The going rate imm-9

by John Brady

  “Or not doing,” replied Malone. “But, man, she’s upset now, I’ll tell you.”

  Minogue spotted the Toyota coming around the bend at speed.

  “Her mother, I think,” said Malone. “I got her to phone them.”

  “Well it’s father driving, I think.”

  Malone climbed slowly out of his car. Minogue half-listened to the hurried conversation with Brid O Connor’s parents. The mother had been crying. The father looked angry and frantic, drilling a stare into Malone as though to extract something from him.

  Malone was patient for a man who had been up all night. Minogue heard him say something about all avenues. He hardly means the roads around here.

  “Hard to know what to tell them,” Malone muttered as he sat in again.

  “You phoned him in officially, did you? Missing Persons?”

  Malone nodded.

  “She’s beating herself up over it,” he said. “Over why she waited. On account she was so mad at him. All in the past now, I can tell you.”

  Both detectives looked over at the house when they heard a shriek. Brid O Connor clung tight to her mother. The door closed awkwardly.

  “What do you want to do,” Malone said.

  Minogue shook his head. He thought of Matthews, and Twomey, the two girls. Proper little bitches, he remembered the desk Sergeant muttering yesterday evening.

  “Climb back into that poofy new car of yours, and go back to bed?”

  Minogue didn’t bother replying.

  “I actually don’t want to think about this anymore,” said Malone. “That woman in there. And the kid. Bad enough that I’m so wired already.”

  He shook his head slowly from side to side.

  “I’d better do something,” Minogue said. “Those two fellas are up in court at eleven, looking for bail. I have to get my stapler going on the bits and bobs of paper for that.”

  “What about the two young ones you were telling me about, the ones you decided to release last night?”

  “Going to charge them,” said Minogue. “No sexism here.”

  Malone sat up and frowned, and he gave Minogue a hard look.

  “Why are you going around wrestling paper for this stuff? Aren’t you case officer for this? Get some of your butties there to do the court appearance and all the rest of it.”

  “So I can do what instead?”

  Malone waited a few moments.

  “So you can see how we do real police work instead. Tracking down these two fellas that Fanning told her about.”

  Minogue thought about it.

  “Nothing’s going to happen without a bit of something to eat,” he said. “A cup of something.”

  Malone knew his way around Rathmines. In spite of the traffic, he and Minogue were seated in The Red Shoes, their fry ordered and coffee before them on the table. Malone had to go outside to take a call from his boss. He came back in just as the plates were put down on the table. He stood by the table, eyeing the scrambled egg and the two shiny sausages as though they held a secret for him.

  “Sit down, you’re making me nervous.”

  “We have a bit more from our friends in the quare place,” he said quietly. “The Big Smoke.”

  London, he meant, Minogue realized.

  “And it’s beginning to look like we’re dealing with the same people. Head-cases, I should be saying.”

  Minogue forked some of the egg onto a piece of toast, but much of it fell off when he lifted it.

  Malone went on in a thoughtful tone.

  “What he told the missus. ‘English, probably, gangsters.’”

  “Not all English people are gangsters.”

  “Didn’t want her worrying, maybe,” said Malone.

  “A bit cryptic all the same.”

  “Whatever that means.”

  “Mysterious. Like he didn’t make it clear.”

  Malone sighed and launched into his breakfast. His phone went again.

  “Where?” he asked, and he sat up straight. He looked at Minogue.

  “Two of them? How deep is it there?”

  He listened, chewing on the sausage that he had picked up with his fingers.

  “The sooner, the better,” he said. “If they’re asking my opinion.”

  “Two cars,” Malone said after he had hung up. “In the water there, up by the Port of Dublin. Not far from the quays.”

  He gave Minogue a knowing look.

  “They’re starting on it in a while,” Malone added.

  Minogue was feeling full now. He concentrated on the coffee.

  “Any more on the two men?” he asked Malone.

  “One they think is a fella, Kilcullen. Great name for a soldier boy, I suppose.”

