The Coast Road (Matt Minogue Mysteries)

by John Brady

  “Was it the job?”

  “No. I was worried before, but now I’m not. But Brídín? She needs it.”

  The returning quiet seemed deeper. He eyed the clock again, and then closed his eyes and curled up a little. Another fifteen minutes would do no harm. He had finally gotten through to Malone just after eleven last night, after leaving a text and a voice message. There had been that godawful easy-listening music in the background, the stuff that always played in the Chang family’s restaurant. A good sign?

  “Tell me something,” Kathleen said. “What would you think now, if I were to say to you that I want to do something new. Even to be someone new.” He determined to keep his eyes shut, and not to stir. “I’d say that seven in the morning isn’t the best time to be asking hard – I mean important – questions.” The bed quivered and then shook as she rolled out.

  “You’re right, as usual,” she said with a sigh. “So can we pick a time then? We’ll call it a date? This weekend?”

  He turned his face up from the pillow. She was already on the landing by now, and heading for the bathroom, humming.

  After breakfast he checked the folder of photos that he had placed dead-centre on the Desktop. The battery was topped up. Immaculata would never be able to claim that she hadn’t had a chance to go over the photos enough times to be certain of anything.

  Kathleen was out the door ahead of him. The rain had died away sometime during the night, and dry patches were already appearing on the footpaths. An undecided breeze pushed back at the last of the leaves on the hedges. Kathleen was silent on the way up to the Luas. Absent was her usual survey of the roads and houses they passed, of laggard schoolkids and pensioners making their way home from the morning Mass. In its place was a contented expression, a gaze that didn’t stray from the lower sky ahead.

  Only when he pulled in at the Luas did she seem to wake up. She turned to him with bright, expectant eyes, and smiled. A thudding text alert sounded from his mobile.

  “Our minds are at work all the time,” she said. “Aren’t they?”

  He could only nod and wait.

  “So the answers arrive in their own good time, that’s what I’m discovering. You know what I mean? Everything works out. God is good.”

  He blinked affably and came up with a half smile. She leaned in for a kiss.

  The text was Malone: m n dalkey U@ “On time,” he muttered. “As in: not early.” Minogue considered the N50 iffy, and he was willing to gamble on his own route through to Leopardstown Road. If there was any hold-up he’d improvise en route. He soon found himself slotted in a line of cars in the fast lane closing on the turn he wanted, in Cabinteely. Waiting at the light gave him a chance to rethink what he had brought with him, and what he hadn’t.

  Should he have printed off a copy of that map of Kenya, with those missions dotted around that Turkhana area? He imagined sliding it nonchalantly onto the table in that dinky little room, the ‘office’ that Immaculata would draw them to. He’d say nothing, just watch her reaction.

  His was the last car to make the light. The road soon began its descent, and above the curve ahead that signalled the start of its climb back up toward Sallynoggin, the two hills, Dalkey and Killiney, slid up his windscreen. The obelisk that marked Killiney Hill was first to sink out of sight.

  Most of the traffic seemed to be heading down toward the N11 for the rest of their commute into the city. He almost missed his turn off the roundabout: a gap behind let him space to wheel over in time. The road climbed again. He soon spotted the crest from where he’d begin the slow descent to the next roundabout, closer to Dalkey and the sea.

  The minutes changed on the dashboard clock and he poked the radio on for the headlines. It was not what he wanted to hear. He poked the button again, catching the announcer in mid-syllable. It wasn’t like he didn’t already know the rest of the gobshite’s name anyway, the one elected by bigger gobshites, to be leader of their political party.

  Three schoolgirls plodded along the footpath, their gabardines tugged to their necks by heavy schoolbags. Right – there was a convent school nearby. He couldn’t remember its name. He tried to estimate how long it had been since he had come along this road, but drew another blank. Shrubbery had grown to a decent height on both sides of the road. He caught glimpses of conservatories, stonework, serious landscaping. But there was a nowhere feel to the place. Unfair, yes, maybe even snobbish of him but what could he do? Even the occasional quick view of Dalkey Head between the houses was bland: all he could see was the headland that screened any view of the castle itself. No wonder he hadn’t come this way for ages. It hadn’t a patch on the coast road.

