The Coast Road (Matt Minogue Mysteries)

by John Brady

  “Tragic. I heard it’s actually fierce old-fashioned out there in Dalkey too.”

  “You might want to check your sources on that.”

  “No need. Mobile coverage hasn’t even reached there yet. Did you know that?”

  “I forgot,” Minogue said. “I turn it off and, well, we’ve talked about this before.”

  “You think I sit around trying to invent reasons to phone you, no doubt. But here I am anyway, I suppose. There’s something you need to know.”

  Any hint of drollery in Kilmartin’s voice had vanished now.

  “So listen to me. I’m not codding now. I’m going to ask you a question, and you say yes or no to it. Okay? I repeat: this is not a cod.”

  Minogue could think of nothing to say.

  “Is Malone there beside you? Remember, all I need is a yes or a no here.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, okay. I needed to know that. Now get that goddamned mobile of yours, and switch it on. Can you do that? It’ll say something like ‘On.’ O-N.” “I’m kind of in the middle of stuff here.”

  “You’re in the middle of something way more important than that, and you don’t even realize it. So switch on your mobile.”

  “Look, what exactly—”

  “You need to listen to me.”

  Kilmartin’s anger brought Minogue out of his slouch.

  “You think I’m just passing the time here? So listen. Now, can I get you to do that one thing for me?”

  A chill space opened in Minogue’s chest. “Okay. I can do that, I suppose.”

  “I want you to act normal – none of your wit now. Just like we’re having a chat, like how’s the form, weather is shite, how’s the new car running – all that. You ready?”

  “I am, I think.”

  “Normal, I said – light-hearted. Chatty. Ready? Now. Do it now. And hurry up.”

  “I heard that all right. Fogarty will play goal against Limerick, I believe too.”

  “Good – good. Now just carry on. You-know-who next to you has to think we’re having a casual chat. In a minute, you’re going to take a walk – with your frigging mobile – and I’m going to call you back. See?”

  Minogue didn’t. Something fluttered and rose in his chest. Worry? Pity? Had Kilmartin finally cracked? He didn’t sound drunk. Had he finally given up on trying to rebuild? That the self-help books, the shrink sessions, the ‘making changes in his life’ guff had all proven worthless? He imagined an unshaven Kilmartin sitting in his car, making these weird, urgent, Man-From-U.N.C.L.E. calls.

  “Talk to me,” Kilmartin snapped. “Are you alive or dead there?”

  “Fogarty he was injured in a match against Cork last year, so who knows?”

  “Good. Okay, one, just one bit of your usual, ah, wit, and then you sign off.”

  Minogue watched Malone swill his tea, and then stand. He couldn’t help trying to eavesdrop, of course. That’s what detectives did.

  “I’ll give it a try,” he said to Kilmartin.

  “Good. So, back to hurling. Ready? Okay, here I go: Clare team couldn’t get a goal if the goalposts were cut down and fecking handed to them. Okay – your turn.”

  “Thanks anyway. The day I go to a Mayo game will be the day I swear off drink.”

  “Good. Close it now. Ready? Here’s something to get you launched: the Clare team couldn’t hit a fecking lump of cowshite over a wall. Useless, the lot of you.” “Thanks,” said Minogue. “Same to you.” He replaced the receiver and looked sideways at Malone. “You want tickets to a Mayo game? I never thought of asking you. Hurling.”

  Malone held the door handle but didn’t turn it. “What’s Mayo? What’s hurling?”

  He listened to Malone’s footsteps recede down the hall. Then he rose, and taking his coat, he made his way down the hall. He returned Fitz’s how-do with a cheery remark about the unknown pleasures of Dalkey, pausing only to receive to a quip from Fitz about a better class of ‘ordinary decent criminal.’

  A squad car had parked very tight to the driver’s side of his Peugeot.

  “Where are you?” was Kilmartin’s opener.

  Another image of Kilmartin came to him now: elbows on a desk, crouched over the phone, the head down on him like he was trying to choke the receiver to death.

  “I’m sitting in my car like an iijit, in the station yard here.”

  “Well that can’t be new for you. Nobody listening in there beside you?”

  “No. Look, what exactly are you doing? What’s all this James Bond craic?”

  “I’ll go straight to the point. Your pal there is in it. Right up to his bloody neck.”

  “In what?”

  “I can’t give you details. It’s not the kind of thing I can ask the fella who told me this. But it’s bad, very bad. They’re onto him, Malone. Onto him again, I should say.”

  “I don’t get this. Is this a book, a series – a comic?”

  “Are you gone deaf? I said they’re on to him! They’re going after him. They want Malone’s hide nailed up on the fecking wall. Is that clear enough for you?”

  “Who does?”

  “Internal Review – a.k.a. Tynan and his crowd! They want Malone to swing.”

  Minogue listened harder to Kilmartin’s breathing.

  “What about the Ombudsman inquiry? The all-clear that he got?”

