Eileen Brogan looked up from the page at him. Minogue had been thinking of a hospital room. Machines, tubes, wires.
“Sorry,” he said.
“July,” she said again. “That was the end of that stage. There was a do here, a reception. We went over to Sheehan’s pub after the approval was confirmed.”
“Then it passed on to the construction phase, did you say?”
“Yes. All the approvals were in, I heard.”
“The exhibition was the launch of the actual building for the center?”
She nodded.
“I don’t recall seeing any building work started there,” he said.
“I only know what I read from typing up letters and minutes and that or what I’d hear. But I did I hear her complaining here not too long ago. There was some holdup with one of the tenders for drainage work or something. The County Council there weren’t doing their job fast enough.”
Her voice began to quiver again.
“She was so meticulous, so… She worked so hard. I’d go at half-five and I’d tell her, Aoife, go home would you, for God’s sake. I’d feel guilty, and me only a clerk typist really.”
She was trying to stop shivering.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I hadn’t realized.”
“No, no,” she said with an edge to her voice now. “I want to do the best I can here now. For Aoife.”
She stared at the Biro Minogue turned against his thumb.
“She wasn’t the kind to talk about home life much. Maybe that’s because she wasn’t married or that. She’d talk about her niece now, or about people she knew.”
“Did she maybe mention things that were on her mind? Upsetting her?”
“You asked me that earlier, I know, and I’ve been trying to think. I didn’t know anything about that few weeks she took off until the afternoon before.”
“You got no impression she resented it?”
“No. I knew she was tired. She wouldn’t complain and she’d just carry on, but there was something missing. I’d never have asked her. I used to ask myself well what would Aoife want, like. Me — I’m just, well, there’s Ronan and me. Not much room for anything else. No holidays or car, not even a house for God’s sake, but me ma and da are great. They’re my family again, sort of. Since Tony and that. Aoife hadn’t been lucky well in the marriage stakes, I suppose — I thought.”
“You knew something about that?”
“Not really,” she replied. “I mean, nobody told me. But I saw her here — right over there, by the window I knew she’d been crying. This is months ago. And I kind of knew — well, there was a feeling — it was a letdown with a fella. I didn’t want to be putting me foot in it. Aoife had her own sort of territory. What would I say?”
“Reserve, do you mean?”
“I suppose. Not snobby now or that. The way a good boss is, not trying to be pallsy-walsy or that. Some people found her cool because of it, or they were a bit put out by her being so smart and all. I liked that about her. But I felt so bad for her then. ‘Plenty more fish in the sea,’ I remember saying to her. Stupid things you say, you know? She sort of smiled. She knew, I think. That I knew, like. Do you know what I’m saying?”
He waited for several moments. She frowned and looked at her hanky.
“What else did you know of that side of Aoife?”
“That’s it. There should have been someone for her, that’s what’s been getting to me this last hour, yes.”
Her eyes went to a corner of the ceiling.
“What about Dermot Higgins, maybe?”
“Dermot here?”
Minogue nodded. Her lips twitched.
“Ah no, that wasn’t on. You’d easy fall for him though, wouldn’t you? If you were a girl, like. No. Dermot doesn’t make a big deal out of it. Everyone knows ”
“What, now?”
“Dermot’s gay.”
Minogue tried not to let his bewilderment show. Didn’t gay men all have short hair and earrings these days? The giveaway voice and mannerisms?
“She did say something that day, now,” Eileen Brogan began again. “Now, if only I can remember it. I thought it was a person she was talking about. Her ex maybe, but I didn’t ask. It was like she was making a crack about it, I don’t know, a fish or something. It was something else though, I suppose ”
“What did she say, can you remember?”
Minogue watched her face as she seized on some recollection, met his gaze, then frowned again as she lost it.
“Oh God, if I could remember it… it was just that I thought of it when I said fish. Something that sounded like a sissy. I was thinking to myself, what kind of a fish is that, a piranha or something? You’re no sooner at the top of a hill than you’re right back at the bottom again, I think she said. Back where you started. A sissy…?”
She dabbed at her eyes again. Minogue didn’t push it. He began to arrange the pages. He looked over the poster of the Carra Hill. How many people, how many centuries had it taken to make it? The size of the rocks, how could one person — he looked up at her then.
“Sisyphus?”
Her eyes widened. She nodded once.
“That’s what it was, yes. How did you know that?”
Malone leaned against the doorjamb. Minogue looked down at the files he had scanned already.
