Wonderland: An Inspector Matt Minogue Mystery (The Matt Minogue Series Book 7)

by John Brady

  “I have nothing to tell youse. Nothing. Youse’re trespassing and that is an offence.”

  “Look it, Beans,” Malone began.

  “Mr. Canning to you, dickhead.”

  “We want to see Quinn.”

  “Youse must be deaf as well as stupid. Didn’t Julie just tell you he’s not here?”

  “What’s the number for his mobile?”

  Canning picked up his cigarette from the ashtray and took a long drag.

  “Call the Guards,” he said to Julie. “We have some kind of break and enter or something going on here. Trespassers, robbers, I don’t know what. And Julie, tell them they’re deaf too—and kind of thick.”

  He rounded the desk again and sat heavily into the leather swivel. He took the remote control and turned up the volume. The race was tight apparently, the high-pitched whine keening as the bikes passed a commentator.

  Minogue found the power switch at the bottom of the set. Canning kept stabbing the remote.

  “You’re too busy for that now,” Minogue said to him. The boss hardly pays you to hang around his, well, his office watching the telly all day, now does he.”

  “Drop dead, copper.”

  “Well, now we have your attention. We want Quinn to help us with our enquiries.”

  “See youse in court. It’ll look good on you. What’s your name again.”

  “But you’ll do,” Minogue said. “To pass on our request.”

  “Do your own dirty work.”

  “That’s your forte, I’d be thinking.”

  “What’re you insinuating?”

  “Lorry loads going out every night to landfills in Wicklow.”

  Canning shook his head.

  “Why bother paying into a circus, I say.”

  Minogue looked around for close-circuit cameras. Then he leaned on the desk. Canning blew smoke out and reached for the remote. Malone swept it off the desk.

  “That’s broken,” Canning said. “And you’re bollocksed. Like your brother.”

  Minogue studied the lop-sided grin, the way he drew on his cigarette. It was like it was a diver drawing on his air valve.

  “Tell the boss something,” he said. “Tell him it better not be true what a fella said.”

  Minogue waited but Canning continued with his smoke rings.

  “Doyle,” Malone said. “You’d know him. The usual, just like you. You know, big mouth, in and out of jail. Thinks he’s a hard man.”

  “Tell Quinn we’ll be following up on this,” Minogue said.

  Julie was busy pretending she was on hold. Minogue waited by her desk until she glanced up.

  “Tell Quinn they’re cheap, he said. Cell phones? But you have to remember to switch them on.”

  Get on Board

  It was all finished by half twelve. Quinn had sprayed the Renault and done the seats the best he could. The bullet had come out Doyle’s eye and gone into the dash. There were bits of brain and other stuff, maybe his eye, Quinn decided, even on the windscreen.

  He’d asked Roe why he’d shot him inside the car.

  “Well, he was becoming unstable.”

  “What do you mean unstable?”

  “Unpredictable.”

  “Look at what we have to do now though.”

  Roe had pulled Doyle across the floor by then.

  “What odds,” he said. “It’s going in the crusher.”

  “It’s a loose end,” Quinn said. “The idea was to do the job out here.”

  He remembered Roe looking down at the drains, back at the car and then at Quinn.

  “Well, I have to concede that he was very, well, irritating.”

  “Irritating? That was the reason?”

  “Indeed it was. He was coming up with a lot of slurs.”

  “Slurs? What are slurs?”

  “Remarks about people from Northern Ireland. People like myself.”

  Quinn didn’t know if he was trying to be funny.

  “Totally uncalled for. I was doing my job. All he had to do was do his.”

  It was then that Quinn for the first time didn’t feel immune. And maybe that was why they had sent Roe, maybe even encouraged him to be as freaky as he wanted.

  He taped the windows in a rush just to get the compressor started so he wouldn’t hear what Roe was up to with the body. Even with the sprayer going he’d heard thumps every now and then, and twice some power tool. He kept going, the sweat and nausea building behind the face mask.

