by John Brady
“Why,” Higgins said. “What for?”
“Just a chat maybe. Talk about virtual reality or the like?”
Higgins eyebrows arched.
“It’s neither,” he said. “I’m just a programmer.”
Minogue laid his card on the table next to the mouse. Higgins picked it up. He scrutinized it and looked up at the Inspector.
“Minogue? Is that you? I thought I heard Muldoon or something. Wait a minute. I know you. You were in the paper the other day.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Not you, wait. It said you were with the Murder Squad. A sister of yours? Some family connection? Something to do with the arts.”
“Iseult, I’ve a daughter,” said Minogue.
Higgins rapped at the table with a knuckle.
“That’s what it was. She’s the one with the Holy Family?”
“Quite the yapper,” said Malone, “is what he is. Cagey too, but wouldn’t let on.”
“Drawers weren’t locked?”
“No. I just walked in and started on her desk. While you were playing video games out there with Super Mario.”
Malone edged the Nissan up on the footpath by a cordoned-off hole in the street near Dawson Street.
“Heard of Ovation, Tommy?”
“Like a standing ovation?”
“Same word, yes.”
“A new brand of johnnies. Condoms, like?”
“Try again.”
“Chocolates.”
“Jimmy’s right about you. A right barbarian. All right, try ‘online’?”
“Methadone clinic?”
“‘Interactive’?”
“This one’s easy: all the way on your first date.”
“Try ‘telecommunication,’ then.”
“Another easy one. Phoning the ’mot to see if she’ll take me out for a few jars. Come on, will you. Give me a tough one.”
“‘Download.’”
“Same thing. You drink a feed of beer, like, you download them.”
“Haven’t you picked up anything from John Murtagh?”
He’d try Murtagh then. The same Murtagh remained a computing enthusiast. He complained about bugs and crashes but he enjoyed fixing them. Minogue couldn’t understand it. He recalled Éilis taunting Murtagh about something called Flight Simulator.
“You want a Big Mac?”
Minogue sighed. It was Murtagh who had gotten him onto McDonald’s. His embarrassment hadn’t abated over the years.
“I could get you a sambo but they’re lying around all day.”
“Nothing with cheese anyway, Tommy. Thanks.”
He dialed the site van at the airport.
Fergal Sheehy answered. He asked Minogue to wait a minute while he double-checked. Two detectives were interviewing one of the security staff about a row earlier in the day. It was about the Public Works fans getting overexcited the other day. There had been four arrests and charges of assault on three of them.
“How many tickets are still outstanding from the car park?”
“Thirty something,” Sheehy said. “I sent three lads out looking up and down the cars to see if we could spot any on dashboards.”
A group of teenagers walked by the Nissan. One of them stopped and held his coat up to shield his lighter. Minogue tried to count the rings in the eyebrow.
“What’s the story on the video cameras put there, Fergal?”
Sheehy moved something around near the phone. There was a slap as something hit the floor nearby. Sheehy muttered something. The teenager caught up with his friends, elbowed one and turned as he walked to eye the Nissan. Yes, it’s a Garda car, son, Minogue murmured, and don’t walk into the parking meter.
“Don’t be talking to me about video,” said Sheehy. “Joe Kerr is in charge of that stuff it looks like.”
“Is it a cod entirely, Fergal?”
“The nearest points to the car park are duds. Black and white, dim. Useless.”
Minogue didn’t want to press Sheehy. He checked the clock on the dashboard again. He couldn’t put off phoning Tynan much longer. He thanked Sheehy, asked to be remembered to his horse.
Malone returned carrying two bags. The scar tissue over his left eye shone as he sat heavily into the driver’s seat. Minogue knew that his colleague liked eating fast food in the car.
“We head back then?”
“Let me phone Tynan’s office, Tommy.”
“What for? Have we anything to give him?”
Minogue pushed the antenna in and drew it out again several times.
