The stars twinkled and the moon rose. A faint breeze that had come in across Dublin Bay exercised itself in blotches of light which wavered on the footpath. Branches stirred slowly beneath the street-lamps. There was nothing left in the western sky, not the slightest brightness. Minogue thought about the planet turning, shadows creeping over land and water.
He could smell Kilmartin’s stale breath. Kilmartin was smoking constantly. Minogue was very nervous. Kilmartin had listened in disbelief when Gallagher had phoned earlier to say Gibney had left his flat on Morehampton Road and driven to Gorman’s house in Sandymount. Oblivious of the two teams assigned to watch him, Gibney had gone into Gorman’s house almost an hour earlier.
“That’s Gorman’s home, so it is,” Kilmartin said. “What about his missus and kids in there? Why didn’t they take Gibney when he left his place?”
Minogue didn’t understand it either. Gallagher’s explanation was that neither pair of Special Branch detectives knew what to do. They had been awaiting the arrest team proper. The swoop had been set for nine minutes after nine, but at a quarter to nine Gibney had simply walked to his car and driven to Gorman’s home in Sandymount.
“It must have been a regular appointment with them, and that’s why they didn’t mention it on the phone. That’s the only charitable excuse I can think of for those fellas to banjax this up,” said Kilmartin. “Walked out the front door and they didn’t know what to do. Farrell’ll eat those boyos… if I don’t first.”
It was now three minutes short of ten o’clock. Kilmartin held the cigarette in his cupped hand by the arm-rest and blew the smoke out of the window in measured puffs. Hoey had the volume on the car radio almost completely down. He was whistling softly, a sign of his nerves, too, Minogue remembered, tongue against his upper teeth. Occasionally Hoey rubbed a hand over his chin. Minogue could hear the stubble rasp.
“So Burke wonders if the people in this clique are quite capable of murdering someone,” said Kilmartin.
“They may have done it twice already,” answered Hoey. “They could do the same and worse, I suppose.”
“No wonder Farrell is hopping about the place,” Kilmartin added with some satisfaction.
The three policemen fell silent again. Their car was parked nearly eight doors down from Gorman’s house. It was a quiet street in the better end of Sandymount, within a quarter mile of Sandymount strand. On bright days, the strand was an enormous mirror for the sky when the tide drew away from this side of Dublin Bay. Horses galloped and trotted down the sands at low tide every day of the year. Some hardy souls still swam there despite the general belief that Dublin Bay was too polluted to be safe. The southbound trains of the Dublin Area Rapid Transit system, the DART, shot out from between the hedges of the inner suburbs on to the water’s edge at Merrion Gates, almost gratefully leaping out to the open sea and sky all the way to Dun Laoghaire and beyond. James Joyce had walked Sandymount strand and been visited by beauty there… had Gorman walked the same watery emptiness, alone or with these cronies of his, concocting a salvation for Ireland?
Claustrophobia added to Minogue’s tension. All but one of the Special Branch cars had been parked in the next street over. One car was parked by Gorman’s gate. It would not arouse suspicion, since two armed policemen customarily formed a guard outside the homes of Government Ministers. The two on shift tonight were to help net Gibney as he left the house. Three detectives sat in a Toyota van directly across the street from Gorman’s. The van advertised chimney-sweeping services and the bodywork was battered and grimy. Minogue had been told that those in the van were monitoring a relayed tap off Gorman’s home telephone: Farrell was worried that news of the swoop might reach Gorman by phone from a member of the clique who had evaded detection so far.
Minogue stretched his arms out straight and yawned.
“Didn’t I tell you that Tynan is the cute one?” said Kilmartin, breaking off from an interior conversation to let the two detectives know how astute he had been.
Minogue remembered Tynan’s expression as he had knocked back the glass of whiskey last night: regret, and some contentment too, Tynan staring down into the cubes rattling in his empty glass. It had been like a farewell toast to the memory of someone whose funeral he and Minogue had attended.
“You did,” said Minogue.
“Ah, but what a waste when all is said and done,” Kilmartin dropped into a tone of melancholy. “All that talent. All well-educated, and with the best of intentions.”