  There were a few times when he thought he wouldn’t make it. A few times the bile was right at the back of his mouth, stabbing at his throat. Once he had actually yanked off the mask and crouched over the bin with a spasm, but nothing had come.

  Philpot was at the door with the lorry right on time. Quinn tore a hole in the paper on the back window and reversed the Renault up the ramp. He had tried the propane torch on the dashboard after he had run it over the vinyl and the seats. It hadn’t taken, but the damage from the bullet didn’t look so obvious now. No way was he going to get the oxyacetylene for it.

  He didn’t try to clean the sprayer afterwards, but he took down the plastic right away and put it into the drum on top of the clothes. There had been patches and spots on the plastic to the driver’s side. Doyle must have rolled down his window all the way. He was halfway finished with the floor when he noticed that Roe was standing in the machine-room doorway watching.

  He stopped sweeping. Roe nodded at him.

  The drums weren’t as heavy as Quinn had expected. He didn’t want to say a word to Roe, to ask when he’d be filling them with the acid. Roe had thick polytarp ready in the van, and they slid the drums along the bed of the van with it. Quinn stood back and watched Roe bracing the drums with pieces of two by four, checking the seals, and doing something with gaffer tape. He sprang out then and locked the van doors.

  Light on his feet, Quinn noticed.

  “You have the drum there with the clothes and stuff?” Roe asked. Quinn pointed the brush toward the corner by the door.

  Roe shrugged and sighed, and went off to change.

  Quinn sluiced more of the detergent across the concrete and went harder with the brush. Acid, he thought. He supposed it’d take days for bones. Roe would know, no doubt. He’d been working with them on and off for two years, Grogan had told him, ever since they’d let him out. No politics, no religion. Yes, Roe’d be back behind the counter in the shop in Newry before the day was out. He’d be smiling at an oul wan, maybe while he held up a chop or a roast. Lean enough for you, Missus?

  The time must have passed: Roe was back. Quinn finished by the drain. Roe pushed the clothes deeper into the drum and walked back. Quinn leaned the brush against the wall and rolled the drum over to the van. His painting gear he could leave here for Chipper to use again anyway. Roe watched him pound the lid onto the drum. He balanced it on the van’s bumper before sliding it in behind the others. Roe gave it a shove or two and then closed the door.

  “That’ll do it, then,” he said. He adjusted his cap and then fixed Quinn with a look.

  “As a matter of interest, Mr. Quinn.”

  It was the way he said it, Quinn was sure. Somehow every word felt like a taunt. Like a schoolteacher nagging you in that quiet way, annoying you, getting under your skin more than if he just gave you a belt and got it over with.

  “We were correct in our estimation.”

  Quinn didn’t get it for a moment.

  “He had track marks all right,” Roe said. “As we anticipated. Just a matter of time.”

  Quinn said nothing. Roe was rubbing it in. He counted the hours since he’d last slept, thought about what paint did to your brain, fast dry undercoat or not.

  “Yes indeed,” Roe said. “Oh, but you could tell from his demeanour, at any rate.”

  Quinn let the words roll around in his mind. Demeanour, estimation. This man with the liking for big words had just killed three people. Then he’d calmly separated one of them into bits and dropped the pieces in
to oil drums. In a few minutes, he’d be heading out through the streets of Dublin. He’d be leaving the van in Dundalk then, and driving home to Newry, carrying on as though nothing had happened.

  “I’ll be away now,” Roe said. “See you around, maybe?”

  Quinn nodded. He glanced at the ironed shirt and trousers that Roe had changed into now. How could a fella look dapper after that. He tried not to stare at the man’s hands. He had heard the water running, smelled the solvent still over the soap that Quinn had used.

  He watched as Roe swung the Adidas bag into the van’s seat ahead of him. What else had he got in there, he wondered again.

  “You like it, do you?” Roe asked.

  “What? Like what?”

  “You go to the gym too, do you?”

  It was some kind of a warped smile on Roe’s face all right, Quinn decided.

  He watched the Toyota move off sedately down the lane. No wave from Roe.

