The good life imm-5

by John Brady

  “That’s great.”

  “He used to be a ringer for Victor Mature. What more could a woman want?”

  Minogue smiled and looked around the room again. Maybe all the grandchildren’s First Communion pictures etcetera were in the front room. His eyes returned to her face.

  “Seventy-six he is. Oh, but you’d never guess! Sure, didn’t he lift me out of the chair the other day?”

  Minogue’s wandering thoughts slowed.

  “Swept you off your feet, did he now.”

  “Ah, go on with you. Ha ha! No. I sort of got locked into position, don’t you know. The joints, like. And I’m no featherweight, I can tell you.”

  He smiled.

  “Great for a man of his age,” he said.

  “Of course, being tidy and organized is second nature to him,” she went on. “A place for everything, everything in its place.”

  A key was inserted deftly in the hall door. It opened immediately. Paws slid and scratched on the lino.

  “I’m back, Mary!”

  “Keep Timmy on the lead now, Joe. I have a visitor here.”

  Mrs. Byrne’s eyes darted from the cooker to Minogue and back.

  “Who?” Joe Byrne called out. The dog barked. Minogue heard metal tinkle-the lead, he decided-and a door close. The next bark was muffled.

  “Come in and don’t be shouting at me, Joey.”

  Joe Byrne appeared in the doorway. Minogue half stood and watched the frown slide down Byrne’s forehead. He felt that familiar voltage course through him, and he looked for that sign, that recognition of contact, from one who might be or might become his quarry.

  “Hello, now, Mr. Byrne. We met the other day, you and I.”

  Byrne’s eyes disappeared behind the reflections of the window in his glasses.

  “The, em, canal? Oh, yes.”

  Minogue kept staring at the dual images on the lenses.

  “On the news, Joey,” said Mary Byrne. “They were asking for any… The poor girl!”

  Several moments passed. Byrne’s eyes seemed to have locked onto his wife’s. Minogue still couldn’t see through the reflections on his glasses. His lips twitched once. He turned to Minogue.

  “I don’t know what she told you, but you’d have to take it with a grain of salt now. I mean, you know the way the women are.”

  “Will we sit down and have a chat maybe?”

  For a moment he expected Byrne to tell him to get lost. The lips moved, the tongue pushed at a denture. Byrne dipped his head and his eyes came into view again. He blinked several times.

  “All right. So’s I can set you to rights here now.”

  Mrs. Byrne moved stiffly around the kitchen, filling the kettle and taking down cups and saucers.

  “Are yous, I suppose, getting along with it?”

  “Not as I would like-as we would like, I should say, Mr. Byrne.”

  Byrne pushed his glasses back up his nose. Big hands, thought Minogue. The dog began scratching at the door.

  “Mary. I’ll finish the tea now. We’ll let this man talk here with me, won’t we? I’ll bring you a cuppa there now in the front room.”

  Mary Byrne scuffed her way over the lino, blocking the dog’s entry while she closed the door behind her.

  “What did she tell you?” Byrne asked.

  “That you took a walk there later on the night Mary was murdered.”

  “So…?”

  “So it sounds like you wanted to hide something.”

  Byrne’s eyes left his and went to the bottom of the door.

  “So it’s a matter of getting our facts and information straight now.”

  Byrne looked up and rubbed his nose.

  “Are yous going around the area, like? To see if anyone knows anything?”

  “We need to take a walk down by the canal, you and I, Mr. Byrne.”

  Joe Byrne’s lips began to move again but he closed them tight. He had been carrying a carton of milk from the fridge. He raised it and looked at it before placing it on the table.

  “But tell me first about that night.”

  “Nice,” said Byrne. The alarm yipped as Minogue pressed the remote. He dropped the keys into his pocket.

  “Dear enough, the Citroen,” Byrne went on. He looked down at the styled aluminium wheels while they waited for a truck to pass. “But they lose their value quick.”

  “You were in the motor trade, Mr. Byrne?”

  “ ’Deed and I was. I remember those Citroens during the war. They were a good yoke back then.”