  “Ombudsman my arse. Do you think the Garda Síochána is going to be said or led by that parcel of tripe? Review was holding back to see what GSOC might drop on Malone. They’ve been nosing around Malone for years. Malone’s brother, the drugs? All his mates from Primary School are gangsters…? Come on! Let’s get real here. We all wondered. Maybe you didn’t, you being the trusting type. He’s played you for that.”

  “Think this over,” Minogue started to say.

  “Facts, man! Facts! They think they have Malone this time.”

  “What facts?”

  “What am I, Google? I was lucky to get wind of it at all. It’s the real deal, with S and I on board, even. All undercover, ad-hoc. They only report to Tynan. The fella who told me took a fierce chance. And another thing: realize that Tynan set you up too.”

  S and I: Minogue echoed within. Garda Security & Intelligence spooks? Malone?

  “Are you in one of your fecking trances there, or what?”

  “How, set me up?” Minogue asked.

  “You’re Malone’s minder, you gobshite! You keep him from noticing!”

  Minogue stared harder at the symbols on the face plate of his car radio. He rolled his thumb carefully along the bevel to dislodge a patina of Dublin’s finest grime.

  Kilmartin’s voice was caught between impatience and pity. “Look, didn’t I try to warn you the other day? Are you ready now?”

  “Ready for what?”

  “Jesus, man, you’re a cross to bear! The whole thing about Malone, the handy way Kelly was put out of the picture, the Triad fella, the Chinese girlfriend—” “Fiancée, and she was born in Macau.”

  “Are you going to just keep on doing your la-la routine there?”

  Minogue noticed more dirt by the buttons, and put the nail of his baby finger to it.

  “Answer me, will you?”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay what?”

  “This won’t wash, that’s what. We’ve been down this road before. That time, you finally saw through the Egans’s efforts to dirty Tommy up back then.”

  “I know, I know! But this isn’t the parish pump stuff, this is an international syndicate. They’re everywhere, and they use anybody. They extort, they blackmail, they buy – anybody and anything. And something else, don’t be getting any ‘race’ thing going on your head about what I’m telling you. I like that girl, Sonia, or whatever her real name is. They have their own real names, you know?” “Just like us, you mean?”

  “She might have no say in the matter. Her parents could be clean as a whistle too, but they’re being extorted. Loans gone bad, restaurant business down, th
e crisis…? A Triad fella shows up with money – but then he wants his way. That’s how they operate. They infiltrate. So don’t keep pretending, okay? For Christ’s sake, even let yourself think that maybe there’s something here. Just let yourself to think ‘if,’ will you?”

  “If I’d been born with seats instead of hands I’d be the Glenamuck bus.”

  An unexpected calm had come into Kilmartin’s voice. “You haven’t a clue – I accept that. But still I’m on your side. Malone got by GSOC, but Review won’t fall for it, no siree Bob. Can I make it any clearer?”

  This was paranoia, Minogue decided. You could pin it on the wall as a specimen.

  “Are you taking this in there?” Kilmartin demanded.

  “I am. Unfortunately.”

  “Spare me the high-minded guff there will you? It’s a bit late in the day for you to be getting sense. I told you, the loyalty is a great thing with you. Lot of respect for that, I have. But by Jesus, you deserve better than to be made a mug of, to be set up like this.”

  “How ever did I mange to walk upright all these years without your guidance?”

  “Christ but you’re the cross-grained bastard today. Look. They know – they know, I’m telling you, that Malone tossed that fecker off the roof. Kelly – Artane Kelly. And they are going to nail him for it. Got that?”

  Minogue closed his eyes. Kilmartin’s fervid tone had rattled him.

  “How do they know,” he murmured. “How?”

  “How? Kelly was the issue. Not because he was Kelly, but because he was going to spill the beans on something. You put a rat in a corner, a rat’ll bite you. So if Kelly starts blathering…? That’s not going to work for anyone, is it?”

  The yard was still there when Minogue opened his eyes again. It looked smaller, the sky above closer. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself closing his phone in mid-speech.

  “Jim,” he said.

  “Why do you think Malone was so keen to get up on that roof? Through the barbed wire, cutting his hands and that? Why would he do that?”

  “He gets intense, you know that.”

  “Where was Kelly going to go? Nowhere! And the others told Malone to forget it, and just wait. So again, what’s Malone’s hurry to get up? You can’t get around that.”

  “Maybe he didn’t hear it. Maybe he thought there was a ladder, or whatever.”

  “The operation is so tight that no-one has ever been able to get so much as a peek in. Well Jesus, think about it – no wonder it’s tight. Malone’s right in the thick of it.”

  “Jim, I have to tell you something. I’m going to hang up now.”

  “What? Don’t be stupid. You should be thanking me. Not that I expect it.”

  “And after I hang up, I’m going to wait five minutes. Then I’m going to phone you back. And we’re going to meet, you and me. Okay?”