“Well, no. There are no go-aheads from the site yet. The timetable’s full of holes still. The free phone call-ins, or lack thereof . . . tell me that Shaughnessy had a magic car that doesn’t need petrol — ”
Minogue let go of the antenna and stared across at his colleague.
“What?” said Malone. “There’s no cheese in it. I heard you . . . What? What’re you looking at?”
“Does Aoife Hartnett have a car?”
Malone looked down at his Big Mac. He shook his head once.
“Oops,” he said. He turned the burger, eyed it, and bit into it.
ELEVEN
The voice answering, a man’s, had an edgy, suspicious tone. Minogue wondered if the detectives going through her apartment were listening in too. Aoife Hartnett’s brother-in-law was put out at being called by his name immediately. He asked Minogue to repeat the introduction.
“A Technical Bureau, did you say?”
“Right, Mr. Nolan. I’m the officer in charge of the investigation. We’re hoping to contact Aoife. We need her help in relation to a case.”
Minogue checked his notebook. Yes, the Escort had put up fourteen hundred kilometres. Murtagh had pulled up a Micra for Aoife Hartnett on the computer.
“I know,” said Nolan. “The American. Look, now that I’ve got a chance to speak to you — I’m getting very worried about all this. I don’t like it at all.”
“It’s goodwill, Mr. Nolan, and we appreciate your help. I can tell you that there was no thought of seeking a warrant. We’re concerned too.”
“Oh it’s not the property I’m talking about here. There’s nothing to hide on Aoife’s part. I mean that the whole family is this close to complete panic here at this stage. It’s as much now as I can do — wait, hold on a minute.”
Minogue heard the phone being placed on something hard, Nolan calling to one of the detectives: not while I’m on the phone. Minogue eyed the traffic slowing by the wall of Trinity. Malone continued to suck hard on a large Coke.
“What are you getting at?”
“Is her car there, Mr. Nolan? A Nissan Micra. Where would it be parked?”
“Let me go and look.”
“May I talk to the senior detective there?”
Minogue asked Detective Garda Liam O’Connell what he’d found.
“Lives alone, it looks like,” said O’Connell. “No signs of disturbance.”
“Passport yet?”
“No. There’s bills and bank things and that, but damn all else.”
O’Connell’s voice dropped to a murmur.
“Your man, the brother-in-law, is getting twitchy about us looking around in the wardrobe and the like.”
“Okay,” said Minogue. “He’s a solicitor. If he says enough, don’t be cute about it — just walk away from it. Any sign of travel plans?”
“Can’t tell if she took a suitcase or that . . . clothes, I don’t know.”
“What’s in the place then?”
“Built five years ago. It’s a two bedroom. She has a computer in one of them. Tidy enough. Kitchen’s well looked after. Tins of beer, some wine around. Locks are good. Place left tidy. She has a deadbolt and a serious chain on the door. Neighbours, well one is a couple, no kids. Meagher. Works in the bank, wife’s in insurance. Other ones not home. He thinks it’s a teacher or the like. Lecturer. They’re renting.”
“No stash?”
“Jewels, prize
bonds, the old heirlooms? Not yet.”
“Where’s the car parked? Her spot like?”
“I think there’s rows of places out the front of the whole place with numbers. Wait a minute, here’s your man back —”
The phone changed hands.
“— I can’t see her car!”
Minogue heard panic clearly in Nolan’s voice now.
“Do you think she left it at the airport?”
“God, no — why would she . . .?”
Minogue knew by the tone that Nolan didn’t think so either. If you lived in Dublin, you wouldn’t park overnight at the airport.
“She could have driven to Belfast for a flight,” said Nolan. “Or Shannon . . . wait, who’d fly from Shannon to . . . Jesus. Listen, look . . .”
“Mr. Nolan. Give me some time here now. Have you a pen and paper?”
“You think something’s happened to her but you won’t say it straight out.”
“I don’t think anything. Help us on this. Can you — ”
“Wait a minute. This is upside down here. You’re telling me you want me to help you, or should I say help these Guards here going through Aoife’s belongings? What’s going on here? You haven’t told me half of it.”
