Yes, well, spare me the rest of it,”said Kathleen. “It sounds like a very difficult case.” Minogue found a piece of garlic stuck to the bowl. He fished it out on the end of his finger and slipped it onto his tongue. Iseult chased crumbs of garlic bread around her plate. The guilt at his truancy from the squadroom was beginning to ebb. It had taken Plate-Glass Fergal Sheehy to put the tin hat on matters: nothing yet. Nothing? That’s right, Matt, came the slow, musical reply. Nothing.
He had felt like apologising just after he had hung up. Fergal Sheehy and his team were not responsible for the fact that there were no useful tips, leads or evidence from their door-to-door work. Minogue resolved to phone him in the morning, have a chat. An interview with a recent parolee was in progress in Crumlin station, Murtagh had told him, and it looked like the fella was spoken for. All the alibis completely sound, had been Minogue’s unbelieving query. Seriously, John? Seriously. What news on Jack Mullen then? Murtagh and two detectives from CDU had found and talked to some of Mullen’s fares. His alibi now covered virtually all the time that evening, with only scattered periods of five and ten minutes when he wasn’t either sitting in a taxi rank or with someone.
“Pardon? I’m sorry.”
“Away with the fairies,” said Iseult. “Again. Maybe it’s petit mal.”
“So you had it with the heat and the run around,” said Kathleen.
“Well,” he sighed. “In the heel of the reel, what we had seems to be slipping away. The suspects, I mean. And then, what we haven’t found… This girl kept things very much to herself.”
“Well, doesn’t that make you suspect she was involved in, you know, something, let’s say, illegal?” asked Kathleen. Minogue eyed Iseult.
“Easy for you to be so smart,” he said to Kathleen. “The word from on high as regards the organized crime stuff, well, that sort of tore the ar-it, er, sort of knocked the stuffing out of it for me. I can start fresh in the morning.”
“Please God,” said Kathleen. Minogue looked out into the garden. Please God? Did God, seeing everything, see what went on at the canal then? At night?
“Cooking for three is as easy as cooking for two,” said Kathleen.
“Not to speak of a fresh face at the table,” added Minogue. “And the chat.”
“I don’t want you to sell the house,” Iseult declared. Minogue kept a garlic belch to a muffled report by letting it linger around his larynx. Kathleen said nothing.
“I think those apartment things are bloody stupid, so I do,” Iseult went on. Minogue’s face twitched but Kathleen had spotted him. Iseult stood up.
“Leave the stuff, Ma. I’ll do it. I’m just going up the garden.”
Minogue watched his daughter’s progress up through the garden. She strolled with her arms crossed, by the shrubs and the trellis, one of his earlier follies now engulfed by creepers years before he had expected it.
“She’s making up for all the times we haven’t seen her since she moved out,” Kathleen said. “The bit of security now, I suppose. I don’t mind telling you, but I feel for Pat. I do. Now that he’s putting his foot down as regards the wedding. I never thought he would go for it myself. But God works in strange and mysterious ways.”
Put his foot down, thought Minogue. On a land-mine, if he only knew.
“What mysterious ways do you mean, exactly?”
“Stop that. You know what I mean. God looks out for people. We don’t always understand His ways. If we did, they wouldn’t be mysteries, would they?”
Minogue rubbed at his eyes. He had flunked Irish Catholic logic a long time ago. Mysteries indeed: what were the ones they had recited again at Lent? The Sorrowful Mysteries, The Joyful Mysteries? Which were which again? The Immaculate Conception, The Passion and Death of Our-
“Do you think she wants us to bring up the subject?” Kathleen repeated. “I have the feeling she wants to tell us something.”
“It’s only company she needs, love,” he said.
“Well, she knows what my opinions are. My beliefs, I should say. Not that I’d force them down her throat, now.”
Minogue opened his eyes again. She glanced at him.
“I sort of wish she’d move back,” she said. “But I could never say it to her.”
“You could, but you’d better put your fingers in your ears after you say it.”
“You tell her then.”
“I will not. But I’ll let her know it.”
“What are you saying? You’ll tell her, but you won’t tell her?”
“Something like that. How did you get on at work?”
Kathleen rested her chin on cupped hands. Minogue smiled.
