by John Brady
Minogue congratulated himself on being but one county away in his guess. He had pegged Cuddy for County Longford. Palaces, he thought, and looked around the kitchen again. The old fireplace had been filled in even before he had left the farm for Dublin. As a baby he had been bathed here. Here he had argued with his father, played cards, poured and drunk whiskey over thirty years ago. He recalled the apartment brochures on the kitchen table in his Dublin home. Far from this indeed, he thought.
“Do you want a statement?” he said to Cuddy’s back. Cuddy turned with a wry look.
“Ah, no. Thanks. Ye were below in the pub, the three of you, so say no more. We found no one after a night’s work, you see. Truth is that Eoin wasn’t high up enough on our list. Otherwise we’d have been here in the door on ye at one o’clock this morning.”
Minogue followed Cuddy outside. The yard was full of sunlight now. The cold air caught in Minogue’s nose and made his eyes water. Mick and Eoin stood by the door to the byre. Cuddy didn’t spare them so much as a nod as the two cars left the farmyard, their tyres rasping over the patchy cement.
“Black and Tans,” Mick hissed.
Minogue’s anger propelled him across the yard in long strides.
“Am I one as well, Mick? Am I?”
Mick returned the stare. Eoin shuffled his feet and looked down at his wellies.
“You and your bloody notions,” Minogue went on. “Declare to God, you had me driven up the walls years ago. Inside your head must be like, I don’t know, the ruin of some old house or something.”
“And what have you?” Mick retorted. “Only the company of the likes of those fellas. Up in Dublin, you are-you have no home except up in Dublin. Dublin! Them that turned their chamber-pots on the men of 1916 and they marching away to be shot.”
Minogue looked away in exasperation. The hedges were dark with the sun low behind them.
“I did as much and more work in this very spot as you did, let me remind you,” he muttered then. “I know plenty about knocking a living out of stones and bogs. Them fellas just gone are none to my liking either, but they have this character weakness. We all do, if we’re human at all, man.”
He stared at his nephew in an effort to get Eoin to look at him. He realised that he had been preaching. He stopped then and his breath tumbling aloft was lit from the sun behind. The endlessly bright morning arching over the farmyard had swiped all his words. He tried to follow that small cloud which was his own spent breath dissipating. Mick was walking stiffly away toward the house.
“They don’t want to be blown out of their shoes,” Minogue called after his brother, not caring if he was heard. “That’s all that’s bothering them.”
Minogue drove into Ennis daydreaming about Santorini. The traffic slowed as he rounded the monument at the Mill Road. He turned by Harmony Row, coasted over the bridge on the River Fergus and drove down Abbey Street to the Old Ground hotel. Ennis sparkled under the sun, black shadow and glare of shop windows together in the twisting, narrow streets he liked. Pedestrians keen to see a familiar face looked to the passing cars. Knowing none himself, Minogue still lifted his fingers in salute.
With the traffic completely at a standstill now, Minogue rolled down the window. He leaned over and saw a Garda leaning on a car roof ahead, talking in the window. Bareheaded and domestic-looking, the guard had ash-grey hair and a beard that needed attention twice a day. He studied Minogue’s card.
“I’m going for a dinner at the Old Ground,” said Minogue. “Am I safe in Ennis this morning?”
“Oh, fire away, now,” said the Guard and squinted through the glare off Minogue’s windscreen. “It’s a court case going on to do with the shoot-out there back in July. They’re probably breaking for their dinner now anyway. But there’s no parking around the courthouse on account of the business.”
“Fair enough,” said Minogue.
The guard sighed.
“Is it like this in Dublin?”
“Worse. There’s no place to park at all.”
The guard smiled dryly and tapped on the roof with his fingertips.
“Go ahead now, Inspector.”
Minogue counted a half-dozen Garda cars parked in the side-streets. He spotted a tactical van immediately with its triplet of antennae and its stubby wire for the telephone link quivering slightly as someone moved around inside the vehicle. The Inspector parked and checked his watch. He was twenty minutes early for Crossan. He decided to stroll a roundabout way to the Old Ground.
