Islandbridge

by Brady, John

“It doesn’t matter.”

  “But I’ve had the worst day–”

  “I know. Believe you me, Matt. I know.”

  However Kilmartin had said that stopped his words. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get anywhere with the poor mouth routine.

  “Couldn’t you come up here?” he tried.

  “No.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well get in your fancy car and drive over here.”

  “Matt! I can’t! Okay?”

  Minogue waited a minute in the hall and then returned to the sitting room.

  “Well?”

  “I’ll be back in a while,” he said. “I have to go over to Jim’s place.”

  “At this hour of the night?”

  “Something that can’t wait, he says. I won’t be long.”

  He took Daithi’s old Adidas jacket, the one that had become his gardening jacket. Kathleen demanded to see his mobile. She turned it on and locked the keypad.

  “I’ll go in late tomorrow,” he said to her. “Maybe come down and walk Dun Laoghaire Pier with me?”

  “The nerve of you. Incorrigible. I can’t be bought off, got that?”

  “I want to ask you something,” he said. “Something that was on the news earlier.”

  “The news?”

  “Oh now I get it. You must know something about it then – yes, were you in on that?”

  “What?”

  “You were! That thing down in the Temple Bar. Why would you be asking me, if you weren’t? You are a–”

  She paused.

  “Please, Kathleen?”

  “You and Jim Kilmartin, honestly! You can’t give it up, can you? Do you know that Maura told me he’s forever phoning his old pals and asking around, any time there’s a murder or that? Oh yes – it’s that bad. The lads in the State Lab? The ‘Scenes Men’? Well, why doesn’t he phone one of them then, and not be bothering you at home here?”

  “Kathleen–”

  “You’re . . . obsessed or something. Maura even told me that he gets emails with pictures from the lab. He does! He says they do be asking him for any tip or thing the others would miss. You know what Jim thinks of ordinary Guards handling his old job.”

  “Kathleen, do you mind? He’s upset about something. I haven’t heard him like this. Something he asked me, about the news. Okay?”

  “As if you didn’t know. It was something about some man in a car, out in Kildare. The Guards found a man, yes.”

  “Kildare?”

  “Somewhere off the Naas Road there. They said it might be some man they were looking for over something else this afternoon in town. Maybe even the thing down in the Temple Bar – yes.”

  Chapter 27

  MINOGUE OPTED FOR the Bray Road. Doing seventy-five in the short stretches between the lights didn’t stop him from being passed by others. One, he was almost sure, had been a Maserati.

  He got off at Loughlinstown, and wound his way over through Ballybrack and up the back of Killiney village, where the Kilmartin family, all two of them, had resided for a few years now. How long, he tried to remember exactly: hadn’t there been a do there for the millennium New Year?

  He let the Citroën onto the avenue where the Kilmartins’ house was, five down from the turn in. He spotted two Range Rovers in adjoining driveways. Audis and midsized Beemers seemed to be favoured on this road. The Kilmartins’ house was an Olympian stone’s throw from the back end of a pub that Minogue despised, the only pub in the old village of Killiney.

  Timing is everything, he said to himself as he came in sight of the gates. Maura Kilmartin was the brains behind the move here, there could be no doubt, and James Kilmartin, many years removed from being the bogman-in-the-ditch, had wisely coasted in her wake. Maura had gotten them moved in here just when people wondered if the house-price boom was over. It was not. Kilmartin had confided one night last year that the place had more than doubled in price. Shrewd in every way, was Maura, and she had parleyed a small employment agency into a well-known “recruitment office” over the years. Then Minogue remembered the flat tone in his friend’s voice on the phone. Illness? Maura? He hoped not.

  He pulled in by the gate. Kilmartin’s Granada was in the driveway. Maybe he was daring someone to steal it, with car theft so endemic here. Maura’s Audi, the “little red number” as Kilmartin called it, was probably in the garage already.

