Don’t have much of an appetite meself either,” said Malone. Bun under his belt, Minogue stirred his coffee and watched his colleague wolf down another sausage roll. The Inspector had picked a table near the door of Bewleys’ restaurant. The late-morning crowd continued to move through the ground-floor section. Many patrons sat slouched, their faces flushed and even slick with the heat. Eyes shone in the clammy gloom. Two men in ponytails and brightly patterned shirts were lining up for coffee. He knew from Peter Flood in the Drug Squad that the taller one was a convicted drug dealer. Both men were elegantly groomed and outfitted. They were enjoying a good laugh. One of them spotted Minogue and his laugh turned to a smile. Minogue saw him elbow his crony and murmur something. The crony began to concentrate on the food he was picking. Some town, thought the Inspector. Bananas we should be growing.
A waitress began cleaning up the adjoining table. He watched her blow breath up from under her bottom lip at a stray strand of hair over her forehead. Blonde, he saw, and out of a bottle at that. The roots looked black, same as Mary Mullen’s. He sipped more coffee. The image kept soaking in behind his eyes: the killer astride her, slamming her head on the pavement. Minogue stretched and rubbed hard at his eyes. The image was still with him.
“Quite the bullock,” Minogue murmured. Malone looked up from his tea.
“Patricia Fahy’s father, I meant.”
Minogue stared at the question marks he had scribbled in his notebook. He shifted in his seat and snapped his notebook shut.
“Well, Fahy won’t get his spake in the next time, Tommy.”
“Will we try her later on again this afternoon?”
“Maybe tomorrow instead. People lose it when they get a shock, but still I think that the same Patricia Fahy was being a bit economical with the truth. Not knowing much about where Mary was working or socializing? Doesn’t fit.”
Malone nodded and squinted at the Inspector.
“And didn’t know if Mary had a boyfriend? Her own flatmate?”
“Pull the other one, like,” said Minogue. “It’s got bells on it.”
“She’s scared, isn’t she?”
Minogue nodded. Malone finished his tea and looked at his watch.
“Stop me if I’m being pushy now,” he said. “But aren’t we supposed to be in a rush?”
Minogue eyed him and sipped at the leftover froth in his coffee.
“Before the trail goes cold and all that?”
“I suppose,” said the Inspector. “But we’re moving along well enough. Forensic takes time. We’re getting her father; we’re connecting her to criminal associates. We’ve interviewed the mother. Done a lot of site work, started the secondary search. We’re not working alone, man. The teams are out there already.”
“Huh,” said Malone. “There must have been someone by that part of the canal the other night.”
“I hope you’re right. I found a rake of spots along the canal where you’re out of sight of the street. I was able to walk right under the bridge even. The light’s bad.”
Malone tapped his fingers on the table, bit his lip and nodded several times.
“Mightn’t even be the site, Tommy. Could’ve brought her there, slipped her out of a car. Even if we find damn-all from the canal, we don’t want to get locked onto assumptions here.”
Malone rubbed at his nose and glanced at the Inspector. The gesture reminded Minogue of a boxer getting the last word from the trainer as the bell sounded to start the round.
“What do you reckon yourself? So far, like.”
Malone began plucking the hairs by his watch-strap.
“Well, I reckon I don’t want to make an iijit out of myself with guessing, do I.”
“I’m not trying to get a rise out of you,” said Minogue. “So I’ll tell you what’s been going through my mind. With that bruise in the face, he was probably facing her. I’m going on the assumption for now that he’s not a citeog.”
“A what?”
“Left-handed. If he did that, he’s a certain type of person. Strong, of course. More than just a short fuse. I mean, very, very aggressive type of a fella. You go over a distinct barrier as regards behaviour when you hit someone in the face. Especially a woman.”
Malone rested his cheeks on his fists. “Okay,” he said.
“You’d be inclined to expect a pattern. A record, if you follow me.”
Malone’s fists had pushed his cheeks up to his eyelashes. Minogue finished his coffee. He looked into the narrow slits which Malone’s eyes had become.
“How’d you get into the boxing anyway?”
“The, er, the brother got me started.” Malone leaned in over the table and frowned up under his eyebrows at Minogue.
“Listen, on that same matter. Do we have a minute?”
“Fire away.”
“Well, there’s something I wanted to tell you. I didn’t know how to sort of bring it up. What she said back in the flat. Patricia Fahy. Thinking she was being set up?”
Minogue smiled.
