by John Brady
Again Russell looked the Howards over as if to assess their suitability for a task. Howard merely nodded.
“Have ye had any, ah, inkling, that this might happen?”
“No,” answered Howard. “I didn’t think I’d be considered a…” He looked down at his wife. Target, Minogue finished the sentence within.
“Can I have a word with you outside a minute?” he asked Russell.
Russell seemed to consider granting a favour, then stepped out before the Inspector. He met Minogue at the front of the Toyota and took a peppermint from his pocket. He dropped it onto his tongue, eyeing Minogue all the while.
“They’re a bit out of it,” said Minogue.
“And you’re not?”
“Less so, I’m thinking. I tend to get the jitters later on.”
“You’ve been under fire before, so,” said Russell with heartless levity. “Dublin’s full of excitement, they say.”
Minogue put on a tight, insincere smile.
“Dull enough, compared to here.”
Russell manoeuvred the peppermint to his back teeth and bit it decisively.
“What were you up to with the Howards tonight? Aside from ducking bullets, like.”
“Exchanging pleasantries and noting interior decorating tips to relay them to my wife.”
“Huh. You and Alo Crossan. The Liberator.”
Minogue reflected for a moment on Russell’s cynical nickname for the lawyer. The Liberator, Daniel O’Connell, champion of Catholic Emancipation a hundred and fifty years ago, had seen his monster rallies eclipsed by the tactics of gelignite and guns. The Superintendent’s small eyes bored into him while the jaws worked at crushing the last pieces of lozenge.
“Crossan has given himself the mission in life of setting defendants free on the streets, gangsters that should be kept under lock and key. Ad infinitum,” Russell said, grinding his teeth in final farewell to the peppermint.
“That’s Latin,” he added. He kept his blank stare locked onto Minogue’s eyes.
“Who?” said Minogue, adverting to grammar. Russell ignored or misread Minogue’s pedantry. He thumbed another lozenge into his mouth.
“Maybe even the likes of the boyos that did the work tonight,” Russell said. “Wouldn’t that look good on his gravestone: ‘Shot by his clients’?” Minogue looked away from the Superintendent to the arrival of a Hiace van.
“I think that Mr Crossan plans to be around and working for quite a while,” he murmured.
“Lie down with a dog…”
Russell let the proverb find its own way home in Minogue’s mind.
“Have you people in mind for this shooting?” Minogue asked.
“Course we have. We’ll be knocking on doors all over the county tonight. Will that put a dent in your holidays?”
Minogue considered the Howards’ plight again. Howard did double-duty as a prosperous member of the new Ireland, a man of land and commerce as well as a parliamentary figure. He was an ideal target. Would the Howards ever feel safe in their house again?
“It’ll put dents in a lot of holidays.”
“You may well be right,” Russell allowed. His crinkly hair, backlit by the headlights, glistened with a covering of fine rain.
“There could be jobs and factories lost on the head of this. Speaking of heads, now. Preliminary investigations”-he paused to sniff the air and survey the scene before him-“preliminary investigations tend to suggest that the job done there tonight on this fine house was fairly, can I say, ‘fine-tuned.’ The shooters went high. ”They needn’t have ducked, Sergeant Hanrahan inside tells me.”
Minogue resisted the inclination to retaliate. He watched Russell lob another peppermint into his mouth.
“Rank amateurs tend to down high-flying birds when they pull triggers,” the Inspector said.
“Are you suggesting that this was attempted murder, so?”
“You decide that. After all, I’m on me holidays.”
“You’re hardly the kind of tourist that these gangsters had in mind of frightening now, I’d say,” said Russell. “And by the way: you can have the tourism thing and still keep people on the land, to my way of thinking. People’s livelihoods depend on the tourists, even tourists down from Dublin.”
“You don’t say, now. I was born and reared on a small farm. I’ve a brother who wouldn’t be in the farming today if he hadn’t been able to pick up a few fields over the years. There are families who can’t bid down a man from Hamburg or Rotterdam.”
“Not Dan Howard,” said Russell, moving his lozenge around. “You’re gone out of farming longer than you were ever in it. Parnell is history, O’Connell is history and de Valera’s history-”
“‘With O’Leary in the grave,’” Minogue interrupted.
