Minogue waited in the hallway, content to pace slowly and let his thoughts ramble a bit. He made way for several arrivals, uniforms and detectives both, returning any greeting that was offered. He paused by the door again in passing. There was barely a sound. In the interview room with the wire-haired Detective Duggan was one Maureen O’Brien, a Garda from the station who had a good rep for interviewing kids. The girl had been crying a lot, Minogue knew. Apparently the mother was beginning to balk.
Someone descended the stairs at the end of the hall, whistling. Minogue turned and resumed his stroll. The door opened. Duggan closed it quietly behind him.
“The mother’s had it,” he murmured. “She’s taking her young one home.”
“Maureen can’t persuade…?”
“Nope. The young one put on quite the performance. You should hear her. She’s bawling her eyes out. Hyperventilating, pretty well. The mother has her back up now, big-time.”
“Well,” said Minogue, “we don’t want wigs on the green, do we.”
Duggan tugged at his frizzy hair behind his ear.
“We don’t want to arrest the girl,” said Minogue. “But if Maureen’s getting nowhere?”
“Well do you want to give it a try?”
Messy, Minogue thought with some foreboding, so very messy, with kids. He said it several times in his head while he eyed the door, visualizing an angry mother and her distraught daughter barging out, knocking him and Duggan sideways en route. The seconds hung in the air.
But in he went. The room was warm, and the air was filled with a mix of sweat and worn-out, pseudoherbal perfume that Minogue loathed. He pushed back mentally at the claustrophobia that fell on him by glancing from face to face. The mother’s face was red, almost purple under the fluorescent light. She blinked angrily and uncertainly at the new arrival. Minogue had already put on his most avuncular expression. He introduced himself, sat down, and proceeded to say nothing for as long as the atmosphere would allow.
The girl was overweight, with those arms that reminded him of uncooked sausages. Her clothes did her no favours at all. Of course, everything was too small these days. With her wet, swollen face darkened by mascara or makeup gone astray, the girl looked like the usual mini-tornado of hormones, provocation, defiance.
O’Brien seemed resigned to the interview going south too.
Minogue tried again to make eye contact with the girl. She pushed her hair away long enough for Minogue to see she had some, but then she dropped her head again. She slid further down the chair, heaving every few moments to draw in breaths.
“I was hoping we could continue this chat, Mrs. Lynch,” he said.
She pointed at Duggan who was closing the door behind him.
“He said, that one said, that he was going to see about Legal Aid.”
“Why do you think you need Legal Aid?”
“Oh listen to you! I know what a leading question is. No more run-around. Come on Tara, we stayed long enough in this place.”
She reached out and grabbed her daughter’s upper arm as she rose.
“Here we are, trying to do what’s right,” she muttered hoarsely. “And this is what happens. I know my rights, and my daughter does too. She’s only a child, so she is.”
Minogue decided to maintain his oblique line.
“My expertise is in murder investigations,” he said.
She turned to him and frowned.
“This is a disgrace, you saying that. By Jesus I’m going to report you, the lot of yous. Disgraceful!”
“Disgrace,” Minogue said. “Why so?”
“Oh listen, I didn’t come up to Dublin on the last bus! That’s tactics, is what it is- ‘I’m an expert in murder.’ Intimidation, that’s what you’re trying to do.”
“The Murder Squad, have you heard of it?”
She let go of her daughter and slowly stood upright.
“This has nothing to do with Tara, or me, or why we’re here. If you think for one minute that we’re going to stay here.”
“I’ve been called in to work on it. This is a murder case, Mrs. Lynch.”
Minogue glanced at the daughter again. Her breathing had become less panicked and though her head remained resolutely down, she was now very still.
“Detective Duggan and I think that your daughter has vital information in this murder case.”
The mother’s eyes narrowed.
“Those are reasonable grounds. Have you heard that expression?”
She shook her head.
“I’m saying ‘reasonable grounds’ because that’s what comes up. It comes up when a Guard has to arrest someone.”
