The small, choking black space around his face had become his world. Minogue tried counting his heartbeats to control his claustrophobia. His face felt swollen from the heat, and the musty, mildewed smell of the sack still stung his nostrils. He knew he was facing the wall and that there was a rickety back to the chair he had been tied to. Three men, he knew from their voices, the two from the van and a third he sensed was an older man. He tried to breathe more shallowly. The twine around his wrists was thin and sharp and he worried about the circulation in his hands. His body ached as he tried to sense some movement in the air around him. It was the voice of the third man, this newly arrived stranger, that took Minogue’s concentration. He knew that the man was using a clumsy but effective disguise to muffle his voice. A cloth or a towel, he guessed. Amateur or expert? He couldn’t decide. His skin prickled in anticipation when he heard someone getting up from a chair behind him.
“You’re not giving us much to work with,” came the muffled voice. “I’m after telling you that you need to do a job a work here. It’s up to you.”
Country accent, Minogue could tell. Clare?
“You have the solution, but there’s not much time.”
Minogue felt he should say something.
“A solution?”
“Yes, a solution. Get to work persuading us.”
For a moment, Minogue wanted to shout back that there was nothing he could tell them, that they were stupid to imagine he could.
“Well? Do you think we’re fucking iijits here, then?”
Though the man hadn’t raised his voice, Minogue felt some shock of familiarity. It was less the swearing than a tone of voice he had heard before.
“I was down here on account of a family matter. My brother’s family had-”
“Your brother, hah! And the son, no doubt. A right pair, they are. But sure, at least their hearts are in the right place. What brought you down the second time then?”
“When I heard about Bourke being shot-”
“Ah, don’t be trying to pull the wool over my eyes with some cock-and-bull story about this fucking thing, whatever it was. You were down here on dirty work-”
“I came down to see about Bourke. Doesn’t anybody care that he got shot out the back of-”
“What the hell do you care one way or another?” came Ciaran’s voice. “You took up with this Bourke thing as a cover for doing your spying and sneaking around. What was your mission here?”
Minogue coughed and the twine cut into his wrists.
“…this shite about you crusading down here, you and Crossan…”
He strained forward coughing and his chest tightened with the spasms.
Was this a ploy to make him believe that Crossan was in the clear? The stranger’s tone was less contemptuous now.
“…so stop being a fucking yob. You’ve worked up a speech and a story that you think is going to work. Guards are like that, aren’t they? You think everybody else is stupid.” The voice came closer. Minogue stiffened as he heard shoes squeak.
“Ah, but I shouldn’t be so hard on you,” the voice resumed. “You tried. But there comes a point when a man has to look out for himself. So let’s get down to business before we run out of time.”
Minogue sat very still now.
“Right. You’re an Inspector in the Guards. You work for the Technical Bureau, whatever that is-”
“The Murder Squad is one of-”
“Start with the Howards now. You were nosing around there this morning. What brought you there?”
Clare accent for sure, Minogue decided, but he could tell no more.
“I wanted to talk to Mrs Howard.”
“About what?”
“Other details from the night of that fire, when Jane Clark-”
Something shrieked on the floor and Minogue instinctively ducked his head.
“I told you he was a-!” shouted Ciaran.
“It’s the truth,” Minogue protested.
“Fuck you and your lies!” Ciaran shouted. “You’re scouting around for us! Waiting to pounce! You and a whole posse of cops and Branchmen and God knows what else! Aren’t you?”
A shiver ran up Minogue’s chest and seemed to light with a small piercing shock on his nipples. He waited for the stranger to calm them down a bit. The voice was no longer muffled when it whispered into his ear.
“I’m coming back in ten minutes, and I may have to do for you. It might be quick, and it might be slow. It all depends on you. You’re quick enough with the wit when you want to be, but this is not the time or the place for smart remarks. Think hard now, mister polisman. I’ll be back. If you’re still at this codology, it’ll be all over.”
Minogue heard the footsteps cross the room. The others seemed to be leaving too.
“Leave the bag on him,” said the stranger. “Get him used to the dark.”
Minutes passed. Fear blurred his mind and he lost track of time. When the door scraped, Minogue’s heart leapt. The absurd plea almost came out in words: That wasn’t ten minutes… They had given up on him, they were going to just kill him because they were losing control of the situation and the time.
“Who’s there? Who is it?”
He strained again to hear any movement. The ends of his fingers began to tingle.
“Who’s-” A choking sob erupted behind his tongue and his voice broke.
“Ah,” came her voice. “You’re good and scared now, aren’t you?”
Her footsteps behind him, slow.
