth movement, he had the pistol up and the barrel of the automatic drawn back.
“It’s done now, so shut up,” he said. The panic on the man’s face had frozen Minogue’s thoughts.
“You stupid, lazy fucking-” Ciaran began.
“I didn’t hear him!” shouted the one with the ear-ring. Minogue continued to stare at him. His entire face was red now and his moustache seemed to quiver. Locks of curly hair stood out over his ears.
“You with the stupid radio on-”
“He didn’t drive up! I woulda heard him!” He turned to Minogue. “You walked or something, didn’t you?”
Ciaran waved the gun from side to side at Minogue and moved to the foot of the stairs. Minogue felt the door near him and his body almost leaned toward it.
“See!” cried the other. “He’s after sneaking up! Close the fucking door! There’s probably a mob of them around the house! Jesus! It’s a fucking trap, Ciaran!! We’ve been set up!!”
Ciaran’s eyes turned frantic and his fingers flexing and grasping the grip of the automatic took Minogue’s thoughts. The Inspector felt his legs begin to quiver. Were they both drunk? How could he buy time?