  Yes, Minogue reflected again: being in the right place at the right time. Iseult had said that enough times lately for him to take notice, almost always with a mordant cynicism that made him anxious for her for days afterwards. She had surely meant talent or originality, or the Arts themselves, he believed, and that these meant little enough in the New Ireland. Then a thought came to him as his hand settled on the gate: his own daughter had no place to go. She had no real home anymore at all.

  He ran his hand along the railing. How could anyone ever afford to buy a house here? Iseult could rent a flat maybe, or a small house, if she were lucky, but she had no home of her own, and no prospect of one here in her native city. And where would people in Iseult’s position go, if they didn’t want to move in with their parents again? Migrate, emigrate?

  So too did that African man, desperate enough and naïve enough, to stow away on a plane, not knowing where he’d land. Anywhere but where he’d come from, he might have thought. Was it some cosmic curse to be born African these days, to scramble for any home, or any opening in the fortress of a rich white, European world?

  The gate had not been latched, he saw now. He looked at the dark windows. In an upstairs window, though, he thought he spotted some movement. But the lights in that bedroom did not go on. Maybe Kilmartin had been standing up there, waiting for him. Had he gone to bed or something, after phoning him to ask him over?

  The hall door opened as he was reaching for the bell. Kilmartin, in shirt sleeves, pulled open the door. The hair was skew-ways on him, Minogue noticed. Maybe he’d been having a snooze. Smells came to him then; whiskey, he believed, and some kind of food maybe, but not from cooking.

  “A bit early for Hallowe’en there, Jim. The hair. Did I wake you up?”

  “No,” said Kilmartin. “Come on. The front room there. Wait–”

  Minogue turned and looked down toward the gate.

  “That your jalopy there, down by the gate?”

  “It is. Are you expecting someone else?”

  Kilmartin looked at him, but Minogue wondered if he saw him at all.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Come in, there.”

  Minogue felt the hand on his shoulder, turning him toward the doorway to the left. The “office” he’d heard Kilmartin calling it once, half-seriously he had thought then.

  “Do you use lights here at all in these parts, Jim?”

  Kilmartin reached in and flicked on a light.

  “Jemmy?” he said. “Bushmills? I have cold beer.”

  “Cup of tea?”

  “No,” said Kilmartin. “I have Jemmy in the dresser there. You don’t take ice.”

  Minogue had already made a plan to pour it back in the bottle when he got a moment.

  Kilmartin put a tumbler half-full of Jameson’s by the monitor. Then he filled his own.

  “Come here,” he said and reached in over the keyboard to grasp a mouse.

  Minogue took his time ambling over. The screen came to life slowly. He saw windows being opened. He noted Kilmartin’s shirt tail out, how he took a measured, savage gulp of his own whiskey.

  “I’m going to show you something. You ready?”

  Minogue knew enough to recognize an email program. Kilmartin scrolled down from a line of poorly edited text, something about “fresh off the presses.”

  The pictures that came up began with night shots of a car. Someone in the driver’s seat was leaning forward over the wheel.

  “See that?”

  “Jim.”

  The next one inched up and it showed a pr
ofile. There were streaks of blood down the cheeks and nose, a diffuse gloss to the front of the head that was almost purple.

  “Okay? Wait.”

  The third one showed the swollen face, with the top of the forehead distended. The exit wound the size of a tennis ball. The man’s eyes were half-open.

  Minogue stepped back. Kilmartin turned from the screen, the light washing over his face.

  “Jim. Listen to me–”

  “–This is your man,” said Kilmartin. “Isn’t it?”

  Minogue kept his eye on how Kilmartin’s eyes seemed to be vibrating.

  “Isn’t it? The fella thumped Malone? Turned up there in the Temple Bar this afternoon?”

  Minogue nodded. Kilmartin seemed satisfied. He grasped his glass, looked down into it and then threw the last of its contents into the back of his throat.

  “How,” Minogue began. “I mean when . . .”

  Kilmartin gave him a hard look.

  “Why?” said Minogue.

  “Why? You think I just happened across this? Oh right. You probably heard I keep in touch with the Bureau mob. Right. No, this isn’t because of that.”