“Give me a minute,” Minogue said. “And I’ll tell you what we know — ”
He held the phone away from his ear when Nolan interrupted. Malone glanced at him and rolled his eyes. He had wolfed down the Big Mac. Now he took the straw out of his drink and began stroking his nose with it.
“No,” he said when Nolan paused. “I’m not suggesting that. Your sister-in-law met him several times.”
“I never heard of him, well, until this thing.”
“She was seen at two functions he attended at least. I want to ask her a few questions about him.”
“But she’s not actually ‘missing’ is she?” said Nolan. “I thought you had to be gone for weeks before they — before you — used that term. Right?”
Minogue listened to Nolan’s breathing through his nostrils, the phone moving about. Malone began to crush his straw.
“Listen, Mr. Nolan. I don’t want to alarm you or cause distress now. Ms. Hartnett can’t be found. We have to step through this door. You can help us, help all of us, and speed things up.”
“What, then? I mean, of course, but this is such a shock.”
“We have the number of her car, the Micra. I’m going to issue an appeal on it. Tonight, even, on the news, but certainly tomorrow. It’s green?”
“Light green,” said Nolan. “A mint kind of green. It’s about four years old. Aoife bought her apartment two years ago. I remember helping with the move.”
“No fella?”
Minogue didn’t care how it sounded. He eyed Malone.
“Current like,” he added.
“No. There was Gerry Whelan until last year. We got to know him fairly well. He’s off in Brussels. I think it was the long distance thing wore them out.”
Minogue’s Biro had hit a greasy patch on his notebook. He scribbled hard to right it. The damned hamburger had made his fingertips slimy.
“W-H-E-L-A-N?”
“Yes, I think. He’s an economist. Something to do with the OECD?”
Minogue skipped down the page and found a part that would take the pen. He tried to recall what OECD stood for.
“Brussels, I think,” said Nolan.
Magritte, thought Minogue, and saw the floating loaves, the clouds and the levitating hats. We’d all be Belgians soon anyway.
“Would you or your wife know her travel agent now? Had Aoife done other trips like the one she mentioned, the Portugal idea?”
“Oh sure. She used to do them more, the weekend in London kind of thing, but she was more careful with the money after she bought the apartment.”
Minogue tried Nolan for places he’d heard Aoife Hartnett travelled to by choice. Liked Paris, he knew: went with Fiona, and he’d had the kids for five days — that was a few years ago. Munich for some conferences; a university thing on archaeology somewhere in Austria. A Celtic thing, he thought. She hadn’t done a huge amount of travelling in the job this last while that he’d heard anyway. Still liked going down the country the odd weekend. Such as?
“Oh, B & Bs. Hotel packages. Galway, I think. She really likes Clare, a lot.”
“Little wonder.”
“Pardon?”
“The west, you say.”
“Yes. She’s been up to her eyes at work, you know. It’s not that she doesn’t like it. She was out to Mayo and Galway there over the summer. That was work, I think, but she’d stay on until Sunday or even Monday morning.”
“The Carra Fields?”
“You know about that? Yes, that’s starting up. That’s right — look. I’m going to have to tell the mother-in-law. Right?”
“That would be a good idea, Mr. Nolan.”
“I don’t know what, or how I’m going to do it. Mrs. H is just out of the hospital, you know. Maybe Fiona will — Christ . . .! Excuse me. She’ll flip. It’s all so, you know, so sudden. What am I going to say anyway?”
Minogue looked at a passing bus painted over to look like a soccer match.
“Make a list,” he said. “Look it over a few times and then phone every third or fourth. Tell them to phone the others. It takes the pressure off you.”
“She loves her job, you know. She’s not the type to, you know?”
Minogue tried to figure out who the goalie making the impossible save was up by the back of the bus. Bonner? He wondered if Nolan would say it.
“. . . To do something to herself, I mean.”
Minogue let the pause stretch.