  Byrne had gotten over his sulk anyhow, Minogue concluded. They crossed to the canal bank. Byrne took off his glasses and began wiping them with a hanky.

  “Up by the bridge here, you said?”

  Some faint movement around Byrne’s mouth lodged in Minogue’s mind. Byrne stepped down onto the bank ahead of him.

  “I don’t know what Mary told you, now, but-”

  “You went for a walk later on. After she had gone to bed. Half ten or thereabouts?”

  “Well…”

  “Well what? You didn’t think it worth your while to phone us after you had learned there was a murder here? Even after I bumped into you the other day?”

  Byrne put his glasses back on. He cleared his throat.

  “Well, like I was telling you earlier on, Mary now, she doesn’t have the full run of herself, you know.”

  Minogue stepped in front of Byrne.

  “Mr. Byrne. Give over complaining about the state of the nation and get down to details. It was half-ten and you going out that night, right?”

  Byrne bit his lip.

  “After the UTV news. I don’t need much sleep this last while. When you get on a bit, you know…?”

  He nodded toward the railings by the bridge.

  “Anyway. Down there, where you can’t see. There’s a little corner there. As a matter of fact, you can get in under the bridge there if the water’s not up. There’s a path.”

  The Inspector looked down at the dry grass which had been trampled into the ground. God Almighty, the worst place. The patches of clay were flattened, packed hard. He spotted squashed cigarette butts, foil bubble-gum wrappers.

  “Were you down here on the bank?”

  “God, no! I wouldn’t go down there. I was up above on the footpath.”

  Minogue stared at the ground again: look at the grid and get the lads who had gone over this part. Maybe it wasn’t too late.

  “Half-ten?”

  “More like a quarter to eleven, actually.”

  The streets would be empty as people ran into the pubs for last call, Minogue reflected. He turned back to Byrne.

  “Listen, Mr. Byrne. I want you to do something for me. Go back up onto the street there, up by the bridge. Go the way you were walking, the pace especially. I’m going to call out to you from that corner there. I want to know whether you can see me. Keep me in sight there until I give you the billy to go on.”

  Minogue studied the ground ahead of him as he made his way forward. Weeds; beer can; broken glass. He squatted down. Bits of newspaper two weeks old, yellowed already. He stood, leaned in and peered around an abutment which formed a retaining wall for the railings and wall overhead. A torn plastic supermarket bag. More cigarette butts, a tin squashed, its brand unrecognizable. He turned around and saw Byrne’s head and shoulders above the wall.

  “Okay,” he called up to him. “I’m heading around this thing here and I’m going to move right over to the wall by the bridge. Count to ten or more so’s I’m there ahead of you. Start your walk then, the same way you did the other night.”

  Byrne pushed at his glasses and nodded. Minogue stepped around the pieces of rubbish. The noise of the traffic receded as he closed on the corner where the bridge met the wall. The water eddied out toward him from under the bridge, dark and sluggish. He finished his count.

  “You up there, Mr. Byrne?” His voice echoed.

  “What?” faintly from above.

  “Huh,”
Minogue muttered. “You can’t hear me either.”

  He retraced his steps back around the abutment. Not an accessible part of the waterway for the aimless stroller. He stopped at the foot of the steps. The rot by the canal banks had a sharper tang to it here. If Byrne was on the level, whoever he had heard that night must have been shouting. The same Joe Byrne was at the top of the steps. Byrne was gnawing on the inside of his cheek, one hand a fist by his side. Not a happy man to be caught out. Night vision was the first to go in most people, wasn’t it? He must get Byrne’s prescription.

  “Are we right?” asked Byrne. Minogue didn’t answer. He took the steps slowly.

  “Tell me again what you saw.”

  Byrne shifted his weight from foot to foot.

  “Look now,” said Byrne. “If only I knew what Mary was jabbering on about, I’d know where to start and set you straight. She runs on and on and makes a big deal out of nothing.”

  Minogue held up his hand.

  “Listen, Mr. Byrne. You saw us working up and down the canal here the other day. Do you have any idea how much work is involved in searching both banks here, up and down, all day long?”

