The Coast Road (Matt Minogue Mysteries)

by John Brady

  “I seen it all,” he said. “Anybody doing CPR yet? I have it, but I might be a bit rusty. Is there…?”

  Minogue wanted to answer, but weariness had crashed over him. The bearded man took a few steps toward the car, and stopped. He rose on tiptoe but then almost immediately he sagged and turned away, his hand over his eyes.

  “Jesus!” he hissed, and shook his head violently, once. “Oh my Jesus.”

  Minogue had given up thinking. He was letting things come at him as they were. He glanced from the doctor’s pinched face to the bearded man and back. He felt his legs begin to tremble slightly. A shiver ran up through him. The doctor’s face had a pained look. “You really should sit down.”

  “Stop saying that will you, for Christ’s sake.”

  “That’s them, I think,” the bearded man said. “Listen?” Another man, twenties, with a rugby look to him, had come over. Minogue heard his sharp intake of breath, but he didn’t catch the words he whispered.

  The siren was constant now. Another one, quieter, joined it. Minogue looked around. Fifteen, maybe twenty people were standing by their cars now, mobiles glued to ears, darting glances about. Two more men had come over, and were making their way cautiously around to the passenger side of the car. Minogue turned to the bearded man.

  “Tell them, will you? Get everybody back. Okay?”

  “You’re a Guard, you said,” said the doctor.

  Minogue had three cards left in his breast pocket. He held two out.

  The Passat driver didn’t seem to want to get any closer. He stood by the plumber’s van, and catching Minogue’s eye, he held out the mobile.

  “They’re on the way,” he called out. “Okay?” Minogue knew that it would be up to him to walk over. It angered him for a moment, but then a sudden calm swept over him. It was overwhelming relief he felt now, relief at the sight of this annoying bastard, a man now redeemed and onside just because he looked as ordinary and as scared as everyone else here.

  “You’re a detective,” the doctor was murmuring. “An Inspector?”

  Minogue felt no urge to answer. A woman with hennaed hair was scurrying over from the line of cars, clasping and unclasping her hands. There was a hem of some uniform under her coat. A nurse?

  “Do you know the person in the…?”

  The sirens had drifted into sync. The henna-haired woman arrived, to be met by the bearded man, his arms half raised, and Minogue’s card still between his fingers. “I do,” he managed. “He’s a Guard too.”

  He took his first step in what he felt sure would be a long, long trek where the Passat driver was holding out his phone. The shards of glass in that thick, curly hair flashed back to him.

  “Garda Corcoran.”

  Chapter 33

  It took Malone nearly an hour to show up. By then a more constant drizzle had started, and Minogue had been turning the key every minute or so to clear the windscreen. He was studying the display on his mobile when he saw the taxi draw up near the Garda cars.

  Malone was kept waiting. Though Minogue could not see the Guard’s face, he could tell by the slow movements as he lifted and lowered his mouthpiece for the walkie-talkie that word was out. Malone stood bareheaded, his hands in his pockets. He kept up his stare at some faroff place, while he waited for some other angry copper, the one at the far end of this walkie-talkie conversation, to deliberate on something.

  The Guard slowly clipped his mouthpiece back on his lapel. Malone stooped to get under the tape, and he took his time walking over. He kept his eyes on the pavement not far ahead, his carefully neutral expression steady and unchanging. Minogue considered moving to the driver’s seat, but he still felt pinned to where he now sat. Malone glanced at him and then altered his course to the passenger side, and sat into the back seat. He palmed his forehead and hair free of the drizzle. “You came in a taxi,” Minogue said.

  “Yeah. No-one would take me. Then Fitz came after me. I had to get out.” “Came after you?”

  “He was losing it,” said Malone, quietly, and shrugged. He wiped a clear spot on the rear window, and he looked across the roadway.

  “This is our doing, according to Fitz.”

  Minogue examined his hands. It was useless trying keep them from trembling.

  “You okay?” Malone asked. Minogue said nothing.

  Malone made to say something, but he hesitated and then sat back with a sigh.

  “So he took that jalopy of yours out, to see if it was worth anything,” Minogue heard himself say. Malone nodded.

  “I told them,” he said. “Fitz. I told him, there was no way I knew. No way.”

  Minogue opened the top of his cigarette packet, poked aside the two that had fallen, and made a count. Seven cigarettes in an hour, including the ten minutes giving the eyewitness to that bullet-headed copper from Dun Laoghaire, what was his name?

  “Tommy, you need to know something. The word is already out about you.” “What word is that?”

  “Don’t treat me like an iijit. That you’re an insider. That you’re bent. ”

  “I know. I knew about that stuff a long time. Everybody did.”

  A glaze had come over Malone’s eyes.

  “That’s why this happened,” Minogue said. “Isn’t it?”

  Malone’s eye drifted back to the space he had cleared on the glass.

  “Are you armed?” Minogue asked.

