A stone of the heart imm-1

by John Brady

  "Tell us now," Minogue said at last. "Any chance you'd set us up for one of those music recitals again?"

  As was his habit when working to a deadline, Allen skipped his tea. He felt that his public lectures needed to be revised now. The danger, he felt, was in routinising the delivery. He had noticed his own inner voice telling him that he was drifting into cliches. His metaphors strained him. He was actually tiring himself out by trying to suppress the inner critic. He tried to persuade himself that every audience was a new one, but that didn't satisfy him.

  This time it wasn't just a matter of setting up some new idiom or sprinkling in new anecdotes and metaphors. He had come up with a good one during the week: ^' We cannot live in the subjunctive or pluperfect anymore than we can live in the future. Mental illness is also a case of people largely living out false histories. Living out life in the wrong tense. Wrongs done us in childhood, wrongs done in history must not put blinkers on the future… ' That'd certainly strike a chord in any audience.

  Allen sat back. He wondered if this sounded a bit academic. Where would he deliver this one? Newry? Allen remembered that Newry was largely a Catholic town. He determined to blot this understanding out so that he would not skew the lecture because of the fact. He would not pander to partisan learnings. He had spoken in Newry before and he had been heckled a lot, but he had also been applauded. There was an informal committee there to welcome him and to put him up.

  Allen switched on the radio for the half-six news. Two armed men were still at large in the Blackrock area after a shooting incident today. A Garda was dead and one of the group was in custody. Police believed that they had intercepted the group en route to a bank robbery. All roads in the vicinity had road-blocks manned by armed Gardai and members of the armed forces.

  He stiffened in his chair. The small of his back began to ache. He began his habitual inner talk to relieve the stress. He tried to loosen his muscles but couldn't. Abruptly he switched off the radio. He noticed that his hand trembled slightly.

  Allen tried to return to his notes. He could easily take six months off. Greece, say, or Sardinia; someplace warm, distant. Maybe the break could be complete: he might never come back.

  At this notion, Allen's thoughts of the lecture all but fled from his mind. He could not afford to think of this possibility. It threatened to burst completely through the dike he had built to staunch such thoughts. Again he tried to rescue his former life by concentrating on his notes. It wouldn't work. Allen threw his pencil across the room. He let his arms hang loose over the arms of the chair. The silence after the radio seemed to indict him as he looked at the refined cliches in his notes. He saw the hopeful, expectant faces of his audiences, those thoughtful, law abiding citizens-exactly the ones who were not involved in the violence. Those others were out in the night somewhere, planning, watching, waiting. They had waited for Allen. Now they had drawn him into their cycle of malignant atavism.

  Daily he had checked to see if he was drifting into that helplessness and passivity which his training led him to expect. He had noticed a distance growing between his waking thoughts and his work. Some sleeplessness too, but he had preserved a spark by dint of his own powers. He could not always staunch the fear which came to him when he was reminded of where he now stood.

  Allen willed himself up from the chair. He stood for a count of twenty, barely quelling this bout of panic. He knew that it would get worse too. How many more crises could he withstand, keeping up the manic fafade of a normal life? How long before he broke… or before he would make his break? Maybe now, this evening, this miserable evening, the reckoning had come. He hadn't risen to being a professor of psychology in Trinity College from a poor emigrant family in Birmingham just to go under meekly, another victim.

  Allen felt the fear and hatred ebb and a determination setting in in their place. He looked about his office, at the remnants of what was his old life. He could phone travel agents for a start.

  Allen reconnected the phone. It rang almost as soon as he took his hand off it. "Allen?"

  "Yes?"

  "I've been trying to reach you for some time now. You should stop this childish business of unplugging your phone. We must meet. As soon as possible, actually."

  "Your office?"

  "No. It's better if we meet outside Trinity."

  Loftus paused as if trying to sense the atmosphere for cues.

  "O.K., then. I'll be dining alone in the Granary. I'm leaving now. I'll expect you there presently."