“About your brother? That was a hoot entirely.”
“Yeah, well. Funny to you, maybe. This has to do with the brother, all right. And the Egans. The brother was mixed up with them.”
Malone looked down at the fork as though wondering how it had gotten there.
“They got Terry where he is now,” he muttered. “In the ’Joy, like. He used to do stuff for them.”
He glanced over at Minogue.
“Is it going to, you know…?”
Minogue pushed his cup and saucer toward the middle of the table-top.
“Why should it?” he said. “You’re here due your own record, not your brother’s.”
“Another thing. I can take the slagging about being a Dub. The Molly Malone thing and all. Really.”
Minogue nodded.
“But I got to tell you I can’t take much stick about the brother.”
“I’ll, er, pass that on to the appropriate authorities, Tommy.”
Malone looked down at the cup and saucer which Minogue had marooned on the marble table-top.
“Terry’s not a bad person. But I’m sick and tired of looking out for him, wondering what he’ll get up to next. He’s just finished eighteen months of a two-year for Break and Enter. He’ll be out any day soon. Terry’s not even much good at it. He did it to get money for drugs. He tells me that’s all over now. Last time I visited, he looks me in the eye: ‘I’m clean.’ Yeah, right, Terry, I say: prove it, man. I can’t afford to believe him. If they find the gene for being a gobshite it’ll have Terry’s name on it.”
Minogue thought about more coffee.
“I gave up getting embarrassed about Terry years ago. All I do nowadays is try to stop him dragging anyone down with him. Me younger brother. The Ma.”
“How do you mean?”
“The Ma? Oh, scrounging money. ‘Just a loan, Ma!’ The Da’s dead three years now. The Da used to give him the bum’s rush. Nearly knocked the head off of him with a piece of pipe one night.”
Malone picked up a napkin and wiped the corners of his mouth.
“Didn’t help the Da much, did it? Died of a heart attack on the kitchen floor. I’ve sisters married. They’re doing all right. Then there’s Tony. He’s nineteen. The baby. He’s training for supermarket management. Terry tries, you know, he really does. Then he sees the crowd he used to hang around with…”
Malone crushed the paper napkin into a ball and rolled it onto the table.
“Sure what can you tell them and they seeing the likes of the Egans making fortunes out of rackets and drugs and everything? ‘Do the right thing’? ‘Bite the fucking bullet’?”
He slapped his palm against his forehead.
“Sorry. The Ma warned me I’d never go anywhere with the mouth on me. The language, it just sort of jumps out.”
Minogue smiled. Malone sat back and looked around the restaurant.
“I’ve spent half me life trying to figure out how identical twins ended up like we did. This guff about heredity and environment and everything. I don’t know how Terry lost it and I didn’t. It doesn’t make sense. It fu- Excuse me. It annoys me. We weren’t treated different. We were close. Broke the Da’s heart. I don’t know. I don’t ask meself any more. I just don’t.”
Malone’s voice had dropped to a murmur.
“What I mean is that I try not to ask stupid questions any more. The meaning of life and all that crap. You know what I’m saying, like?”
War’m’sane, thought Minogue. He nodded. The meaning of life? For several moments he was walking along the lane to the ruins of Corcomroe Abbey in his native County Clare, hardly feeling the asphalt under his feet, the hills and sky all about him, his senses flooded with the fragrances of sea and pasture.
“I sort of came to a funny conclusion a few years back,” he heard Malone saying. He noted Malone’s sardonic smile.
“Terry’s probably the biggest reason for me being a Guard,” said Malone.
“So,” said Kilmartin. “A definite factor. Two months.”
Minogue was still mulling over the news that the autopsy revealed Mary Mullen had been pregnant. They had almost missed it.
“Would she have known for sure herself?” asked Kilmartin. “She’d have noticed the visits from the cousin down the country had stopped at least.”
It took Minogue several moments to sort out the euphemism.
“Tell me about the flat being done,” said Kilmartin. “Coincidence?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences, Jim, and neither do you. Patricia Fahy is missing a bit of money and a ghetto blaster worth a hundred and something quid. But the place was really tossed.”
“Do we have any idea of what was taken belonging to Mary Mullen?”
“No. Not yet.”
Kilmartin closed his eyes, groaned and tried to scratch high up on his back.
“Leave aside the idea that this is burglary number nineteen thousand nine hundred and whatever for Dublin this week,” he said. “What might Mary Mullen have that someone wanted?”