  Byrne poked at his glasses.

  “You don’t. Well, I’ll tell you. It’s too much, that’s how much. It’s dirty and it’s hard and it’s discouraging. It’s the kind of place that makes us want to give up. But we do it. It’s all we can do.”

  “But lookit,” said Byrne. “If yous had’ve listened to ordinary people like me and Mary and cleaned up the place here and put Guards on the beat here, then this wouldn’t be going on.”

  Minogue narrowed his glance.

  “Doesn’t wash,” he said to Byrne. “Ordinary people are what count. What good’s a uniform on its own? You should have phoned me. You should have told me the other day when I bumped into you. That spot down there might be useless to us by now.”

  “Well, I mean to say. I didn’t think there was anything out of the ordinary, did I? There’s a hell of a lot of this class of thing going on here these years. There does be people down there. Up to no good, like. Don’t ask me what, now-the trade, I suppose. And every night of the week too, I’m telling you. ”

  “Every night?”

  Byrne folded his arms.

  “I don’t be out every night of the week if that’s what you’re trying to get at.”

  “All right, all right. Tell me again.”

  Byrne took a deep breath.

  “Well, now. The lights down there are useless. I been at the Corpo years to do something about them. Bits of that bloody place are pitch black, so they are. Well, maybe not totally black like-I mean, years ago, you’d be able to see the swans there, how they’d go in there for the night and tuck in their heads like. But then there’s the water itself. You know what I’m saying? Sure, that gives off the queerest reflections by times. Especially if there’s a breeze. I was over here by the steps-”

  “Wait. Were you on your way down the steps?”

  “Are you joking me? I wouldn’t go down there in the dark for all the tea in China, man!”

  “You heard voices.”

  “Yes. A woman’s voice. Only the one-and she was cursing. I told you-”

  “What words?”

  Byrne’s nose wrinkled. He fingered the arm of his glasses.

  “The exact words?”

  “The exact words, Mr. Byrne.”

  “You mean I have to…?”

  Minogue nodded slowly. He looked around Byrne’s face. The tight lips, the frown: prowling around here at night, then probably going to early Mass every Sunday. He was very close indeed to calling for a car to take Byrne down to Harcourt Square.

  “Well. ‘You!’ That was what I heard for starters. A shout, like.”

  “Like she knew who it was?”

  “I suppose. I didn’t hear every word what was spoken. Shouted, I mean.”

  Minogue looked at the water. Sic Kilmartin on him, he thought. He turned back. Byrne seemed to have picked up on his mood.

  “The, er, F-word,” said Byrne. “A lot of that.”

  “Fuck, you mean.”

  “Yes. Like I was telling you. No names now. ‘That effin’ b.,’ she said.”

  Minogue looked back and met Byrne’s eyes.

  “B for bastard? B for bollocks? B for bitch-”

  “Bastard. Yes.”

  “Not ‘You effin’ bastard’?”

  Byrne’s lips flickered again.

  “No. ‘That effin’ bastard.’ ”

  “ That effin’ bastard?”

  “That’s right.”

  “No other voices? No one arguing with this woman? Protesting? Name calling?”

  “I didn’t hear anyone, no.”

  “You’re certain you didn’t hear sounds of a row? People moving about down there?”

  “No.”

  “How long were you standing here listening to that?”

  “I never said I was standing there listening to this-”

  “Slowed, then. Paused. Lingered.”

  “Ten seconds maybe.”

  “And how were you able to see anything at all down there, Mr. Byrne? I was down there and you could barely hear me. You certainly didn’t see me.”

  Byrne blinked. The Inspector’s stare became more intense.

  “I know, I know,” said Byrne. “Didn’t I tell you that the place is out of sight of the path?”

  “Well then? You told me that you didn’t go down the steps at all.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So how’d you do it? How’d you see anything at all?”

  Byrne shifted on his feet.

  “Well, I saw in bits, didn’t I? You know. I sort of, well, I sort of like hopped up once or twice.”