“You can’t arrest a little girl, a juvenile, I mean.”
“It wouldn’t sit right with a Guard to do it, but I can. And I will.”
“Show me some identification,” she said. Minogue saw Garda O’Brien roll her eyes.
Minogue took out his photo card.
“Where does it say Murder Squad?”
“It doesn’t.”
“Well then…”
Mrs. Lynch seemed to have discarded what she had planned to say.
“Well go and get the other ones then,” she blurted. “They’re the ones you should be talking to. My Tara is, she’s just, you know, she’s a follower, that’s all.”
“What, I mean who, are these people you’re talking about?”
“The girl — that little bitch. God forgive me, but I don’t care anymore. That Rogers one. Alison, Ali, whatever she calls herself. I’m after telling this fella here, this other Guard, and the woman here, all we know. And I’m sorry now I ever had that Guard talk me in the bloody door of this place — I’m sorry I even lifted the bloody phone to talk to a Guard!”
“‘Ones,’ you said,” Minogue said.
“That one, Ali Rogers. She’s the one. She got my Tara in on her — what’s the word? She trapped — she enticed — my young one here, that’s it. And she got her smoking and carrying on all hours of the night. That one has no-one at home to put manners on her, her parents out on the town themselves and they never should have…”
“Boyfriends? That’s what you mean, I take it.”
Mrs. Lynch started a little, and almost spluttered. Then she looked from Minogue to Duggan and back again.
“We can clear it up and have you on your way in short order, I’m thinking,” Minogue tried.
Mrs. Lynch kept her eyes on him, as she sunk slowly back into the chair.
“Tara is upset,” he said. “That goes without saying. It shows she has a conscience, I say. Well reared. And we’re very grateful for you stepping forward. For making that phone call. But we can’t let this be run by you, or your daughter. With all due respects.”
He tried to form a sympathetic smile for her but found instead that he was concentrating on her changing expression. She seemed to be staring right back at him but her eyes remained out of focus. Minogue lowered his voice.
“It would be a terrible thing to be filling out an arrest for this young lady.”
Mrs. Lynch’s eyes returned to focus. Her lips began to move but she said nothing. She turned to her daughter again, and she nudged her.
“Tara.”
The “no” was more of a moan.
“You have to, Tara. Sit up.”
The girl’s breathing became deeper again.
“I just want to go home.”
Her mother pushed hard.
“Ow, Ma! Let me just go home! That’s all I’m asking.”
“I wish you’d thought of that the night you went out with that f… with that Rogers girl, so I do. Now sit up!”
“But I didn’t do anything.”
“We’ll see what her and her cronies say to that! Haven’t I told you a thousand times, that crowd would leave you in the lurch! Haven’t I?”
The girl drew her arms in even tighter. Minogue was aware of Duggan’s eyes on him, waiting to exchange a signal: “crowd.”
“Tara?”
“Listen to him, Tara,” said the mother.
“Tara, do you know what accessory means? Have you heard that word before?”
The mother glared at Minogue.
“It’s not makeup, or earrings.”
“Ha ha,” said the girl. “I’m not retarded, you know.”
“So Tara, it doesn’t matter if you intended to commit a crime.”
“But I didn’t do anything!”
Minogue waited for her to collapse back into her slump.
“Were you there, Tara?”
When she didn’t answer, her mother nodded at Minogue.
“We need to get this out in the open,” Minogue murmured. “It wasn’t just you and your friend there, was it?”
“It was,” she said.
“All the time? You and Ali?”
She raised her head. Her swollen, running eyes reminded Minogue of someone who had been tear-gassed. He wondered if her eyelids could open at all now.
“They already know,” her mother said, her jaw set hard. “I told them. I told them what I saw you writing there on the computer, didn’t I? I had to. What else could I do? Stupid Internet, I should never have gotten it! It was for school, Tara, for school, remember? So’s you could get good marks and go places and not… not be like me or your da! You stupid, stupid girl, what are you after doing to us all?”