“Drugs,” said Malone. “Kind of staring us in the face, like.”
“Attaboy, Molly,” said Kilmartin. “Drugs.” He opened his eyes. “I phoned Mick Hand and had a chat about this Egan mob. They do more than robbing and beating. Hard drugs, soft drugs, protection rackets, fences, car robbery ring. They have certain parts of the city well terrorized. Anything they’re not into, says I. Jail, says he.”
Kilmartin stopped and gasped: he couldn’t reach a point high up between his shoulder blades.
“So. Molly. We have to find out what’s behind her, who’s behind her. Mary Mullen. If she was tied into the Egan clan… Ah, bugger, I can’t get at it!”
Kilmartin grabbed a biro and found the spot.
“Ahhh… Got caught up in a row with a rival outfit. Maybe she fell foul of the Egans themselves. Ahhh… God, that’s the spot now!”
“Any sign from the PM yet that she was a user, John?” Minogue asked.
“No needle tracks.”
Kilmartin scratched the bristles on his chin.
“How soon before the first toxicology?”
“Three, four o’clock,” said Murtagh.
Minogue stretched out his legs. There was a check-mark and a (P. St.) beside Jack Mullen’s name on the board. It took him a moment: Jack Mullen’s statement was being taken in Pearse Street Garda station.
“We’re definite on the cause of death, John?” Murtagh looked over at him.
“Yes. She was unconscious when she went into the water.”
“And that bruise again?”
“He said we should consider it very possible that her head was slammed against something.”
“How hard?”
“Enough for a concussion. The cheekbone has a hairline fracture in it. No bruises or pressure marks anywhere else.”
“Not even her arms? She didn’t resist?” Murtagh shook his head.
“She knew him,” said Kilmartin. “Proceed as planned.” Minogue looked up at Mary Mullen’s picture on the board. A punch, he wondered. Facing her. Nothing on her nails, her hands. Unexpected.
Kilmartin elbowed away from the wall and began a slow, measured prowl of the squadroom.
“We have Harcourt Street station doing the banks again,” he said. “Along with Sheehy and two Scenes men. God help them. I was able to get him a half-dozen from Donnybrook too. He’ll need them. Did you see the place in daylight? Christ, what a mess. And the stink! Dear Old Dirty Dublin, my eye. A slurry pit is what it is. Anyway. The lock-keeper-what’s his name?”
Malone glanced up at the noticeboard.
“Kavanagh,” said Murtagh.
“Him, yes. He’s a hundred per cent certain. Nothing went through there after lunchtime.”
Kilmartin paused and looked around at the three policemen. Minogue thought he recognized the look: the Chief Inspector’s chronic flatulence was about to score again.
“Who’s taking Jack Mullen’s statement?” Minogue asked.
Kilmartin looked at his watch.
“Conor Madden,” said Murtagh. “And the other fella. Larry Smith. Used to be in Store Street. Yes. They took him in an hour ago.”
“Any word yet?” Murtagh tossed his biro into the air and caught it.
“Well, I’m going to phone,” said Minogue.
He dialled, asked for Madden and watched Malone while he waited. Malone was writing, frowning at what he had written, underlining, staring at the boards, grilling Murtagh.
“Matt, oul son. How’s things?”
“Holding my own, so I am, Conor. Warm, don’t you think.”
“Hot as the hob of hell. But sure, what harm? We’ll be long enough without it.”
“Ah, don’t be talking. Now. You’ve had time with Jack Mullen.”
“I did that. Will one of yous be by to go at him proper soon?”
“I will indeed. How’d he strike you first?”
“Well, he knew already. The wife had left a message at his job. ‘First time she’s gotten in touch with me in a year and a half,’ says he. ‘And it had to be this.’ ”
“How does he look to you?”
“So far, he seems sound,” said Madden. “Broke down a few times. Genuine enough, I thought.”
“What’s his alibi looking like?”
“He was working that night, he says. The taxi. Day shift, but sometimes fills in on an eleven to seven if he’s asked. We can get a log of the fares he had. There are times on it too, a computer printout.”
“Does he own the car or just drive it?”
“He owns it, but he works for Capitol.”
“How’d he pay for the car?”
“He got a settlement from a back injury when he worked in England. He was on the buildings. To make a long story short, he came back to Dublin. He messed up everything with drink but then he was able to beat it. Finally he was able to get an in with the taxi business. There’s a kink in him now, I should tell you. He’s some class of a born-again. It has to do with being an alcoholic, he says. A club called the Victory Club.”