  He leaned around Minogue to pick the bottle from the table.

  “No,” Kilmartin said. “Sometimes they ask me to have a gawk at some of the Scenes photos. You know, me being the old hand. Your name doesn’t be on the list for that extracurricular, I’m sure.”

  “Are you involved in this thing?”

  “Involved is it? Well now Matt, me oul stock . . .”

  Kilmartin spun on his heel a little, and looked up to a corner of the ceiling for a few moments.

  “God, how far do we go back? Ah donkey’s years. Ah yes.”

  Kilmartin’s eyes went to window out. Over the hedge there Minogue could see some lights all the way over beyond Shankill, the hills behind part of the dark.

  “I’m going to make a cup of tea. Come on.”

  “Don’t. Just sit down and we’ll talk.”

  Minogue pulled open the door and headed for the kitchen. His foot caught on something and dragged it along the run. He stopped and looked down and then stooped down. A piece of pottery?

  “Forget the damn tea, will you!”

  Minogue pushed open the door of the kitchen. The light was off but he could still see pieces of things against the tiles. He forgot for a moment where the light switch was. Kilmartin was next to him now.

  “Leave it,” he said. “I told you. Don’t mind here. Come back in and we’ll talk.”

  Minogue shook the hand off his shoulder.

  “Where’s Maura?”

  “Maura’s grand. Don’t worry about Maura. Okay, come on back now.”

  When Minogue resisted again, Kilmartin stood at the wall, his back to the light switch. Minogue didn’t want to cross the floor to find another light on the cooker.

  “Look Matt, we had words. All right? I’m ashamed to say. Now come on out. I don’t want to be reminded. Really.”

  “Is she all right, Jim?”

  “She’s fine. You know she gets, well, emotional sometimes.

  Seldom enough now.”

  “Liam?”

  “What about Liam?”

  “Is he okay?”

  “He is. Now stop, will you, and come back inside. I’ll fix this later.”

  Minogue couldn’t see Kilmartin’s face.

  “Maura’s a great worker, Jim. We all know that. Is she maybe ready for a break?”

  Kilmartin said nothing.

  “Maybe yourself and herself would consider taking off and heading over to see Liam? Sure he’d be delighted, and Maura–”

  “Will you for the love of Christ stop talking? And about Liam? Will you?”

  Minogue looked at the column of dim light in the doorway as it opened again.

  “Come out of here,” Kilmartin said. “I don’t want to be reminded. Okay?”

  The catch in Kilmartin’s voice changed everything for him. He went by Kilmartin and heard the kitchen door close behind him. Kilmartin’s voice was almost a whisper now.

  “Jim, if there’s anything I can do . . .”

  Kilmartin’s eyes had a weariness in them now when he stared across at Minogue.

  “Do . . .? I think you already have, Matt. Yes.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  Kilmartin sat back and let his arm rest on the dresser. He looked up at the dresser then, seemed to take in the quality of the trim, the glass doors, and then down to the brass handles on the drawers below. He let out a big sigh.

  “What do you know about that man, in those pictures? Jim?”

  A weak smile came to Kilmartin’s features but left quickly and the bleakness set in deeper.

  “Oh Christ,” he said. “Me and my foolish ways. Digital this, and digital that. Do you know I have a damn phone, a mobile I mean, that even takes videos? But, no. These ones I asked for. It took me an hour but there’s the beauty of the gadgets – I was able to reach Jack still at the site. You remember Jack Mooney?”

  “Scenes? Photo man?”

  “Who else. Jack is as mad as I am for this stuff. So I get his mobile and he says he’ll download a few. Do you know what that means?”

  Minogue nodded.

  “Well, there’s progress. Maybe soon you’ll graduate to finding the power switch on your phone.”

  Minogue waited for a smile, even the hint of one.

  “I’ve a confession, Jim,” he said finally. Kilmartin, stopped stroking his nose.

  “I know what I’m doing, acting the gobshite. I leave it off on purpose.”

  Kilmartin’s face eased but then his eyes lost their focus again.

  “As if I didn’t know.”