Minogue’s anger burst loose. He struggled to get out of the car. “Jesus Christ, Jimmy. I don’t want to hear any more about the best of intentions. The damned island is full to the brim with the best of intentions. Loads of genius and no talent. Full of imagination and too damn scarce on ideas that might be in danger of working. The priest who married the Ryans below in Tipperary had the best of intentions, as did the Ryans themselves. Heher has the best of intentions, but he makes my skin crawl. Archbishop bloody Burke has the best of intentions.”
“Calm yourself, would you,” said Kilmartin.
“What matters is what and who’s left after the best of intentions have done their work. Gorman had the best of-”
“That’ll do it, Matt,” said Kilmartin. The tone was now one of rank, Minogue realized. Kilmartin was sitting still, blinking. What could be excused in private could not be let go in front of Hoey.
Minogue kicked the door open and stepped on to the footpath. The relief was immediate. Kilmartin got out of his side and walked reluctantly around to Minogue. Like fence-wire that grows into the bark of a tree, Minogue was thinking: Jimmy Kilmartin and Matt Minogue. Tied together by a quarter-century of knowing one another as cops.
“Ah, I know how you feel, Matt. You’re very involved. When you’re in this line of business as long as me, you’ll be able to be more objective, you know.”
Kilmartin cut short his advice when he saw the unmarked car coming down the street ahead of them. There were three men in it. Minogue saw the short antenna quivering as the car drifted slowly by. A face turned to them from the back seat, Gallagher’s. He pointed ahead of the car, beckoning them.
“Come on so, and we’ll have a pow-wow,” said a cheered Kilmartin. “The brass is here. That was Farrell in the car too, wasn’t it?”
Minogue and Kilmartin walked the 200 yards to where the car had stopped. They passed a man standing by a bus stop. He was wearing a three-quarter length coat, sometimes called a car-coat or a bum-freezer. Minogue recognized it immediately as the trademark of a detective who was carrying a firearm. Kilmartin nodded at the detective in passing, and whispered: “Soon enough.”
Minogue wondered if Gorman or his wife or one of their children might look out into the garden and spot one of the half-dozen detectives in position around the house. A shadow by the neighbour’s garage, a slight movement by the hedge… Daddy, there’s someone in the back garden, I saw a… Minogue forced the groaning door of his imagination shut. Can’t think like that now, waiting and worrying. Everyone’s doing the best he can…
Minogue joined Kilmartin on his hunkers by the back window on Farrell’s side of the car. Gallagher was handling the radio traffic from the back seat, the coiled lead from the dashboard stretched almost taut, a handset in his other hand.
“That’s the last one brought in just now,” growled Farrell. “Except for this Gibney.”
“You have the other Army fella, Cunningham?” asked Kilmartin.
“Meek as a lamb, but he’s saying nothing.”
“Turn up a gun or anything in his place?” Kilmartin persisted.
“No,” Gallagher answered. “We found street maps and some kind of an itinerary marked out though, with times written in on the maps. It looks like a tail on someone who travelled by car over that route. Could have been a planned hit.”
“Not a minute too soon,” said Farrell sharply. “Tell Johnny Tynan that the next time you see him, Matty.”
Minogue said nothing.
“How many in the bag now, so?” said Kilmartin.
“Ten of the eleven on your list… twenty-three all told,” said Gallagher. “Sorry, it’s twenty-four.”
“Jases,” whispered Kilmartin. “Are there any more Army and Gardai?”
“No,” Farrell interrupted. “The ones we fingered, we got them off the phone feeds. Some of them might be duds though. This last bugger, we had to wait for him since nine. He was visiting his wife in the hospital. She had a baby at seven o’clock this evening. Did you ever hear the like of that for timing? Can you see us going into the maternity ward and clipping his hands in front of his missus?”
Kilmartin snorted. “Great work, Tommy,” he said.
“I’ll be a lot happier when Gibney’s out of that house,” replied Farrell harshly. “I don’t like this one little bit. You’d think he had a sixth sense the way he left a few minutes before the arrest team showed up at his place.”
“Gorman’s missus and the three children are in there, all right,” said Kilmartin.
Gallagher checked with the radio van. There had been no calls to Gorman’s house.