“You’d better tell them, you know.”
Minogue realised that his eyes were wide open. His heart was thudding as if it were outside his body. He couldn’t utter a word.
“Do you hear me? Tell them. What’s the use of trying to keep it in? What’s it worth now?”
“But there’s nothing I can tell them,” he gasped. “I’ve told the truth and they don’t seem to-”
“Don’t play that again now,” she said with a faint snort which he read as impatience. “Tell them.”
“I can’t-there’s nothing.”
He heard her move to his right side. Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“Tell me then. It was me you wanted, wasn’t it?”
The panic blocked his words again.
“Come on. Stupid, you’re not. I could tell that right away-”
“People think I know what’s happening around here, that’s what’s so-”
“They sent you because you’re from here. You’re an insider. Come on now, don’t be wasting time. They’re serious out there. They’re waiting for a lead from you-”
“‘We,’ you mean, don’t you?” he managed to say.
Sheila Howard made no reply.
“It was Crossan persuaded me that the Jane Clark case stank-”
“Look. Do you think that time is on your side here? That you can buy time? That they’ll forget about you or something? They’ll have to decide about you pretty soon.”
“‘They’?” Minogue risked. “You should know. You’re in cahoots with them. They treat you like dirt. Why would you want to-”
“Oh, shut up about that, would you? He wasn’t like this. It’s all eaten away at him, this whole thing, and he forgets sometimes. That’s how he…
“Oh what the hell would you understand?” she whispered. “Just shut up talking about that! Can’t you see? You’re the one in trouble. Start acting like you know it. What did Naughton tell you?”
The name caught Minogue off-guard.
“Well? What did he tell you?”
“He told me several things. He told me that your husband is a fool, for one thing. Then he told me that nobody called the station the night of the fire. I tried to get him to explain but he got into a dander. He took a few swipes at me and Shea-”
“That’s just it! You brought more Guards into this. What for?”
Minogue’s mind reeled. Where could he begin to explain?
“You’re holding something back. What brought you up to the house this morning?”
“You didn’t tell me that you’d left the pub in a huff after some row with Dan Howard’s father.”
“After some row. Oh, Christ, what do you know? What do you think happened that night, then?”
His panic had begun to ease and he realised that talking was giving him back some of his composure. He thought of lying to her but his words came out before he had calculated his reply.
“I think you took the car out to her cottage and you had it out with Jane Clark.”
“Had it out?” Toying with him.
“Argued, fought. I don’t know.”
“Do you think I killed her?”
He knew by her voice that she was half-smiling.
“I don’t know. She might have been in your way. I really don’t know.”
“God, you’re stupid. At the same time as being smart.” Her mood had changed again, he realized.
“Not like Romeo out there?”
She slapped him across the face before he could sense her anger.
“You bastard. Peeping Tom. You think I didn’t see you gawking?”
Something in him was satisfied to have had this effect on her. He had his head down and away, waiting another blow. Nothing came.
“So they sent you in to work your spell on me,” he said.
“One last chance,” she replied, calm again. “They mean what they say. When they come back-”
“They’ll have to figure out what to do about you too-” His words were choked off by a coughing fit. “At least let me breathe so as I can talk,” he wheezed, and lapsed into another fit of coughing.
Suddenly the sack was off. The cold air of the room fell on his skin. He blinked and took in great mouthfuls of air. A light bulb on a long cord hung from a nail in the wall. Its glare stung at his eyes and he shut them tight again.
She began to walk slowly around the room and he followed her through a slit in his eyelids. She stopped and leaned against the wall facing him. Her hair was loose and hung out from her inclined head. In her right hand was an automatic pistol.
“Do you really think it’s worth it?” she whispered.
He tried to say something but it was a hoarse whistle that ended somewhere near his teeth. He tried to clear his throat.
“They’re not going to stop at this,” he croaked.
“Don’t be stupid,” she scoffed. “I’m a hostage.” He stared into the shadows where her eyes were. “You think they trust you so much, they’ll let you witness…?”
He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. She shifted her weight onto her other leg.
“Christ. You really don’t have a clue, do you?”
He looked down to where her finger was rubbing against the outer rim of the trigger-guard.
“Let me tell you something now,” she went on. “You put most of the bits together and I have the feeling you could probably sort it out in the end. There was something about you that sort of… I told them too, that you could be a problem. But if you did get to the stage of putting bits together, you’d be in a lot of…trouble.”
“Why?”
“Because you’d have opened the door on something more important, that’s why. And you still want me to believe that you walked into the whole thing blind?”