  Allen put down the phone without answering. The image of Agnes McGuire came to him. He had watched her from a distance in the church at Walsh's funeral. Her face radiated a calm, even when she paused to whisper to Walsh's parents. There was an irreducible truth to her which Allen had recognised in a handful of people he had met over his lifetime. She was an enigma to him but overwhelmingly of this world at the same time. Not the longing for a matriarchal comfort in him, no, more a feeling he remembered as a child, on a visit to Liverpool. He had seen a great tanker anchored offshore, mysterious and inaccessible to him. Promise.

  Outside, puddles at the edges of the pathways held sections of Trinity buildings, moving them as Allen walked by. Parts of the cobblestones had dried. The grass seemed to breathe. The air was close. Students were calling to each other across the echoing stone square. A gowned lecturer helloed him in the gathering gloom, pipe smoke smell trailing him. Lights swelled soft yellow out onto the stones. Allen felt that he had let down a load, a load that had clung to him for most of his life. He did have a choice, one choice at least, and he was determined to use it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Moroney and Galvin, the two Special Branch detectives, stepped from their car in Baggot Street. They had been preceded by plain-clothes officers from a surveillance unit some hours before.

  Neither of the detectives was happy with what they had heard. The driver of the Mercedes had picked up the stolen car with its plates doctored in a lane behind Baggot Street. On the way in from Blackrock, they had been radioed that the garage had been located. They had had to decide whether to keep a lookout on the premises or whether to go in right then and there. Curiously, it was Galvin, the detective who had done the heavy with the prisoner, who was in favour of keeping watch.

  "You never know. They mightn't have heard… " he had said.

  "It's been on the radio and the telly," Moroney replied.

  "But they mightn't reckon on our pal telling us anything. They might be kind of slow on the details. Might come in a hurry to tidy up or something."

  Moroney wondered if perhaps they hadn't an embarrassment of riches. Perhaps they had done their job too well, getting the driver to tell them what he had.

  "Ah, give them credit now. They'll have been mobile and ready to get the hell out at a moment's notice. I have an idea that there might be something useful in this place for us. My guess is that it's part of a network. I think we have to move fast. We have to get some results, that's the politics of the thing right now. The shootings and bombings are on the up and up. Can't wait."

  Galvin said nothing.

  "We'll go in, what?"

  "All right," Galvin said.

  The two men walked by the entrance to the lane. The light was poor. They recognised the old coachhouses, garages and sheds which had formerly been servants' quarters, stables and the like. Now they were used as storage buildings or for parking. Often they were gutted and turned into pricey mews houses. They wondered if they hadn't gone to the wrong lane. There was nobody about, no cars. A man in a light raincoat stepped out from the shadows.

  "Sergeant?" he said.

  "Hello. Special Branch. Yes. We're just in from Blackrock. What's the story?"

  "Very discreet. We met a fellow up the lane who has an electrical shop there. He knew the place."

  "Are you sure?"

  "I am. He even remembers walking by and the door was half-open. Said he saw the Mercedes in there."

  "See anyone?"

&nb
sp; "He didn't. We haven't seen anyone either. There's men over beyond and a few in the garden there with night glasses. We're ready to go."

  The way he said it irked Moroney. These fellows were more like paramilitaries. They didn't let you know they were in the area half the time. Strolling about the place with submachine guns, like they were out walking the dog.

  "Hold on there now. What's the chain of command here?"

  "We were called in sir. Told to wait for your instructions."

  "Who?"

  "Superintendant Reynolds."

  Moroney almost smiled. They had been given a surprising amount of leeway. That'd be one in the eye for those yobbos.

  "And you're…?"

  "McAuliffe, sir."

  "Right McAuliffe, give them the billy."

  McAuliffe fingered his earphone more securely into his ear. He turned back a lapel and bent his head toward the mike.

  "We are going when I say. Have you got a clear field up there? O.K. Back up 1 and 3. Clear? Any lights in there? Right 9 and 10, back door to yard opens inward all right? Ready units 2,4 and 6. What? Yes, jemmy it."

