Islandbridge

by Brady, John

  “You’re in fine form, the both of you, in anyhow. I suppose I should be content with the usual barracking and bollicking I get from the pair of ye. Oh, brings back happy memories. I don’t think.”

  Abruptly he shifted his weight and drew in his chair with his instep.

  “Wait and I’ll tell you, you won’t believe it. You won’t believe this one. This is what passes for a murder investigation these days. You won’t credit your own ears.”

  The coffee found its way to Minogue’s brain in short order. He listened at a distance to his friend’s disdain. It was the old story, but just as entertaining: here again was the triumph of a Mayo man’s keen intelligence, with the customary nod to a modesty Kilmartin never could carry off. Bagged the wrong shoes! Sure a tinker’s horse would know better! The sheer stupidity of those detectives and they handing the defence counsel a winning ticket! And them coming in and out of the side door to the shop – exactly where the two shooters had left? Curly, Larry and Moe reporting for duty, sir!

  Kilmartin sat back slowly as though to remove himself from this planet of gobshites. Minogue studied the eyebrows on the Mayo giant dancing with the scorn, the rolling eye, and the timed pause. Kilmartin began to wind down his grim oration. As usual, there were some philosophical musings on what it took to get proper police work done. There was a description of how the judge had apparently stared at the two detectives even as he told the barrister to take his client for a walk, a free man. He finished with a stoical comment on the human condition generally: Where ignorance is bliss, it was surely folly to be wise.

  “So,” said Kilmartin then, brightly. “Is that why they disbanded our Squad, lads? Are these the brains of the Gardai running murder cases now? Are we in safe hands?”

  Minogue long knew this invitation to any reaction was already ordained futile. Worse, it was an open door for more Kilmartin. He managed a head shake. Malone had twisted the paper from his sugar into a sort of horseshoe. An American couple sat in at a table nearby. Kilmartin nodded at the man, who had loose skin and white hair.

  “What’s the news from beyond?” he asked Minogue. “Stateside, like.”

  His own son Daithi, he meant, Minogue realized.

  “Same as ever. He does the emails to Kathleen mostly.”

  Kilmartin’s eyes took on a vacant look. Minogue did not know whether he should ask his friend how the Kilmartin’s own son Liam was doing.

  “I hate email,” said Kilmartin. “A proper letter shows, well, you know.”

  Kilmartin did not talk much about his young fella now. Maura Kilmartin passed on bits to Kathleen when they’d meet, which was less often now anyway. It was hardly just because the son was shacked up with a girl there, with no sign of marrying, no sign of coming home either. The last that Kilmartin had mentioned about his son was that Liam Kilmartin seemed to speak a foreign language, full of talk about start-ups, and venture capital, and breakthroughs, and alliances and cutting edge.

  Nonetheless, drunk or sober, Minogue would probably never go near to hinting to his friend that you didn’t have to be a detective to sense the loneliness in him, a bafflement at how America seemed to be holding his son at bay. There had been words before Liam went, Minogue had learned, a fairly considerable row. “A family matter” was all Maura Kilmartin had conceded to Kathleen. Minogue surmised that things may well have been said that had lacerated Kilmartin. Only twice in all the years Minogue had known him had Kilmartin even mentioned what he called “the adoption.”

  Kilmartin leaned in over the table.

  “Now let’s get through the James Bond stuff here,” he said to Malone. “What’s this gig of yours you want to talk to me – to us – about here?”

  “I’ll tell yous in a minute,” said Malone.

  “Tell me now,” said Kilmartin. “I answered the call, pal. It’s not every day of the week I get a personal telephone request from the Dhubbalin Man himself. There better be something to it, I say. You, Matt?”

  “Oh, I’m just happy to be here, I’d like to thank the academy. . . .”

  “You’re a goner, there’s no doubt. What gives?”

  “I want you to meet a fella.”

  “I’m not a homo. Didn’t you know that yet?”

  Malone looked from Kilmartin to Minogue and back.

  “All right,” Kilmartin said. “Where is he?”

  “He’s across the way.”

  “Where, ‘across the way’?”

