by Brady, John
“Shoots him?”
“Christ, no. He loosened his joints for him one night. I think there was some dentistry involved, orthodontic things. Is that the right word? Teeth. Whatever. So that’s how I got back in touch with him. It was his ma actually, she phoned my ma. Could I help out, etc.? So I did – only after I found out if he was on the level. He was. The other fella was a go-boy. He had paper on him, in actual fact. So I had a word with this fella’s ma, who had a word with him. And so forth. You know what I’m saying.”
“Dropped the charges?”
“Yep. I told Paddy it was only right he footed the bill for your man’s orthodintec– dentistry, whatever. So, it’s a favour back. I know it’s a long shot, but I was thinking, where would this girl of Condon’t be likely to be, if she, well, you know. If she hadn’t been . . . You know?”
Two cars came up quickly behind and flew by. The second, a black Porsche, Minogue registered, was chasing a silvery Lexus.
Minogue turned to watch the lights appear through the hedges and the trees only to be swallowed up again. Small farms here in this horsey part of Kildare had suddenly been selling for a few million euros. There were sheiks with helicopters, film stars, talk of the Rolling Stones.
“Here we are,” said Malone.
He took the Fiat too fast into the bend as they left the motorway.
Minogue hadn’t really seen this place at night for a long time. Even a few years ago, when it was still Shannon’s, The Roadhouse had been a big barn of a place, complete with floodlights and flags and planters and metal lawn furniture of the friendly Ireland. But now there was a big restaurant out the front, with tons of plate glass and an outdoor sheltered trattoria. He spotted several of those propane heaters that were capped with shiny saucers glowing amidst the candlelit tables and Singapore-style umbrellas. Ireland, al fresco.
“Was that always there?” he asked Malone, craning his neck to see how high the beam of light went.
“The Star Trek thing, that searchlight? This year. But Dublin Airport is getting them to shut it down, I hear. Plus, it’s attracting too many aliens.”
“How would anyone know that, in Kildare?”
Malone began trolling the car park for a spot.
“Tommy.”
“Go ahead.”
“Say you do find this woman, this ex of Emmett Condon’s.”
“Yeah.”
“That’d be something the team working on Condon couldn’t do in all this time.”
“I know, I know. Didn’t I just tell you it was a long shot?”
“Okay, but what would you do with that information?”
“Listen,” said Malone, “before I even think of giving you an answer to that. Do you think they wanted to find her? Do you think they even believe, or they even care, whether she exists or not?”
“You’re dodging it.”
“Am I? Aren’t they, you mean? They don’t even call it murder, did you know that? There’s wraps all over the case, you know that. Blake and them want it that way.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re asking me? You should know what a murder investigation looks like. Have you seen one, heard of one, a murder investigation on Emmett Condon?”
Minogue said nothing. Malone coasted down the next row of cars. There were enough Range Rovers and BMWs here to make an ad, Minogue thought.
“Look, I’m just curious, okay? There’s lots of action out here. Condon seems to have been out here a fair bit – yeah, I found that out. There’s people out here with foreign accents, girls. That’s why I phoned Paddy. It was him that told me that before. He says he thinks there’s people here, a barman he knows remarked about some geezer with an accent and a girl on his arm, looked like, well – fella said he thought the guy was trying to pimp the girl. They move around, those people. Yes, prostitutes. You know what I’m saying?”
“Blake’s crowd should be in the picture, Tommy. Especially now.”
Malone gave him a quizzical, sidelong look.
“Can you imagine Blake’s gobshites barging in here?” Malone asked quietly. “With their big feet and their tough-guy talk? I know this much: the likes of Paddy Bang Bang wouldn’t talk to them. And it’s like Paddy says. People in this game move around. They fade. This is the place they’re working here this past while. They’ll move on.”
Malone found a spot directly under a light. He turned off the ignition.
“So no guarantees,” he said. “Okay?”