“I hear you,” he said. “It makes it all the more important to get details from people who know her.”
“The kids just love her. She brought our Emma on a dig there last summer.”
Emma. He’d overheard Iseult trying out that one on Kathleen one evening. She’d been slagging? Emma; Rebecca. What was wrong with Pat and Mary?
“Aoife never forgets a birthday. As busy as she is, and all . . .”
“Will you ask at home, Mr. Nolan, and get back to me, soon as you can?”
“The mother has high blood pressure you know. She nursed the husband after the heart attacks.”
“I’m sorry now, Mr. Nolan. Far better that a member of the family relays it first. Here are two phone numbers for you — ”
“Maybe she just had it, you know? Got sick of work? Everyone gets that . . .”
“True for you.”
“. . . Just needed a break, a bit of space? Well, she’d like to have kids, I know that. The whole career thing, the biological clock, I mean. It’s so tough.”
A hiss from the phone caused Minogue to check the battery strength.
“There’s no way I can say ‘foul play’ to Mrs., you know. No way.”
“Say we’d like to get in touch with her, Mr. Nolan. That we’re concerned.”
“Christ, wouldn’t it be a gas if she just phoned tonight from somewhere. London, maybe? ‘Changed my mind, stayed in London! Surprise!’”
“To be sure it would.”
“When will this go to the media again?”
“I’ll be asking the press office to issue it as soon as I can. We’d like to be okay with the next of — her family, I mean, before it comes up on the news.”
“That gives me a few hours, I suppose.”
“We can’t be waiting. The nine o’clock news tonight will be definite.”
“You’ll phone as soon as you have news?”
That’s my question, Minogue wanted to snap at him.
“Depend on it.”
“Okay then, I have to work on this. Okay. I’m going to start on it. Okay . . .?”
Minogue pushed the End button several times. He stared at the charge level. Malone had rolled the wrapping into a ball. He was chewing on ice cubes now.
“What’s the story with the brother-in-law? Freaking, is he?”
Minogue nodded.
“Her car’s gone, right?”
“It’s not parked there anyway. It might be in a garage getting serviced while she’s away. Have to chase that now. I don’t see her driving to the airport, but.”
Malone lifted a bag of chips from his lap.
“No thanks,” said Minogue. “How much do I owe you?”
Malone shifted in his seat and stretched his neck.
“You’re all right. I’ll eat them. Buy me ten or twelve pints sometime.”
An ambulance sped by them with flashing lights. Minogue thought of the evening ahead of them. He’d just have to take the time to map it all out tonight.
“Shit,” said Malone. He threw the empty chip bag on the floor. “Rain’s back.”
Minogue studied the fine drops forming on the windscreen. He hoped Malone wouldn’t turn on the wipers yet.
“Will we head?”
“Wait and let me call into Tynan. Before I forget.”
Malone tugged at the collar of his coat, grabbed the steering wheel and then flicked at the wiper stalk.
O’Leary had kept him on hold for two minutes.
“It’s all right, Tony. I don’t need to bother him if that’s the case.”
“Are you in town?”
Minogue slapped Malone’s arm. He’d kept jerking the stalk to get more windscreen fluid on the glass. The wipers squeaked. Minogue flicked them off.
“Nassau Street, Tony. I’m on a cell phone.”
“He’d like you to come by then. Soon as you can.”
“I’ve nothing, Tony. We’re still clearing a path here.”
“He’s in a meeting. He wants you in on it. So: will I tell him you’re on the way, Matt?”
Brusque for O’Leary. Minogue studied the raindrops on the bonnet.
O’Leary said, “Concerns your case, says to tell you.”
“What can I tell him that I didn’t tell him two hours ago, Tony?”
“It’s different. There’s people pushing info here. The father, Leyne, is here. There’s a meeting, in the Commissioner’s office.”
Malone drove along Andrew Street. He barely stopped at the junction of Wicklow Street.
“Is this a regular gig or what?” he said to Minogue.
The Inspector had been thinking of a hot whiskey.