  “Inside in Clarendon Street Church. At the side altar.”

  “The church?” said Kilmartin. “Are you taking us to Mass, or something?”

  Malone put on his stone-face.

  “It’s about Emmett Condon,” he said, and he looked up vacantly along the banister that led the way up to the hidden world of Bewley’s mezzanine floor. “This fella says he knows something about what happened to Condon.”

  Kilmartin stared at Minogue until he looked over.

  “Garda Emmett Condon?” Kilmartin said in a low voice. “God rest his soul?”

  Malone nodded.

  Minogue struggled to remember details. Hadn’t Condon’s body been found back around Christmas? The rumours had started right away, he recalled, and the toxicology report seemed to confirm them. Condon had the distinction of being the first Garda ever to die of a drug overdose. It was actually Kilmartin who had mentioned something back then about a huge review of undercover operations, all the way to the top of the GNDU, the Garda National Drugs Unit, because of Condon.

  Minogue found himself scanning the faces here in the restaurant anew. He felt a stirring, old reflexes announce themselves. He considered trying to ignore them, but he soon gave up. This was because he was certain he now saw in Kilmartin’s face that slack, expressionless mask, one that said he too couldn’t suppress the alerted hunter in himself either.

  “Well now,” Kilmartin said and leaned in over the table. “You have my interest here. Nothing like a botched cover-up to get that going, I can tell you. Go on, so.”

  “I’m going to give you the fella’s name,” said Malone, and eyed Kilmartin. “The reason being, is that you’ll understand why I asked to meet up with you. Lawless is his name, Frank Lawless. Does that ring a bell?”

  Kilmartin frowned.

  “Why would it?” he asked. “There’s tons by that name. Is he a gouger?”

  “More of a failed one, I’d have to say,” Malone replied. “His brother was, or is, the one you’d know. Tony.”

  “Tony Lawless? Yes. From somewhere.”

  Kilmartin suddenly sat upright and he looked from Malone to Minogue and back.

  “Murder? About eleven or twelve years back?”

  “Right,” said Malone.

  “You’d better explain this,” said Kilmartin.

  Malone hesitated and Minogue head him draw in a breath.

  “He– Lawless, I mean, the fella waiting for us– he wants me to show I have some cred, you know.”

  “Cred?”

  “That’s right. See if I can get things done. Otherwise he won’t tell me what he’s going to tell me. It’s kind of like bona fides too. Did I say that right, like a trust thing?”

  Minogue nodded. A strange smile spread over Kilmartin’s features.

  “Are you saying that we’re here for your credibility with some informant?” he said, lingering on each word.

  Malone nodded.

  “So this low-life is orchestrating your, what are we going to call it, your investigation here, your information?”

  “Well, it’s not actually an investigation,” said Malone. “It just sort of came up.”

  Kilmartin met Minogue’s eyes and raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m just along for the ride, as they say,” said Minogue.

  Kilmartin settled his gaze on Malone again.

  “It just came up?”

  “Right,” said Malone.

  “But he’s going to give you information about what happened to Emmett Condon. Information that no-one else
can find. Not even the geniuses over at Internal Affairs.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping, yeah.”

  “And he’ll talk to us, as long as I’m here, to show him that you have cred.”

  “Well, not exactly,” said Malone, and shifted a little in his seat. “He won’t talk to you. He just wants to see you. That’s all he wants in that department.”

  “Say that again, will you?”

  “To see you. You have to know he’s a bit nuts now. It’s drugs, that’s how it got started, right?”

  “Doesn’t it always?”

  “What I mean is, he’ll talk to me if he sees you.”

  Chapter 4

  KILMARTIN AND MINOGUE had been waiting for nearly five minutes in the porch of Clarendon Street Church. Minogue had stepped between Kilmartin and the doors into the church proper only once yet.

  Kilmartin strolled back to his spot by the holy water fount.

  “A nice how-do-you-do,” he whispered. “Trying to stop a man going into a chapel to say his prayers. Wait until I tell Kathleen that you came between me and God. That’s a new low.”

  “There are plenty of other churches in Dublin, Jim.”

