Fergal Sheehy slammed down the boot lid. Raindrops flew up as it rebounded. He swore with little fervor.
“Are those your wellies there?” he asked Malone.
“I don’t have any shagging wellies. Wellies are for culchies.”
“Is that your considered opinion?” Sheehy asked. “You’re an iijit then.”
“What else did your wife’s latest fella tell you after that?”
Sheehy pushed Minogue’s overnight further back in the boot. The car stank of cigars. Sheehy, smoking after winners, Minogue wondered. He turned down the radio. Sheehy closed the boot lid with a massive slam. Malone sat in.
“What’s the matter with him?” he asked
“We’re going down the country,” Minogue said. “He’s not.”
Minogue tugged out his seat belt. Sheehy sat in heavily behind the wheel.
Minogue still believed that the sergeant took grim satisfaction in being given the headbanger parts of an investigation.
“I hope you’re not after breaking our duty free,” Malone called out.
Sheehy cocked an eye at him.
“Take me drunk lads, I’m home,” said Malone.
Sheehy crunched reverse twice before finding it. The suspension bottomed out when he sped out the gate onto the North Circular Road.
“Well shag this,” said Malone. “I’m walking.”
“Some day’s work this’ll be,” Sheehy grunted, “if this is how it’s starting.”
“The airport follow-ups,” said Minogue.
“The passenger lists,” said Sheehy. “The car park. The lookouts for stuff being fenced. Trying to trace your man’s camera and such. But that’s only the half of it.”
Minogue flicked at the zipper handle on his briefcase. Had he reminded Murtagh to phone again, see if the bank cards had showed up active yet?
“Setting up to work on Aoife Hartnett, is it?”
“God, no,” Sheehy grunted. “That’s police work That I don’t mind.”
He accelerated around a bread van through the amber light at Cabra Road.
“Ferrying you and Head-the-Ball out to fly off to Mayo, now that’s work.”
“Hey, Fergal, me oul son,” Malone broke in “Does there be a lot of muck and stuff out there? Down the country like. I don’t want to get me new Nikes dirty.”
Sheehy didn’t take the bait. He worked his way through Glasnevin and turned down Griffith Avenue. Minogue tried to pin a name on the jig that Sheehy’d began whistling. Sheehy produced a cigar at the lights by Swords Road. Minogue rolled down his window. Sheehy affected not to notice. The air was damp, with an edge to it.
“Knock International, is it?” he asked.
“That’s it. Look, Fergal. We were only codding about the duty free.”
“Ah, well that’s all right, so.”
“We’re on expenses,” said Malone. “We don’t need the duty free, like.”
Sheehy shook his head and settled into top gear for the start of the motorway.
“See how cocky you are after falling around the place there a few hours,” he said around the cigar. “In the bog. In the pissings of rain. You jackeen.”
Minogue allowed himself to be drawn into a conversation about whether Mayo was wetter than Clare. Sheehy maintained that Dublin people were climatically deprived. Malone offered that Sheehy hadn’t been crouched in a tent with the wind howling and the rain lashing the other night. Sheehy offered to exchange places with Malone on the trip to Mayo. Malone replied that he had finally been convinced that country people were far better educated than Dubs so the file work and searches would be best left to them. So, no.
Minogue tuned out more often. He thought about the Carra Fields and the bog roads around them. Five thousand years ago, Garland had told him, but it had returned to bogland by the time of the Bronze Age. With the forests down, the rain had leeched away the soil in no time at all.
“ Cad a dheanfaimid feasta gan adhmad…”* he murmured. * “Kilcais ” (Kill-cash), a poem written anonymously in the early 1700s, was a staple of school learning until very recently. It laments the destruction both of Ireland’s native forests and nobles’ houses such as Kilcais. It became generalized as a somber comment on the loss of the past and its treasures.
What shall we do for timber?
The last of the woods is down
Kilcais and the house of its glory,
The spot where that lady waited
Who shamed all women for grace
When earls came sailing to greet her
And Mass was said in the place.
Sheehy cocked an ear. There was warmth in his voice now.