  He paused and looked down the silent lane. Only the centre of the lane was in light.

  "Stand to the side, gentlemen," he whispered to the two detectives.

  Leaning to the mike, he said "Go, now."

  He reached under his coat and drew the sling tight to his shoulder as he poked a Uzi out. He ran on his toes down the lane.

  The detectives saw a half dozen men sit upright on the roofs of sheds to the front and sides of the garage. Three more men in what looked like jogging suits ran to the door. One produced a crowbar and levered a crack between doors until a loud splintering sound echoed down the lane. The man swore and quickly inserted the crowbar again. This time the doors gave way and the crowbar fell to the ground. Another figure yanked open the door and leaped in, shouting. The men on the roofs jerked their heads slightly from side to side, listening intently to their earphones, all the while training their weapons on the doors. A can was kicked over inside. The shouting died down. A light went on. Still no one appeared in the lane. No one had noticed, the Special Branch men realised. They recognized McAuliffe's silhouette in the light which spilled from the door. He beckoned to them.

  Inside, the men who had stormed the place stood around looking both disappointed and relieved. One of them was speaking into his radio and staring off into space as his head inclined to listen to the reply.

  The garage was not really a garage. It was a dusty shed. Some planks lay haphazardly on the floor. They could see right up to the rafters. There was a faint smell of paint. Some rusted garden tools lay piled in a corner. A homemade stool made of rough plank scraps lay on its side. A car pulled up outside. In it were two uniformed Gardai. A small old man sat in the back.

  "He's the one up the lane. The electrical shop," McAuliffe said.

  The detectives walked over to the car.

  "Hello. We're police officers," Moroney said, leaning in the window.

  "You're the man who spotted that the place was being used as a garage…?"

  "I am that."

  "Anything unusual at all lately?"

  "Not to speak of. No. But didn't I see a fella working on that Mercedes Benz the other day."

  "Yesterday, like?"

  "The day before."

  "And did you know him? Did you know his face, like?"

  "You know, I never even seen him. I saw his legs I think. He was doing something at the front of the car, down near the bumper. 'Hello I says to him.' And he says 'Hello' back. That was it. The only time I seen him and I didn't see him at all."

  "Never saw his face at all?"

  "Not a bit of it," the old man said with a look of satisfaction.

  Moroney looked away to his colleague. The two Gardai remained in the front seats listening to the dispatcher on the radio. Galvin's eyes went toward a heaven he privately doubted.

  "Tell you what," the old man said suddenly. "I saw him, or actually didn't see him fiddling with another car."

  "And…?"

  "And nothing. I don't know what class of car it was at all."

  "No idea? When was this?"

  "Early in the week. He had it up on one of those jacks. He had the back up, I know that. He had the car backed in that time. I heard him wriggling around under the back. 'Hello' I says-"

  "— and he says 'Hello back,'" Galvin interrupted.

  "How did you know?" the old man asked.

  "Was there a colour?"

  "Let's see. You know when something is crimson and purple at the same time…?"

  "Magenta?"

  "Ma what?"

  "Was it new?"

  The old man's face took on an indignant look.

  "And how would I know? Do you think I'm an encyclopaedia of cars or something?"

  "How well you know the Mercedes, though."

  "Sure that's a quality car, mister. There was a singer in Dublin by that name back in the thirties. Would you credit that? Mercedes McNamara. A bit of an actress too. Before your time, I'm thinking."

  Moroney looked down the lane. He was aware of McAuliffe standing next to him.

  "Will you be wanting the fingerprint brigade in, sir?"

  Moroney wondered if McAuliffe was being bloody-minded. 'And should I try picking my nose, sir? Or maybe will I let a fart, sir?'

  "Where are they?"

  "The van's out on Baggot Street, sir. I think you passed it on your way in," McAuliffe replied.

  Moroney scrutinised McAuliffe's face for any visible trace of insolence. He could find none and this irritated him all the more. These lads had been trained in leaping about like the Chinese, living off the bog, killing people with paper cups and that sort of effort. Very modern men entirely. Toughs who'd probably never have to start on the beat and get promoted into plain clothes.

