A Carra ring imm-6

by John Brady

  Minogue nodded.

  “He’s got a dead body,” Malone went on. “Her car, it’s dark say… Where’s his car, the rental one, all this time? Parked off in Dublin? No. He’s gone on his drive a day before she takes leave. So he’s gone in his own car. But there’s no sign of the car at all, the rental car.”

  “Wait, Tommy. We can’t be sure. The B amp; B people couldn’t put a definite make on their car.”

  “You’d have to wonder about them checking in at night and leaving early. Want to bet they parked their car away from the B amp; B? There might have been separate cars all the while.”

  Minogue shrugged.

  “Yeah,” said Malone. “That’d fix the business about how did he get out of the place handy enough. He has his own motor, like, so dumping the Micra is the thing to do. It buys time. A lot of time if it’s done right.”

  “We’ll be needing a blue Escort on the roads around there, Tommy, for this to hold. A clear, dependable sighting.”

  Malone yawned now.

  “There had to be times he parked his somewhere though, I mean,” he said. “They’d want to be together, wouldn’t they? I mean what’s the point of…?”

  O’Callaghan opened the door. Minogue caught him halfway in. Would he mind letting him get something out of his bag in the back, he asked. He followed O’Callaghan around the back, wondered if he had downed more than one pint.

  “Is that peppermint you have?”

  O’Callaghan gave no sign he’d picked up on the sarcasm.

  “It is,” he said briskly. “Would you like one, there…?”

  “Matt. Thanks.”

  Minogue took out the folder Mairead O’Reilly had given him. He sat back in.

  “Peppermint, Tommy?” Malone’s reply was just as leaden.

  “It’s all right. I’ll wait till we get to Dublin for me, ah, peppermints.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Minogue wondered if O’Callaghan had been daring him to say something. The Mercedes had been doing one hundred and forty coming in the Lucan bypass. Malone had been dozing. He’d opened his eyes when O’Callaghan braked for the end of the motorway.

  “Turn left there, if you please,” said Minogue.

  O’Callaghan left them by the door.

  “Technical Bureau,” O’Callaghan said “Is that like a lab?”

  “Adjacent,” said Minogue. “We moved from across the river two years ago. Will you give us our bags now, and thanks very much.”

  It had rained recently. Malone stretched.

  “Only half-ten,” he said. Minogue took the bag from O’Callaghan.

  “You know how to get to the city morgue, do you?”

  “I have it here. Down by the Custom House ”

  “You’ll wind up there yourself if you keep driving like you were.” Minogue looked down at the evidence bags.

  “Sign them in, Tommy, will you. And drop in the cassette for duplication.”

  He nearly dropped the videocassette taking it out of his carryall. He shoved the folder into the carryall and zipped it up again. Malone watched him.

  “Do you want to go over anything before we knock off?”

  “No.”

  Minogue fingered his key ring and pushed the remote. The lights on his Citroen flashed and the alarm chirped once.

  “It’ll wait until the morning. I’ll drop this in the car and do a quick check of what’s come in.”

  Malone followed him over. Minogue set the video case on the bonnet.

  “The airport,” Minogue murmured.

  “Yeah?”

  “Any closer on when the Escort was parked. If any of Shaughnessy’s stuff has turned up. Her effects too. Call-ins from outside Dublin. See if we can find Aoife Hartnett too on any of those days.”

  Malone cleared his throat. He was about to spit, but he turned aside instead and gently let it go on the tarmac. Minogue looked around the night sky and listened for trains in the tunnel beneath this city end of Phoenix Park where Garda Headquarters was housed. His mind wandered back to the empty hills, the cliffs.

  “With her,” said Malone, “can we wait till the morning, like? The news?”

  “We can,” said Minogue. “The crowd she worked with. Garland. After the next of kin I’ll phone her brother-in-law at home first thing in the morning. There’ll be nothing on the news until tomorrow. Let ’em sleep if they can tonight.”

  Minogue slowed when he saw the thumb out. He’d at least drop a hint to this gawky, bedraggled teenager that standing on the side of the Bray Road after midnight thumbing a lift should have a health warning.