  He closed the door and looked around the garage. He checked the drains by the door again. There was hardly any water in them now. He thought about Roe, taking his time motoring across the city, headed north. Bizarre wasn’t enough of a word. Monster, was more like it. How many more of the likes of Roe were they producing up there?

  Maybe as many Doyles as were turning up here, you could say.

  The old days were gone. Were there ever any? It had been make your own arrangements here for a while before that. A lot of it had to do with the Guards, in actual fact. Their Criminal Assent crowd had done a lot, and with the new laws, and all this new money in the country, things had gone haywire pretty fast.

  Quinn blinked and shook his head. He had to get out of here.

  He stepped out of the suit and hung it near the compressor next to the masks. He’d leave the fan on. Not that it had helped him much, with the lightheaded half-stupid feeling he had. He stopped and thought about that. Well, what did he expect? Hadn’t slept a wink really; couldn’t eat; living on smokes and tea since yesterday. And any normal person would be reacting, no matter how you tried to get ready for something like what had just happened. No wonder he felt shagged.

  There was no one in the laneway. He pulled the steel door shut and tested it. The noise of the city traffic came from all around, and seemed to hover just over the rooftops. He wasn’t just imagining that steady sound of banging, a pile driver, he guessed, for the foundations on the new places down the canal. The bleeping of a lorry reversing somewhere sort of calmed him. The normal world, people going about their business.

  He patted his jacket for his mobile, wondered if Grogan would phone him. For a moment he thought about the men sitting around the table there in the Chineser in the centre of Belfast, a city he’d never known in all his life growing up here. Gallagher—the one who ran West Belfast from a wheelchair—it was Gallagher who’d have given Roe his orders.

  He let out his breath and breathed in deep three times, concentrating. The ache in his stomach was still there. He headed down toward the canal end of the lane. There was a bakery somewhere near, but the smell of the bread was nearly giving him the heaves. He kept his eye on the walls, trying to spot any cameras. There were enough barbed wire and glass and signs about alarms.

  Maybe he could manage a cup of something. He should head out to the office, do something that looked normal. Get hold of Canning and go out to Clondalkin about the lorry that had been towed there Monday.

  He crossed at the light and looked down the row of cars to find his own. A six-year-old Astra, for the love of God. Even the Guards slagged him, the night two of them came to the house after the bank job. But a six-year-old pile of crap on wheels was part of the plan. He had the Volvo waiting anytime in Portugal, the car that Catherine picked and just liked to sit in. There was no point in even renting a car for Amsterdam.

  He looked for people sitting in cars. He wondered if it would ever get to him having to run a mirror under his car. He opened the boot to get a chance to watch for movement on the street. Nothing. He pushed the spare wheel around and rearranged the toolbox before he slammed the lid shut.

  He switched on his phone after he got in behind the wheel. The missed call was Beans’ mobile. What the hell could Canning want that he was annoying him on a day like today? Know when to shut up, Beans. Back to driving lorries is what he’d end up doing if he didn’t cop on. He didn’t need a straight man that badly.

  Then he held his hand out and watched his fingers. Yes, they were moving. What was the point of trying to cod yourself that you hadn’t been out of your mind a half an hour ago? That you probably still were?

  From What We Saw

  Sergeant Lorcan Tunney wasn’t ready to give the girl’s father a wake-up word in the ear. Especially not here, with the hysterics going on in the next room.

  Nothing would do the man. The missus was out of the picture. She had pretty well exploded, and then fallen over, but not unconscious. For a while they thought she’d have to go in an ambulance. Tunney had last seen her writhing on the floor, with two other women trying to get her to stop screaming.

  Now he was watching Kenny stalking around, going mental. The last few minutes he had begun throwing his arms out every now and then, like a speech. The desperation in his voice that was too often a stifled cry or then a kind of a growling hiss. Maybe Kenny’s business was a sort of performance, Tunney thought. Events management was what he called it. Tunney remembered something about the Pope’s visit years ago, where Kenny said he’d got started in the business. Now it was rock stars flying in to get married in Slane Castle, that sort of thing.