Alerted by a reflection in a shop window, the Inspector turned to find a wigged and gowned lawyer flying, it seemed to him as he studied the billowing robe, across the street toward him. Behind the sharp nose, which made Minogue think of Pinocchio, were bulging thyroid eyes. They made for an expression of intense fright.
“Are you the Inspector Minogue I’m supposed to be meeting?” Crossan called out.
“I am that. How did you know?”
“Ha, ha!” Crossan guffawed. “And you the detective! I saw you walking away from a car with a Dublin registration. But sure, you’re the spit of your brother!”
Spit, thought Minogue.
“Cut out of him,” said Crossan. “Will we mosey on to the Old Ground now?”
Minogue fell into step alongside the barrister. A half-dozen steps from the door of the hotel, Crossan stopped suddenly and wheeled around. He looked up and down the busy street. Minogue imagined the swelling eyes popping out onto the steps, rolling and bouncing down through a Dali Ennis. He dared a quick survey of Crossan’s face and noted the blue bristles, each clear in the skin that looked like paper. Definitely an indoor plant. Was he looking for someone or something?
“And you belong to Rossaboe and places west?” Crossan murmured.
Belong? Perhaps he did, the Inspector supposed. Thirty years in Dublin had but rubbed him down to bedrock. As weather is to climate.
“Born, bred and starved there,” Minogue admitted. The lawyer smiled briefly, walked to the door of the hotel and held it open.
A waitress whom Crossan called Maureen led them through the dining room. Yes, she told Minogue, the coffee was freshly brewed.
“You got the envelope then,” said Crossan. “The photocopies, like.”
Minogue nodded and inspected the cutlery. As regards trappings, the hotel had improved no end, he had to conclude. His last dining adventure here had been nearly six years ago when he had come down to Ennis to bury an uncle on his mother’s side. He pondered the possibility of soaking Crossan for a salmon and seafood dish listed for fifteen quid.
“And the, er, thing that Jamesy penned. That epistle…?”
“As best I could,” said Minogue. “Tended to be repetitive, really.”
“Did it make any sense to you?”
“Not a whole lot. Have you had many dealings with mental illness in your job, Counsellor?”
Crossan flashed a rueful smile which ended in a frown. The waitress appeared with the wine. Minogue looked around the room as she poured. The dining room was almost full. Businessmen, farmers and travelling men down for the mart, a few late-in-the-season tourists. A table across from theirs had a reserved sign on it. As he reached for his glass the couple appeared in the doorway.
She looked tall here, he thought. Her hair was actually blonde, her eyes clear and still. She seemed to be brighter and clearer than others in the room, as if she had captured some sharp light all for herself. For an instant, Minogue believed he could smell a faint perfume. Dan Howard stood next to her now. A waitress fussed around them. More faces turned toward the couple.
“Well, now,” he heard Crossan say. The ice was tugging at Minogue’s guts now. She had seen them, noted them, he believed.
The tone, a mix of sarcasm and stern humour, brought Minogue to.
“And good day to you, Mr and Mrs Howard,” Crossan called out.
Dan Howard winked at Crossan. His smile broadened as he walked to Minogue’s table. Sheila Howard strolled after him.
“Well, Alo, you’re always busy,” said Howard. He leaned in and offered his hand to Minogue.
“Parlous times as ever,” said Crossan. “Where there’s trouble, there’s money.”
“Hello, Aloysious,” said Sheila Howard. She nodded at Minogue.
Minogue’s chest was tight but his heart’s thump seemed to visibly rock it. Sheila Howard blinked, smiled and looked from Minogue to Crossan. Minogue tried not to look at her face. He wondered if anyone could see his chest pounding.
“And Mick Minogue’s brother, how are you?” he heard Dan Howard asking.
“I’m very well,” he managed to say.
“A small world, now, isn’t it?” Howard went on. “Are you enjoying your holiday?”
“To be sure,” said Minogue.
“Great. I hope you’re considering coming back home sometime, are you? We’ve a lot going on in Clare nowadays.”
“In more ways than one,” said Crossan.
Howard grinned.
“Time enough,” said Minogue.