“Well,” said Malone, “not one of them worth getting a proper statement out of. How do you like that?”
Minogue sat back.
“Well-respected,” said Malone “Not a bad word about her. Bit of a workaholic. Is that what you’re getting too?”
Minogue nodded. He closed the folder on the pages from O’Reilly’s booklet about Carra Hill and the stone.
“Here, that’s the book your woman had down there yesterday,” said Malone. “It’s another copy, Tommy.”
Malone sat on the edge of the desk and looked up at the pictures.
“What’s that?” asked Malone and pointed at one. “It’s like a giant soccer ball there. That big rock.”
“That’s the Burren.”
“Who put that big boulder there?”
“God. Some giant. Finn MacCool maybe.”
“You were there when it happened, were you.”
“It was always there. The weather did that to it.”
“Don’t you just want to put the boot to it, like? Give it a little shove, watch it rolling — hey, wait a minute. Haven’t you got a picture of something like that back at the office? That Magoo, Magray…?”
“Magritte,” said Minogue. He’d phone Mairead O’Reilly.
“There was something at the place, Tommy.”
“What? She was strangled, and her car pushed over the cliff, yeah.”
“Something at the place…”
“Like?”
Minogue looked up from the cover of the folder. He thought of O’Reilly’s decades of digging, the patient, stubborn mind refusing to give up its belief. Maybe he needed to believe in things to keep going.
“I found these inside that book.”
Malone picked up the photocopies.
“What are the numbers there — wait. They’re measurements, yeah. This is part of her job, isn’t it?”
Minogue didn’t answer. He watched Malone turn some sideways and return each to the back of the sheaf.
“Seen some of ’em before,” said Malone. He dropped them on the desk and looked at Minogue. “In pictures and that.”
Minogue plucked one out and put it on the desk in front of Malone.
“Seen it.”
“Boa Island.”
He dropped another.
“No,” said Malone. “Don’t know it.”
“Drumlin. County Roscommon. This one’s in the museum already.”
“Okay,” Malone said. “But so what?”
“I don’t know.”
Malone gave his boss a long, slow blink.
“So we’d better get back to work then.”
Minogue gathered the pages again and slid them into the folder.
“They’re all heads, Tommy.”
“Good. Try tails next time.”
“She knew the Carra Fields stuff inside out.”
“Right,” said Malone. “That was her job, yeah?”
“That history, the one O’Reilly wrote, the one I took home the other day. There’s a page and a half on a description of the stone, the one they say had to be carried up the hill.”
“For the new fella to be crowned? The next king, like?”
“Yes. Why has she all these pictures from all kinds of books and magazines and even tourist brochures in next to that page?”
Malone rubbed his palm on the short hairs over his crown.
“It’s her job, boss. Same as we’d, I don’t know, make points of comparison with statements or MOS. Scene summaries?”
“There’s more to it than that, Tommy.”
Malone stood away from the doorjamb
“Well, let me ask you something, so,” he said. “How much of what your man wrote is true? I was there yesterday. Even the daughter knows there was stuff made up. Your man was into it all his life, you know. All the legends and stuff- well, I mean, how much of that is just his own inventions? Like, bullshit…?”
Minogue made no reply. He looked at his watch instead. Half-two. Well? he heard from Malone. Still he said nothing. He let his cuff over his wrist again. O’Reilly had no sources for what he’d written. A stone the weight of a bull, carried up a hill? Heroic entirely, but best left in myth. Damn. Why hadn’t he heard what they’d turned up in her apartment? Phone Murtagh.
Murtagh went slowly down his list.
“Spell that again, John. What’s it for, do you know?”
“Antidepressant. It’s just the label bit you get from the chemist. She probably took the stuff with her.”
“Current, is it?”
“It is,” Murtagh said “There’s other paraphernalia. Old antibiotics too.”
“Can we put Shaughnessy at her place? Visiting even?”
“No answer on that. Yet, like.”
“Cigarettes — what did he smoke again?”
“I’ll pass it on to them, boss.”
“Any life on the phones?”
“Nothing.”
Minogue released the Biro he’d been bending.
“When’s the PM scheduled, John?”
“Hers? There was a phone call in from Donavan’s office to notify for attendance. He can do it this afternoon or early tomorrow. Who will we send?”
Malone, that’s who, Minogue had to conclude.
“By the way,” said Malone. “Now that I think of it, when are we ever going to pick up your hardware?”