  A trickle of cars came toward him over the rise ahead, and then he was cresting it himself. Brake lights glowed on the line of cars waiting their turn at the roundabout. So that’s where the traffic had gone to. He touched the brakes, to wake up the phone-aholic in a new Passat who had come out of nowhere to within a couple of feet of his bumper. Soon he was stopped. He watched the steady stream of cars filtering through the roundabout from the very road where he was headed. He studied the scratches on the bumper of the Toyota ahead, the feeble attempts at touch-ups. Even inching ahead, the Passat crowded him again. A quick glare in the mirror had no effect.

  His thoughts drifted to Mrs. McCarthy. What was she waking up to today? Did she imagine she was in the middle of a nightmare? Maybe she hadn’t slept at all. Maybe she hadn’t woken. He imagined McArdle shivering in some doorway near the DART station, or doing his begging openly at the entrance. And the hulking, explosive Walshe? Hardly much different. The pair could well be trudging toward the drop-in already, kept together by bonds that were stronger than Walshe’s fits of rage, or McArdle’s needling comments. For all their bickering, their fighting and even their routine betrayals, they were a pair by necessity, linked by their common cravings, and their fates.

  What would fill the day for people like that? They had their rounds, no doubt. Cups of tea, a dinner; a couple hours of television. Scrounging smokes, scheming; maybe a scatty, grudging conversation with others at Disciples. Always on the make to work up any prospect of a bottle, or a high. But whatever today brought for them, it would likely be a day like any other, one more episode in a numbing succession.

  He tried the radio again. They had moved on to something else. Some chirpy yo-yo firing out unfinished sentences about how the listeners could get control of their credit card debt. The driver behind had either lost it completely and was arguing with himself, or else he was having a highly animated Bluetooth conversation. Minogue’s mind slid by imagined lives: hedge fund dealer trying to cover a bad move. Philanderer trying to keep a lid on mistress issues. Early morning scam arranger. Or he could be just a well-groomed new breed of senior civil servant talking rugby.

  He leaned his head against the window for a better view ahead. There was no let-up in the stream of cars pouring out on to the roundabout to his right. He began to tally the high-end makes. Audi TT, 7 series BMW right behind it. An AMG Merc, the eight cylinder. Another Audi…. Financial crisis? What financial crisis? He drummed his fingers on the wheel, and finished with a sharp, exasperated tap.

  Somebody was beeping: the gobshite in the Passat. But still it did the trick, stampeding the clapped-out Fiat at the head of the line. The same Fiat got three separate beeps for its efforts. Minogue let his Peugeot roll ahead. A Renault bolted out in imitation of the former pack-leader Fiat. Across the roundabout, another line of cars wasn’t doing much better, he saw. The one at the front was inching a little forward, only to stop abruptly when a lorry swung close – deliberately, Minogue guessed – and leaned on his horn. But then it was off, leaving the field to a black Range Rover.

  The driver wore wrap-arounds, but the glare on the windscreen obscured the interior. Bono would hardly be driving something so crass. Another beep sounded from behind. He adjusted his mirror a little and gave the Passat driver a brief, cold scrutiny.

  When he looked back,
he saw that a gap had opened behind the Range Rover. The car behind made a shuddering start. Minogue’s idle survey sharpened to a stare. It was an Escort all right, the same faded red as Malone’s jalopy. All he could see of it now was a tight view down the driver’s side. The line for the back edge of the door was heavier than it should be. The results of Malone’s half-busted door mechanism on display? It made no sense.