“ Ta deireadh na gcoillte ar lar,
Nil tracht ar Kilcais na a theaghlach… I forget the last line.”
“ S’ni cluinfear a chluin go brach,” Minogue said. “You’re good, Fergal.”
“I bet you went through the Christian Brothers.”
“It was a truce mostly, as I recall,” Minogue said.
Traffic by the airport roundabout was light. Minogue studied the faces in the tour bus that had pulled over. American, he guessed. A maple leaf on the front window told him otherwise. Hard to tell. He looked over the fountain at the hangars on the north apron.
Sheehy was waved through the checkpoint. He pulled up by the taxi rank. Minogue blew his nose again and stepped out. Malone was pulling the bags out of the boot. A jet engine was warming up somewhere.
Sheehy looked around the roadway as though he had dropped money on it. Tired, Minogue knew, chasing leads all evening and another twelve hours of it ahead of him.
“Back tonight, do you think?” Sheehy asked.
“Might be, Fergal. Are ye all right?”
“Ah, we’re in good order. As well as starting up background on the woman, I’m going to go after the people in those photos today. Start in, anyhow. See if Shaughnessy told anyone anything about what was on his mind.”
“Good, Fergal. The calls might come better today too.”
“They better. There’s nothing.”
“He’ll show up. So will she.”
Sheehy looked over at Malone holding the door with his knee as he dragged the bags into the building.
“Seems to me now they were keen not to be noticed,” he said. “I mean, people down the country don’t miss much.”
Minogue nodded.
“Good man yourself. And you stuck in Dublin, Fergal.”
“Deliberate,” said Sheehy. “Some class of planning went on. But that’s for you to be thinking about.”
Malone had his head glued to the window most of the time. There was low cloud coverage soon after Dublin but there were gaps. The constant noise bothered him more than the vibration. Why hadn’t he brought a flask of coffee?
He looked out at the propellers again. Patches of land appeared through the clouds and were swiped away again. He checked his watch. They must be getting close now. An hour’s drive from the airport should do it, an hour and a half at most.
He remembered Caty’s disbelief when she and Daithi had returned to Dublin after their week in the west last year. Where were all the people out here, Caty wanted to know. Such a sense of isolation in such a small country. Et cetera… She had talked about the Famine over dinner in the new Chineser on George’s Street. “Romancing” was Kathleen’s predicable closer on Caty’s talk of a huge weight of something in the air — but a lovely girl. She’d really wake up Daithi, really liven him up.
The copilot leaned around the doorway.
“About five minutes now,” he shouted.
Minogue folded the newspaper. He unfolded it again to look at the picture of Larry Smith on the third page. He wasn’t going to let it distract him. Why no pictures of all the addicts and the maimed people who’d run through Smith’s hands before someone shot him? Inner-city families knew that, at least. His ears popped. Was it raining below? The nerve of the Smiths: “demanding” a public inquiry into why the murderers hadn’t been caught.
The plane dipped, and droning louder, it rose sharply. Minogue’s stomach followed the tilt. Fields and hedges came into view below the wing now, far-off hills and mountains. The high peak of the shrine passed under them.
“Will we be stopping in for a dose of holy water?” Malone called out. Minogue glared at him: a pilgrimage to Knock wasn’t part of the plan. He wondered what Malone might say at the sight of barefoot pilgrims and penitents climbing Croagh Patrick: where do you get a hamburger around here?
The engines slowed. The hills to his left slid by and arranged themselves as the plane settled on an approach. Jumbos landed at Knock, didn’t they? There was talk of several planes booked from the States direct to Knock for a commemoration of something. Coffin ships from the Famine, was it…? He stared at the seat back ahead of him as the plane closed on the runway. The wings’ sudden tipping caused him to glance back. The wheels bounced back once, settled, and the nose of the plane eased down. He was surprised how little runway it needed to slow to a brisk walking pace. He spotted the squad car by the terminal as the plane turned.
Minogue slipped on the ladder but Malone shouldered him back onto the step.
“Watch the moves there,” he said “You wouldn’t try that back in Dublin.”