  “And how would you know?”

  “Look, Tommy said the fella was jittery.”

  “Ah,” said Kilmartin, and shook his head. “His ‘informant.’ You do know what this caper is taking out of me, don’t you?”

  Minogue nodded.

  “Don’t those mad plays of what’s-his-name go like this?” Kilmartin asked.

  “What’s-his-name?”

  “Beckett,” said Kilmartin. “How could I forget! God almighty, Maura dragged me to one of his years ago, and it was like a fecking migraine, from start to finish. But it’s this ‘He’ll only talk to me if he sees you’ bit, I’m talking about. Christ almighty, is Malone trying to stage some kind of an I-don’t-know-what, a revelation, or a miracle, or something here with this Condon shambles?”

  “I’d settle on ‘revelation,’ Jim. Probably. But who knows.”

  “Well, I know,” said Kilmartin. “I know this much: Malone owes me big time. And furthermore, if this turns out to be trick-acting or a con, well he’ll rue the day, by God. A ridiculous set-up, this. Ridiculous.”

  It was, Minogue had to admit. But he had enjoyed seeing Kilmartin’s reaction when Malone had tried to explain why he needed Kilmartin to come into the church when he gave the signal, and sit as faraway as possible from them but still be visible. He did not enjoy Kilmartin’s extortion in return: that he be given Malone’s gun for the duration, in case this was some weird set-up, a revenge thing to do with Lawless’s brother.

  Minogue wanted to look again at where Kilmartin’s hand had stayed jammed into his pocket, holding Malone’s pistol. He turned instead to watch a doubled-up old woman bless herself. A young man, tall, with a preoccupied expression, and his coat on inside out, entered as though in a trance.

  The woman behind the glass where they sold Mass cards and holy pictures began rearranging papers and knick-knacks. The cards and devotional items were almost as extravagant and strange as when he was a boy. The sight of the pierced and thorn-wrapped heart outside Jesus’ chest, the pillars of cloud-splitting light, the supplicant skyward eyes of saints and martyrs – all gave Minogue a secret, but embarrassing, comfort.

  He liked the grime and the dim light here, the shuffling of the people, so many of them troubled. He even liked the greyed edges to everything here in the entrance, a grimy surface rubbed there by the countless people who came here, day in, day out. Most of the people were women, and they were on the home stretch too, as his father used to say.

  “Jesus,” murmured Kilmartin after another unkempt man had entered, stared without seeing at the three policemen, slurred something to the woman behind the glass, and left.

  “Not yet,” said Minogue. “He was only John the Baptist.”

  “Oh that’s rich,” said Kilmartin. “An Antichrist of the first order informing me of the ways of Our Lord. Very rich entirely.”

  Minogue let it go. He was fighting back his own impatience more now, himself. He looked around the entrance again, and wondered if Kilmartin had noticed the signs about justice, and the lunches for the homeless, or the few rebel-looking Jesuses on signs in foreign languages.

  Then Malone’s face was in the doorway. Minogue almost laughed out loud.

  Minogue shook his head. Could he ever tell Kilmartin that in this light Malone’s wary, block-headed face looked like that of a monk?

  “This guy’s jumpy,” said Malone. “So no pressure, okay?”

  “Listen,” said Kilmartin. “This ain’t so appealing, the more I think about it.”

  Malone gave Minogue a look. A man came in the outer door, blinked and leered and stroked his beard, then muttered and left, awkwardly.

  “That,” said Kilmartin, “that is exactly what I’m alluding to, bucko. There’s people coming in that door here every ten seconds, and the thing is, they’re all the same. They’re all head cases. Get it?”

  “Look,” said Malone. “It took a big job of work to get him here.”

  Malone headed for the candles by the side altar. Minogue followed him, taking occasional glances at the set of eyes that stayed on him from behind the wavering points of candlelight. He heard a shoe clump against a pew behind him. He guessed it was Kilmartin, making his presence felt, but he did not look around. He felt the still, scented air begin to work on his mind. It was full of burning wax and polish and incense, and generations of sweat and stains and clothes that had been slept in.