  “Irish, though?”

  “Half and half. The mother is. The father, well he shagged off. Mother reared him herself.”

  “No family here?”

  “No. There’s a brother of hers, his uncle. But they’re not on speaking terms. Plus, he’s in the nick. Fancy that.”

  “But this Kilcullen, he’s not a career criminal, according to them?”

  “Huh,” said Malone. “That’s what they’re telling us. But they’d hardly be admitting they get their recruits in jails. I mean, this isn’t any oul regiment we’re talking about.”

  “The Queen Mother’s crowd, I seem to remember,” said Minogue.

  “I never thought there’d be Irish fellas in the British Army, I have to tell you. Shows how little I know.”

  “Well he wasn’t in it that long, was he. Just long enough.”

  “That’s a fact,” said Malone, in a leaden tone. “Teach them how to use weapons, let them loose over there in Iraq. Big surprise they go haywire, isn’t it. Well, some of them anyway.”

  Minogue tried to remember the name of the officer who had given that speech before the fighting started over there. An Irish name, maybe even born here somewhere. Some controversy about him afterwards?

  “Nothing on the second fella yet?”

  “No. Could be anyone. They’ve contacted the regiment, and they’re going through their records. Their list of nicknames, for all I know.”

  “West Ham. I don’t follow the football.”

  “They’re nothing much anymore. But the fans are another matter. ‘The Hammers.’ They have a name for going over the top.”

  Minogue looked down at the cooling smears of grease on his plate. There would definitely need to be more coffee. He switched on his mobile.

  Kevin Wall was at his desk already. He gave no sign he was at all annoyed about Minogue’s rebuff last night. Minogue asked if he would do court, for Matthews and Twomey. No problem, was Wall’s cheerful response, and Minogue believed there was no sarcasm involved. Mossie Duggan would prepare the charges for the two girls.

  Minogue closed the phone and stifled a belch. He thought of phoning that Danute Juraksaitis woman from the consulate. And tell her what, exactly? That they had two iijits in custody, and two more being charged, but that they weren’t willing to charge any of them with the death of Tadeusz Klos? Well he should phone the Assistant Comm then, and let him give the news to Barry, and whoever else was in the spin cycle on this.

  Malone seemed to be mulling something over in his mind, eating distractedly and with little enthusiasm. Minogue decided that he would return to the house, take a shower, and pretend he could get a day’s work done. He wondered how he’d last the afternoon. He remembered Malone’s take on it — you’re the case officer now, you say what goes — and wondered if he dared going down that road a little.

  Malone pushed the plate away.

  “They could be long gone,” he said. “Nobody has said that out loud yet.”

  The second cup of coffee was not up to the mark. Minogue didn’t want to argue about it with a waitress whose English was poor, who looked harried, and almost in tears.

  “I’ll take care of it,” said Malone.

  Malone rolled his eyes when his phone went off. Minogue watched th
e waitress try to juggle a tray while getting a bill to two brittle-looking fashion plates in their forties. To have to smile in the job was the worst of it, he remembered Iseult saying several times.

  Malone hunched lower over the table, his finger is in his ear now.

  “Right this very minute?” Minogue heard him say, and then, “Are you sure about this? Really? Well you better not be spoofing me.”

  He took his hand from his head and looked at Minogue.

  “Are you ready for this? There’s something after happening up at a place in Dorset Street, one of those hotels. There was shooting. Not five minutes ago.”

  He took away his hand, and turned aside from Minogue again.

  “Who says?” he demanded. A frown settled on his forehead while he listened. Then he said a yeah and hung up.

  “Are you coming?” he asked Minogue.

  “Not my parish, Tommy, but thanks.”

  “I’m serious. Come on. Seeing is believing, they say.”

  “I’m not a fan of shootings. Go on yourself.”

  “You’ll miss your chance. One of them is dead.”

  “One of who?”

  “They think the West Ham one is the one is dead. The other fella is touch and go. If it is them, like.”