The tarmac was wet in patches. Farm, he smelled. Over the hedges rose the hills of East Mayo. He eyed the canopy fluttering feebly by the runway. A turboprop was parked near the terminal and, beyond it, two light planes and a minibus.
“A bit like Heathrow,” said Malone. “Except there’s no people. Or buildings.”
The squad car made its way at a leisurely speed from the terminal. Minogue took his bag from the pilot and squinted at the windscreen of the Vectra.
The driver was an affable, droopy-eyed Garda McGurk. He had the tonsured look of a monk and a bushy, Gallic mustache. The passenger was a Sergeant Ryan.
“Pat,” said Ryan, and shook hands. His eyebrows were black, as were the few hairs high up on his cheeks, but his hair was a well-maintained ash-gray thatch. Folds of loose skin swelled against his collar and lapped over when he nodded. Would they mind stopping in at the Ballina station to have a chat with Inspector Noonan before heading up? No bother, from Minogue.
Minogue sat in the back with Malone. McGurk took the Vectra across the Claremorris Road and settled onto a narrow lane. The windscreen was filthy at the margins. There was a pig farm nearby, Minogue knew. The smell comforted him.
“The back way up through Kiltimagh,” Ryan said.
Minogue looked out at the passing hedgerows.
“I thought ye’d go on to Castlebar,” Ryan tried again. “The airport there.”
“Ah we couldn’t pass up Knock,” Minogue had to say. “Pilgrims, we are. Or refugees, from Dublin. But does there be a high season for the shrine at all?”
“It’s steady enough,” replied Ryan “There was a plane in from England Monday. Irish, the most of ’em, but. It was part of a bus tour thing.”
Minogue shifted his knees against the back of the driver’s seat.
“Have we news yet?” he asked. “Up at Cahercarraig there. The car.”
Ryan scratched at the back of his head. Minogue tried yet again to gauge the territorial quotient. The Dublin Experts: right. Sure. The car wallowed and jerked as it hit a dip in the road. Ryan unhooked the transceiver, checked the volume.
“I’ll check for you now.”
Malone kept up his study of the countryside as they left Kiltimagh.
“Lots of rocks and things,” he said. McGurk glanced over his shoulder.
“How much would you pay for, say, a ticket to a concert up in the Big Smoke?” he asked Minogue.
“What type of concert, now?” Minogue asked, half-listening to the radio transmission. Ryan repeated that they were on their way to Ballina.
“Groups,” said McGurk. “Big name.”
“Traditional stuff, like?”
“God no. The big ones. What do you call the place, the Point.”
“A fair whack,” said Malone. “Depends, but.”
“Okay. The Works. Them, say. What would you pay?”
Minogue looked at McGurk’s bald crown.
“Twenty,” said Malone. “Just to get in. Fifty if you want to get a look at ’em.”
McGurk shook his head.
“Holy God,” he said. “I told herself. She wouldn’t believe me.”
McGurk couldn’t be far short of forty, Minogue decided. He studied the points of his mustache in profile. Was this corpulent Guard an off-duty rocker and general satyr? The rural Irishman at his simple, unfathomable best.
“They’re deadly though,” said McGurk. “You have to admit.”
“They’re all right,” Malone said.
“ ‘Bless the virgin, meek and mild; cruise the strip and save the child.’ ”
Minogue found himself trying to suppress a smile.
“Yeah,” said Malone.
“I don’t know what it means,” said McGurk. “But I keep thinking about it.”
“They have a way of throwing words together, I suppose.”
Trowen, Minogue thought. Dee english language trowen on the fukken shoals of a Dubbalin-man’s ideas, loike.
“You’re not mad about them, are you?”
“Since they went big, I don’t know. The edge is gone offa them. Washed up.”
“Do you think? Who’s on the edge then, now like?”
Malone studied a tractor as the squad car finally moved around it. He waved back at the driver.
“GOD. Now they’re the business.”
McGurk looked around at him.
“GOD? You’re joking me.”
“Why am I joking you?”
“They’re head cases, aren’t they? I heard two of them are lezzers, man.”