Howard laughed. An easy, cheery laugh. Disarming, Minogue thought. A favoured son, the boy, this Dan Howard seemed.
“Great,” said Howard, and rubbed his hands together. He turned to Minogue with a sardonic squint.
“You’re sitting next to the best barrister in County Clare, I’ll have you know. You know where to find me if you want me, I hope. Drop into the office anytime. Don’t mind that crowd up in Dublin.”
The Howards returned to their table. Sheila Howard sat down and her husband followed, flapping loose his napkin from the glass. She folded her arms over the mauve cashmere polo-neck which hung loosely from her shoulders. Howard moved his glass to the side of his place-setting and smiled at his wife.
Us and them again, thought Minogue: the crowd in Dublin and the country people. Like many another rural TD, Howard championed “his own” against the distant uncomprehending bureaucrats and voters in Dublin. But didn’t Howard spend his time in Dublin?
“How do you know Dan?” Crossan repeated.
“Oh. We were in the pub in Portaree. Himself and missus arrived in for some kind of a meeting.”
“Indeed,” said Crossan with delicate scorn. “The PDDA.”
“They live in Ennis, the Howards, do they?” asked Minogue.
“They maintain the residence here,” Crossan replied in a nasal drone of nonchalance which Minogue read as his send-up of snobbery. “As well as a pied-a-terre in the capital. They dine occasionally here among the patrons of the Old Ground.”
“Well, Dan Howard seems to count as a fan of yours,” Minogue prodded.
Crossan snorted and sipped at his wine.
“Hah. Do you have fans yourself now, Inspector Minogue? In your line of work, I mean.”
Images came to Minogue: a pile of rags in the ditch, what was left after a hit-and-run. And how could you kick a man in the face enough to kill him? Were parts of humanity exempt from evolution?
“Hard to tell, really. But people are relieved when a murderer is caught, if that’s what you mean.”
Crossan’s eyes glistened but remained blank and unblinking. The Inspector watched as Crossan’s thoughts seemed to return to him. He nodded as though conceding something.
“Oho,” said Crossan then, a glint of happy malice in his stare.
The Howards were getting up from their table. Although her face betrayed no signs, Minogue sensed in Sheila Howard an anger held in check. Dan Howard’s dimples seemed to have disappeared. The waitress was already darting over to them. Crossan leaned back in his chair and looked out the window onto the street.
“By gor,” said Crossan. “Speak of the devil. There’s timing for you. The man himself.”
Minogue looked out through the curtain onto the street. A bread lorry drove by slowly, revealing in its wake the dog, then the bearded figure and the bag on the footpath beside him. The sun was full on Jamesy Bourke. Minogue watched the waitress persuade the Howards to stay at another table. Dan Howard’s practised, public face regained its affability. He made a joke to the waitress and then looked toward Crossan and Minogue, eyebrows arched, as though to convey a magnanimous patience which Minogue did not understand. Sheila Howard busied herself moving the condiments and flowers around on the table. Dan Howard ran his fingers through his curls once and pointed to something on the menu. Two middle-aged men in suits stopped by the Howards’ table and shook hands with Dan Howard. A quip was issued, a joke returned.
Crossan nodded his head in the direction of the window.
“Sometimes Jamesy takes up station outside yours truly’s constituency office up the street here. ‘The clinic,’ as if to say he was looking for a cure, you might say. Our modern version of pagan idolatry.”
When Minogue looked out the window again, Jamesy Bourke and his dog were gone. For a reason his mind could not fasten on, the Inspector saw the wall where Jamesy Bourke had stood as strangely vacant now, filled with the sun’s glare but somehow marked by the absence of the figures, as though a shadow had been left. The waitress snapped open a folding table and laid the tray on it.
Crossan’s eyes snapped open and they bored into the Inspector’s. “Well,” he said. “Have you left your bits of rags and your rosaries out by the holy well and done your indulgences?”
Minogue’s puzzlement showed.
“Aha. You’ve lost your religion up in the metropolis. All Souls.”
“Ah, I’d forgotten.”
“There are no ghosts above in Dublin, I suppose.”