“Huh. Those apartments in Donnybrook are selling like hot cakes. We were run off our feet.”
“Investors no doubt.”
“A lot of them, yes.”
“Spelled with an F, as the bold James Kilmartin might say.”
“They stimulate the economy, Matt.”
“My economy’s not for stimulating. It’s trying to get rid of stuff I am.”
He spotted Iseult’s head above the lilacs. She stooped. Had Iseult inherited, learned to mimic, his unease with the world? At least she had that flair for life, that appetite and gaiety which he now remembered had been native to his mother. It had come to him late enough. There was no knowing. It might well be one of those mysteries Kathleen fortified herself with. But Iseult, she had a lot of living to do to get to that stage. He suddenly feared for her, for the bills she’d be presented with daily for being different and averse, bills she could never pay. An innocent, for all her tough talk, and she hadn’t a clue about the price of things. Her words, the look on her face, had stayed in his thoughts: teach me how to be alone.
He launched himself up from the chair.
“Come down to Dun Laoghaire,” he said. “We’ll do the pier. I’ll buy you ice-cream.”
Kathleen stayed looking at the garden.
“Be still my heart. I’ll go and change, so I will.”
“Thanks now. Thanks a lot. Stonewalled at work, sarcasm at home.”
“What about Iseult?” Kathleen called out from the foot of the stairs.
“I’ll ask her.”
He trudged up the garden. Iseult was examining the underside of a leaf. She declined his invitation with a murmur. He didn’t ask a second time.
“Slugs,” he said. “There better not be. It’s too dry, sure.”
“Maybe there are under one of the leaves. I was looking for Pat.”
“Ah, give over. Are you going to get a voodoo doll next?”
She let go of the leaf and the stem swished back. There was a glint in her eye.
“He let me down, Da. I’d never tell him how much either.”
“Consider it a free installment in the marriage preparation classes.”
“Go to hell. You think it’s funny.” She jerked her head away. He felt ice in his veins. A swarm of midges moved in under the hedge. “Sorry,” she said.
“It’s me that’s sorry,” he said.
“Well, I can take the details,” the cop said again. He had a culchie accent. Probably a big fat lug with the shirt hanging out of his trousers. He took another swig of the vodka. A belch came up from deep in his belly. Christ. Maybe he shouldn’t have started so early, but he’d started only to try to stay clear of going looking for a hit. And it wasn’t early anyway, it was after tea. He realized that he was swaying slightly. He leaned his shoulder against the side of the telephone box. The cop was still jabbering away.
“What,” he said. “What are you fucking rabbiting on about there?”
The cop’s voice stayed the same. It was like he hadn’t heard him.
“Leave me a number and I can have them get in touch with you very shortly.”
At least he hadn’t tried asking for the name again. As if he was stupid enough, or pissed enough. He focussed on the window where the phone was telling him he had two pence credit left. The telephone box stank. Someone had pissed in it. He watched the traffic turn up Hatch Street. His stomach gave another wormy twist. Christ, enough is enough! He’d been on the phone too long already.
“But why isn’t there someone there right now?”
The cop kept talking in that careful, polite voice.
“Well, it’s the kind of section where people are on the go at irregular times now. Calls are routed through that number you dialled if-”
“Are you fucking deaf or something? You think I don’t know what you’re trying to do here? You think I’m a gobshite or something, is that it?”
Another belch stole his words.
“I’m not exactly sure now what you-”
“Shut up a minute! I’m talking. You hear? This is fucking important. This is about someone getting killed, man, someone getting murdered. Did you get that? You’re trying to keep me talking here so as yous can trace me!”
“Wait, wait a minute. What would we want to do that for? We’re always glad to get calls from the public now-”
“Sure you are! Fucking liar! Listen! This is the second time I’ve called and still I’m getting the run-around! You’d think in the case of a bloody murder that you’d be on the ball here, you crowd of-”
“All you have to do is-”
“I don’t have to fucking do anything! Just tell them that we have to talk. Only over the phone, a coupla minutes at a time.”
He was breathing hard now. He took another gulp from the bottle. This one burned worse. He squeezed his eyes tight and leaned his head on the glass. He felt giddy when his eyes were closed. The cop was saying something. Still spinning it out, trying to coax stuff out. Everything’d be on tape, probably.