  The Toyota made its move ahead. Minogue ditched his confusion, let in the clutch and rolled forward, ready to pounce on a gap. He scanned the traffic coming his way, saw the Range Rover start but then suddenly dip at the front as it braked. No mercy here out here in Dalkey at rush hour: what we have, we hold. Yet another beep from the Passat behind. This time Minogue pressed the brakes three times, and turning slowly in his seat he planted a glare on the driver. Splayed fingers on the top of the steering wheel flexed open and went limp. Some over-the-top eye rolling came for the finale.

  “Do that one more time,” Minogue murmured. “And we’ll see what kind of a diva you turn out to be. And what kind of a bollocks I can be.”

  Across the roundabout, the Range Rover was inching out again. A motorbike was now making its way by the line of cars behind it, crawling along cautiously, ready to tuck in for oncoming cars. Its front wheel wavered more as it slowed. From its dropped handlebars and low fairing, he recognized it as another of those overpowered rockets that shot by routinely on the motor-way, filling the air with that exhaust note that sounded like a power saw meeting knotty wood.

  A second helmet leaned out from behind. The driver responded to the shift by putting out his legs. Then, after making a short, staggered march on his heels, he brought the motorbike to a stop. The passenger slid off awkwardly, making a few hops to right himself. Novices, was Minogue’s first thought. Flat tire? He couldn’t see where the wheel met the asphalt. Engine trouble maybe. That Range Rover, the driver, what were those sunglasses called? Fly Shades? Was Bono actually a Range Rover type of guy? That would fit all right: Bono lived near here somwehere, and they had a gaggle of kids, didn’t they? A celebrity making the school run then, he thought, and the two on the motorbike were doing a paparazzi gig.

  He let down his window a little. The sound he had been hearing was indeed that motorbike, revving. The driver was back crouched over the tank, and his helmet was swiveling left and right. Those full-face helmets had always put Minogue in mind of an insect head. The passenger took a step in close to the cars, and began pointing and then jabbing the air. Minogue squinted, but he couldn’t be sure he saw a camera. Maybe it was one of those new fancy shoot-on-the-go videocams. Or was this a row? Just what they needed: a bout of road-rage to gum up the damned traffic here entirely.

  Something stirred in the back of his mind. He stopped thinking, and just stared.

  The Range Rover sank back hard as the driver hit the accelerator, and it lurched into traffic, swaying wildly. An instant after the squeal the horns came on. Traffic was suddenly at a standstill. Minogue looked back toward the red Escort and his blood froze. The Escort’s windscreen had turned white.

  The motorbike passenger had one hand on the bonnet, but the other hand was still extended, pointing. Absurdly, it reminded Minogue of that children’s game: Releevio, was it called, when a kid yelled ‘safe’? Then, as though negotiating some awkward passage on a boat, the figure began skirting the bonnet of the car. When he reached the driver’s window, he reached into the car’s interior. His arm shook twice, and then he was running.

  The motorbike was rolling forward now, and revving high. The passenger grabbed the driver’s shoulder and stood on one footrest. Tearing and poking at his jacket still with his free hand, he swung his leg over the saddle. The motorbike wobbled as it made off, and then dipped, pitching the passenger forward. After a long, wavering yaw that took it close to the edge of the road, it straightened out. The passenger jerked backwards as the throttle opened. With a final weave around a car, the driver drew in his feet and changed gear again.

  Minogue’s legs were quivering as he got out of his car. He was aware of a car door opening nearby, sounds of leather soles on the asphalt.

  “Jesus Christ. Did you see that? Can you believe it?” The driver from the Passat was shorter than he had expected, and his face was drained of colour. He pointed toward the roadway where the motorbike had vanished, and he spoke slowly, little louder than a whisper. “Did that actually happen?”

  Minogue couldn’t keep his arm steady. He pressed his knuckles onto the roof, tightening his grip on his mobile, and pushed the keypad hard each time. Jamming his mobile against his ear, he took a few steps back and let his door close. His knees were giving way. Two or three drivers were half-out of their cars now. Someone was shouting. A few of the cars made their way tentatively around the roundabout now.