  Chapter 49

  No less than five detectives, two openly displaying submachine guns, were marauding on both sides of the tape. The uniforms milled about, many of them edgy with the show of guns. One of the detectives yelled at Malone as he pulled up by a squad car. As though to placate him, two uniformed Guards skipped over.

  “Move on there, you can’t park here. Move on.”

  Minogue fumbled for his wallet. Malone was ahead of him.

  There were brown faces in the small crowd gathering across the street. What little traffic was abroad this hour of the day had been stopped, and Minogue saw more tape going up across the whole street by the traffic lights farther on.

  “Oh look who shows when the time is right,” said the detective who had yelled. There was little sign of humour on his face.

  “Tell your sister me answer is still no,” said Malone. Minogue watched the detective’s reaction.

  There were plainclothes in the hallway, and more standing on the stairway. The place smelled damp, and Minogue took an instant dislike to the feel of the carpet, and the tacky mirrors, the thoughts of how many lonely nights people had spent here.

  “Too many heroes in the one place,” said Malone to a red-faced detective who seemed to be waiting on some answer from his phone. The detective reached over to try to swat him on the way by. Minogue had to wait until he stepped back.

  He held up his card, and followed Malone upstairs. There was a burnt smell here on the stairs now. Malone took the stairs two at a time. Looking up, the man standing in a doorway looked familiar to Minogue but he could not fix on a name. Did nobody secure crime scenes anymore, he wondered. Well, now. Best he keep that question to himself until later.

  The man said something to Malone, and shook hands, and he looked down at Minogue. He made his way over to the top of the stairs.

  “Top of the morning to you,” he said to Minogue, and extended a hand. “Brian McNamara, Serious Crimes. I’m the ringmaster here.”

  McNamara’s face put Minogue in mind of an Easter Island statue. In his late thirties, Minogue guessed, an expert in controlling his impatience. For no clear reason, he wondered if McNamara didn’t have a kind of a divorced look to him.

  “There’s people would pay money for such a mighty Clare name like that,” he said to him.

  McNamara had a neutral nod for Minogue, but no remarks that could be even mildly congenial.

  “You have an interest in these fellas here, I was told.”

  “I think so,” was all Minogue could think to say. “I hope so.”

  McNamara craned his neck to see what he could between the banisters leading to the upper floors. More armed detectives appeared, and then Minogue could see two fully kitted ERUs two floors up, the chins of their balaclavas pulled down under the helmet straps. They seemed to be taking their time.

  “Every floor,” said one of them.

  The smell of cordite was stronger, but there was the beginnings of some kind of aftershave too. McNamara turned back to him.

  “They took the live one,” he said. “The other one can wait.”

  He seemed to have divined Minogue’s unspoken question.

  “Mightn’t make it,” he added. “The way he left here.”

  An ambulance attendant came out of the room, carrying a bag. He was looking for someone. The someone seemed to be McNamara. He said something to McNamara about dressings. McNamara said they didn’t want them.

  McNamara filled his cheeks with a breath, held it for several seconds, and then let it out.

  “It won’t be textbook,” he said in a voice little above a murmur. “Will it, now.”

  Minogue was tempted to let McNamara in on how many sites he had worked on, sites that had been trampled on too. But McNamara’s remark took on its intended meaning before he said so, however. Collusion was being called for, if he and Malone were going to get anywhere. He wondered what favour Malone had called in to be allowed into the site before the Technicals showed up and began their painstaking prowls, like ghosts or Hallowe’en figures in their suits.

  “If it was textbook forensics we did every time, we’d be in the ha’penny place,” he said to McNamara.

  McNamara looked at the splintered edge of the door. He seemed to weigh Minogue’s words.

  “A quick once-over then,” he said, and reached into his jacket, “while the going is good. Very quick. But if the Scenes lads arrive, you’re out that door in a flash. Nod’s as good as a wink?”

  “In a flash,” said Minogue.

  McNamara handed Minogue one, then another glove. Malone was already pulling on his own.