  Arrayed around the walls were the expected Stations of the Cross, and then the lines of pews in the dim light, interrupted by the forms of those sitting or kneeling. A figure would stand, another kneel, another would enter the church, part of a constant eddy of people.

  Malone had stopped. He turned to Kilmartin, and nodded at a pew.

  “So,” said Malone. “Can you wait over there?”

  The candlelights glittered in Kilmartin’s eyes.

  “I remember Lawless now,” he said. “He killed a man over a car.”

  Minogue saw a figure move behind the glow from the candles, a face turn his way, rapidly blinking eyes.

  “Can you?” Malone repeated.

  “Look, that’s a monk,” said Kilmartin. “I mean a friar.”

  “Right,” said Malone. “He’s part two of the deal here. You and the priest fella. So can you–”

  “He’s a Franciscan, right?”

  “No, I think he’s from Dublin,” said Malone.

  Minogue remembered the friar now: Coughlin, Father Larry Coughlin. He’d been on Morning Ireland last week. A former stockbroker in London, Coughlin now did the social work thing with addicts, as well as say Mass.

  Kilmartin stepped closer to Malone. The move reminded Minogue of the exchange before the first round of a boxing match.

  “Listen,” said Kilmartin. “Me no likee. This could be a setup. There could be cameras and I don’t know what. I don’t like this one bit.”

  Malone looked at Minogue.

  “Jim, just a short while?” Minogue tried. “Okay?”

  Kilmartin stared at the face behind the candles. His eyebrow came up, and then something close to a sneer took over his face. He broke his gaze abruptly, and muttered something about meds, and slipped into a pew.

  Minogue mouthed an elaborate thank you that Kilmartin pretended to ignore, and then he followed Malone. They sat into the pew in front of Father Coughlin and Lawless. Father Coughlin grasped the long rope that hung by his side, the name of which Minogue had once been proud to know and had now forgotten, and a rosary beads he’d had somewhere, and also a bit of his robes. He got up without a word, or even a glance toward the two policemen, and knelt to Lawless’s right.

  “A con,” said Kilmartin, and looked at his watch again. “Pure and simple. You got a twenty-minute lesson in bullshit. And I hate to say it, but . . .”

  He and Minogue rounded
the corner into South Anne Street. Malone had gone his own way after a phone call had interrupted their few words outside the door of the church.

  “Let me guess,” said Minogue. “‘Tommy Malone is a desperate gobshite to go along with any of this.’”

  “You too – don’t forget yourself.”

  “Nothing personal, right?”

  “Exactly.”

  “For encouraging him?”

  “Something like that,” Kilmartin agreed. “Malone needs to be reminded, but . . .”

  Minogue kept working around the flow of people at the corner of Grafton Street.

  “Well, at least it was interesting,” he said.

  “Really? But am I ever going to hear the details that the little bollocks told you two?”

  “I told you everything, Jim. Lawless was repeating himself after a while. He had some talk about a Guard playing for the other team, that it’s been going on a good while.”

  “Yes, but who? And where, and how, and when, for the love of God?”

  Minogue shrugged. Was it Russian he could hear from a couple holding a street guide by the corner? His own ignorance came to him again: Serbo-Croatian, Ukrainian, why not even Polish? Ahh – he’d never keep up with this.

  “He said he didn’t know.”

  “But that this Guard feeds some of the gangs in Dublin, right?”

  “According to Lawless. That’s the rumour he heard from his brother in jail.”

  “But how did the Condon thing come up?”

  “He didn’t actually use Condon’s name,” Minogue replied. “He said that part of what his brother had told him was that some Guard, some undercover Guard, had been nosing around in this too, but then he turned up dead himself. An overdose – ‘that cop they found ODed’ were his words, as I recall.”

  Kilmartin shook his head.

  “No doubt he wants a thousand million euros for this.”

  “He didn’t say what he wanted.”

  “Disneyworld might buy it, tell Malone. Has Malone actually bought any of this line from that little bollocks?”

  “I don’t know,” said Minogue. “But I got coffee and cake out of it. And I got bailed out of the PowerPoint thing too.”