  The girl noticed him slowing. He had almost stopped the car when he spotted the two fellas sidling out from the gateway behind her. He didn’t hear much after the first shout. It was the girl doing most of it. Maybe they were too drunk to try to chase him. Annoyed and disheartened, he sped up to eighty passing Belfield. He thought about phoning them in. Or worse, go back and pick them up and speed off back to the Donnybrook station. Sit across the table from them and give them a bit of grief. Drugs, he wondered. No: he was overreacting.

  He imagined Kilmartin in a swanky conference facility retailing war stories from the squad. Profiling: when, in the name of God, would the squad ever be using FBI profiles? He thought of Larry Smith, the brother finger-wagging at the camera, the dark warnings to the Guards. How the other drug gangsters must be laughing. The Citroen wavered only an instant as he turned sharply up the Rise. It was enough to alert him. He geared down. Why the hell was he driving like a madman? He was still thinking of Kilmartin’s junket when he turned into the driveway.

  He pulled out the key and waited for the Citroen to settle. The edges of his keys felt like teeth against his thumb. Vegan, that was it. Iseult was a vegan, according to Kathleen. Iseult mightn’t be getting some vital vitamin or something. Unhinged her, couldn’t think logically. How could he check? He stepped out onto the driveway but he turned instead and walked back to the gate.

  The pillar had never been straight. The gate had always scraped even in the days when he’d made a point of closing it. Iseult, wouldn’t you know it, had found a way to unlatch it soon after she had learned to walk. Meat is murder, wasn’t that one of the slogans? Drisheen, eggs, sausages: the Holy Family though? Low.

  The lamplight from the road showed patches of wet on the driveway. The faint bass thumping came on the breeze from the neighbors. Gearoid, Una Costigan’s youngest, the one giving her the willies, no doubt. Still at it in the middle of the night. Shaved head, history graduate, unemployed. Nice lad; bone lazy. Or just unwilling to head off out on a plane somewhere? Gearoid thought he’d had a break at Christmas with a concert in the community center, but it didn’t come off. Gearoid wore sunglasses, the insect-eye models, nearly all the time now.

  What was Aoife Hartnett trying to do for God’s sake? Did she and Shaughnessy have a thing going? There were no stars that he could see. The breezes barely stirred the hedge Park the damn car in Cabinteely tomorrow evening no matter what, by God, and walk up by Tully, sit awhile, down Bride’s Glen and… Inveigle Iseult out too. Try and get her to drink milk at least. Was that music getting louder?

  The hedge should really be cut back. Why hadn’t he? Only the hall light on. He and Kathleen had a house to themselves. Stuff forgotten about was turning up. Iseult’s carving behind the lawn mower. Yes, Iseult called home her dacha. It had been months since she’d stayed overnight with them. The sudden ache reminded him of a paper cut.

  Maybe that’s why Gearoid Costigan’s comings and goings had set his teeth on edge. It wasn’t the smell of dope drifting in over the hedge last summer. It was the fact that Gearoid was at home. He’d never actually left. His own son, Daithi, was on the American express, going wherever his training and job took him. There were twenty-two years of his son’s life upstairs in boxes and drawers. Lately he had found Kathleen’s mantras of when Daithi comes home again unbearable. At least he wasn’t the prodigal son.

  Had Mrs. Shaughnes
sy written off her son? Johnny Leyne greasing the wheels and paying off predators to keep his one-and-only out of jail. Minogue ran his hand along the top railing of the gate, flicked off the drops of water. Remorse, that’s what had them there. They knew they’d messed up. What could he do, sit Mrs. Shaughnessy down in back at an interview room at the squad and work on her to give him the true story? Would they try to offer money to Aoife Hartnett’s family if it turned out that way, her mother, her sister, her nieces, her nephews…?

  He stared at the area carved out by the light over the hall door. He followed the sharp lines between the light and shadow by the garage door, the weakening ambit of the light as it lost out to the darkness by the hedge. When Daithi comes marching home again. The sharp stab over the heart stopped his thoughts. Football games, swimming down at Seapoint and Killiney, meeting him for a pint after he started college. He’d loved going up in the woods at Katty Gallagher before it had been turned into a managed park. But that was when he was eleven or twelve. His friends still phoned: Barney, Lorcan; Sarah, who’d finally given up on trying to hook Daithi but wanted to stay a friend. The bent for mathematics, the indifference and even exasperation with English. At least he’d stopped smoking. Caty had put him right. She’d look after him.