“Well, at least let me have an idea when you’d be calling so I can pass it on. To be sure someone’s there to handle the matter, like.”
“Sometime in the morning then, that’s when they better be there.”
“You’ll phone in the morning-”
“Yeah. Maybe. And tell them another thing, okay? You listening?”
“Yes. Go ahead, now.”
“Tell them this. I had nothing to do with it. Nothing! I’m getting the fucking rap but I’m not going to take it sitting down. No way, you hear? No fucking way! You tell them. Tell them the Egans are after me too, so I’m not just going to sit here like a fucking-”
The warning beeps sounded.
“Hey! Did you get what I said!”
The line was dead. He threw the receiver against the base. It swung and clattered again and again. Had to get out of here. Jesus Christ! Nearly night-time and it was still frigging boiling. It was like someone had put a wet rag around his face and he couldn’t breathe. He had a headache now. He stepped out of the booth. Definitely not too steady on the feet now. It could have been the last few swigs, took them too quick. He stopped to think. Now: how the hell was he supposed to get back to the Park now? At night?
He found himself heading along Baggot Street toward the Green. He began to count the pints he’d had since the afternoon. How much was left of the vodka? Poxy, cheap shite, it was only fit for… The next belch brought a sour burn to his throat. There was something in his chest, something moving. He began to walk faster but it seemed he was hardly moving. He heard his shoes scuffing on the footpath. He was startled when a car bumped into his leg. It was parked. He pushed away from it. Things were beginning to slow down and slide around on his eyes like they were smeared on with grease. People were looking at him, every bloody light was shining into his eyes. He turned down a laneway. The streetlamps were still moving when he sat down. He reached in and took the knife from his pocket. Maybe he should have another pint or something to settle the stomach, get him over this bit. The thought of it made his belly go airy again. He began passing the knife from hand to hand until he dropped it.
His cigarettes had been squashed. He had to rip off half of one to get a proper smoke out of it. The first pull on it made him shiver. Christ, he was knackered enough to sleep right now. If he didn’t try to have a rest he’d be shagged, wouldn’t be able to think even. He thought of the trees and the long grass in the Park. He was imagining a tent there when something shot up his throat. He got to his feet before the second spasm came. His hand scraped along a wall. He heard the vomit splatter by his feet and felt little pieces stir against the bottom of his jeans. The loathing and the stench twisted his stomach more. He staggered away from the wall with the spasms coming still.
He thought he heard someone say, ‘Look,’ but when he opened his eyes there was no one. He was vomiting dry now, his stomach twisting every few seconds. He had turned into a doorway and was leaning against the metal door. His eyes and nose kept running but his stomach had stopped heaving. The lights had stopped swimming around. Everything looked cold and ugly and foreign now. There was puke on his shoes. He had no hankies or anything. The smell drove him away from the doorway. He pushed off and headed down the lane. Against one doorway were stacked collapsed cardboard boxes and black rubbish bags. He kicked at them. They were full of shredded paper bits. That was it, he thought. Office stuff, clean. That’d do the job. He’d try for a bit of kip here maybe. Clear the head a bit anyway. Even if he didn’t actually fall asleep it’d still be okay.