“What hardware?”
“Come on, you know. We were issued, remember?”
“Not now, anyway.”
“Why not? Didn’t you tell me that fella Kevin Whatsisname passed on something, something about the Smiths?”
Minogue stared at the clock on the dashboard, willing it to change its numbers. He shouldn’t have mentioned what Kevin Kelly had told him in Bewleys.
“Is it the Smiths blathering has you thinking about this again?”
“Maybe,” Malone said. “What about back when you and the Killer were up against a crowd down from the North? When was that, seven or eight years ago? There was bullets flying then, wasn’t there?”
“Seven years, yes,” said Minogue. “The time of the Christmas bombings.”
“Did you then?”
“No.”
“Why the hell not?”
Minogue studied the tips of his shoes. More than scuff there now. They’d go in a few months.
“Well, I wouldn’t have one in the house, Tommy. That was all.”
Malone jammed the gearshift into second and floored the accelerator Minogue heard him swear under his breath.
“I don’t get paid enough to try to talk sense into you,” Malone said. “Why don’t you just sign it out and park it in the cabinet then?”
“It’s still optional, Tommy. ”
“They should make you.”
“They can’t make me bring a gun into my home. And that’s that.”
“Even if it went to compulsory issue?”
“They’ve never made us. We call in the heavies if we think there are guns.”
“You think Larry Smith’s mob doesn’t have guns?”
Minogue studied his shoes again.
“There’s seventeen holes in that squad car,” said Malone. “I’d say that’s a serious message.”
Maybe they should really send the bill to Gemma O’Loughlin, Minogue thought. Printing that drivel about the Larry Smith solution from a lubricated, giddy Kilmartin showboating for his cronies at the Garda Club.
“They’d know where we live, you know,” said Malone.
Minogue couldn’t disagree. He’d heard enough over the years of the open threats delivered one-on-one to Guards by the Smiths. The names of their children, even; where their parents lived.
“Hold the horses there,” he said. “Are you going to tell me it’s at home I should be strutting around with a gun in me apron and me doing the dishes?”
“Apron is right,” said Malone, and looked away. Minogue let the silence hang.
“I can’t win this one, can I,” said Malone at last. “You get that thick culchie head of yours down and you won’t budge.”
Minogue let the silence hang. He thought of Mick Fahy’s halfhearted attempt to convince him when they were signing out Malone’s at the armory. It’s not the old days, Matt: they all have them and they use them; there’s no respect for the uniform anymore. He thought about Trigger Little, the heaviness in the air around him. Wife and three kids, separated. Did Malone himself actually like guns, he wondered. And why did he not know this about a man he’d worked with for over a year? Driving around Dublin with an automatic pistol in the back of your pants, now that was progress.
“Back to the case, Tommy.”
“What about it?”
“If the airport is beginning to dry up, well, that’s not the end of the world. We have a couple traveling together and two cars waiting to give us leads. It takes so long though, that’s the frustrating part.”
Malone turned into the Coombe. Minogue returned the stares of two nattily dressed men leaning on a silver BMW. One of the men looked away.
“Want to bet how that was paid for,” Malone said. “That Beemer, with the two music video charlies lying up against it?”
He rolled down the window and spat out a piece of a nail he’d been nibbling on. The air smelled of decaying fruit and exhaust smoke. A pound shop was playing “Only Starting” from the Works’ first CD. One of the speakers seemed to be blown. A tweeter.
Malone seemed to be changing gears just for something to do now.
“We might be getting out from under Smith and Company,” Minogue said.
“What, a gouger who’s going to cough up the fells who did for Larry Smith?!”
“There’s a chance,” Minogue said. “Just today, it came up in a court recess. ”
“Huh. Jases, I’d sell anyone, anything, if I was up against a ten-year term. And if I was a junkie? If I was a junkie with bills that could get collected the wrong way in jail, I’d rat on Mother Teresa, so I would.”
There’d be no pleasing Malone now, Minogue decided. He studied the half-built apartments beyond Christ Church. Bow windows, wasn’t that something. Cubicles for yuppies. Then it struck him that Malone could be edgy because he’d been told to attend on the PM for Aoife Hartnett. Minogue decided to waive preliminaries.
“The PM’S not going to be that bad, Tommy. Pierce knows you don’t need the full chapter and verse during.”
“It’s all right,” Malone said.
“I can phone him, leave a message.”
“’It’s okay, boss. No big deal. All right?”
