by John Brady
“Nobody knows that, Davey. Nobody but the good Lord Himself. Nobody.”
“For that mass thing, that black mass? God forgives people, doesn’t he?”
Minogue looked around the churchyard again. There were enough places out of sight of the lane here. Too many, perhaps.
“Especially how long ago,” McArdle added. His voice had grown earnest, almost plaintive. “When he was young. He didn’t know what he was doing. Right, Sister?”
Chapter 18
Smoking a cigarette here by the side of his car wasn’t getting Minogue any revelations. What he was getting instead was looks from passing drivers. No matter. He tried to parse his thoughts again. The last few minutes in the car with Sister Immaculata had been strained. Her distant, wary tone, the sparse, non-committal observations. All in all, she had disengaged, retreating in her thoughts to somewhere he couldn’t reach.
Had there been no sign, he had pressed, no sign at all of gay stuff between Larkin and McArdle? There might have been, she allowed, but she hadn’t picked up on them.
Did she think that Larkin was the type to exploit someone like Davey McArdle? Well, she really couldn’t say.
Was there something else that she had forgotten to tell him maybe…?
But she had given Minogue no sign that she had picked up on his sarcasm. She seemed genuinely puzzled by the question, even bewildered.
He shivered a little, and let slip a few of the curses that had been rolling around in his head. It was bad ju-ju to be cursing a nun. He checked the sky for any sign of an angry God between the clouds, sizing him up for a good zap. Not yet. Later maybe, when he let down his guard. He eyed his cigarette: near to halfway, the ditching-point.
An elderly woman shuffled by, glancing at the open windows of his Peugeot.
“The day will take up, please God,” she declared. Intended as a smile, her face creased into a grimace instead.
“We could do with it, ma’am, couldn’t we.”
“As if we didn’t have enough to be going on with!”
He could only smile. Her eyes bulged with some passion
“God help Ireland,” she said. “That’s all can I say these days!”
And she was off. He flicked the butt into the road. Driving away, he reminded himself to take that old blanket out of the boot when he got home. Dump it, even. The traffic lights were at their most disobliging. He was soon sitting at light after light, drawing the gearstick over and back in neutral and trying to be sympathetic toward the town and its inhabitants. Dun Laoghaire had been hard hit since the bubble burst. Away from its seafront walks and piers, the place had always had too many mangy-looking pubs and bookies. He felt eyes on him: a sweaty-headed dawdler staring from a doorway. Trackies, hoody, Nikes: check. No pretense – just the steady, squinting, eff-off stare that didn’t falter when he drew a cigarette to his lips.
He had found the timeless traffic light. He closed his eyes and went to his old ruses, and soon he was threading his way through heather, the wind hissing across the bog and soft turf underfoot. His idyll veered unexpectedly: a churchyard, darkness, figures moving about. What exactly was a Black Mass anyway? And did anyone actually believe that stuff any more? Drugs. A crowd of teenagers, Larkin among them. Images flared and died in his thoughts: candle lights, murmured incantations, hallucinating couples naked in the long grasses. The Summer of Love, Dublin style.
He was turning on to Castle Street when Malone phoned.
“JJ Mac,” he said. “Not on a flight list. Not on a ferry.”
“Out of Ireland, you mean, I take it.”
“Well do you want me to try the Brits then?”
Minogue couldn’t spot any gap in the parked cars. He coasted by the station, half-wondering if anyone would see him on his mobile and slap a fine on him.
“Can’t we get any pointers from his associates? Is he avoiding someone? Is he on something? Does he owe money? Suspect in anything? Lying low…?”
“Nothing so far, boss. But okay, I’ll keep at it. Is that what I’m hearing?”
Minogue remembered Tynan’s tone when talking about JJ Mac. But he wouldn’t have mentioned the same McCarthy if he hadn’t wanted something done about him. The appearance of due diligence at least.
“It is,” he said to Malone. “Yes. Keep looking local for a bit longer.”
“‘Details, details.’”
“That’s the speech I had ready, yes. Look, I’m by the station now, in a minute.”
“Okay,” he said. “Any go-ahead from that drop-in place? That Disciples gaff?”
“I just finished taking one of them out for a spin. Him and me, and Immaculata.”
“The nun too? What, she’s his bodyguard or something?”
“She calms him down. Sort of translates a bit too. He’s light on the loafers.” “A fairy, you mean?”
“Enough with ‘fairy’ talk, Tommy. It ain’t right.”
“Well what should I be saying then?”
“Sister Immaculata calls it ‘confused.’”
“‘Confused?’ Nuns, heh… What do they know about stuff like that?”
“She said the same to me – rhetorically, you can be sure.”
“Means…?”
“It means maybe she knows more than we think she knows.”
“You’re back to that again. Interesting.” Minogue spotted a parking spot behind a Post van. It’d be tight.
“My point is,” he said. “She knows these men. She can get things out of them.”