  “What’s that smell,” Malone said. “That perfumey one. Do you smell it?”

  “Maybe it’s yourself you’re smelling,” said McNamara.

  “If it was I’d be passed out on the floor. No, there’s some pricey kind of smell. Men’s stuff.”

  McNamara gave him the eye. Malone shrugged.

  Minogue looked ahead before each footstep, stopping each time. The blood on the carpet was almost black already, and gave off no sheen.

  “How’s this for witnesses, Brian?”

  “Zero. There’s no night staff.”

  “Access, I wonder?”

  “Child’s play from the outside. Have a look at the delivery door out the back, on your way out. That’ll tell you plenty.”

  Minogue looked back at the splintered doorframe, and the door, with its smashed edge sticking out like feathers.

  “Classy joint,” Malone said.

  “They might have a nice honeymoon suite,” McNamara murmured. “Tell herself, why don’t you.”

  “That’s it,” said Malone. “You’re off the guest list.”

  “Not that I was ever on it.”

  “Sonya only felt sorry for you,” said Malone. “Thought she might be able to get you fixed up, you know.”

  McNamara had no smile, but in his voice Minogue now heard the dry restraint of the Claremen he had grown up around.

  “If you mean getting me a date with some wall-eyed cousin from Hong Kong, yous were doing me no favours. It’s Sonya or nobody for me. She’s too good for the likes of you.”

  “You’ll answer for that one in the ring. Mister Tough Guy.”

  Ah, Minogue realized, a cohort from the Garda Boxing Club.

  McNamara took a plastic bag from his pocket, and held it in his palm, arranging its contents.

  “UK driver’s licence. Justin Anthony Kilcullen, the one carted to hospital.”

  Minogue squinted at the photo, the expected neutral expression. Dependably nondescript.

  “Looks real enough,” he said.

  “Maybe so,” said McNamara, quietly. “But he’s a goner now. I don’t know why th
ey didn’t put one in his brain, but.”

  McNamara let other cards slide into view.

  “The fella on the floor is going by the name of Gary David Parker. Is. Was.”

  There was a spray of darkening blood on the wall by the window where the man’s body lay. Most of the lines down ended after a few inches in the maroon beads that Minogue expected. Blood had pooled in his armpit, and freckles of it were under his jaw. A pistol lay eighteen inches from the man’s knee.

  “Is that gun taken care of,” he asked.

  “It is,” said McNamara. “It was a full clip that came out. He didn’t get one off at all. The other fella’s was still under his pillow, if you can believe it.”

  “That fast,” said Malone. “There had to be a few of them.”

  Minogue eyed the awkwardly turned leg and the one outstretched arm that ended in a bloody pulp where the palm used to be. Had he reached out to grab the gun?

  The boxer shorts were saturated with blood, and his singlet had been pulled up in his last movements.

  “‘The Hammers’?” Minogue said. “What is that?”

  “Don’t you know that?” asked Malone. “I was going like the hammers in me new French car? Like the hammers of hell…?”

  “Hardly, now.”

  “Do you have a thing called a telly vision in your house out there in wherever?” Malone asked. “And when you’re finished milking the cows or whatever yous people do out there on the south side, do you look at the front of the telly vision, the glassy-looking bit? There does be a thing called soccer on there, a lot. A crap team called West Ham.”

  “Okay, I get it. I would have gotten it by myself eventually.”

  Malone gave him a skeptical look.

  The smell of latex from the gloves was beginning to irritate Minogue’s nostrils.

  “Savages for fans,” Malone added. “Looks like they have one less now.”

  “Any particular items you’re looking for?” McNamara asked.

  “Effects belonging to some people,” Minogue said. “Any sign at all.”

  “Are you sure about that.”

  McNamara spoke with no hint of exasperation that Minogue could detect. Still, he made sure of his footing, and his balance, and he half-turned to McNamara.

  “I’m not being contrary,” said Minogue. “I actually have no idea.”