“Who’s O’Leary?”
“I can tell you that his politics didn’t tend to the shopkeeper’s side of the ballot.”
“Look,” said Russell as if he were concluding a deal that could shortly go sour. “Howard’s popular. He had a good majority the last election. His father put Portaree and West Clare on the map. Anyway. You got nothing clear on the fella in the garden or whatever, did you?”
Minogue shook his head. The image of the flitting, shadowy figure upended his musing. “A shadow, really. I didn’t even know if there was a mask.”
“One car?”
“Yes. I’m fairly sure there was a driver waiting. One door slammed after the shooting. The car took off sharpish.”
Russell crunched the lozenge and nodded toward the house.
“Looks like the job done on that holiday cottage. Might have hurt someone…by accident.” Minogue tended to agree so he said nothing. The other possibility, quickly dismissed, was that a novice had pulled the trigger, not compensating for the upward jog of the barrel as the gun fired.
“Well, whether or which,” said Russell. “We’ll look into a few nests to see if some birds were home tonight. Each and every one of them. Cuckoos included.” Minogue believed Russell meant Eoin Minogue.
“How’s your German coming along?”
He was pleased to have his effect displayed immediately.
“How do you mean?”
“Someone is going to need fluent German for-”
“I get it, I get it,” Russell snapped. “Don’t you be fretting over that matter.”
The Superintendent made to head over toward a huddle of plainclothes Gardai gathering around a van, but he stopped suddenly and glared at Minogue.
“Here,” said Russell, “a word in your ear. I know more about you than you may think. Kilmartin wouldn’t have you on board if you weren’t good either. But you’re too long out of County Clare to be up to the likes of Alo Crossan. I hope for your sake that you don’t find yourself up the Suwahnee River with shite all over you, and then trying to tell me that Crossan told you this and Crossan told you that. ’Cause Crossan may take you out for a long walk and that could easy bring you down the far side of the street from me. Alo Crossan could buy and sell the best brains in the country for shrewdness. If he makes an iijit of you, that makes an iijit of me and my men here-being as we’re on the same side.”
The Superintendent nodded once, suggesting to the Inspector that he was taking his own advice very seriously. Then he pointed a finger at Minogue.
“Play by the rules here, Minogue.” Minogue watched him walk away and then sat in the car.
“I think it might be a wise move to sort out alternative sleeping quarters for the next little while,” he said.
Sheila Howard nodded.
“If we can get a lift we’ll go into town and stay at the Old Ground,” said Howard.
“You’ll have a lift, all right. You’ll have two armed detectives with ye,” Minogue murmured. “Better get used to them. You’ll have them awhile.”
The Inspector stepped out of the car again and went looking for a Guard to drive them into Ennis. The Guard, a prematurely bald smoker who rubbed at his nose a lot, was surly and tense. He grunted
at Crossan as the barrister sat into the Nissan. The drizzle haloed lights over the town as the two cars negotiated the roundabout coming into Ennis proper.
“Sun tomorrow but colder, I hear,” said Minogue.
“Unk,” said the detective. Minogue gave up. He realised that this Guard was probably anticipating a sleepless night by the Howards’ door tonight. Hoey or not, car or no car, delayed shock awaiting or not, Minogue decided that he was going to stop at a pub, walk back to the B amp; B and get a bath out of Mrs McNamara’s plumbing. He would not tell Hoey about this until the morning.
“Let me off at a good pub, can’t you,” he said to the detective.
“Good move,” said Crossan.
“Ennis is full of pubs,” said the detective.
“Well, don’t trouble yourself on my account,” Crossan said sharply. “Let me out at the Old Ground and I’ll fend for myself.”
The car stopped. Minogue watched the Howards getting out of the other squad car. Sheila Howard still looked blank as the detectives shepherded her in the door but her husband seemed to be coming through the dazed state. He waved shyly toward Minogue.