He felt that something was rolling toward him, a wave about to crest and lift him high.
“Do you really want to know what happened?” she asked in a soft voice. “Do you?”
She shook her face clear of hair and leaned her shoulder against the wall again. Her head seemed to be shaking a little, he believed. In the space between them, Minogue dazedly took in her anger. She held her breath behind her teeth as she spoke.
“I went to Galway that day because I had an appointment. A doctor’s appointment. Why did I go to Galway? Because I didn’t want anyone knowing my business around here. The doctor, a man of course, Coughlan, he had a kind of a wart on his nose and it got redder. I remember looking at it and thinking that he had seen me staring at it and maybe he was mad at me for doing that. He told me I had an infection. As if I didn’t know. Looked at me like I was a tramp. Asks ‘Do you have more than one boyfriend, Miss Hanratty?’” She returned Minogue’s stare.
“You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?” she murmured.
Though her hair had fallen down again and her eyes had returned into the shadow, the Inspector could make out the points of reflected light in her pupils.
“I think so,” he said.
“‘The tourists, Miss Hanratty?’ he says. ‘You have to be careful, now, and avoid contact until this is cleared up,’ and ‘Why did you wait until now?’ As if I had answers for him.”
She flicked her hair back again and looked away. The gun moved in small arcs as she talked, as if she needed it for balance.
“I knew there was something wrong because I had a lot of pain. Dan, of course. Idiot. So I finally wanted to know. You can guess, Guard, can’t you?”
“Jane Clark?”
She nodded, as if considering a point in an abstract discussion that had gone on too long.
“I didn’t know what to do.” She paused and took a deep breath, her chin down on her chest.
“I knew I wanted to tell her that she had left her mark. I shouldn’t have waited. But that’s human nature, isn’t it? Everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die. I sort of knew that Dan had been seeing her-”
“But if you tried to have it out with him about it, he’d have left you out in the cold?”
“Dan didn’t care. That’s just the way he is. He does what he wants. There are some things he cares about. I don’t doubt but that he has you fooled to the hilt too.”
She stared at him for several seconds.
“How many kids have you got?” she asked.
“Two. We had a boy earlier but he died. For a long time, we thought he was our last chance.”
“Well, she took a lot of my future with her when she went,” she resumed, as if she hadn’t heard him. “I came back to the village late and I went straight to the hotel bar. I wanted to have it out with Dan but sure when I got there he was twisted drunk. And I couldn’t drag him away.”
“You collared Tidy Howard and gave him a piece of your mind instead?”
“You’re damned right I did,” she snapped. “And of course his attitude was, what do you want me to do about it? Messing around like that was ‘immoral’ says he. And him chasing chambermaids! Well, I left that hotel raging. Yes, I drove out. And she was still up. She answered the door. She wasn’t drunk, I know that. Not then. She might have taken a few drinks after I left. But I think she knew that there was something wrong, maybe the look on my face. We had a row. She didn’t just sit there and listen, I can tell you. There came a point that she laughed at something I said, something to do with tourists. I hit her. With my hands. She was strong, but I was really mad. I threw things around and… Well, she said then that she was going to call the Guards. She had no phone, of course. I had taken a few lumps out of her, some scratches and that. It wasn’t that serious to my mind. After all, I was the one who had been wronged. I got in the car and drove off. I sort of believed her about the Guards. I was still mad, but on the way back I started getting worried.”
Minogue looked up from the waving gun. She seemed to realise that he had been observing some part of her that she wasn’t in control of, and her eyes narrowed. Her stare moved away from him.
“I came back to the hotel and I told Tidy Howard what had happened. I told him-I was still mad, you see-that I wanted to kill her. Jane Clark, like. He was staring at me like I had just landed off Mars. And I told him that when his darlin’ boy woke up in the morning and could hear, I was going to give him a right going-over too. And him looking at me and staring at me, and a smile starts to come across his face. I took a slap at him but he caught my arm. He was a big block of a man. And him laughing… He said to me, he said, ‘Don’t worry your little head, girleen.’ I remember him saying that. He told me to get myself fixed up with whatever it took, to go to Dublin if I wanted, and he would pay for it. I was taken aback, I can tell you. The same Tidy Howard who had made little of me the first time. He didn’t know any more than I knew at the time that the scar tissue would stop me from- Well, I remember him saying, and him laughing and holding my wrists, looking into my eyes: ‘Don’t beat the poor boy. Marry him!’ Laughing. He thought it was funny. That’s the kind of man he is…he was.”
Her eyes had glazed over now.