He built a tunnel lined with the bags of shredded paper and pulled cardboard in over them. He lay down and pulled some cardboard closer about him. It felt warm. He took out the knife, opened it out and left it by his head. His shoulders flattened more against the cardboard. Minutes passed. The sounds of the city seemed to become fainter. His stomach hurt like he’d been kicked. He didn’t care where his thoughts began to take him now. Mary, that look she’d give him when she’d had enough of him asking her stuff. Questions he really wanted answers to: can’t you talk to one of them for me, Mary? Come on, you know I’m sound. I could even work for you, or with you. When are you going to talk to them, then? It was like she enjoyed keeping things from him, hearing him ask, beg even. If only she’d taken him on, she wouldn’t have… Panic flooded through him in an instant: those bastards who had been waiting for him by the house, would they be waiting for him wherever he went-
Footsteps, women’s, with the quick click-clack of the heels, getting closer. Where was the bloody knife? Sounded young, walking fast. Maybe she was taking a short-cut and she was scared going down the lane. He strained to listen for other footsteps. The footsteps hurried beyond him, fading into the hum of the city. Far off he heard a siren. He lay back again and closed his eyes. The smell of the cardboard stung his nose now. There was no way-no way-he was going to go to one of the hostels for down-and-outs. A decent sleeping bag and some kind of plastic if it rained, that’d make things a lot easier. It was only for a short while anyway, wasn’t it? It’d take money. Maybe it was time to think about using the knife to make a bit… He jerked himself up when he heard the rustling sound. He settled onto his hunkers, with the knife grasped tight and waited for several seconds. He heard nothing beyond his own suppressed breath in his nostrils. He knocked away the roof with his free hand and kicked his way out onto the lane. He was alone. Maybe it had been the stuff settling in the rubbish bags. Rats? He stared into the pools of darkness down the lane and shivered. His chest was still heaving. He leaned against the wall. Three or four people passed the mouth of the laneway singing and shouting. It must be closing time.
His legs began to feel rubbery. He leaned against the wall and looked around at the bags of rubbish and the cardboard. Did rats eat cardboard? Only if they were stuck, maybe. When was this stuff picked up anyway? Hardly at night. Slowly he gathered the cardboard again and rearranged it as he lay down. He was too wasted to sleep. He lost track of the time he lay there staring through a gap in his cardboard roof at the slice of blue and yellow night sky. The car horns and the shouting from the street didn’t seem to matter much now. It grew quiet in the laneway after a while, how long he couldn’t tell and didn’t care. Many times he wondered if he was having a dream, if it was him lying here in a laneway with a knife in his hand. It was rubbish, and he was part of it. That was the truth and he couldn’t pretend different. As the minutes and hours passed, something else moved around in his mind, something he couldn’t get a fix on at all. Maybe he’d never be able to explain it to himself even, but somewhere inside himself he felt light and clean.
Minogue switched off the radio. Did he really need to be told that the high pressure system still remained over Ireland this morning? A possibility of thunder? That had to be a joke. A cement lorry at the site of new apartments in the Coombe made him detour by Thomas Street.
Kilmartin’s tie was ambitious. His jacket was too up to date, however.
“What’s that thing around your neck, Jim?”
“For your information, smart-arse, that tie was a present from the wife. So keep your smart remarks to yourself, you. Unless you like fast trips in ambulances, like. Now. You have work to do, let me tell you, and you’ll have to do it on your own this morning. Molly Malone phoned in. He won’t be in until later on. You know yourself.”
The brother, thought Minogue.
“Now: the real business. There was a call in to you here at ten o’clock last night. A Mrs. Mary Byrne. She said it wasn’t urgent. Your name is tagged to a Byrne fella you met there?”
Byrne, the old man he had talked to by the canal. Had the wife seen something?
“She lives down off the canal there. Vesey Court. Put that aside now a minute and cast your eye over this one, but.”
Minogue took the photocopy. It was a print of a call to Central last night. It was made from a public box by Hatch Street. Kilmartin tapped him hard on the shoulder.
“It’s that Hickey fella,” said Kilmartin. “Mr. ‘Leonardo’ himself. He’s alive and well. He wants to play tough-guy over the phone too.”
Minogue noted the smile along with the glint in the Chief Inspector’s eye.
“I was onto CDU,” Kilmartin went on. “They have units ready. Fella the name of Cosgrave will handle it. That’s his number there. Sergeant. Let him know you’re on, okay?”
Minogue continued scanning the transcript of Hickey’s call. He felt his spirits rising.
“Not bad,” he murmured. “Not bad at all.”
“‘Not bad’? It could be the go-ahead, man! And Hickey was drunk. He’s on the run. He’ll sing, that’s what I say.”
The Chief Inspector hoisted an arm and withdrew it with a delicate shrug from the jacket. He settled the jacket carefully on his arm and tugged at the collar of his shirt.
“Oh, yes,” he muttered. “We’ll have that scut sitting across the table from us signing up for this one.”
“Nothing new come in on Jack Mullen? Any give on the car tests?”
Kilmartin shook his head.
“Leave Mullen for the time being. He may be a bit cracked, but that’s normal. It’s only religion with him.”