  Malone turned away from the window, and met Minogue’s eye.

  “You are,” Minogue went on. “Yes?”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “Is it duty issued? Or the other?”

  “Duty, of course. What do you think?”

  “You’re on case review, and you’re carrying a firearm? On whose authority?”

  “Boss, listen to me: I’m on loan. I been telling you that all along. Remember?” “I don’t believe you.”

  His words hung in the air. Malone’s lips tightened and went slack again.

  “Well I know that,” he said. “Don’t I.”

  Minogue closed his cigarette packet and slid it back into his jacket pocket.

  “So you’re ready then,” he said. “That’s why you’re here. Am I right?”

  Malone looked away.

  “You have a conscience. You’re going to turn yourself in. Right?”

  “I told them this could happen,” Malone said. “They’ll probably deny it, of course. But I did tell them. And that’s why I have what I have here. I told them I wouldn’t do the job if I couldn’t defend myself. See?”

  “Told who?”

  Malone made a long, slow blink.

  “They don’t want me telling you anything,” he said. “They said to wait.”

  “Wait? Wait for what?” Malone shifted a little.

  “You mind opening the window here boss? The smoke?” Minogue reached for the key again. Malone thumbed the window down halfway. The wipers came on once. The gait on the tall, flatfooted man coming his way had a familiar look. He had never seen Brendan O’Leary in a tweed cap and a raincoat before. It looked wrong, like golf clothes or something. O’Leary slowed a little when the wiper came to life, and he gave Minogue a blank look.

  “I’ll be waiting here,” Malone muttered.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It’s you they’ll be talking to.” Minogue stared at him.

  “Just as well too,” Malone added. “If I went over, I’d be pulling a Fitz on them.”

  Minogue’s brain had locked up. He saw that O’Leary was waiting, keeping him in his peripheral vision while he watched the last of the site tent being settled around the Escort. The white nylon fabric seemed to glow under the pewter sky.

  “Just go,” Malone said. “Will you? I’m not going to rob your car.”

  The air was thick, more a fog than a drizzle, but it still seemed to fizz around him. His joints ached with each step. He sensed that O’Leary was aware of this, and measuring his own stride. Two Traffic Guards were routing the last of the cars
up over the footpath and sending them back over the curb a couple of hundred yards off. He looked again for the mobile command post, but didn’t spot it. Traffic, he supposed. He kept turning his mobile over in his hand, undecided yet about whether to phone Kathleen. They had the radio on most days in her office.

  O’Leary gestured toward a gap between two of the squad cars. The Guard who had let Malone through the cordon maintained his heavy-lidded stare. Minogue looked for a face in the dark blue Nissan head.

  “In the back, Matt,” O’Leary said. “The far side.”

  Through the drizzle on the windows, Minogue saw outlines of two people.

  “Who’s the other one?”

  O’Leary didn’t answer, but waited by the driver’s door.

  Minogue got in the back seat, opposite the Commissioner. Tynan’s face had an abstracted, preoccupied look. He shifted a little, picked up a folder that had been lying on the other seat. Carney was sitting almost sideways in the passenger seat, his back against the door. O’Leary answered a mobile phone halfway into the first ring. He listened briefly, said ‘Five minutes, sorry,’ and then he returned to his scrutiny of the water droplets forming on the glass.

  “A terrible, terrible day, Matt.” Carney’s voice was down to a whisper. “But how are you doing, yourself?”

  Minogue kept his eyes on the seatback, tried to breathe quietly through his nose.

  “Garda Malone has begun the process with you,” said Tynan. “Am I right?”

  Minogue turned a little to meet Tynan’s eye. “He said he was going to,” said Tynan.

  “‘And you’re not gonna effin’ stop me this time.’” Carney’s version of a Dublin accent wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

  “Process,” Minogue said. “What process?”

  “Matt, you’ve had a shock. You know the score here now, better than many.”

  It was the first time that Minogue could remember that the Commissioner had used his Christian name.

  “Garda Malone insisted,” Tynan added. “We’re going to respect his wishes on the matter.” Minogue let the silence drag.

  “Do you want to talk to someone right now?” Carney asked him. “We have a counselling service lad here just in case. He’s very good. Yes?”

  “Tommy insisted on what?” Minogue said. “And what ‘plan’?”

  Carney shifted heavily in the seat again.

  “Listen, Matt,” he began. “Nobody expected this – nobody. This is not just about Irish gangs, or Dublin hoodlums. No. These people have no rules. They don’t care.” Minogue kept up his stare at Carney.

  “The gist of it is this: Malone is undercover—”

  “—He’s not undercover,” said Minogue. Carney recoiled.

  “He’s a common-or-garden Garda detective,” Minogue went on. “And he’s working with me on a murder investigation. And that murder investigation got kicked up the line because someone decided that the publicity was too much to handle. And because in this country, apparently, you can pick up a phone, and use your connections to get what you want.” Carney rubbed at his forehead.