“I know this much,” she whispered, “that if I had had this with me that night, I would have killed them all. Right then and there. But I was very shook. And when I could think straight, I decided that I’d look out for myself in the long run and do my best. Yes. But I was full sure I’d find some treatment that’d work but…”
Minogue’s fear had given way to bafflement.
“You just had a row with her?”
“Tidy had it in his head to do something about all this that night,” she said. “He knew all the Guards. Naughton was his man more than anyone. Naughton’d give him the nod if the Guards were going to come around at closing time. But Tidy didn’t get the Guards that night, not until later. He sent someone else out, then and there, to put a fright into Jane Clark so as she’d pack up and run. Instead of her going to the Guards the following morning, like.”
“Who did he send?”
She ignored his question.
“Well, he got carried away. The way she talked to him-she had a sharp tongue on her, everyone knew, and she wasn’t afraid of much.” Her voice dropped back to a whisper.
“He got carried away and he wanted to…you know. Because she was a whore. She hit him with something and he hit her. Knocked her out. I wasn’t there, I only heard later. And it looked bad, he said. There was blood coming out of her nose. He came back to the hotel and told Tidy. That’s when Naughton came into the picture.”
“Whose idea was it to dump Jamesy Bourke at the cottage, then?”
Her eyes crept back to meet Minogue’s.
“Naughton’s. Bourke was a thorn in everyone’s side around there. As for Jane Clark, Naughton didn’t give a damn.”
Naughton had covered for them all, then, Minogue thought. Dan Howard, wayward, hapless, spoiled, drunk; Sheila Hanratty, determined to make a husband of him; the man Tidy Howard had sent to bully Jane Clark. He did not feel the cold anymore. His hands still tingled but the cord seemed to have lost its bite. He tried to squeeze his hands into fists but they felt swollen and weak. There were so many questions he wanted to put to her but his concentration was being stolen by his hands, his cramped knees. He stared at the wall and let his gaze slide down to the floor. His head felt unbearably heavy now. Thirsty, weak. How many were involved? Did Dan Howard know? He must. Had Naughton set the place on fire?
“Well, that’s all past,” she said. “No going back now.”
“Look,” he whispered. “You know this can’t work.”
She frowned.
“Keeping me here. A hostage or whatever. Those other fellas don’t know it, but I think you do. They’re all washed up now. They’ve screwed up royally. You let them shoot up the house-while you’re in it, even- so’s we’d all be scared off or something. But you couldn’t carry on whatever it is you’re doing without one of them making a mess of something-”
“Me!” she hissed, and bent down, her face inches from Minogue’s. He saw her chest heaving like his own, smelled her musky scent. “Me? I’ve screwed up? That’s what really galls me! My husband is screwing around in Dublin, playing the fucking statesman and I’m the one that’s screwed up?”
Minogue recoiled from her, pushing the chair up off its front legs. She pointed the gun at the ceiling.
“Look,” she said. “Even his own bloody father knew that my husband was a good-for-nothing waster. He got me to marry Dan because he thought I could put some backbone into him. And I worked and I worked and I worked at it! I prayed for him, for us, for damn near everybody. I tried everything-surgery in London, even. I went to New York to a specialist. I lived on bloody herbs and yoghurt for six months. Then I find out it’s too late.”
She lowered her arm and poked his chest with the gun. He held his breath. The light in the room dimmed and discoloured.
“And I even got over all that, so I did,” she whispered. “And I came back and I got on with life. I played the part. It was bred into me to be loyal, to try no matter what. That’s how we are. We know life is hard and you have to fight. Christ, we’re millionaires now, did you know that? Dan has money stashed away in France and in the States. ‘Slush funds.’ The ones he told me about anyway.”
She gave a mirthless laugh and brushed away her hair with her free hand.
“The tourists are swarming in. He’ll get re-elected, business is booming. Everything’s rosy. All I have to do is shut up and enjoy it. And all the while he’s sleeping with every bitch he can find.”
Minogue pushed back further on the back legs of the chair. She jabbed hard into his chest with the gun again. The place she struck stayed numb. Jesus, he thought, his chest about to burst, she could go off the deep end and take him with her. Beyond his terror he realised that he didn’t know her at all. She hated her husband, that was obvious. Or did she merely scorn him, hating something or someone beyond and including Dan Howard? This was her revenge, to get in with these halfwit gangsters?
She drew herself up to standing again.
“The Howards,” she muttered. “I’m not a Howard, I’m a Hanratty. My father died and I was eleven. He worked digging ditches for the County Council all his life. It wore him down because he was intelligent and he could see another life for himself. He had a heart attack before he was fifty years of age. Died of worrying. He wanted us in school and getting good jobs. But there was something he never really understood, even though he said it a lot.” She paused, looked down at the pistol and frowned.