“Looks like it’s sealed nicely all the same,” said Kilmartin.
“Buy me a pint and a small one on the head of it,” grunted Farrell. “What the hell is Gibney doing in there?”
“He may have a lot of persuading to do with Gorman, by the sound of that earlier call we heard off the tape,” Minogue observed. “The nearer we get to the Ard Fheis, the more Gorman’ll need to be persuaded.”
“I suppose so,” said Farrell. “We couldn’t get into the bloody house all day. The missus was home with one of the kids, so we couldn’t get any device inside the house at all. Take too long to rig up an infra-red mike on the windows with all the houses here so higgledy-piggledy. Christ, I’d give my right ball to hear what they’re saying to one another in there right now.”
Kilmartin glanced quickly at Minogue. Both men remembered a recent Special Branch blunder which had involved the use of directional microphones in one of their stake-outs. A Branch specialist had been perched on a wall, headphones on and pointing a dish toward an anchored yacht in Howth harbour one night over the summer. The Gardai had been called by a citizen who was suspicious of such a person pointing what looked like a Martian weapon at the boat. Rather than alert people on the yacht to the surveillance, the Branch man had allowed himself to be arrested. Farrell would not want his officers lampooned in cartoons as they had been after that affair, if neighbours of the Germans found men perching on their window-sills or in their apple trees pointing things at the Germans’ house.
The car radio came alive with a click and a hiss: “ Phone’s ringing in the house, over-”
“Do it, so,” hissed Farrell.
Gallagher squeezed the transmit button on his handset.
“Alert to all units. This is Control. Repeat: alert to all units. Phone is ringing in the house. Repeat: phone is now ringing-”
Gallagher’s hand was shaking as he released the button. The radio van began transmitting a patch from the relayed phone-tap. Minogue felt his leg cramping but he ignored it. The familiar double ring of the telephone came eerily from the radio. Farrell had his hand on the door release, body poised to elbow the door open. Minogue moved back on the footpath. The man who had been at the bus stop was now running softly towards Gorman’s house. There would be the others poised by the door, by the windows, moving across the grass…
The phone was picked up in the middle of a ring.
“Hello?”
A woman’s voice. Farrell raised his hand as though about to start a race.
Another hello. Minogue stood up and looked down the street.
“Hello, Finnoula? This is Madeline. Howaryou?”
“Madeline! Is it yourself that’s in it? How are you doing yourself?” Mrs. Gorman replied. “ Are you up here in Dublin?”
“I am. I was up today and I met Emer. She said you were confined to barracks.”
“Sean is sick, but the other two are grand. It’s only a bit of the diarrhoea.”
“I hope I’m not calling at a bad… ”
“ Not at all, I’m only delighted to hear you,” said Finnoula Gorman.
A lovely warm voice, Minogue thought. Welcoming, confident. Does this woman know what her husband is up to?
“Sure they’re all packed off to bed. I’m watching a cod of a thing on the telly, an oldie with Gary Grant in it.”
The other woman laughed.
“Well I’ll be up in town here until tomorrow, Finnoula. That’ll be long enough to spread the word.”
Farrell’s eyes widened and he sat forward in the seat.
“I’m expecting, so I am.”
“Ah, that’s just fantastic! Well, tell me the whole story now… ”
The transmission cut off. Farrell swore and let his hand drop on to his knee. Gallagher squeezed the set.
“Fall back all units. Repeat: fall back. Await further instructions.”
“At least she’ll keep anyone else from phoning in,” said Farrell.
By ten-fifteen Kilmartin could wait no longer.
“I hope there’s no one looking out their windows here tonight. ‘Cause if they are, they’ll be seeing an important Garda officer by the name of Kilmartin making his pooley up ag’in the wall here. I’m only bursting, I tell you,” said Kilmartin.
Kilmartin walked to a shadowed part of the footpath which was overhung with shrubs tumbling down from a high wall. Minogue strolled back up the footpath. He was reluctant to get back into the car with Hoey because he knew Kilmartin would follow him. How was it that some people talked even more when they were nervous, while others simply shut up?