“The Victory Club? Salvation Army? What is it?”
“It’s kind of like the AA. He shares a place out in Ballybough with two other fellas. They’re ex-alcoholics as well. They’re all part of this Victory Club. The idea is, as I understand it so far, that these fellas have to put themselves back together again. They stay together so as to buck one another up against relapsing.”
“So it’s a recovery group,” said Minogue.
“Well, I’m no expert. It has to do with finding yourself and that. I didn’t hear him say he’d talked to Elvis or anything of that nature now. Repeated a lot of the same phrases.”
“Try a few on me.”
“‘Coming home’?”
“Okay.”
“Something to do with a hole. Not the one you dig, now. Making yourself whole.”
“Holistic?”
“That’s it. Yep. I thought it was part of the born-again kick, you know. He talks about the time before he gave up the jar as his ‘past life.’ Later on he says, ‘God has decided.’ Yep. ‘God called her home’,” says he. He said that he hadn’t been much of a father to her. Broke down again. He was at it a while. That’s hard to fake right, I figure.”
Minogue watched Malone patting his crew-cut while he concentrated on something in his notebook.
“He admitted that he used to tap the wife a bit. I hadn’t even asked and he popped out with that one. Now that’s odd. Like he was confessing his sins.”
“Beat her, you mean,” said Minogue. “As opposed to a tap.”
“Well, yes, I suppose. He has a bad back now. He’s still a big buck of a fella. He goes to a fitness club. He does weights and exercises for the back and goes for physio sometimes.”
“When did he last have contact with Mary, according to himself?”
“Said he saw her on the street back in March.”
“What, where?” asked Minogue.
“Along Baggot Street, the Stephen’s Green end.”
“Did he talk to her or anything?”
“She wouldn’t talk, he said. He pulled over-he had a fare-and tried to talk to her, but no go.”
“Did he know where she lived?”
“No. Not even where she worked. ‘Well, I wasn’t around when she needed me,’ he says. He gave me the run-down on the last few years with the family. He came back from England with a bit of money. Reunited with the wife, but thought she wasn’t pleased to see him home, that she had her own fella on the side. Formed the opinion that the wife wasn’t a fit mother, that she’d let the daughter go to hell too. Wife’s answer was, ‘Where the hell were you when she was growing up?’ Rows, of course. Went from bad to worse. He thought he could sort things out with his fists. She got a barring order, gave him the P.O. He went back to England.”
“Drinking a lot, he says? What, five years ago?”
“Yes,” said Madden. “Then he fell off the scaffolding and was laid up in hospital for a while. Said it was the pain from his back sent the drinking right out of control then. This time he came back to Dublin broke. The wife wouldn’t have him. He lived with a brother for a while but got thrown out. He hit bottom and ended up in hospital here. Then he got counselling and stuck at the sessions. Next thing is he gets awarded a stack of money-compensation-he hadn’t expected. God’s giving him a second chance. That’s when he got religion. ‘Saved,’ says he, and he’s never looked back.”
Saved, thought Minogue-coming home. Born-again. Didn’t you have to die first?
“Well, Conor. Thanks. He’s not shy of talking then.”
“No. We’ll have a ten-page statement out of him if we’re not bloody careful.”
“Oh, before I go. The fellas he shares the place with. Did you run them through the confuser?”
“Very much so. One’s completely clean. He even works for a security company. The other one has a record but latest was eleven years back. Break and enter. That one works in a clothes shop, he’s separated and he has three grown-up kids.”
“All right, Conor. Job well done. I’ll be by within the hour.”
Kilmartin lit a cigarello. Smokescreen for a fart, Minogue decided. Murtagh opened the door of the photocopier and began clearing a jam.
“Well?” said Kilmartin.
“Mister Jack Mullen claims to be on the side of the angels.”
“Arra, talk sense, man! Separated from the wife and daughter, we’re just after hearing. An alco. God knows what else will come up. What’s angelic about that?”
“Jack Mullen found Jesus,” said Minogue. Kilmartin chewed a corner of his lip.
“You make it sound like an affliction.”
Minogue bit back a comment.
“Okay, okay,” said Kilmartin, and rubbed his hands together. “Howandever. Go and take him on yourself. Now what about that Fahy girl: will I send a car to take her in for round two?”
“Give it a little more time, Jim, if you please.”