Chapter 9
HOW COULD THERE BE so many people in one pub, a complex, a shopping centre, no, a theme park . . . ? It was the second time that Minogue had been thinking out loud.
Malone kept eyeing the tables, but stayed standing by the bar. Minogue half-sat on a stool next to him.
“Well, it gets hairy on the weekends,” Malone said. “This is nothing.”
The barwoman looked like a rock star too but Minogue hadn’t a clue who or even why he thought that. The T-shirt she wore was one of those ones for sale by the entrance.
“Seafood,” said Minogue. “Look.”
“Well, yeah. Like, what about it? We’re on an island. Right?”
Minogue already felt light-headed, overloaded with the light and the smells and the music.
The barwoman was very friendly. Minogue tried not to watch her balletic motion too closely, the fluid transits she made with bottles, ice, and glass, the sweep of her arm and the bright look she could throw at each customer. She had a flourish to spare for the cash register and even for when she slid the dishwasher thing home.
“There’s Paddy,” said Malone, and half raised his arm.
He needn’t have, Minogue sensed right away. He watched Paddy Bang Bang in the mirror – watching Inspector Minogue in return – as he sidled up to the bar. The jean jacket and the 1970s moustache put Minogue in mind of a cowboy. He had the look of a man who worked outside, a wind-buffed face, and eyes that seemed ill at ease indoors.
“Is there any more of yous?” Finnegan asked.
“Only the SWAT team, Paddy,” said Malone.
Minogue looked for signs of temper on Finnegan’s face, but found only the mask of insouciant indifference that Malone shared, along with other Dubliners of a certain disposition. His hands still stayed in his pockets.
“I had a gander on me way in,” said Finnegan. “No sign of them.”
“Do they be here every day?”
Finnegan hesitated before answering Minogue.
“I don’t know. But I know that I don’t be here every day. So maybe they are. But I don’t know. You know?”
Finnegan was drinking Coke. Malone ordered a round. He got Finnegan started on talking about deer.
“I don’t like doing it,” Finnegan said. “Pulling the trigger, I mean.”
“Bambi,” said Malone. “I was always fond of Bambi.”
Finnegan wasn’t going to relax. He looked around the pub, even standing for a moment on one foot to see around a partition.
“Bambi can eat your dinner,” said Finnegan. “If you’re a farmer. And then the same Bambi can walk out in front of a car and kill you, too.”
“They come out on the roads?”
“They certainly do. I mean everyone has issues, the wildlife, the environment, all that. I’m all for that. But there’s an explosion of deer going on. Foxes too.”
“Hard to believe,” said Minogue, thinking of deer flying up into the sky.
“Only if you never stray out of Dublin,” said Finnegan. “Tell you what. I’m going to look around the place again. I’ll be back.”
Minogue followed him in the mirror until he was lost in the thick of foliage and raised seating.
“Touchy,” said Malone.
Minogue thought of Finnegan sitting in a ditch at night, waiting for a deer to pass.
“How do you want to go at it, if this woman really turns up here?”
Malone scratched his head.
“Well, we have cause on her,” he sai
d. “We could pull an Immigration, and bring her in on that. If I had to, I suppose.”
“You’re not going to pass it on to . . .?”
“Like who? The ones working on Condon? Blake and his mob?”
“You plan to just sit on this, then?”
“Well, I’m not doing Blake’s dirty work for him,” said Malone. “Right now, anyway. Look, aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves here? Let’s just see what comes up here now.”
We, Minogue repeated in his mind, and his misgivings returned stronger.
He sipped at his pint when it came, and he tried to ignore the music. Willie Nelson, for the love of God. He also tried to read the frothing head remaining on the Guinness for a face, for words. Was that a map of Africa on it? He closed his eyes, and rubbed them. When he looked again, there was no sign of it. Malone looked at his wristwatch and scowled. Finnegan was gone five minutes now.