Minogue put down the photocopies.
“Has John Murtagh stitched him up tighter as regards alibi yet?”
“What, what?” exclaimed Kilmartin. “What am I hearing? Are you still trying to soak Mullen for it?”
Minogue didn’t answer but stroked his lip instead. Kilmartin shrugged.
“Ah, I’m not sure. Last I heard-and that was eight o’clock last night, when you were safe at home in bed-Johnner had him down to four gaps. One was about twenty minutes, near the nine o’clock mark. Put the bloody collar on this louser Hickey,” he said. “Maybe he could lead us to the Egans. There’d be no stopping us then, wait’n’you see.”
Minogue studied the Chief Inspector’s tie again. Eilis entered the squadroom.
“Good morning all,” she said. “Glorious bit of sun again today.”
“To be sure, Eilis,” said Minogue. “You’re an adornment to the facility this fine morning.”
Kilmartin rolled up his shirt-sleeves.
“I’m telling you,” he said. “This is the go-ahead day. I can feel it in me water! Here, what was this thing from the Fahy one I saw: this ‘Alan’ someone you’re looking for?”
Minogue was explaining when the phone rang. Eilis lifted the receiver after one ring. Kilmartin held out his hand. He and Minogue stared at Eilis’s face. She waved the phone at Minogue.
“Kathleen,” she called out. Kilmartin slapped his knee.
“Shite,” he said.
“Pardon?” said Minogue.
“Sorry. I was hoping it was the Hickey fella.”
Kathleen related to her husband how Iseult had left the house, the family seat in Kilmacud, in a huff not ten minutes ago.
“She was still asleep when I left,” he said.
“Well, she was. And I thought she’d be well rested. She came down the stairs and I had her favourite breakfast ready for her. She’s eating away, so innocently enough I try to, you know, have a little chat.”
“‘A little chat’? Don’t you mean a big chat?”
“Oh, stop that! That’s not one bit funny! All I said to her was, ‘Darling, isn’t it time to get whatever’s bothering you off your chest.’ ”
Minogue felt his jaws lock. He stared at Kilmartin but didn’t see him.
“Kathleen,” he murmured. “Listen. This thing about getting things off one’s chest-”
“I can tell by that tone that you’re annoyed now. I can!”
“Listen to me: all this guff about openness and sharing-”
“Oh, stop, stop! This is the twentieth century, Matt! People need to talk it out, for God’s sake! I’m sorry now I phoned.”
He had to make an effort to breathe. He rubbed hard at his eyebrows. What was the bloody point of another tilt at pop psychology? It was a lost cause.
“It’s you and her,” Kathleen said. “It’s coming out more in her as she gets older. Contrary, God!”
“We can’t be meddling. We just have to wait.”
“Talk to her, would you? Please?”
“I’ll listen, that’s what I’ll do.”
“Oh, Matt! Why are you so bloody obstinate?”
“I’m not. Everyone else I meet is, that’s the problem.”
“All right, all right. Anyway. I hope I haven’t taken your mind off something.”
“Ah, don’t be worrying. I shouldn’t have… Well, let it rest for the moment. Is she gone to the flat?”
“I think so.”
Minogue replaced the receiver and stared at the desk-top. Kilmartin came into view.
“Okay there?”
“No. Yes. Maybe. Eventually. I don’t know.”
“I think you got them all there.”
Minogue looked up at his colleague. Kilmartin squinted at him. Minogue sat back.
“Iseult dug in her heels about getting married. Won’t go near a church.”
Kilmartin rubbed at his nose.
“Ah, don’t worry. She’ll get sense.”
“I hope not.” Kilmartin shook his head and began rearranging his rolled-up shirt-cuffs.
“Nothing’s good enough for you today, bucko,” he declared. “Saddle up now, and we’ll chase bad guys.”
Minogue winked at Eilis, lifted the receiver and keyed in Byrne’s number.
“Tommy Malone won’t be in ’til later, Eilis,” he said. “If at all today. And I’ll be going out on a lead now in a minute, I hope. Make sure the boss tells you about a call we’re supposed to get-a big prospect in the Mary Mullen case is going to phone, or so he says-Hello? May I speak to Mrs. Byrne?”