  Byrne looked down at his shoes. Minogue saw more colour welling in behind the pink skin on his forehead. Here was something to offer Jim Kilmartin, a quirk, a vision of human behaviour which would set the Chief Inspector laughing in derision for the day.

  “You hopped? You’re seventy-six years of age, Mr. Byrne.”

  Byrne looked up sideways at him.

  “Doesn’t mean I’m an antique, does it? I just don’t want you or your crowd getting the wrong idea.”

  “What is the wrong idea?”

  “That I’m one of those, you know, gawkers. Perverts. Personally now, speaking for myself like, I’m nothing but disgusted by the goings-on in this city. Dublin’s gone to hell. There. And that’s a Dublinman telling you. You can quote me on that.”

  “You thought then that what you saw was a swan. You said that to your wife.”

  “That’s right. What I’m saying is there used to be. Years ago. Before things started… Ah, sure…”

  “Go on.”

  “Go on with what?”

  He plucked his glasses off and thrust them at the Inspector.

  “You try them-go on. Amn’t I trying to tell you it’s no use? And didn’t I tell that wife of mine the self-same thing?”

  Minogue held the glasses up close. The trees swam far-off, the buildings floated as though underwater. Byrne was rubbing his eyes.

  “I knew this’d happen,” he said. “That’s why I told her. And it’s ten times worse at night.”

  Minogue handed him his glasses.

  “Tell me again what you heard.”

  “What? The language? God-”

  “No. Traffic. Splashes. Talking. Music. Anything.” Byrne sighed and shook his head.

  “Traffic… Let me see. There does be a kind of a lull about the ten o’clock mark, you know, with the pubs. Then all hell breaks loose after closing time, of course. The usual. Cars flying up and down here a hundred mile an hour.”

  “You didn’t hear anything going into the water.”

  “No. Not a thing.”

  “People shouting, singing even? People coming out of pubs?”

  “Coming out of the pubs, is it? You must be joking. Just this one with the woman. This woman cursing. Sounded young. ‘Effin
’ b.’ ‘Liar.’ And the rest of it.”

  Minogue looked down at his notebook.

  “ ‘What the F would you know?’ ”

  “Yep. That’s it.”

  “ ‘Stupid’? ”

  “Right.”

  “No ‘Leave me alone’ or ‘push off’? Any rebuff like that?”

  “Is that a rebuff? No.”

  Minogue looked across the street at his Citroen. With its suspension fully down, his fire-engine red automotive folly looked as if it had collapsed squat on the roadway like a spent voluptuary. Technical site team, he remembered. He stared at Byrne when he spoke now.

  “You’d best go home now, Mr. Byrne, and await our call shortly.”

  “What call?”

  “I’m going to call for a Guard to take your statement proper. He’ll take it in full and he’ll type it up. Then you’ll sign it.”

  “Wait a minute there. I done me bit.”

  “He or she will bring you to a Garda Station, Harcourt Terrace most likely-”

  “Me? A Garda station?”

  “And you’ll tell the Guard every detail of what you told me. You’ll also suggest any changes that are needed to make it more accurate and detailed.”

  He let his eyes rest on Byrne’s for several moments longer.

  “I’ll take you back to your place now.”

  Minogue crossed the street without waiting for Byrne.

  Kilmartin was working his way through a sandwich. John Murtagh was on the phone.

  “Hopping,” the Chief Inspector chortled again. “Oh, Jesus, I love it! Hopping-ha ha ha ha! Seventy-what is he?”

  “Seventy-six. No word from Hickey?”

  “Wouldn’t I tell you if there was? Aren’t me and John Murtagh all revved-up here by the shagging phone waiting to jump? There are three cars sitting out there too. Four motorcycle lads from Traffic on stand-by. Tell me about this Byrne fella hopping again, though-here, is he one of those fellas robs knickers off the clothes-lines?”

  “Ask him yourself.”

  Minogue took a half of a sandwich, sat down and examined it.

  “So we have a half-blind pensioner walking his dog,” said Kilmartin.

  “A half-blind pensioner with high moral standards walking his dog,” said Minogue.