The drizzle seemed to be gone, but Minogue held out his hands to be certain. Beside him the O’Connell monument rose into the night. He walked alongside Crossan to Considine’s pub. Chance cars moved sluggishly in the narrow street, whispering by the two men. “I’ll have the one with you,” Crossan said.
The lawyer pushed the narrow door open. They took two stools at the bar where a half-dozen patrons idled. Considine’s was one of the few pubs left in Ennis which still purveyed all manner of goods, from Wellington boots to tea, fly-paper to rashers, custard-powder to sardines, as well as selling drink. A coal fire glowed in the grate, a colour television glowed on the counter. When Miss Monaghan walked confidently onto the Miss Ireland stage in Dublin, Minogue almost expected her to walk out onto the counter.
An elderly woman with very thick lenses and a face like a kitten emerged from a door to the kitchen.
“Mr Crossan,” she murmured, and gave Minogue a nod. “A little inclement tonight.”
“The prospect of better, ma’am,” replied Crossan.
“That’s the style,” said Mrs Considine. She pushed back her glasses and grinned. Her brown teeth were all her own, Minogue saw, but they were small and feral.
“And how are ye all tonight anyhow?” she said as she sought out whiskey glasses.
Her greeting had that gentle, heartfelt tone which Minogue associated with talk at wakes, or when mentioning someone on whom great misfortune had fallen.
“Not bad,” replied Crossan. “Considering.”
“Paddy, the same as his honour here?” said Mrs Considine to Minogue.
“Jamesons, instead, please.”
Minogue watched Mrs Considine’s arthritic fingers manipulate the glasses and he wondered how Hoey was. He and Hoey had adjoining rooms at Mrs McNamara’s. Would Hoey be prowling about in the night? Would Tynan or Kilmartin have heard about the episode yet? God, he thought, if they put his name in the paper reporting the shooting, Kathleen’d be down dragging him out of Ennis by the neck. What could a man do?
They retired to a bench by the fire. Crossan nodded at the customers and they returned to their contemplative drinking, pretending to carry on with their conversation while watching Miss Monaghan and eavesdropping on what Mr Crossan might have to say to his companion.
“There’ll be no other mischief, I hope,” said Crossan. “With the cars, I mean.”
Mischief, Minogue thought. Flicking a gun to automatic and holding the trigger. He had a fleeting image of the boot-lid of his benighted Fiat popping up with the force of the small charge he expected the bomb squad would employ. Would the insurance pay for it? “Act of God”? “Civil unrest”?
“I’d as soon they find out for sure come the morning,” Minogue murmured. The Jamesons scorched his throat.
“Be the laugh of the year if the Guards find whoever did this and I end up being hired to defend ’em.”
“So thinks Tom Russell too,” said Minogue.
“Tom Russell can shag off,” said Crossan. “He’ll eat humble pie soon enough. I’m not about to be put off now, no matter what. What about yourself?”
“Well. I sort of thought we could sort things out a bit over a breakfast tomorrow morning. You and me. Shea. Maybe it’s a good time to call in on Naughton in Limerick. If I have a car at all, that is.”
Crossan’s eyelids drooped slightly over the eyeballs but this did little to relieve the intensity of his gaze at the television.
“The Howards with their bodyguards. By God, it’s like Sicily or somewhere. Latin America…”
Minogue too looked over at the television.
“Turn it up, Mrs C,” said one of the customers, an old man with his hat resting on the back of his head, his thumbs in his braces where they were buttoned to his trousers. “And we’ll listen to the girls.”
“An occasion of sin, Tom Quinn,” murmured Mrs Considine. “Young ones walking around with hardly a stitch on them. They’ll catch pneumonia, the half of them. Sure there’s not a pick of fat on any of them, the poor things.”
“Yerra, ’tis not fat we want, missus,” said Quinn, unencumbered by the dentures he had made a habit of taking out and placing in his pocket each evening as he entered the pub. “The doctors are always tellin’ us that fat is bad for us and that’s no lie, now.”
Mrs Considine turned up the sound. The audience in Dublin clapped; the camera swung away and up to reveal platforms of flickering lights and starbursts of spotlights. Another camera rushed in on Miss Monaghan’s mother and father who were being emotional in the audience. A ruddy-faced man still in his overcoat placed his empty pint glass on the counter with a crisp tap.