A loose and medium raucous group of three couples came in and stood near them. One of the men, a rugger-bugger, eyed Minogue over the bare shoulder of his companion, a very animated woman with a fairly daring halter-top. Minogue listened to the talk about what had happened on someone’s holiday in Corfu, and then somebody else called Dermot who had written off a new Infiniti, but had walked away from it.
Ten minutes. He caught Malone’s eye, but Malone merely rolled his eyes and let his gaze return to its drift around the pub again. They couldn’t be more than twenty miles from the middle of Dublin here, Minogue began to reflect, here in the well-tended monotony of the rich lands of Kildare and the midlands beyond. For a while he imagined walking out to the car, Malone’s lousy and much-abused Fiat, and driving it himself out onto the Naas Road again. He would not point it back toward the city, however, but toward the southwest instead, to the farthest tip of Kerry, where the hills ended in cliffs over the Atlantic.
The Guinness had a predictable effect, and it was one he didn’t much like, but was used to. While his waking brain continued to eye the patrons and look for Paddy Bang Bang, and half-listen to these new Irelanders and even make guesses at their jobs and their homes and their habits, Minogue was inexplicably back in that dusty afternoon schoolroom with the Christian Brothers, and their Gobán Saor, and their poems that no-one cared about anymore.
Tháinig long ó Valparaiso
Scaoileach téad a seol sa chuan
Chuir a hainm dom i gcuimhne
Ríocht na greine, tír na mbua2
“Jesus,” he heard Malone say. “It’s going to take over the whole street.”
The couples had stopped yammering. They too stared at the television. Minogue turned toward the television. The footpath by the McCann house in Malahide was completely full. A Guard was directing traffic. Some woman was lighting a candle, another rearranging wreaths. There were rosary beads, cards, even a doll.
“The place is gone mad,” said Malone.
Minogue looked at the couples who were still entranced by what they were watching. He wondered if the glow on their upturned faces and the little splinters of light on their eyes from the television did not, for a few moments at most, remind him of an adoration scene in a holy picture.
The barwoman broke the trance when she turned on an electric mixer. Cocktails, Minogue thought: cocktails on the Naas Road? But why not?
“Malahide,” said Malone. “Hoey’s out there. With his lawn and his garden shed and all that. No way I’d go out there. No way.”
“It’s another continent for you, is it.”
“Hoey told me all the kids are called Chloe out there,”
Malone said.
Then Minogue caught sight of Finnegan coming around a fake tree. Finnegan didn’t look at them when he spoke.
“There’s a fella over there, in the Paddock. I think it’s him.”
“You think?” said Malone. “We need better than think here, Paddy.”
“It’s the best I can do, man. What do you want me to do, lie?”
“What’s the Paddock?” Minogue asked.
“It’s one of the rooms here,” said Finnegan. “Just look for horsey shite up the walls.”
“Okay,” said Malone. “Who is this fella?”
Finnegan gave Malone a hard look.
“I don’t know, do I?” he retorted. “Look, didn’t I tell you I only heard stuff, from other lads? I don’t do this type of stuff. I’m a married man, you know that. Okay?”
“Is there a woman with him?” Minogue asked.
Finnegan shook his head.
“But the way this caper works – if we’re on the right track, if – is that she could be in the vicinity. At her work, if you get my drift.”
“What’s he look like?”
“He’s like what a mate described, in actual fact. The dark hair, white shirt, open-necked. Big lad. He has a bit of flash metal, the rings and that. Tom Jones, you’d think maybe.”
“Tom Jones the singer? Jesus, sure he’s ninety if he’s a day.”
There was no budging Finnegan from his solemnity, but now Minogue began to see it as worry.
“Well, what’s his name?”
“Are you deaf? No offence. I don’t know his name. I don’t know the guy at all.”
“Ah Jaysus Paddy, come on. I mean, give-and-take here now. Didn’t your mate have a name for him? Let me talk to your mate then, what’s his number?”