“I found out late enough too,” she murmured. “If you have it, you’ll get it. That’s how life is. And it’s no good thinking and hoping otherwise. It’s cruel. Nothing has to be fair and equal. The Howards do well and they don’t deserve to. But the rest of us, no matter what…”
She looked at Minogue again with a doleful, momentary smile. She walked away from him then, slowly and delicately, like a dancer rehearsing moves in her mind. Hearing her footfalls behind him brought the fear back to him: She was leaving him to the others. She started to pace up and down the room behind him.
“You must be good at your job. Me coming in here trying to get you to talk, and it ends up with me doing all the talking.”
“What about your husband-?”
She laughed lightly. “What about him? ‘Does your husband know?’ Is that what you meant to say? Does my husband know that Ciaran and Finbarr will get paid good money for fixing up the damage they did? Does my husband know crates of guns and ammunition and more were moving in and out of the house for the last eighteen months?”
She tucked the pistol into her jeans and let her sweatshirt fall over the grip.
“Does my husband know that I know he’s hopping in and out of bed with those ones in Dublin? Well now, Inspector down from Dublin, my husband doesn’t know. He knows fuck-all. That’s how much he knows.”
She looked down at him and resumed with a lilt in her voice.
“But I’ll tell you who does know. I’ll tell you who knows everything. Tidy Howard knows. He could tell you things. But he never will. He’ll go to his grave with everything he knows and it’ll be buried with him. And that’s just fine by me.”
She gave a little shrug as if weighing a decision.
“He knows because I tell him everything. It’s my way of thanking him. I visit him and I talk to him and I tell him the news. He always wanted the news. ‘Give us the news now,’ he’d always say in the old days. ‘If you haven’t any, make up a bit.’ Well, I don’t make up anything. I give him the facts. I tell him how Ciarein has me every way he wants in the back of his van. I think that my father-in-law is the type of man who’d be keen to hear about stuff like that. He certainly used to, and that’s no lie.”
Something squirmed in Minogue’s belly. He tried to swallow but couldn’t. He saw Ciaran scrabbling and shoving at her, then the paralysed, wasting shell limp in bed, unable to talk or scream while his daughter-in-law sat next to him, chatting dutifully.
“Oh, yes,” she went on, “I tell him everything because I know he’s discreet. He won’t tell anyone. I tell him the fun we have making a monkey out of Dan. I think he likes to hear my news too because I can see in his eyes that he knows what I’m saying. And I know he’s glad to see me because there are tears in his eyes when I get up to go. Yes, with his eyes popping out of his head like they’ll burst. Tragic, isn’t it? I hear the staff say that regularly. The tragic part…”
Had he recognised some of this power in her, he wondered. Her reserve that day as she walked into the Old Ground hotel, her coolness at home, pouring tea and putting up with Crossan. But there was a desperation too, he saw now, in her courting danger, a recklessness that would unnerve even those she ran with.
She stood away from the wall and flexed her fingers.
“Ciaran says that what works is if you start at the feet and work your way up every minute or so.”
Minogue struggled for control until he was sure the screams inside could be heard by her. “Sooner or later,” he gasped, “you’ll make a slip-”
She started to smile but it seemed to be too much for her to finish. Her face fell a little. Her eyes lost interest and an empty look took over her face.
“You’ve had your chance,” she whispered.
With her retreating footsteps the terror swooped down on him again. While she had been here there was some hope at least. The bottom of the door screeched as it caught and dragged fragments of cement across the floor. He looked over his shoulder toward the door.
“No,” she said, and she yanked at the door again. It jammed half-way.
“Fucking stupid bastard!” said Ciaran. “Stupid! Time’s up.”
“You heard him,” Sheila Howard said in a dead voice. “He’s sticking to it. He says he-”
“Ah, he says! He’s a Guard!” said Ciaran.
Then the voice of the stranger, this time without any disguise. He spoke in a drawl, as though weather prospects were being guessed. “He’s a Guard, all right. Ye certainly got that part correct. Is the stuff all out of the van, by the way?”
The gentle sarcasm, the local accent worked on Minogue’s thoughts.
“Yeah. It all fit handy enough in the boot,” said another man’s voice. Finbarr, thought Minogue.
“Thanks,” said the stranger. “A nice job of work. Good.”
“Well, how were we supposed to know he’d be hanging around the house this morning?” Ciaran erupted again.