“Like what?”
“There’s an old church ruin here, a cemetery. McArdle went there with Larkin.”
“For...?”
“You tell me.”
“Booze? And…something else?”
“Two out of two.”
“Is this the gay angle? A bit of how’s-your-father, yeah?”
“How delicate of you. But here’s the thing. I don’t know the details. McArdle is not keen to paint the full picture. Can we make him? Entice him? I don’t know.”
“Why not just get this nun of yours out of the way, bring in these fellas and—”
“—And what, Tommy? Won’t work – that’s why. There’s no other way. Where did the investigation get with these lads on the first go-round?”
Malone’s slow, interrogative okay meant his bullshit detector knew better.
“Look,” Minogue said. “I’m just parking, I’ll be up in a few minutes.”
He closed his mobile. He had doubts about the spot now, it was so tight, but he went in anyway.
***
An hour or so later, Minogue was on hold when his mobile went. Kilmartin’s name glowed a little brighter as he held the power button, and then the screen died.
He checked his watch: four and a half minutes he’d been on hold. One Eileen Molloy, a medical social worker who had connected with Larkin several times in the past few years, was ‘checking the policy’ on second interviews with the Guards. They had a policy on that? But he’d heard nothing in her tone that hinted she enjoyed thwarting him.
He had asked her to consider it a continuation of the original statement back in July. Ms. Molloy had let on that she was amused more than affronted by this request. She tried to remind him then of how little contact she had had with Padraig Larkin. He had been an outpatient at the Casualty Office at St. Michael’s in Dun Laoghaire. As he had presented signs of homelessness, she had said, part of her role was to follow up and see if he could not be helped in that regard. Connected with homeless agencies, and suchlike. ‘Presented’? The word kept circling in his thoughts.
One of thousands, he imagined her wanting to say. A feeble spark of pleasure came to him when he fed her the official line: case review requires every detail be checked. Procedures indeed.
He had overshot the lunchtime, and it was beginning to tell. He felt around for his cigarettes, and listened to Malone repeat the script as he had been doing for an hour now in his phone calls: updating our information on the Padraig Larkin case; a routine
case review; yes, it was ongoing; anything that might have been overlooked, or would want to alter; shouldn’t be at all embarrassed to bring anything up.
Eileen Molloy was back. They were short-staffed, the cutbacks, and her supervisor was covering for someone. Could he phone back later today, or she him?
Malone let go the mouse, and went slowly into a long, wide-ranging stretch. He had been searching PULSE for nearly an hour.
“It’s not party central up there in the woods there,” he said.
“Up the Hill, I mean. Not according to this anyway. None of that black mass stuff you were talking about either. Sure no-one believes that crap these days anyway.” “That we know about. That was reported.” Malone shrugged.
“There was a barney there last July,” he said. “Young fellas, drinking, and it got rough. Some other crowd showed up, a bit of a set-to. Two squad cars, but the young fellas did a runner. No arrests, no charges. A bit of vandalism back after the Christmas. Cars keyed two years back, and a few tires slashed. A total of five cars got broken into, over the year.”
Minogue shivered in the draft. He glanced at his to-do list. Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Council, the litter wardens. Rework Walshe’s alias. McArdle’s too. A proper Bureau sweep of that churchyard? Other old churches and ruins. Any hang-outs there?
“Any mention of our King of Ireland in those?” Malone shook his head.
“This Walshe fella,” he said after a pause. “Seán Walshe, right?”
“Seánie Walshe, he goes by. What about him?”
“He loses it, you told me. Violent bouts. Yeah?”
Minogue watched him balance his biro on his knuckles, and then quickly twist his hand to seize it.
“Try this one,” said Malone then. “McArdle and Walshe – in cahoots. Yeah?” Minogue frowned in response.
“Does McArdle know that Larkin got a bit of money every week?” Malone asked. “We don’t know that. Yet.”
“Okay, just say he does. So he gets Walshe to do in Larkin. It’s for the money – they take Larkin’s money, that allowance that he hadn’t spent yet?”
“And part of the deal is that McArdle will alibi Walshe.”
“Right,” said Malone. “But maybe there was no deal to swap alibis. Maybe in a sneaky way, McArdle could be just stitching up Walshe for it. First he fed him a story – Walshe, I mean – and then Walshe goes spare over it, and kills Larkin. Now McArdle had Walshe in his pocket for that.”
“Crazy smart, not crazy crazy? I don’t know, Tommy, I don’t know.”
“What if McArdle is playing everybody? Even if he puts it on a bit, that he’s, you know, retarded? But he’s actually not? Or not so much, like?”
“It’s long shot. Way back of the running. Go on, though.”
“Maybe it’s not even about money,” Malone said, pausing to attend to his biro. “Say Larkin has something, or McArdle thinks he had – booze, say. Or prescription stuff. Let’s just say, Larkin wasn’t sharing.”