Malone cracked his knuckles.
“What’s the story on the drug scene these days?” asked Ryan. “Up in Dublin.”
“Bad,” said Minogue. “Been bad a long while now.”
“It’s all over now, of course,” Ryan said. “Isn’t it?”
So this was a territorial nark coming out. Minogue sensed that Malone had picked up the dig too. Drugs were an obvious plot by Dublin to defile rural Ireland. As well as Murder Squad luminaries landing on them here to tell Guards how to do their business. Being flown here, for the love of God, because they were so high and mighty. McGurk began to take a keener interest in negotiating the turns. They braked for a stop sign. Two articulated lorries swept by on the Castlebar Road.
“Another bit of a jog and we’ll come up near to Foxford,” said McGurk.
“They’ve brought up the drug squad to seven in Castlebar,” said Ryan.
All Dublin’s fault, Minogue was ready to agree.
“Terrible, isn’t it,” he murmured instead.
“Five years ago, there wasn’t one.”
Why was it taking so long to get a call back from Ballina?
“At this rate — ”
Ryan didn’t get the chance to finish. Malone too looked away from the window to listen better. They had floated the Nissan Micra off the rocks just a half an hour ago at high tide. A body had been recovered. Female, matching the description of the missing person. McGurk half-turned in the seat. He offered the mike to Minogue. The inspector shook his head.
“Ask him where they’re taking it,” he said. “If you please.”
Chief Inspector Noonan was well over six feet. He had an odd bump at the bridge of his nose and fine, dark-red hair that reminded Minogue of a horse. Dyed, he wondered, but decided it couldn’t be. The chief inspector had sandwiches and a pot of tea waiting for his visitors. Minogue wondered if he’d already struck up a liking for Noonan before he’d been offered the sandwiches. The expression maybe, the one eye open slightly more than the other, the quiet tones
“Floats,” said Minogue again. He glanced at the edge of the tomato slice peeping out from between the slices. Yellow more than green.
“Quite something, I tell you,” said Noonan. “One fella went down from the boat, made two or three paddles back to the boat, gets enough for four points, and that’s that.”
“As easy as that.”
“Child’s play,” Noonan said “They inflated them open when they were ready. Up comes the car. The boat took it out from near the rocks and it’s up on a winch and the boat’s back in the harbor. You sort of forget how strong air is.”
“Isn’t that something.”
“Tell you the truth, we were lucky,” said Noonan He pushed the second plate of sandwiches toward Minogue. “The fisheries crowd and the recovery gear were handy in Belmullet.”
Minogue took a long sip of tea. The female removed from the car was in the morgue of the county hospital. The female, well who else could it be. The Micra was wrapped and headed to Castlebar in a lorry. “Juris-dictional,” Noonan said flat-out. In the spirit of decentralization. It was Divisional HQ, and the forensic work was usually done there. Minogue glanced at the photos on Noonan’s wall. There were two former commissioners among a group of smiling officers.
“Isn’t it though?” Noonan asked again.
“Which now?”
“The means. Give us the tools. Sure, isn’t that what’s going on in Dublin?”
He had missed whatever preamble Noonan had given.
“I, er, well, there’s always some new initiative, isn’t there?” he managed.
“Law reform is the tool,” said Noonan. He looked from Malone to Minogue.
“The whole Smith thing, sure, how come he was ever out on the streets at all? He should have been behind bars for life.”
Minogue returned Noonan’s quizzical smile. So the chief inspector wanted to chew the fat about Larry Smith, did he? He declined Noonan’s offer of more tea.
“Sure it’s the wild west above there isn’t it? Gangs, the whole shooting gallery? Something has to be done.”
The gentle smile lingered. Noonan inviting a confidence, assent: Ah, you’re right, the law’s an ass. We should take the likes of Smith out ourselves if the law won’t. Noonan tilted his cup and rubbed it around the saucer. The Old Guard, Minogue thought. Noonan, with the countryman’s innate hospitality, but the two former commissioners he was proud to display himself standing beside had been renowned as wallopers.
“How best can we get to the site?” he asked. “The cliffs…?”