  Minogue squeezed his thumb harder on the key and stared at the hall door. Maybe that’s what Iseult had been doing those times he’d found her standing out on the bloody road staring at the house, sizing it up. No place like home. No place. Is that what the Holy Family came out of?

  Before him was the step up, the mat underfoot, the key sliding into the lock. The Burren print on the wall then, the hello from Kathleen. Home. He’d been hearing that there was no place like home all bloody day, it seemed — Kilmartin knew something. The thought froze him there. No, he thought; it was pub talk, spoofing. Close ranks though — the Old Guard. He swore and pushed the hall door.

  He closed the door and headed for the kitchen with the folder under his arm. The light over the counter was on. Kathleen had left a copy of the newspaper there. He could make out the photo of The Holy Family from across the room. He wondered if Kathleen had tried to get in touch with Iseult.

  The cupboard door creaked. He reached in before it opened enough, felt the neck of the bottle, drew it out. He ran the tap slowly, took down a glass, and filled it. He downed three-quarters of the water, then he sized up the remainder and poured in as much Bushmills. The edge of the countertop bit into his hip but he didn’t shift. He took another mouthful and eyed Mairead O’Reilly’s folder again.

  It looked odd with the yellow stickies skew-ways sticking out of it. He lifted a chair out from under the table and sat. What was the name of that outfit in Africa… in Kenya? Tall, very tall — He just couldn’t pin it. Tall, very tall — no, not the Bushmen. They measured wealth in cows too. A cow people. No wonder the Carra Fields had turned to bog. He opened to the sticky he’d scrawled “legends” on.

  “What’s messy?”

  Sleepy-voiced, Kathleen pushed open the door. He’d said it aloud?

  “Masai, I meant to say. Did I wake you?”

  “I thought you heard me,” she said. “What Masai?”

  “I was thinking.”

  She nodded at the bottle. He gave her the eye.

  “Thinking, I said, love. I’m only in the door.”

  “Give us a sup, will you?” she murmured.

  He stared at her. She stared back at him.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “Well, I’m not sure,” he said. “You want a sup of this?”

  “Why not?”

  “This is whiskey, Kathleen.”

  “Well my oh my. All these years and I didn’t know that.”

  “But I’m going to hell and damnation with it, amn’t I?”

  “I never said that.”

  “Well why is the bottle hidden under the sink all these years?”

  “It’s not hidden if you know where it’s kept, is it. Pour it, can’t you?”

  She sipped at it, grimaced. He studied her expression.

  “When’s the last time you took a drop of whiskey?”

  “I phoned, you know. Eilis told me.”

  “Told you what?”

  She held the glass out, turned it, and watched as it swilled.

  “We had a grand long chat. I didn’t know she was so clued-in, like.”

  “Eilis is away with the fairies sometimes now, Kathleen.”

  “No wonder she’s a match for you. Tell me again it’s the job that does it.”

  “It’s the job that does it.”

  He looked from the glass to the bottle to Kathleen’s face.

  “Did you have a chat about Iseult? The thing in the paper?”

  “I saw you outside, you know,” Kathleen said. “I heard the car. You standing there staring at the place. That’s what Iseult used to do. Una Costigan saw her late some nights, or Gearoid did. A half an hour, she said. Staring at the house.”

  Minogue slid the glass back to the folder.

  “What’s the folder? Work, is it?”

  “To do with it, yes. What did Eilis have to say?”

  “Nothing. The way girls talk, women talk. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Is this going to be a men-are-toxic thing?”

  “You expected me to hit the roof, I’ll bet you. The Holy Family thing.”

  Minogue stopped pouring.

  “You’re right. Did you?”

  “No.”

  “Will you? In the near future?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know what came over me. I think it was talking to Eilis. She said to go with it. That Iseult needed me, needed us. And always would. She said that Iseult’s stuff was part of a conversation with us. That she couldn’t do what she had to do without us.”

  Minogue let more into the glass. Kathleen stared at his hand on the bottle.

  “I don’t get it,” Kathleen murmured. “Do you?”

  “No.”