“Is our one up yet?” he demanded softly. “She’s from Corofin, you know. Dwyers. Bofey Dwyers, the funeral director in Corofin. I have money put aside with Bofey for when the time comes. So as I won’t be a burden.”
“God, you were always the careful man, Florrie,” said Mrs Considine. “That’s very thoughtful of you, to be sure.”
Florrie took the compliment in his stride and continued looking solemnly at the television.
“You know not the day nor the hour,” he said. Mrs Considine sighed as she drew a new pint of stout for him.
“You’re right, Florrie, you’re right. But you don’t look that close to the wood to me.”
The camera sprang on a bikini-clad Miss Cork.
“Suffering Jesus that died on the cross,” Quinn marvelled.
The compere asked Miss Cork if she liked farming. She giggled and said she loved the outdoors.
“I’m not so keen on the farming myself,” muttered Florrie.
Two young men entered the pub. One had reddened eyes and a smirk. Minogue, haggard, nodded at them and wondered if everyone looked familiar to him in County Clare. Both men ordered lager, and they took up watching Miss Cork giggling and shifting about on her high heels. Minogue wondered if Iseult had already stormed into RTE to throttle the producers of this sexist tripe. The patrons of Mrs Considine’s select bar warmed to the sparkling personality, poise and deportment of Miss Cork. Minogue noted that her collarbones were very prominent and that, despite her very large breasts, she looked underfed.
Bourke had thus been left very high and very far from dry, on the street after midnight, free to indulge his own bitterness. Abandoned, left to his fate? Minogue tried to imagine it: drunk-swaying, by all accounts-and alone on the street. What was Bourke feeling as he saw the car drive away, the streets empty? Despair? Fury? Dan Howard was being driven home while James Bourke was left kicking his heels there on the side of the street, pockets empty, drunk. Did Bourke feel used, bought off? Howard could always call on money or help or comfort. Bourke had had nowhere to turn. Naughton, Minogue thought, the first Garda reported on the scene. Perhaps he could help Minogue see where he was drifting, help him to a mooring at which he could tie up the im
pressions and facts he was still unable to link. How drunk was Howard? How drunk was Bourke? Too drunk to walk?
“Which one is she?” asked one of the newly arrived. His fogged eyes suggested to the Inspector that he had visited other pubs tonight.
“Can’t you tell she’s Cork the way she rolls her R’s?” said the sage and observant Florrie.
“Arra, man, that’s only the high heels what does that,” scoffed another.
Miss Donegal followed, arriving to accolades. She began talking effusively of her interest in travel. Minogue turned to Crossan and wondered if he himself looked half as washed out as the barrister did.
“Tell me something,” he said in a low voice to the barrister. “Is there a part of you that likes to see the Howards haunted?”
“Haunted? What are you on about?”
“Bourke. The fire, the trial. Howard’s the big banana here now.”
Crossan kept his gaze on the television.
“What difference would it make to the facts of what we’re about?”
Minogue wasted no time on delicacy.
“So you are.”
“I must say,” Crossan enunciated with care, “that there is a part of me that’s turned off by the pair of them.”
“We shall so agree then.”
“You don’t understand. I don’t envy Dan Howard or Sheila Howard. I just think that Dan Howard inherited his due with Jamesy Bourke. And I did poorly by Jamesy when he was alive. There’s cause and effect at work somewhere in the back of it all, even if I can’t shine a light on it for you. Do you know what I mean?”
Crossan leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees, all the while keeping his eyes on the screen.
“Let me hazard a guess now. You think you’re listening to a sour fart elbowing up to forty, with life passing me by, no family or kin, is it? A misplaced sense of responsibility or something? Crank, maybe, huh? No, maybe it’s more like you’re seeing someone who wants to buy off his conscience.”
“You’re giving me a lot of choices, I’d have to say.”
“Let me try a few more on you. Maybe I was starstruck by Sheila Hanratty? Hah. I was never so. But you’re right in one suspicion which you haven’t mentioned. I don’t vote in Dan Howard’s direction.”