“I’d be leaving that one on the table all right,” Minogue murmured.
“Ready for the next one then? Here it is: McArdle didn’t want to do his share.” Minogue met his gaze.
“Will that pass the politically correct bit with you? The ‘do his share’ bit?”
“Just about. You’re talking sex stuff between them, I take it.”
Malone was poised to rise from the chair.
“And what about that black mass stuff that Larkin was into way back?”
“Fair enough,” said Minogue. “We have roads to go down there. But later, after we get a better picture of things.”
Malone shrugged. He logged off with sharp, stabbing keystrokes and ended in a flourish, before rising robotically from the chair.
“If this were easy we wouldn’t be here,” Minogue said. “Would we?”
Malone stopped in mid-stretch and looked sideways at him.
“What?” said Minogue.
“Tell me about ‘easy,’” he said. “I’m useless at this ‘easy’ thing, or so I’m told. Know what I’m talking about?”
Minogue shook his head.
“The world of ‘easy,’ is what. ‘Easy,’ says she – Sonia. You know this Sonia one I’m talking about?” Minogue tried not to look taken aback by the bitter tone. “Your fiancée, you mean,” he said.
“Close – ex-fiancée. Former fiancée – Okay. Let’s say ‘girl-friend’ Sonia, I’m talking about then. Anyway. ‘Just take a course,’ says she. ‘Any course, make it an easy one. Father will be impressed.’ Yeah, she calls him ‘father.’ ‘Father respects stuff like that.’ ‘Easy’ says the Ma the other night. We were talking about the way things is going nowadays. I don’t mean the recession thing, I mean crime, and all.” “Are. How things are going.”
Malone drummed his fingers once on the table and sighed. “‘Just go for Sergeant’s again,’ says the Ma. “‘Easy does it. Take a step back,’ says she. ‘Go easyon yourself. Let the young fellas do that stuff. There’s nothing wrong with finding the easy route.’”
The glance he gave Minogue went quickly from scathing to sardonic.
“You know what she was talking about, right?” Minogue managed a non-committal nod.
“That’s right,” said Malone. He paused, made a faint snort. “No more running across rooftops after the likes of Artane frigging Kelly. You know?”
“Your mother knows her onions, I say.”
“You think? ‘But Ma,’ says I.‘I am a young fella. Are you blind?’ No one wants to really stuck into it, I told her. Coppers, like. Nooo-body wants to get their hands dirty.”
With that, he pocketed his hands and he eyed the door. He spoke in a low voice.
“Like here.”
“Like here, what?”
“You haven’t noticed yet? This kind of country club setup here?”
Minogue’s leveled a look at him.
“What,” Malone said. “It’s like they got to a certain point, and then they just…?” Minogue waved off the rest of it.
“Look,” he said. “This is just you and me talking. That’s the way it has to stay too. We’re not here to make local Guards look like iijits. We’ve just started here.” Malone made a non-committal gesture.
“Yeah, well if it’s got to be them or us in an iijit contest, I want them to win.”
Minogue sat back, and fixed Malone with a blank stare. “Am I supposed to hear that?”
Malone checked the scarred linoleum tiles by his feet for a moment.
“Cup of tea?” he asked after a few moments. Minogue dithered.
“Saw a few bikkies over there in the canteen,” Malone added. “Does that help?” “Just a drop of milk then. And thanks.”
Malone stretched again, and he finished with a slow slam-dunk that ended in a tight grasp of the handle of his mug. It was the souvenir mug from Rome, Minogue noticed, from the time that Malone had taken his mother ‘to see the Pope or something.’
“Pissy,” Malone said, with bogus cheer. “You like your tea pissy. Right?”
Minogue listened to Malone’s footfalls retreat down the hallway and then begin to fade on the stairs. Definitely an altered Malone. Any cynicism had been wrapped in humour before now. But any plan to marry Sonia was gone in the wind now. How could he not be bitter? Just one more episode on the gauntlet that Malone’s life had become? It had been four years now – no, five – since Terry had overdosed. A twin, he thought again, for the thousandth time. Did some of a person die too when a twin died?
He rolled his drawer shut. It got two-thirds-way closed before he had to fix it.
Chapter 19
Minogue studied the flickering extension light. There was no ring tone on this contraption? Malone took the call. “No way,” he said to the caller. “Yep.”
He held the receiver out, and made a mock salute with his free hand. Minogue put down the pencil that he had been trying to use as a magic wand, drawing lines between the times and the names that he had transcribed from a Detective
McKeon’s notes. It was McKeon who had chased down and verified the alibis for McArdle and Walshe.
Kilmartin sounded subdued.
“So what’s it like out there? Five star-situation?”
“To be sure. Gold fittings in the toilets, helipads. Our own Hollywood Hills.”
“Really? I worried it might be a bit raw for you out there. That good though?”
“It’s a bit low on the glamour. Lower on the glory. No helipad either.”