“Jases, man, we can’t be sitting on our hands now. She’s had her crying time. She’s trying to cod us that she knew damn-all about what her own flatmate was up to? Friends? Boyfriends coming and going? Didn’t they talk, for God’s sake?”
“I’m not sure how much she knew about Mary’s background, Jim, but she’s scared.”
“Huh. Scared or not, she’d better buck up. She’s a key in the lock for us.”
Minogue made a mock salute. Kilmartin yawned and cocked an eye at Malone.
“All go here, huh, Molly? Getting the hang of where you fit in the big picture?”
Malone nodded. Minogue imagined Tommy Malone getting up from his corner of a boxing ring, a glint in his eye, to face Kilmartin. The Chief Inspector waved in the direction of the boards. Minogue sat back. Wreathed in smoke, Kilmartin swept his arm, tapped with his knuckles and then lumbered along by the notice-boards while he declaimed for Malone, who sat, arms folded, watching. Murtagh on his hunkers by the photocopier had turned around to watch the performance, a faint smile playing about his lips.
“We pull it all together each morning and then in the middle of the afternoon-unless we’re on the move on one that’s breaking open. We’ll use anyone and everyone. See that there, Molly? We may find out that Mary Mullen was in tight with the Egans. See that name-Mick Hand? Serious Crime Squad? Resident expert on the Egans. He’ll be along tomorrow morning. Doyler, resident expert on Dublin’s pavement hostesses, will be here. All the uniforms from the scene-Sheehy’s brigade. Plate-Glass Sheehy. You’ll meet him. If we still can’t place Mary Mullen by tea-time today, we’ll start the door-to-door tonight. Pubs, offices, the whole bit. John Murtagh will go on building our file on her as well as chase the PM. Our very own file search is on foot for MO fits and known offenders; incidents logged in the area; probationers, parolees and bailed gougers to boot.”
Minogue took the phone to the window-sill and dialled Kathleen.
“I meant to phone earlier. Sorry. I’ve a lot of running around on the menu today.”
“Will you be working through on this one?”
He couldn’t take his eyes off his Citroen in the yard. The panels. Wheel covers. Squatting down, waiting to be summoned. He blinked and broke his stare.
“I don’t know. We’re still trying to get up to pressure here.”
She told him that she had just put down the phone after a call from Iseult.
“Tell me now,” he began. “You’re a mother, after all.”
“Oh, oh. What’s coming up after that class of an opener?”
“No tricky stuff. Could a mother live in the same city as her daughter but be estranged from her?”
“Why would you be asking me?”
Her voice had lost its warmth. Damn, he thought. She thought he was giving her digs about Iseult.
“It’s a case where a mother maintains she hardly knew anything about the daughter. Really. The daughter ran away from home. She got herself arrested a few times. She did time. The father beat the mother, and the daughter too, probably. The mother tells me she hardly met with the daughter this last year. What do you think?”
“Well, it’s possible, isn’t it? Broken homes, abuse. Drink does terrible things, you know.”
A retaliatory dig, he wondered. Kathleen Minogue’s husband was a bit too fond of a drink for her liking?
“There’s guilt, I suppose,” she added. “Maybe the mother didn’t protect the girl from her husband. Maybe the daughter blamed the mother for something.”
He was staring at the writing on the notice-boards now. Jack Mullen, Capitol Taxi. Jack Mullen, head-case. Enough, Minogue decided. There were two conversations going on here.
“Thanks now,” he muttered. “I’ll bear that in mind. How’s Iseult anyhow?”
“Odd, if you want to know my reaction.”
“Odd? Of course she’s odd. Doesn’t she have a degree in being odd from the College of Art?”
“I meant odd, Matt!”
“Oh. That kind of odd.”
“She still misses home. A mother’s intuition, call it what you like, but…”
Minogue rolled his eyes. Iseult had been living in a flat with her boyfriend for a year.
“Laundry?” he tried.
“If only that,” said Kathleen. “No. She’s got a look about her.”
“A look.”
“Yes. A look that tells me she’s waiting to land something on us.”
“Oh, I see.”
“What do you see?”
“I mean yes, em. Well, maybe she misses us. Thinks we need a visit.”
He waited for her to respond.
“No?”
“Huh. Just tell me what time you think you’ll be home. So’s I can tell her.”
The tone cut through his thoughts.
“I’ll aim for eight,” he said. “I’ll leave a message on the machine if I can’t.”