“True for you there,” the stranger replied after a pause. The sarcasm was gone from his voice now. “True for you, boy. You’d never have expected it.”
Seconds of silence followed. They’re deciding, Minogue thought. No one wants to say it out loud. Footsteps shuffled, a sigh.
“It’s late,” said the stranger. “Too late really. Come on in now and we’ll pay our respects to your man inside. Leave that down on the bench like a good man, Finbarr, for fear you’ll drop it again and it’ll take the toes off someone. This is my job now.”
Minogue heard a low growl, as if he was clearing his throat, rising in his own chest. His own animal terror, his body’s need for any movement. He stifled the cry and jogged the chair once, twice, until he had a view of the door. Through the slit between door and jamb, a shadow passed. There was a clump as something heavy was laid on the bench. A choked-off murmur escaped from Minogue. Good God, he thought, his body was acting on its own-it knows something. His mind was gone.
“I don’t think he really has anything-” Sheila Howard said.
“Don’t be worrying yourself, Mrs Howard. You don’t have to do a thing now.”
“Don’t keep calling her that!” Ciaran’s voice rose. “For Christ’s sake, you’re always taking digs at her-”
“Sorry, Gary. Don’t fuss yourself now. It’s just that me and her nibs go back a good number of years.” Minogue sat very still: a good number of years?
“Come on now, let’s not be arguing. We can fix the rest up later.”
“I’m staying here,” said Sheila Howard.
“Ah, come on now,” said the stranger. “We’re all in it together. It’s a lesson for everyone, now.”
Minogue heard his own breath rush out of his nostrils. His heart was thumping in a cold, empty place. The door screeched open across the pebbles. Deegan stopped and looked at him.
“Jesus Christ,” said Deegan. “Who took the bag off him?”
“He couldn’t breathe enough to even talk, so I-”
“You fucking what?”
“Leave her alone!” came Ciaran’s rising voice. “What difference does it make now?”
Deegan wandered slowly back into the doorway. He shook his head and looked up from the floor. He looked at Minogue with cold, moist eyes, an automatic pistol in his left hand. Ciaran stepped in the doorway behind him, his face sullen, followed by Sheila Howard. She wouldn’t look at Minogue. Her eyelashes batted rapidly and her hand went to her hair. Finbarr shambled in and stood next to Ciaran, his eyes downcast too. With his head tilted slightly and his distracted gaze returned to the floor, Deegan waited for the three to come to a standstill.
“It’s yourself that’s in it, then,” he said.
“You’ll be caught,” Minogue whispered. “All of you.”
Deegan didn’t seem to hear him. He shuffled forward.
“You’ve only yourself to blame,” he said. His leather soles crunched pieces of mortar. A vise had fastened about Minogue’s ribs. He wondered if he would be able to stop himself from crying out.
“From what I heard, it was our Mrs Howard doing all the talking in here. Did she tell you everything you wanted to know, now?” They had sent her all right, and they had sat listening.
“Except who killed Jane Clark,” said Minogue.
Deegan’s eyes suddenly twinkled, and he smiled broadly.
“Well now, can’t you figure that out yourself?”
By the tone, the menacing humour, Minogue knew. He stared into the folds of flesh in which Deegan’s eyes were almost completely hidden now.
“You did it.”
Deegan made a mock curtsy but his eyes stayed on the Inspector’s.
“At your service, Your Honour. Oh, the Howards are no different from any other of the well-to-do. They always need someone to do the dirty work. Well, there was a lot of money spent that night, let me tell you. And they’re still paying for it. Amn’t I right, Mrs Howard?”
“Shut up with that ‘Mrs Howard’ stuff!” Ciaran shouted. “I’m about sick and tired of it.”
Deegan put on a surprised expression and peered around at Ciaran.
“You’re right, Ciaran,” he sighed. “Begging your pardon and all.”
He turned back to the Inspector. Something about Minogue’s face brought the smile back to Deegan’s.
“After that night, sure, we had Naughton in the bag too. The way things worked out… Two for the price of one, you might say. We had plenty on our Tom after that night, so we did. So our Tom did his bit afterwards too-not saying he didn’t do well out of us. He did. And by us, I don’t mean the Howard clan.”
Naughton’s gun, Minogue thought. Had Deegan given him the gun?
“Well, I hear they caught up with poor Tom the other day,” Deegan went on. “And he blew his brains out? He always said he’d do that if and when they came for him. I didn’t set much store by that. The drink talking, says I. But that’s why he wanted the gun, I suppose, for when they came after him. His own, I mean-the Guards.” Deegan shook his head again and chuckled softly.