  He’d seen the photos in the hall and wondered about them. Mick Jagger looking a bit younger, and Kenny fairly delighted with himself, his arm around the star and a not-happy other fella looking on. “Cheers, and thanks a million, Mick” in recognizable scrawl. Next to that was the picture of the archbishop who’d died last year, with a much younger Kenny standing next to him, less delighted, and a “Many thanks for a job well done, Colm.” The unreadable signature that Tunney assumed was the hallmark of important people was followed by a cross.

  Kenny stopped in the middle of the floor, frozen. Then he turned on his heel and locked eyes with Tunney.

  Tunney tried a sympathetic smile. Offer it up, his mother used to say. Their daughter, their only daughter, is dead. Niamh, sixteen years old.

  Collins cleared his throat. I hear you, Tunney wanted to tell him.

  Kenny sat down and placed his hands on his knees. Some kind of breathing exercise, Tunney wondered. There was a new fit of crying, a muffled shout from next door. Kenny darted a look at the door to the hall. A look of panic suddenly came over him. He held his hands over his face, and he shook while he cried.

  He’d done this before, Tunney remembered, and he’d thought it was a seizure or something. It was right after he’d told them that he’d given the daughter a lecture on account of her using up all her time on the mobile she’d been given as a present to replace the one she’d lost, and that she’d have to learn to pay for her own. If only she’d have had . . . Etc.

  Collins shifted to the edge of the chair. Tunney took in the paintings, real ones, the fireplace that looked two ways, the cherrywood or mahogany trim here and there. They could almost be sitting in one of those American houses he’d seen on the telly, he decided, not in Dublin.

  Kenny heard the two policemen stand. He jerked his head up.

  “But,” he said. “But someone did this, someone.”

  Tunney stretched his toes, watched the light catch the leather.

  “It’s not some accident you know. Not some misadventure.”

  A new light came into Kenny’s eye and he began talking about the Culligan case that had been all over the papers before Christmas. Tunney forgot whether it was five years or ten years the case had been put away as a misadventure. A lug facing life for a murder had coughed up enough to reopen it as a murder case. Tunney had heard that there were twenty something other cases being reopened because of th
e publicity.

  Tunney couldn’t walk off. Instead, he studied how Kenny looked to Collins while he went on about how the Culligan family had gone through hell, then back to him, taking turns with the lecture. Colm Kenny was sliding into hysteria and panic and anguish, and Tunney would not stop feeling sorry for him.

  He thought of what he wouldn’t, couldn’t, say to this dead girl’s father: There were no signs of trauma, were there. Be thankful she wasn’t assaulted. Her hands showed nothing unusual. She shouldn’t have been waking around on her own that hour of the night, should she. It looks like your daughter was drunk or disorientated. People do die of alcohol poisoning, adolescents most of them, did you know that, Mr. Kenny, I’ll bet you didn’t, no. You told us Niamh had friends you were not sure of, friends you’d never met, people she knew. So you were suspicious, weren’t you. But that didn’t go far enough, did it. So it’s yourself you’re raging against here, isn’t it. We’re just your punch bags for now. This kind of thing is not supposed to happen, is it. And you probably think we despise you because you’re rich. Maybe we do, you know. But rich as you were, you wouldn’t pay for more airtime on her mobile sitting up there on her dresser. Oh she learned her lesson all right, she sure did. Now you’ll be learning yours.

  He had to stop thinking like this. Kenny was staring at him.

  “Why does it take so long? Why?”

  “I’m not sure,” Tunney said. “But people are busy. They’ll put priority though at the State Lab, that I know.”

  “How do you know that? Have you done work like this before?”

  Collins cleared his throat again. Tunney did his notebook-closing routine.

  “Well, have you?”

  “Laboratory and Forensics’ involved in a lot of Garda work.”

  “What I mean is, have you ever worked on a murder case, solved one, Garda.”

  Sergeant to you, Tunney said to himself. And don’t push it. Stay onside here.

  “Mr. Kenny . . .?”