  “What the hell for? Amn’t I telling you all you need to know here?”

  “Look. Who told you this stuff?”

  “Whoa there, cowboy. Get off that horse. Didn’t I tell you it’s confidential?”

  “You’re making this up, Jim. It’s not real.” That worked. Minogue winced. He stopped counting after five.

  “I wondered,” said Kilmartin. The warm condescension that was his trademark came through in half-growled, half-chuckled words now.

  “I really, really wondered,” he continued. “But sure, I did it anyway. I went ahead and I phoned you. It’s just something you do for a pal. For a man you respect, and you want to look out for. The loyalty thing, that’s all we have, at the end of the day.”

  “If you’d just give me a bit of corroboration…”

  “All right, Matt. Nice, sensible question. You’re always on the ball. Of course.”

  “Give me something to work with here. You can’t just phone up and tell me this when it makes no sense. The Ombudsman office are not thickos. They dug, and they gave Tommy the all-clear. Why don’t people accept that?”

  “Why indeed,” said Kilmartin. The airy tone didn’t mask his disdain. “Why can’t we all just get along? Why can’t we take a man at his word? Like old times, right? When we had morals or decency in the country. When a Guard’s word was the gold standard. When we could trust the parish priest, or the bishop. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I’m not asking for some fairytale past.”

  “Good,” Kilmartin retorted. “Because that never existed, did it. We know that now, of course, don’t we? But what I’m telling you here is this: I saw this thing with Malone coming over the horizon. So did you, bucko, but you ignored it.”

  “Saw what? Ignored what?”

  “There you go with that denial thing again. You see? Surely to God you remember me wondering about Malone back in the Squad, don’t you? That brother of his, God be good to him, the rumours flying around?”

  “Rumours – exactly. The Egans play mind games. They’re still at it, from behind bars. But you know all this.” “Do you think I get any satisfaction out of this?” Minogue sat back. It wasn’t anger settling in his thoughts, but a cold pity.

  “I’d have been told,” he said

  “Listen, Mr. ‘I’d a been told.’ The fella who passed this on to me? I told you – he put himself out on a limb to tell me. Not all the good guys have taken early retirement, or been gagged, or softened up with desks in HQ. I trust him. There’s nothing in it for him, to be stirring up trouble. He was concerned that a good copper – you, he was referring to, you – is in danger of getting taken down along with our friend there. Unwittingly, of course. That’d be a travesty, he said to me. A travesty and a tragedy.” Minogue bit back the urge to mock Kilmartin’s words.

  “So there you have it,” Kilmartin said.

  “I’ll be in touch. Good luck—”

  “—Wait. You can go off now in a huff, and no-one will stop you. But you owe it to yourself not to get caught up in this thing. Your career, your family.” “Jim, I have to go.”

  “You’re not helping yourself or anyone else by taking this denial line.”

  “There’s no denial. There’s work, and I’m behind.”

  “Listen to reason a minute, will you! S and I coppers are pit bulls? They’ll look at a senior Guard – you I’m talking about again – and straightaway the attitude is, ‘well he must be in on it too.’ Why? ‘Because he’s been on the job so long – anyone on the job this long must be in on it.’ See? That’s how they think.”

  “There’s no ‘it.’ There’s nothing to be ‘in on.’”

  “The fact is,” Kilmartin went on. “They’re freaking at HQ. Somebody put two and two together there. It’s the whole out-of-control scenario with the gangs. The murders, the bank jobs, the floods and floods of drugs, the Chinese massage stuff. It’s everything happening at the same time, the whole shemozzle.”

  “And their great confederation of minds there, or their software, tells them…?”

  “Do I have to spell it out for you? Jesus! I shouldn’t even be talking to you. Okay, here it is in plain English: inside job. Got that? Yes, they’re taking it as a given that there’s insiders in the Guards for years now. They’ll tear down anything. You see?”

  “I don’t, actually.”

  “I can’t keep banging my head against a wall here. I know you’re the goods. I know I can trust you. So I speak my mind here. This is no time for you to be a gobshite. These fellas are going all-out. Like I said, top secret, under the radar, no-holds-barred. Nothing in writing, no section appointments. If they have to take out a few people to get at someone, they don’t care.”

  “Let’s call it quits. I’ve heard what you said. I appreciate the motive.”

  “Do you hear me – really do you? I don’t think so. You don’t know what you’re dealing with here, that’s my message, in a nutshell.”

  In a nuthouse, Minogue wanted to say. He took a deep breath.

  “Are you still there?”

  Are you still there, Minogue echoed within. Are you all there?


  Images circled in his mind again. Kilmartin’s stricken face, slack with the shock and the booze, lifting his face off his own well-tended front lawn after one of the ERU crew finally cut the restraints. Kilmartin standing, wavering, in the revolving blue wash from the Garda lights, trying and failing to form words.

  “Well?”

  “Thanks,” Minogue said.