“The poor divil,” he added. He gave Minogue the stage wink which the Inspector remembered from their meeting in the pub. “Ah, but his heart was in the right place.”
Ciaran snorted and started to say something but bit back his words and folded his arms again. Over his thudding heartbeat, Minogue still heard Ciaran’s angry breaths in his nostrils.
“Take it nice and easy there, Ciaran,” Deegan murmured. “Sure the man has a right to his facts. Oh, but she was a bad egg, that one. Jane Clark. Oh yes. She put up a rare oul’ fight of it, so she did. But tell me,” he squinted into Minogue’s eyes. “Alo Crossan. How the hell did he get you into this mess? He’d sooner piss on a Guard than talk to one.”
Minogue didn’t answer.
“Crossan’s a wanker, so he is,” Deegan went on. “Matter of fact, he’s as bent as a ram’s horn.”
Minogue’s expression prompted Deegan to grin again.
“You didn’t know he’s a queer? That’s what he has the chip on his shoulder about. He’s bent, man. He was pally with that bitch. She told me she was going to get Alo and take everyone to court over this. Me, Mrs Howard here-oops, Sheila-the Howards…everyone. It was Dan gave her the clap, she tried to tell me, not the other way around. Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?”
Deegan choked off his mirth and threw a glance of knowing candour at the Inspector.
“But, sure, who can you depend on these days?” he said.
Ciaran took a step forward, unfolded his arms and shouted, “Look.” With a terrifying, unnatural speed, Deegan turned, brought up the pistol and shot him square in the chest. The shell flew across the room, Sheila Howard screamed and buckled, Ciaran fell back and Deegan kept firing. An ejected shell bounced off Minogue’s eyebrow as he wrenched himself over, the chair giving way under him. Deegan fired steadily, without pause. Through the deafening reports and the shouts, Minogue heard bodies land heavily on the cement.
Minogue came to rest on his side and opened his eyes. Smoke clouded and shook in the room as Deegan’s gun went off. Minogue’s cheek was on the cement. He saw legs and a hand, blood on the wall next to the floor. He was shouting himself now and he felt his bladder give way. Deegan stopped shooting and stepped toward the arms and legs. Minogue stopped shouting. Kathleen, he thought. His eyes were locked onto Deegan’s shoes. As long as the shoes faced away from him, he was still… Deegan was whispering hoarsely.
“Christ, Ciaran, you’re such a fucking iijit,” he gasped, breathing harder. “You poor bastard, you damn near ruined it all with her… And as for your mate, God forgive me, I warned you, don’t say that I didn’t, now…”
Deegan’s feet shuffled slightly as he fired down. One of the hands fluttered and Minogue went limp. Someone was moaning. Deegan’s shoes turned toward Minogue. The piss was warm over his legs, almost a comfort. The clarity of everything in the room, in the world, came to the Inspector as something utterly horrifying and familiar. A vision flared in his mind but it did not distract his utter attention from Deegan’s gun: the surly, grey-green sea, the stricken ridges of the Burren stretching toward the horizon under clouds that looked like massive slabs themselves. He saw the orange flare as the roof burst into flames impossibly reflected on every wave, the porpoises racing through the black waters of the estuary into the open sea…and, always, that face, the young stranger watching.
“As for you, you poor fuck, I don’t know…” Deegan murmured, and he pointed the gun at Minogue’s face.
“Don’t,” Minogue whispered.
The report seemed louder now since the lull in firing had intervened. Deegan went sideways with a grunt. Minogue tore open his eyes in time to see Deegan’s surprised face fall obliquely by him.
“Jesus, Jesus,” he heard Deegan wheeze from the floor.
Minogue tugged and drew up his knees to turn the chair but he could not. He turned his head as far as he could and saw Sheila Howard’s head resting against the wall. Her chin was jammed down on her breastbone and purple spots were on her face. Though her eyelids looked closed, he thought he saw a liquid glint by her eyelashes. Her arm was lying on her chest and she held the pistol loosely on her thigh. Where she had pulled up her jumper to get the gun out, Minogue saw a band of skin where blood spidered and dripped onto the floor.
Deegan made the wet, choking sound of a smoker summoning phlegm. Minogue heard his clothes rustle slowly along the floor, his huge limbs rubbing as he tried to rise. There was a glottal gasp and the rubbing stopped.