Minogue recalled his mother hanging bits of cloth by St. Gobnet’s Well amidst the statues, the holy pictures and the flowers. Did Maura now tie pieces of Mick’s clothes there to implore a saint no longer a saint in Rome to banish the arthritis seizing more of her husband by the year? Crossan laid his napkin on his knees and leaned in toward the Inspector.
“There’s stuff I meant to bring but you hijacked me before I could go to the office and get it. Will you, em, stop by the office with me after? A little postprandial too, maybe?”
Minogue paused in his work of separating his salmon fillet. Did Bourke know that he’d be…?
“I will, I suppose,” he answered.
Crossan’s office was in Bank Place, a terrace of early Victorian houses. His rooms were high-ceilinged, stately, cluttered. Minogue followed him past the secretary’s desk, the only business-like aspect to the place. The long windows, one of the terrace details which more openly aped Georgian, looked down on the street through wrought-iron railings. Some modern devices intruded, Minogue noted, but the fax and photocopier seemed devalued by being half-hidden under papers. A faded rug, its intricate designs formerly blue and probably yellow, took up the floor in the middle of the room. Numbered prints of landscapes covered up one wall.
“I’ve a secretary,” Crossan was saying. As though landing a fish, he lifted a bottle of whiskey out from behind a stack of folders. “But she’s only part-time.”
Which part of the time, Minogue was tempted to ask: the time she was asleep?
“She’s on her honeymoon. In Greece, if you don’t mind.”
Alerted by the weight of the filling tumbler, Minogue looked up at Crossan. “Whoa, man! Are you trying to do me in?”
Crossan tipped the bottle back up and sat down himself. “Tell me something now. What keeps a man like you going? In your line of work, like.”
Minogue couldn’t decide whether Crossan was pulling his leg or testing his temper. He looked to the rows of leather-bound books on Crossan’s shelves.
“Are you trying to interview me for a job here, is it?”
“Pretend that I was.”
“We try to give an accounting for someone murdered.” He felt Crossan’s eyes drill into him.
“I meant how or why do you stick at it. What drives you?”
“God, what a question. Fairness, I suppose. Especially for the people who are left…”
“There’s more?”
The Inspector looked hard
at the lawyer for any hint of a sceptical reception.
“You give something back to the victim too, even though they’re dead. Their dignity, maybe. Now, are these conversational tidbits leading anywhere?”
Crossan sniffed at the remains of his whiskey as though contemptuous of the comfort it offered.
“All right. Jamesy Bourke-”
“Let me ask you something straight out first,” said Minogue. “Did you tell Jamesy Bourke that you were getting in touch with me?”
Crossan grinned shyly and nodded his head. It changed his face entirely.
“I must confess that I did. I told him that you were related to a client of mine.”
“And the meeting at the hotel?”
“No, no. But I’d lay money that he happened to see the Howards there. It’s happened before. Can I get away with that without suggesting that Jamesy is in fact trailing the Howards?”
Minogue studied Crossan’s lopsided smile.
“Another preliminary matter there now, counsellor. You wangled the participation of various members of my family in setting up this exchange of pleasantries we have current here.”
“I believe I did at that. Are you offended?”
Minogue thought of Maura Minogue’s laughter, her infectious cheer.
“I’m not now.”
“Well, I can go on, so. Jamesy Bourke came to my office here a few months back. Frightened the wits out of me, I can tell you. Walked right in that door, so he did, and just stood there. Now remember, this is twelve years or so after he was put away. He’s a recovered alcoholic, but he seems to have managed to come out from under that, too. He’s on medication for manic-depression. He has episodes where he, er, ‘sees things.’”
“You’re giving me all the good news first?”
“I want you to know that my eyes are wide open as regards Jamesy Bourke. At any rate, he wanted me to listen to the ideas he had concocted over the years.”
“And?”
“Well, I took a look at what there was. There was the summary, the book of evidence. Phoned his counsel at the time, Tighe. Newspaper reports about the trial printed some of the court testimony. Those I copied and stuffed in the envelope for you. I ended up telling Jamesy that I could find nothing which could be construed as legally or procedurally improper in the proceedings of the trial.”