Dried leaves had gathered against parts of the walls along the road. Gorman lived in a street of well-to-do people, Minogue saw. A Volvo and a Saab were parked within a few cars of one another. The breeze had died down but Minogue could still sense the sea. If he had the chance he’d take a sick day and walk Sandymount strand before the bitter east wind came in with the Dublin winter. Bring Kathleen. Go for Chinese food on the credit card afterwards. Finish off with a quiet one in Gerry Byrne’s over in Galloping Green, he’d have the fire lit in the lounge for sure… Anisette. Pernod would do all right, even if it was a tourist’s drink here.
Behind him, Minogue heard the splash and trickle of Kilmartin’s urine. A soft sigh from Kilmartin. The States, Daithi… what did people his age in the States drink? Cans of beer? Cocktails? Kathleen still considered Parisians snotty. Still. No way in the world would he go for a holiday in the States.
A car drove quickly down the street, heading for Sandymount village. The sharp tattoo of a current pop hit washed over Minogue as the car passed. Kilmartin caught up to him. Minogue had almost forgotten the detective in the shadows by the bus stop. This time he saw the earphone wire snaking up from the coat to the detective’s ear. His trained, indifferent eyes followed Minogue and Kilmartin to their car.
Half-ten. Minogue caved in, and got into the car. Hoey had been dozing. Minogue let the seat back and closed his eyes. September, yes. He had woken up early last week and seen that it was still dark at six o’clock. Ireland is on the same latitude as Hudson Bay… How many days to Christmas now? New Jersey, that was just a suburb of New York- or was it a State in itself?
Gallagher’s voice came softly over the radio. “ Phone call’s over.”
Kilmartin grunted from the back seat. “Jases, how could they find the time to go and get themselves in the family way, these women, and they on the phone half the night?” he grumbled before subsiding into smoky silence again.
Minogue tried to remember the photo of Gibney. A strong, angular face, good looks. An air of assurance, but not the arrogance he had expected. Was this man a killer? Minogue looked all over the face but saw nothing to help him answer the question. Young for his rank, but he’d done it all: seven months in Lebanon with the UN, tours of Border duty here on and off for the last five years. Farrell had raised an eyebrow at the mention of Gibney’s father, a retired colonel who counted Major-General O’Tuaime as one of his friends.
Minogue turned his head on the head-rest and opened his eyes. He could see down the footpath to the gates of Gorman’s house.
“Maybe they’re saying the Rosary,” Hoey murmured.
“Hardly knocking back the drink,” agreed Kilmartin in a mordant tone. “Where do you want him, Matt? Up in the Bridewell along with the others?”
Minogue wondered what Gibney would be like when they arrested him. A talker? Would he want to explain things, to defend their cause? Or would he be the loyal soldier? “I don’t mind,” he replied wearily. “We don’t have to book a suite in advance, do we?”
“Front door’s opening.”
The voice belonged to one of the detectives in the van. Minogue ratcheted the seat upright. Hoey turned the radio up higher.
“All units in for the catch now… Over. Everybody in. Gibney’s in the doorway… Gorman too. Make sure that back door’s open… ”
The detective from the bus stop walked briskly by their car.
The voice on the radio was strained now. “ Gorman’s going to the gate with him. They’re taking their time. Very slowly now…”
“No sweat, Danno,” murmured Kilmartin as he leaned his chin on the back of Minogue’s seat. Minogue remembered that Kilmartin had written an anonymous letter to Radio Telifis Eireann complaining about their decision to drop Hawaii Five-O re-runs several years previously.
“If Gibney’s carrying a gun, it’ll be in the car.” Kilmartin kept up the commentary in a murmured monotone. “Farrell should have got one of his wizards to pump the lock on his car out there and get inside it for the gun… They wouldn’t need to be pissing their pants now, I’m telling you…”
“Still talking.”
Minogue didn’t bother to argue with Kilmartin. Farrell hadn’t wanted to give any alert to people in the street, but had put his faith in his own arrest-team.