  “This is bad, isn’t it?”

  The driver of the Passat stood staring across at the Escort, shivering.

  It was a man’s voice answering in his ear now, a well-tamed country accent.

  Minogue had to pry the words from his throat. “A shooting,” he repeated. “That’s right, just now.” Everything seemed to pounce on him at once then: could a person actually forget to breathe? Was that drizzle he was feeling on his face? Who was that man who just flinched, and stepped back hurriedly from the side of the Escort as though he had put his hand on something hot? Was that a sign of the cross he was making?

  The dispatcher asked again.

  “My location?” Minogue repeated, his throat knotting again. The Passat driver was staring at him now.

  “Do you know this area?”

  “Well I go through here every day.” Minogue thrust the mobile at him.

  “Tell them the name of this goddamned road here then. And tell them it’s a Guard involved – a Guard! And tell them about the motorbike – headed toward town.”

  Even from his first step, Minogue’s throat burned, and each grunting gulp of air only cut harder. He kept his eyes on the roof of the Escort, willing a figure to appear there climbing out the driver’s side. He didn’t care that there was a greasy feel to the asphalt, or that that traffic was beginning to move again. Panicked voices spilled out the open window of cars – just happened, I don’t know, I swear to God, Guards– and thumped hard on the roof of a Fiat as he bounded by it, bringing it to a squealing stop beside him.

  The man he’d seen crossing himself by the side of the Escort had stepped away from it, and was talking into a mobile. Behind rectangular glasses – the kind Kathleen liked so much and that he scorned – his eyes were clenched almost shut. Still talking, he took a few steps into Minogue’s path, and breaking away from the conversation, he raised his arm.

  “No,” he said, hoarsely. “There’s nothing we can do—” Minogue brushed by, forearm up, and began to slow amid the first few particles of glass. He made a quick check of the pavement and saw one casing not more than a foot from the front tire on the passenger side. A sharp tang from the gunshots still hung in the air, sour enough to sting his nostrils yet. He crouched a yard from the car, and over the glass fragments sprinkled on the window seal he glimpsed a quick drip from the roof lining.

  The driver’s face was turned to the gap between seat and door, the seat belt flat and tight still over the chest. Minogue tried to ignore the wet gleam of blood oozing over the face, and stared hard at the neck, and then down at the chest. Nothing, nothing at all.

  “Don’t touch anything….”

  The chill space in his chest had opened more, and in the heaving light, things were beginning to pulsate. Eyes scanning the pavement, he began to make his way around to the driver’s side. Another casing had come to rest by a furrow in the asphalt.

  “Look—”

  “Shut up, will you,” he heard himself say. “I’m a Guard.” A spreading delta of arterial blood had run down the driver’s door, and was dripping on the fragments of glass. He forced himself to glance toward the face, and immediately recoiled, gasping. The pink and grey mass flow
ering above a bloodied forehead was bordered in places by small, pale shards that poked through the hair.

  “Really, there’s nothing we can do.”

  He had followed him over, and was keeping his distance. Shock had drained his face of colour, leaving only maroon patches by his nostrils. He swallowed nervously.

  “I’m a doctor,” he said, and pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. The stems were thick, Minogue noticed, with that that weird, stripey wood look to them.

  A car horn sounded. People’s voices were nearby, men’s. The light about him was beginning to lose its lurid cast, and return to the muted hues of an overcast November morning. His chest heaved slower, but the sharp stabbing in his throat was starting to throb. He began to draw in measured breaths through his nose. The weakness in his knees turned warmer. “You need to sit down, I think.”

  The doctor poked at his glasses again. Minogue had to concentrate to keep his eyes back to focus now. He wanted to tell him to stop doing that thing with his glasses. To stop looking at him like he was a wild animal. To shut up, actually.

  A bearded man with scaly, pockmarked skin came at a laboured jog from a van: J O’Neill plumber. He looked frightened, and resolute.