Minogue gave up. He though about putting more life into tracing the missing stuff from Shaughnessy’s car. Somebody doing their job right in Dublin Garda divisions had to have an ear with fences and gougers. Her purse was gone. Access card at least. Shaughnessy’s cards, his camera. Other paraphernalia. And what about all the people at the dos that Shaughnessy or Aoife Hartnett had been at?
Full of questions, Minogue strode into the squad room. He was dimly aware of, and indifferent to, the fact that he was annoyed. The job, he thought, osmosis of Kilmartin’s personality. Maybe it was Malone nagging him about signing for a gun.
Murtagh kept his head down for most of the questions. There were still eighteen cars that needed following up at the long-term car park. Minogue told Murtagh to phone the family of whoever’s name was on the car and find out when the hell he or she had parked their bloody car there.
If Fergal Sheehy was down to the last few interviews then he’d better start finding more: widen the net. A weapon — search the whole damned airport top to bottom. Get Farrell to start right away even. Decide on the motorway even — maybe the weapon was fecked out the window in a panic. And warm up the appeal and put it out again. Specifics: roads in Mayo, person missing. Did Shaughnessy have a camera when he’d arrived in Ireland, or did he bloody-well not? Still trying to figure that out, was Murtagh’s reply. Where were his credit card receipts then? Murtagh pointed to a copy pinned on the boards. Minogue saw Murtagh’s eyes dart to Malone’s as he walked over.
“He paid the hotel here on, what’s this, Mastercard?”
“The last one they have is for the hotel, yes.”
“Are they saying that he didn’t use it afterward or that they don’t know yet?”
“My new pal, Debbie, in the States says that’s it. They’d have it recorded inside of two days now.”
Minogue looked up from the copy at Malone.
“Other cards?”
Murtagh didn’t quite carry off the southern accent on the vowels.
“She done told me she’d run a credit check on heem. He was done flagged bad for priors.”
“What kind of prayers?”
“Naw,” said Murtagh. “Pr-i-ors. He went to hell on an American Express and some other cards a few years back. They nixed him. He only got back on the books a few months ago. There’s a low limit on his new one too.”
“Cash then,” Minogue declared. “Bank records. He must have been carrying, for the love of God.”
Murtagh chose his words carefully.
“I’ll put priority on it, so, boss.”
Minogue couldn’t miss the tone. He turned from the boards again and gave Murtagh the eye.
“Thank you,” he said, just as deliberately.
Murtagh closed a folder and looked up brightly at Eilis.
“Any word from our leader beyond in Boston, Eilis, oul stock?”
“Not yet,” said Eilis. “Quiet for him, isn’t it now?”
“Be nice to get him back,” said Malone. Minogue wasn’t going to ignore this.
“I’ll maybe phone him tonight,” he said to Malone. “I’ll tell him you were asking for him. He’ll like that.”
“Me too,” said Eilis. “Tell him I miss him. His quiet ways. The subtle wit.”
“He’ll be touched, Eilis. It’ll be news to him too, I’d venture to suggest.”
“Don’t forget me,” said Murtagh. Minogue turned his glare back on him.
“I suppose Sheehy and the crew too?” he asked.
“Yeah,” said Malone. “Definitely. They asked me to tell you.”
“He’ll be deeply moved, then.”
“All the mob in Serious Crime too,” said Murtagh. “I was at a do there and they were asking after him.”
“Did the president send her wishes too, Eilis?” Minogue asked.
“Oh,” she murmured. “I forgot to write it down. Thanks for reminding me.”
“What about filling in for him over at Keagh’s Pub?” Murtagh asked. “He foots the bill for a few rounds. Did you forget?”
Minogue pinned the copy of the transaction record back on the boards.
“Enough,” he said. “I hear ye. Loud and clear. Wait till I get paid, at least. I’m skint.”
“Ah, you’re always skint,” Malone said.
“Mine’s brandy then,” said Eilis. “Brandy’ll make up for it.”
“I’ll go easy on you,” said Murtagh. “Three pints.”
“One for each day since Jim left, right?”
Murtagh beamed.
“What about you, Tommy?”
“Same as John Boy there. Fifteen pints or so.”
Minogue looked over at the message board. The slips were green this week, were they. Where the hell did Eilis dig up those memo pads? He gave Malone a thoose on the arm as he walked by. “Just gimme the money instead of the pints then,” said Malone. Minogue saw that his partner was losing the battle to hold back a grin. Malone dropped his head, pushed out his elbows, and jabbed at the air with open hands.