  A minute passed. All Minogue heard was Kilmartin’s fingertips moving over bristles on his chin.

  “What did you phone for, Jim?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  Again Minogue waited.

  “I can’t.”

  And then Kilmartin’s head went down. His shoulders heaved and he drew in his arms to bring his hands over his face. Minogue heard huge tearing sobs. His own mind went wild. He felt his own limbs had seized up, a gaping tear open in his guts.

  “I can’t,” Kilmartin sobbed. “I can’t.”

  “I can help,” was all Minogue could think to say.

  “Where’s Maura? I just want to see her, Jim.”

  Kilmartin wiped his nose with his hand and gradually sat up. He took a box of paper hankies from the drawer and blew his nose. The minutes passed.

  “Sorry,” he said then. “I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry for, Jim. Nothing. It’s good you phoned. I am.”

  “Is it? Is it really?”

  Kilmartin’s hand ran up and down the handles of the drawer behind him.

  “Do they know who he is? This man in the car?”

  Kilmartin’s hand stopped stroking the drawer handles.

  “Well, do you know who it is?” he said to Minogue.

  “Tommy and I met him over in a big drinking barn on the Naas Road. He’s the fella knocked Tommy’s head off.”

  “But who is he?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you can tell me, now. A foreign accent; calls himself George.”

  Kilmartin’s fingers began to move again, tracing the outlines of the embossed brass, dropping the handles one by one as he went to each.

  “George,” he said. “You caught up with him again there down the Temple Bar?”

  “Jim.”

  Kilmartin didn’t react.

  “Jim?”

  The face that turned to Minogue had lost its hardness, that set of folds and lines that Minogue had bundled forever with James Kilmartin.

  “How long again, Matt? Twenty what . . . ?”

  “Over twenty years,” said Minogue. “That’s as high as I can count.”

  “You were in rag order when I took you on, do you remember. Very shaky.”

  “I was that.”

&nbs
p; “But I knew,” Kilmartin went on. “I knew who and what I was getting on board, didn’t I? And we done all right, the Squad, didn’t we?”

  “We did.”

  “But too good. There’s something in human nature wants to tear things down. There is, you know. Everything always goes back to that.”

  Minogue couldn’t make sense of this. He eyed the almost empty glass. He wondered how would he convince Kilmartin not to have any more, to call it a night.

  “Matt, tell me something. And don’t try to get around this one, okay?”

  Minogue nodded. The Jameson’s had his mind drifting a bit now.

  “Serious now?”

  “Serious.”

  “Is there a hell? Come on now – you said you’d be serious. Stop looking at me like that. Tell me – look, I know you’re one of them deep thinker types. Really. So tell me, will you?”

  Minogue shook his head.

  “But you can’t get it out of your head, can you? Remember, the priests, and the sermons before Good Friday – all the fires? And the worms and that? Forever . . .?”

  Again, Minogue shook his head.

  “I have it in my head since then too,” he said. “I just can’t get it out.”

  “And you the pagan too,” Kilmartin murmured.

  Minogue understood that something had been closed now. Maybe now that Kilmartin was calmer, something would come out.

  “Things always look better in the morning,” he said. Kilmartin didn’t let on he’d heard him.

  “All that philosophizing,” said Kilmartin in the same slow monotone. “Christ. ‘There’s no going back.’ Isn’t that what they all say? Why am I always hearing that these days? Are you hearing that a lot these days, are you?”

  “Well, I don’t believe the ‘they’ mob half the time.”

  Kilmartin gave him a look that Minogue at first took to be annoyance, but ended in a something between a grimace and a bleaker smile.

  “I’m always blathering, amn’t I. And now look at me.”

  “Is Maura upstairs, Jim?”

  A glint of anger came to Kilmartin’s eyes, and his face changed.

  “You have me worried,” said Minogue. “What happened here? It was hardly those fellas redoing your kitchen are after throwing the crockery around.”

  Kilmartin didn’t take up any of the effort at humour.

  “Worried, are you,” he said, his voice regaining some strength.