Kilmartin continued his monologue, directing events: “Aisy-daisy and gently Bentley. Gorman’ll expect two coppers on guard anyway… Let the one walking down the path put it on Gibney, and the two in the car can back him up and get Gorman out of the action…”
Minogue imagined the other detectives converging on the two men at the front gate; coming around the side of the house, behind the hedge…
“Come on now, boys and girls,” murmured Kilmartin in a nursery-school sing-song. “Step up to the citizen and make the arrest. Just like in training…”
“Shaking hands. Gibney’s opening the gate.”
“How far is Gibney’s car down the street, again?” Minogue asked.
“Four or five cars down, sir,” said Hoey. “He has to pass the two doing guard duty in the car.”
The detective who had walked from the bus stop slowed his pace. Wants Gibney through the gate so Gorman’s on the other side of it, Minogue thought. Good training: Gorman could be taken by the detectives who were coming from the side garden. Minogue pressed his head against the glass to see further down the street.
“Get your big head outa me light, would you?” said Kilmartin.
The detective had slowed almost to a halt. If he stops to tie his shoelace that’ll be a television cop, Minogue thought wryly. Ahead of the detective Minogue saw a figure step out on to the path. Gibney.
Gibney stood facing the house as he drew the gate closed. The detective picked up his pace again. Further down the road Minogue saw a car door opening. He could not see the driver’s side of the car. He heard a clink as the handle of the gate slipped home. Gibney paused before turning toward his car. It’s as if he’s trying to remember something, Minogue thought neutrally.
“He’s not moving… Wait, Gorman’s saying something to our two men… ”
“Jesus,” Kilmartin exclaimed by Minogue’s ear, “Gorman’s saying good-night to them, or some bloody nonsense. He’s going to notice the two are not regulars on this shift! Close in and nab Gibney, can’t ye, before he makes them too, for fuck’s sakes!”
Minogue watched Gibney’s head turn back toward the detective on the footpath. The detective had his pistol out, and he was holding it slightly behind his backside as he advanced on Gibney. There couldn’t be more than ten or twelve feet between them now, Minogue guessed. Gorman’s upper body appeared in view then, leaning over the waist-high gate as he addressed the two detectives who were getting out of the car. Somewhere behind the thoughts of an observing, detached Minogue an alarm was going off. Gorman was in the way: there were two concrete pillars to which the gates were anchored…
The detective had seen it too. He faltered. Gorman leaned further over the gate to see around the pillar. Someone began shouting. Too early yet, Minogue’s mind roared. Have to get around Gorman. Where are the rest of them? Gibney had his hand under his jacket even before Minogue’s mind could scream: Gibney knows, he knows now!
“Jesus!” Kilmartin cried. “They’ve no angle, with Gorman like that!”
The detective crouched and brought the pistol around in one smooth motion. Minogue did not see the flash. The shot popped like a stone dropped straight into deep water. Gibney had a gun out and was backing on to the gate. Someone was shouting Gorman’s name.
“ We have the house, we have the house!” the voice on the radio shouted.
Minogue saw a flash from Gibney’s gun. He shouted for Kilmartin and Hoey to get on the floor and banged his ear as he threw himself across the seat into Hoey’s lap. Hoey had the door open already: he reached out on to the roadway and rolled from the car. Kilmartin was tugging at the back door release and swearing. Minogue kicked off against his own door and landed beside Hoey on the roadway. More shots sounded, louder now. Somebody screamed inside the house just as Kilmartin came out of the back door, on his hands and knees. Minogue heard footsteps racing down the footpath opposite.
“He’s down!” somebody was shouting. “I’m on him! I’m on him! He’s down!” There was an edge of panic to the voice.
Kilmartin had crawled around the back of the car. Minogue followed him. They both looked down the road. From nearly fifty feet Minogue could see how tightly a detective was holding his pistol, both arms extended fully. He was back on one foot as though ready to push a stalled car, and his gun was trained on a figure lying against the gate. The figure was not moving. There was another figure closer to Minogue and Kilmartin, that of the detective, leaning against the wheel of a car. Minogue saw him squirm slightly and relax.
Hoey was up first, with Minogue and Kilmartin after him. Gallagher came running down the footpath, the antenna of the handset whipping the air as he ran; he knelt by the seated detective and began fingering the man’s clothing. To his relief, Minogue heard the detective whispering to Gallagher. Gallagher’s hands moved down to the man’s leg. The detective nodded and leaned his head back against the car-wheel.