“Won’t work,” Minogue warned him. “I have the reach, pal.”
“You better reach into your shagging pocket when payday comes, so.” Minogue put his arms out but Malone was on him too fast. He felt Malone’s arms clamp his as he was shepherded to the wall.
“Yous culchies,” muttered Malone. He feigned a left hook.
“Corner boy,” Minogue said.
Eilis shook her head and lit another cigarette.
“Men,” she said to no one. “The more they begin to cop on how useless they are, the more of a bloody racket they make.”
“Heard that,” said Malone and parried Minogue’s attempt at a shove.
“I give up,” said Eilis.
“Nail him one in the chops, there, you,” said Murtagh.
“Who?”
“Any of yous. I don’t care who.”
Malone let Minogue push him away.
“That’ll learn you,” he grunted. “Fifteen pints and the hiding of your life, you sodbuster.”
“Do you want your messages,” Eilis called out, “or do you want another round to knock the shite out of one another?”
“Eilis!” said Murtagh. “The bleeding language…!”
“Not you,” she said. “His honor here. A personal and a call from the quare fella what’s with Leyne. Freeman. He’s a Yank.”
Minogue straightened his shirt collar.
“Whyn’t you tell me on the cell phone, Eilis, when I was over beyond at Aoife Hartnett’s crowd?”
“He phoned a quarter of an hour ago only. I told him I could raise you and conference you through to him if it was urgent.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked if it was a cell phone. I said it was. He said he’d wait, so.”
Malone exchanged a frown with Minogue. The inspector took the slips from Eilis’s outstretched hand. Kathleen first. Today was her half day. He’d forgotten.
She was eating something when he phoned her. Iseult had a plan, she told him. She had consulted her conscience before phoning with the news that she’d be going out for a swim in Killiney Bay. Orla’s father had a boat, remember. Iseult didn’t want them worrying, that was all. Wasn’t that nice? He rubbed at his eyes and held in a sigh. His knuckles ached when he tried to switch the receiver to his left hand. The office had gone quiet. He turned to see where Murtagh was.
Purcell had come out of Kilmartin’s office. He’d nearly forgotten about him being here, Minogue thought as he listened to Kathleen’s arrangements. Iseult didn’t mind him coming out in the boat with Orla’s father. In fact she wanted it. Didn’t things work out well there? Minogue nodded at Purcell. Then he stared at the phone cord until his eyes went sandy. Purcell had sidled over to Murtagh, who was ignoring his questions.
Minogue said good-bye to Kathleen and let the phone down slowly. Purcell tried again with Murtagh. Murtagh looked him up and down.
Minogue studied Purcell’s face. Curious, suspicious.
“Heard the news on the Smith thing?” Purcell tried. He looked from face to face. Malone stopped rubbing his nose and looked over at Purcell.
“It might be the clincher,” he said. “Home free. That’d be great.”
Minogue studied the phone number Freeman had left.
He stood and stretched. Purcell fingered his lip and watched his approach.
“Matt.”
Purcell had scaly skin, redder when he was bothered.
“Matt. You know I think the same thing. I’d only be delighted to walk out of here. We’re only here to assure administration that the case is gone as far as it could go for now, that the Smith file is jammed for good reason. We can’t have people thinking that the squad’s just sitting on it.”
Minogue searched the sparse hair Purcell had recently combed down. “That’s as far as it goes,” Purcell said. “We all agree on that, I think.”
“Smith’s file is active, Sean,” said Minogue. Purcell nodded, looked at the wall. “We review in short every month, going back eight years to a stabbing in Fairview even. We reassign in full every three months to get the new eyes on it. It’s always moving. Always.”
“You know that, I know that, but it’s been reviewed independently.”
Minogue looked at Kilmartin’s clock.
“You know,” said Purcell. “I never get pally when we go in like this. Never. I shouldn’t even be talking to you probably It’s just that, well, this isn’t some hooligan getting his arm broken in a squad car, this is a case of the best we have here. No one seriously believes what that bitch said in the paper. She parroted anything the Smiths said just to sell papers.”
Bitch, Minogue reflected. Well, now Purcell should move on to a different department. A different job, maybe.
“Nobody in their right minds could believe what she was letting these gangsters say through her column. Really, I mean…”
Minogue said nothing. Purcell finally shrugged and looked away.