Cold, the floor. Minogue had driven his knee into the cement as he fell and it had that warm watery numbness he knew would turn to pain. An aura of blue smoke, moving slightly, circled the light bulb. He rested and breathed and watched the layers of smoke forming, sliding across one another and settling into stillness. The sting of cordite needled the top of his nose as he listened again. An irregular sigh of breathing turned to rasping breath and a short, faint squeal before returning fainter. Jesus, not now, he thought. Was one of them alive and getting up? Schemes flew into his mind, each desperate and quickly discarded. Elbow his way across the room and see if anyone had a penknife or a sharp tool. There must be some tool in the house, in the main rooms-but how to get over these bodies? He felt the cold only as a relief, grudging proof that he was still alive.
Then came a bubbly snore. He stared at Sheila Howard and saw her eyes open, staring across at his. A small new line came from the side of her mouth. She closed her eyes and coughed. A gout of blood oozed down her chin and her body made a spasm. She rolled onto her side and coughed again. Minogue froze and watched her creeping and scraping her way across the floor, heard her gurgling.
“Take it easy now,” he whispered and immediately realised how absurd the remark was. She took a deep, rasping breath and whispered in a tone so lucid that Minogue was startled.
“I’m bad, I can’t feel where…”
“If I can get free,” he started to say.
“I warned Ciaran about him.” She had squeezed out the words. She gave a wrenching cough and groaned. He closed his eyes. He heard something spill on the floor. He opened his eyes again. She seemed to be resting, her face down on the floor. He began yanking on the chair, scraping and kicking.
Minogue began to jerk the chair, each time sending shooting pains through his shoulder and chest.
Finally, as he rocked the chair, something gave way. The seat of the chair hung loose. Slowly he pulled in his elbows and he heard a spindle hit the cement with a hollow tock. His arms were weak but the cords were now slack. He stood crookedly and spindles from the chair-back fell to the floor. The blood rushed to his head as he stood and he felt the room come at him. Pain surging up from his legs took most of the room’s light with it and he lurched to the wall. As the room reappeared, it seemed to swell and the colours take fire. He glanced down at Deegan sprawled over Finbarr. Deegan’s head had fallen back and then sideways so that he seemed to be examining the dark stain on Finbarr’s jacket. His pistol was on the floor next to his hand. Finbarr lay curled up and half under Deegan. One arm was twisted behind, with the pool of blood spreading from under him.
Still struggling to shake the seat and legs of the chair free, he tottered toward the door. The light flared again and he leaned against a wall to fight the returning surges of dizziness. Suddenly he was gripped by fear. Who was sobbing like that, panting nearby? He turned, a shout already in his throat, expecting to see Deegan in the doorway. No one came. It was his own breath, he realised.
He elbowed away from the wall. Run. He was swaying now and the shapes were hanging and falling around the edges of his vision again. With the twine loose, he brought his right hand around. He stumbled toward the front door and pulled it open. He stopped in the doorway and gaped. The roof of the van was like a still lake reflecting the sky. A Ford Escort was parked alongside the van; Deegan’s, he guessed. His feet moved under him and he was on his way to the van’s door. A buzzer sounded as he pulled it open: keys in the ignition. He left the door hanging and rested his back against the panel. His palms flattened out on the cold metal and he felt his breathing ease. The buzzer filled the sky with its ripping squeak. The colours on the ground had already darkened and the bushes stood out thick against the milky sky. She might still be alive in there, he thought. He listened for sounds but heard only a solitary bird. He stared through the grove of trees and the overgrown bushes at the Burren heights. The stone seemed to be draining light from the sky. Was he going to pass out? He looked at the open door of the cottage. Should he go back for her?
Minogue turned when he heard the distant hum of a car over the tar macadam. He caught glimpses of a dark-coloured car coming at speed up the narrow road. The driver had not turned on his headlights, but Minogue had already spotted the silvered reflections of the sky on the roof-lights of the car. He stumbled back to the van, reached in and held his hand on the horn. He watched the wheels of the Garda car bounce as it came up the laneway, and he saw a face close up to the window.
The tyres bit and skidded as the squad car came to a stop behind the van. Doors opened and he heard voices, a radio. Somebody said his name. He didn’t have to go back into that house, he was thinking. He walked haltingly toward the car.
“Yes,” he replied to a question. His voice sounded unfamiliar to him now. “Inside… There was shooting. I think they’re dead.”
He wanted to tell them to switch off the noise from the radio. He heard someone say his name on the radio, then repeat it. He knew the voice. The sky jigged and flickered and changed colour.
“She’s in there and I think maybe-” he began.
His knees pulled him down but it didn’t hurt. Hands stopped him falling further. They pulled him up from his knees and grabbed him under his arms.
“Look,” he heard someone say as the sky turned and closed over him. “Is he shot?”