An elderly man with a newspaper dangling from his hand had opened a hall-door opposite and he was squinting out into near-darkness. Minogue heard another door scraping open as he went by Gallagher. Gibney was lying on his side by the gate. Minogue heard a voice from the front garden asking what had happened, who…? The detective who was training his gun on Gibney was staring intently at Gibney’s hands. He kept talking, but quieter now.
“Gill all right there? We need an ambulance, don’t we? I don’t know if this fella’s gone. Where’s the ambulance?”
“It’s all right now,” said Minogue firmly.
“Gill saw him coming up with the gun and he got one off, I saw it happening but I wasn’t quick enough-”
“It’s all right now,” Minogue repeated. “It’s over now.”
“I had to do it. Gill went down, I saw him shoot Gill!”
Kilmartin was fumbling for a pencil. Minogue looked down at the gun on the footpath near Gibney’s outstretched hand. There was a black stain near the gun and it was moving, getting bigger.
“Where’s Gorman?” Kilmartin barked. Minogue crouched down by Gibney, well outside the detective’s line of fire. Gibney’s chest was moving slightly.
“Is Gorman okay?” Kilmartin was saying. He knelt down by Minogue and poked a pencil through the trigger-guard of the automatic pistol. “That’s a parabellum, that is. A Beretta, I’ll wager,” he said.
The stain moving out from Gibney began to creep in a faltering line toward the roadway.
“Is he gone? He looks gone,” said the detective overhead.
Minogue heard sirens in the distance. A car burst into the street with its tyres howling. He crouched closer to Gibney and felt for a pulse under the jaw. The stain had emerged on the far side and new lines were branching out across the footpath. Farrell was hunkered down beside Kilmartin now. Kilmartin drew the gun carefully along the tarmac with the pencil.
“That his?” said Farrell quietly.
“Yes, sir,” answered the detective from above. “He drew on Gill and shot him, sir. I had to fire then or else…”
“It’s all right, son. Put that away now,” said Farrell gently. “You did what you had to do.”
“Where’s Gorman, Tommy?” asked Kilmartin.
“We’re all right. He’s in the garden, they pulled him down when the shooting started.”
“He’s breathing,” said Minogue and leaned his head closer to hear a faint, bubbling whistle that came at short intervals. He tried harder to distinguish the sound but there was shouting nearby. “We have to stop this bleeding,” he said then. “Better get him over so we can see it.”
As he reached a hand under Gibney, Minogue saw Gibney’s eyes open.
“Jesus,” whispered Kilmartin.
It was then that Minogue heard the bubbling sound again and he froze: Gibney was in bad trouble, it was a sucking wound from a punctured lung he had been hearing. “I have to turn you over,” Minogue said, fighting to keep his voice neutral. “You’re bleeding so I have to do something. The ambulance’ll be here any second. Can you hear me?”
Gibney blinked once. His eyes strayed from face to face. His lips moved slackly. He stared at Minogue again.
“I can’t hear you,” said Minogue. “Don’t talk now.”
Gibney’s face strained with the effort of protest. A whisper escaped him.
“A priest?” said Hoey.
Gibney blinked again. Minogue watched the lips try to shape a P.
“He wants a priest, all right,” said Kilmartin. He leaned further in over Gibney.
“I’ll say an Act of Contrition with you now while we wait for the priest,” said Hoey gently. “If you can’t say it, it’s OK, just follow along with me in your own mind.”
He didn’t remember all of the prayer, but Kilmartin carried him over the bits he had forgotten, those parts of the prayer which every Catholic was taught should be recited for the dying. Gibney’s lips began to move again half-way through.
Hoey finished the prayer as the approaching sirens became louder. The policemen blessed themselves. Gibney’s neck muscles stood out with the effort of trying to raise his head.
“Is it something you’d want to tell us?” whispered Kilmartin.
“Brian,” whispered Gibney and his head fell back.
“Brian Kelly, is it?” said Minogue.
Gibney blinked and grimaced. He tried to raise his head again.