Finnegan gave him a glare.
“Look, he’s not one of us. I mean he has an accent. That’ll have to do. Okay? So this is where I get off. That was the deal. You experts take over from now.”
“If I have more questions, I’ll drop by the house then, will I?” Malone asked.
“Don’t bother,” said Finnegan, and his gaze bored back into Malone’s. “I’ll be out, working. Putting down vermin, yeah? That’s what the farmers consider foxes you know, still. Maybe some of your crowd would like to try that job for a while.”
Minogue watched Finnegan leave.
“Thanks,” said Malone.
Minogue let his eyelids slide down, almost closed, and gave the man a leering smile. The man smiled back briefly, and then he looked to Malone.
“Well, I think your friend has played a trick on you,” he said.
Malone leaned in over the table between them and winked.
“Ah come on now, George, is it . . . ?”
“Yes, George is okay.”
Minogue was well into his role now. He pivoted toward the bar, and tottered a little before steadying himself against the counter.
“What does a man have to do to get any drink in this place,” he called out.
“People, they like to joke,” said George. “How you say, take the piss?”
“Ah no,” said Malone. “He’s well able to pay, now. My friend here, he just got a bit of good news, businesswise, you know? He’s in the humour of celebrating, oh yes.”
George’s smile stayed fixed.
“It must be someone else,” he said. “A trick. Who is this, your friend who tells you this thing?”
“Ah go on,” said Malone. “We only want a bit of fun.”
Minogue put more effort into his wavering and he called out to the barwoman again.
“Your friend, he’s drinking a lot,” George said. “He should maybe go home?”
“Oh he’s the happy man,” said Malone, and leaned in toward George, his hand cupped to his mouth. Minogue watched the hands go to his chain again.
Whatever Malone said seemed to work. George’s smile faded a little, and a look of baffled amusement took its place. He eyed Minogue again and muttered something to Malone. Malone took out his wallet. George finished his drink.
Malone counted out three twenties, four. George frowned and flicked his head toward the door when Malone offered the notes. Then he held up his hand, open, toward Minogue.
“Your friend, he waits here.”
Malone stood slowly.
“Well, where’s he going to, you know?”
“It’ll be okay. Don’t worry.”
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“I’ll go with you.”
“Is not necessary. No.”
“Ah, now. Maybe it’ll be the both of us, know what I’m saying? I’ll pay, oh yes, God, yes.”
Minogue didn’t know what to make of the hesitation and the look from George.
“Ah, Jesus George,” Malone said, and put his arm around George’s shoulders. “We’re pals now, aren’t we? Come on, now. I’m getting fierce interested now myself. I’ll go out with you.”
He turned to Minogue.
“Wait there Pat, wait. We’ll be back in no time now. I’ll make sure you don’t get a wagon. All right?”
“Swedish,” Minogue said. “I want Swedish.”
“No bother,” said Malone and winked at George.
“What is your friend saying?”
“Swedish,” said Malone, with an added sh. “What he means is blonde.”
“Swedish, you hear,” Minogue said, louder.
“Calm down a minute,” Malone said. “Will you? Me and me George can organize that, can’t we George?”
“And what is ‘wagon’?”
“Wagon,” asked Malone, and laughed. “You must know a wagon. How long are you with us, George? From Turkey is it, am I guessing right, am I? Am I, George?”
There was a change in the man now, Minogue saw.
“A wagon? Is it a car you drive?”
“Ha ha ha. No, no – a wagon is an ugly one. One ugly woman. You get it?”
George looked toward the bar.
“I get it,” he said. “I get for you. No problem.”
He mimicked a phone to his ear.
“Grand,” said Malone. “Phone away.”
George slipped out a mobile and flicked it open, and he began to walk away.
“Ah now, don’t be standing us up, George. Here, is it the money? Go on, here’s half of it. Go on.”