  "I'll be needing you to bring this man here to the station and go through the car book with him," Moroney said.

  "I took the liberty of assigning that work to the two Gardai here from Harcourt Street station. It's my understanding that we've done our part," McAuliffe said.

  "What?" said the old man in the back of the car.

  "Here, leave me off at the bus, the number 10. I have to get home. The missus'll be wondering if I've run off with a young wan. Hee hee. Are we right?" the old man continued.

  The Garda behind the wheel looked wearily at McAuliffe, then at Moroney.

  "We need you to look through a few pictures of cars for us," McAuliffe said to the old man.

  "Are you joking? Sure I've done what I can. I have to get home. Jases."

  "You can call the wife from the station. We'll drive you home. You'll get your tea too," said the Garda in the passenger seat.

  "Feck it, lads. God forgive me for cursing. Magnum P.I. is on the telly. I never miss it."

  McAuliffe waved the van into the laneway. His men were putting on jackets and dispersing. A couple who had walked into the laneway stood staring as the van disgorged wires and lights and boxes. McAuliffe made himself scarce in the hubbub. When Moroney went off to look for him, he was gone. Moroney was still angry.

  He found Galvin, gawking like an adolescent looking at donkeys at it in a ditch, a far cry from the heavy who had thrown the Duffy fella around that afternoon.

  "Here. Leave these fellas alone. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to buy a pint of stout apiece for yourself and myself and a big fuckin' sandwich below in O'Neill's. What do you think of that?"

  Galvin frowned. It wasn't like Moroney to be so coarse.

  As the two detectives walked out under the arch to Baggot Street, they passed several people looking down the alley at what must have looked like people making a film. There were three squad cars parked beside theirs now. As they passed one Garda, Moroney said, "The hard man, is it yourself. How's things out in Blackrock?"

  "Divil a bit," the middle-aged Garda replied and shook his head.

  They walked on. As
he opened the door of the car, Moroney's pessimism rolled up relentlessly behind him and broke over him.

  The birds had flown, he realised. It was dark now.

  The following day being Friday, Kilmartin did not feel too aggrieved at having slept poorly. He had had a feeling which persisted into his dreams that something was unravelling nearby, but that it couldn't be detected. Were there a forced choice, Kilmartin would have preferred 'prosaic' to 'man of fantasy' on his gravestone. Nonetheless he felt as a child felt upon awakening, knowing it had snowed in the night, even before opening the curtain. This morning, Kilmartin's snow was quite invisible. He felt gruff. He smoked four cigarettes in the car on his way to work. Eight hours ago, the two gunmen in Blackrock had not been found. He had gone home after midnight, despondent and furious by turns.

  Of the two men who waited outside his office, he would have preferred not to see Minogue. Connors he could send on some errand. Minogue's odd face gave Kilmartin a tiny pop in his stomach. He groaned inside at the thought of a morning's gas.

  "Good morrow, Matt. Tea, then?"

  "Good morning yourself," Minogue replied, fingering the folders under his arm.

  "Step in, step in. Connors, would you kindly root out some tea?"

  Minogue sat lightly in the chair. Kilmartin sat on the edge of his desk, wondering if the clackety clack of the typewriters would now add a headache to his woes.

  "Any big moves, Matt?" inquired Kilmartin gently.

  "Well now. This thing will be eclipsed by other concerns, I'm sure, so I'll make a long story short. Someone tried to run me over yesterday. They could have tried a bit harder too, I've been thinking."

  Kilmartin started. He stared at Minogue.

  "Odd, isn't it? In a carpark. Of course I didn't tell Kathleen, but someone phoned the house masquerading as an old school friend, if you please. Some yarn about a reunion. All rubbish of course, but he knew where to find me and what I looked like."

  This was it, Kilmartin was thinking. Minogue has gone batty. The signs were there and it's only now they're coming together.

  "Yes. All part of an elaborate play. I'm thinking someone is trying to push this drug thing on me."