  “I don’t know the details there now, Matt, but you heard me say to you that— ”

  “Why is Tommy Malone sitting over there in my car, armed with a pistol, not under arrest, and I’m sitting here with you instead?”

  Carney pursed his lips, and darted a glance in Tynan’s direction.

  “Can you do that later,” Tynan said. “After Dan finishes what he needs to say?”

  Carney leaned forward, his eyes bulging a little. “The answer to your question, Matt, is because the rumour mill works too well. Too well indeed.”

  There was an edge in his voice now, but what was getting to Minogue was the patronizing tone.

  “So let me pose a question to you: what has you wanting Malone’s arrest?”

  “Things I heard,” Minogue replied. “Tips. Bush telegraph.”

  “Was there any clear, credible evidence?”

  “Well there is now, isn’t there?”

  “Like what, exactly?”

  “They wanted to shut him up,” Minogue said. “In case he tried to roll over.” “Who did?”

  “I don’t know who pulled the trigger, but I can guess. So can a lot of Guards.”

  Carney spread out his fingers. He grasped his thumb first.

  “Dunne?” he asked. “One of the Egans maybe? The Connollys, is it, Black and Decker, now that Frank’s gone? How about Limerick then – Dunphy, maybe one of the Shiels? Barry O, and his pack there in Meath, with his ponies and his golf course in Spain? Is it any of them you’re thinking of now?”

  Small rims of spittle had formed to the sides of his mouth.

  “We knew there’d be talk,” Carney went on. “That’s built into the plan.”

  A wry and wholly insincere smile came to his face.

  “And I’ll bet I know who’s been feeding you most,” he said.

  “Starts with J? Second name a K...?” Minogue said nothing. Carney sat back against the door. “Things start and finish at my desk,” Tynan said then. “So you can be sure you’re getting the goods here. This operation of which he is a part has been going on for some time. His part winds down now – it has to. But we’ll proceed with what we need to do.”

  Tynan was waiting for some acknowledgement.

  “You have a right to be upset,” Tynan added. “But the discussion about operational matters will not be going further here. It can’t. Can’t you see that?” Minogue made a curt nod.

  “By the way,” Tynan said. “Do you speak any Chinese? Mandarin? Cantonese?” Minogue shook his head.

  “Me neither. But we do have three staff with the Garda Síochána who do. Two are Garda officers, and they can do both languages equally well. The third is a new employee, a civilian, who is the more expert of the three. So we’re getting there.” He glanced over to Carney, who responded with a nod. “Where’s ‘there,’ you might ask,” Carney said.

  He waited for Minogue to show interest, but sensed it wasn’t forthcoming.

  “You deserve a snapshot at least,” he said. “It’ll help put things in perspective. Maybe you’ve heard bits of it one way or another already. You’re up to speed on what Eastern Europe has come to mean for us here the past few years?”

  “I am, I think.”

  “And we keep going East? Russians, Albanians, Ukrainian blags showing up? All the various affiliations and put-togethers from the Middle East and beyond, Afghanistan, Pakistan even? You’ve seen the traffic down in Liaison surely. Europol, the Americans?”

  “But this has been going on awhile,” Minogue said.

  “Of course it has. And all this on top of our native species, and our neighbours from across the Channel there? My point here is that none of this is news to you, is it?”

  “No.”

  “Good. So we had to look around. Do we have people who could make a difference in these situations? Languages, experience, connections. Drive.”

  Minogue looked from Tynan to Carney and back. “You’re telling me that Tommy’s been choreographed? A copper gone bad?”

  “It’s not acting,” said Carney.

  “And the word went out that he was bent?”

  “We didn’t push that,” said Carney, quickly sitting upright again. “We let people think what they wanted. We put out little signals a while back.”

  “What about Kelly, and the Ombudsman’s inquiry? Was that staged?”

  Carney’s smile was full of grim satisfaction now. “It came out of the blue. Like they say these days, why waste a crisis? So we ran with it. Nimble, adaptive, that’s what’s needed. We heaved Malone out of Drugs, and put him out here in purdah.”

  “Purdah. Working with me on case review you mean?”

  “Purdah’s the wrong word,” Tynan interrupted. “It was cover, to make it credible that Garda Malone was being quarantined, because he was under suspicion. And it gave him a job where he could fester and build up resentment. To ripen, so to
speak.”

  “This was all building up the role? A kind of PR?”

  “That’s right,” said Tynan.

  “We wanted him rolling in it,” said Carney. His enthusiasm was unsettling to Minogue. “That was the plan. One step short of being sacked, or up on charges. God, we were ready to give him suspensions even – anything to rev up the situation.” Minogue’s brain had stopped trying to think ahead. “Willie Ryan’s pub,” he said. “The fight there?” Carney rotated his shoulder, and massaged it. He gave Minogue a knowing grin.