  “I already had the article, you know. From the paper. I got it this afternoon when you were jet-setting it out in Mayo or wherever.”

  “God, if only you knew.”

  Kathleen rubbed at her upper lip.

  “But Iseult makes some things sound really terrible, Matt. Going to mass, for God’s sake. Fifteen-year-olds trying to make themselves miscarry. Hemorrhaging to death. The body and blood — I had to tell her stop. It wasn’t the hint of blasphemy either. Then there’s your job, with killers. People’ll begin to wonder.”

  Minogue took a measured gulp of Bushmills.

  “People don’t really wonder much, so far as I can see, Kathleen.”

  “I think it’s the pregnancy. But I’m not going to admit that.”

  “She’s always been heading in this direction. She’s coming into her own.”

  Her eyes darted from the bottle to his face.

  “Are you getting slagged over her at work?”

  “No,” he said. “Not that I noticed in anyhow.”

  “Oh right, Jim’s off in the States. I nearly forgot. Good timing.”

  “How’d you mean?”

  She shivered

  “Larry Smith and his crowd,” she said. “Don’t be talking to me about them. I saw the news. That family… God, they give me the creeps. Do you know what one of them said? ‘This isn’t over yet, not by a long shot.’ Isn’t that a threat?”

  “They’ll hide behind something, I don’t know.”

  “They shot up that squad car out on Griffith Avenue last month, didn’t they?”

  “Prove it,” he said. “Anyway. We’re going to have Internal Inquiries look over how we’ve handled Smith.”

  “But what if they’re serious, Matt? That they really will follow up on it, with the squad? You’re in the hot seat now.”

  Minogue looked around the kitchen. He lingered on the shadows, the dull reflection of the light on the kettle, the dark corners. Would she know that Tynan wanted them to carry
pistols now? She was staring at the calendar.

  “People’ll think she had a terrible childhood or something,” she murmured “You know how the jokes go around.”

  “Ah, it doesn’t matter, love. I’ll laugh it off.”

  Her frown returned.

  “You think you can?”

  He looked over at the window.

  “It’s either that,” he said, “or I’ll knock them down in the street. She’s my daughter, isn’t she? Ours. She’s telling the truth. As she sees it. And that’s that.”

  Kathleen sat back and folded her arms.

  “So: how is our daughter then, after your chat?”

  “Thrilled,” Kathleen murmured. “Says she knew we’d understand.”

  Minogue sighed and shook his head. Kathleen let out a sigh.

  “She says she won’t preach about us still eating meat though.”

  “Good of her. Tell her I’d compromise on the black pudding. But the rashers stay. Did she give you the lecture on carnivores and violence…”

  Kathleen searched his face. He kept staring at the sink.

  “Are you all right, Matt?”

  Meat and milk had made those Masai tall, strong.

  “I am,” he managed. “Yes.”

  “You must be tired after the gallivanting.”

  “I was just — Anyway. There were a few odd things lying around at the back of my mind. I think I just fell over them.”

  Dowsing, that’s what Mairead O’Reilly’s father had done to find the buried walls. And it worked, didn’t it? In the right hands, it was said. Maybe his own job wasn’t far different. He put down the anniversary Shaeffer and rubbed at his eyes. A quarter after two, for the love of God. Fire with fire: he poured more Bushmills.

  Next to his glass the photo of Peadar O’Reilly, done badly on an old photocopier, holding his forked stick, with the bog-cut below. The copy was good enough to see O’Reilly’s pride in the direct stare, his staged grasp on the divining stick. The long poles he could understand. There had been hundreds used to plumb the bog. The excavations had laid bare thick walls under eight feet of bog.

  He turned to the beginning of the folder again, looked down at the drawing of the Carra King. It had been done by a talented amateur with plenty of the heroic. It reminded him of a comic book of years gone by. It was probably one of O’Reilly’s pupils. The Carra King? The Richly Imagined Carra King, it should be. The embellishments were as obvious in O’Reilly’s version as they were in the drawing. The artist had slapped in a heavenward look on the dying king, as well as elaborate Celtic patterns on the hero’s outfits. O’Reilly had dropped in gems like ‘weighing as much as the king’s finest bull,’ ‘sacred hazel groves.’ Hardly science: a storyteller.