“Only me. That’s all…” he wheezed. Hoey reached his hand under Gibney’s head. “Just me. Fine too… Only me. Had to…” whispered Gibney. His stare was fixed frantically on Minogue. Hoey let the head down slowly. The sirens were tearing open the night on the street now. The blue rotating lights flared off the cars nearby.
“Ambulance,” said Farrell, rising. He waved his arms at the glare of the approaching headlights. Minogue turned back to Gibney, whose eyes were closed now. His chin had sunk on to his chest. Hoey had been unable to extricate his hand from under the head and looked up at Minogue, puzzled. Cramp seized Minogue’s leg in a spasm then. He stood and hobbled to the gate, stretching and massaging the calf. He watched the ambulance attendant, a young man with a Frank Zappa moustache, roam with the stethoscope over Gibney’s chest.
Minogue turned away and saw people from houses on the street walking slowly toward them. The detectives were out of the van now, and sealing off the front of the house. Gorman’s voice startled Minogue who looked up from his crouch and saw Gorman’s pale face beyond the gate. Gorman looked down then and tried to bless himself, forgetting the handcuffs.
“Will you identify this man for us, Mr. Gorman?” Minogue heard Farrell’s acid tones.
“This is my friend, Eamonn Gibney,” said Gorman slowly. “Will someone please tell me if he’s alive?”
Nobody answered Gorman. Minogue stooped to massage his calf again. His chest felt tight and he drew in deep breaths. Farrell’s drawl sounded gravelly, mocking.
“Mr. Fintan Gorman? I’m Chief Superintendent Farrell of the Garda Special Branch. I’m detaining you under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, as I have reason to believe that you are involved in a criminal conspiracy prejudicial to the good order of…”
Minogue watched the mustachioed attendant trying again with the stethoscope, his eyes darting from side to side with the concentration.
“That Gill’s all right,” Kilmartin whispered close to Minogue’s ear. “No thanks to the fucking planning either, but don’t quote me here.”
Minogue shivered again. The attendant asked Hoey to help him draw Gibney out from the fence. He stepped in the blood as he hefted Gibney on to the footpath. More blood eddied out from under Gibney as he was moved.
“Jesus,” Minogue heard the attendant say in a cutting Dublin accent as he shook his head, “try and get a line on to him, quick.”
Hoey helped lift Gibney on to the stretcher. Minogue’s thoughts gathered around the cramp again. He imagined the bones in his ankle, his knee, the musculature that held a body upright, the miracle of walking. Gibney saying that it was just him. Then running, athletes running, that was miraculous too. Just him? Can’t believe that. Have to walk more, that’ll stop those cramps. Hoey was standing beside him now.
“Gibney’s gone, sir-that’s what the man said. They can’t get the blood into him.”
How long had he been standing here? Everything looks so simple until you learn more about what goes into it. Screams, a woman screaming in the house. Gorman’s wife: one minute chatting with her friend on the phone, wondering whether her husband was alive the next.
“He was shot in the chest. There was no hope,” said Hoey.
Minogue felt the first drop on the back of his hand. The cramp began to ease. Another drop plinked on to a car roof nearby. Kilmartin brushed against him as he stepped back on to the road.
“Come on now, lads. Plastic, on the double. Everything counts, now,” Kilmartin was saying.
Minogue stepped away from the gate and leaned against a car. Kilmartin backed into him.
“Sorry Matt. Are you all right now?”
Minogue still felt the emptiness, the raw vacuum of simply being there. Something had taken over and ejected Minogue out of the ferocious present. Several Gardai were going into Gorman’s house now and Minogue heard another scream before the front door was closed again.
Kilmartin was poking a pack of cigarettes at him.
“We’ll just have to concentrate on Gorman or the others,” he was saying. Hoey joined the two by the car, his face pale. He took one of Kilmartin’s cigarettes and lit it from the butt of the one he was just finishing. Both his hands were shaking.
“They’re taking Gorman to the Bridewell, Farrell says,” said Hoey in a small voice. “Told me to tell you…”
Kilmartin was still holding the packet of cigarettes out as he observed Hoey. Minogue didn’t think about them but took one of the cigarettes and placed it between his dry lips. The rain was still light.