The Coast Road (Matt Minogue Mysteries)

by John Brady

  “It looks like you had one of those, ah, Damascene moments then?”

  Kilmartin screened his pride in the esoteric phrase by feigning an interest in a group of office people. They had moved beyond the tipsy, to the loud-and-clumsy stage. A man slowly rose from the group, slack-faced and perspiring, to take a call on his mobile somewhere quieter. The wife, Minogue thought, as he watched him rub his forehead and hair: where the hell are you? He took in the tousled, thinning hair, the sideburns. He had not been able to get Garda Corcoran’s face and Tom Jones’ disentangled in his mind for days now. Yes, Corcoran’s funeral was tomorrow, in Firhouse. Fitz had made it known again yesterday that there were two Guards whose presence anywhere near the funeral would be undesirable. To drive that home, he had even gotten Carney to deliver that message late yesterday to Minogue in a bogus happened-to-be-passing visit in Harcourt Terrace. Feelings were running high, was the expression that Carney had used. As if Minogue hadn’t known already.

  Nor could he purge from his thoughts the suspicion that what Kilmartin had said was true: Malone brought trouble with him, and it would only get worse. ‘Some news for youse’ indeed. Malone might have picked this evening to tell them that crunch time had come: for him, case review was over, dead in the water. At least in Drugs Central, he’d be around his kind and whatever happened, happened there.

  Kilmartin made a display of consulting his watch.

  “You’re sure you told him half six here in Ryan’s, this year too, as well…?”

  “Where else is there?” Minogue said.

  “No worries that some other posse is going to barrel in here guns blazing, looking to do the right Malone this time?”

  “How is that funny? You big Mayo mullocker.”

  “You just don’t appreciate wit. I know the hammer came down the other day.”

  There had been over two hundred Guards involved in Monday’s raids. Minogue’s contact in Serious Crimes had told him the interviews were coming up with unsettling similarities: those who admitted to even hearing about Corcoran’s murder were all swearing holes in pots that the shooters were hires over from England. Someone there had decided that they couldn’t wait to find out what Malone did, or didn’t know. ‘Someone…?’ Shrugs, pretend guesses: ‘Chinese.’ ‘The Turks.’ ‘The Russians.’ Snow White – or one of her fecking Dwarfs, maybe.

  “Oh I get it now,” Kilmartin added. “He invites us here, lets us think he’s going to actually apologize for all that undercover trick-acting. But really, what he’s going to do is start another row in the jacks here and get us barred out of here. His idea of fun.”

  Minogue eyed the television again. Kilmartin leaned in, whispering.

  “Or he’s finally to turn himself in, admit he’s been dirty for years.”

  Minogue refused to take his eye off the screen.

  “It’s getting too hot for him is why,” he heard Kilmartin say.

  “The new crowd doesn’t care, they’ll do whatever they want, see? Twenty-something examples of that in Dublin this year so far. Malone sees the writing on the wall.”

  Minogue let his mind take him to Glencree, and the long climb up over the waterfall. A flailing wind, the stand of old oaks with their stoic, orchestral groaning.

  “Ah what the hell,” said Kilmartin, shifting gears back into that fake heartiness that had been his default mode. “What’s your hurry home? Let Kathleen have her bit of peace and quiet.”

  The forest and racing clouds vanished from his mind’s eye in an instant, and Minogue now saw of the paraphernalia that Kathleen took to leaving in open view. Candles, Bridget’s crosses, copies of the prayers. Yes, the same Kathleen had probably mentioned their row to Maura Kilmartin. He had become a little remorseful at his rant about her wanting to turn the clock back to some Golden Age, when everything in Ireland had been pure as a mountain stream, when there were holy women everywhere and other ‘Celtic’ fantasies.

  Stills of priests from older snapshots began appearing on the screen. Many wore glasses, he noticed, and most were smiling: avuncular, learned, charming, respected. Desecrate, he suddenly thought: couldn’t it be used for what they’d done to kids?

  “Jesus holy God in Heaven above. I can’t believe what I’m hearing – seeing.”

  The terse words, more grunt than whisper, had come from Kilmartin. His eyes were locked on the screen, an angry bewilderment clouding his face. His lips barely moved when he spoke.

  “How the hell could this happen? In Ireland? I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.”

  He seemed to be waiting for a remark from Minogue, some signal.

  “Maybe they’re right,” he said then. “Just string ’em up…” A familiar urge to mischief rushed to Minogue, a desire to prod Kilmartin back.

  “String who up?” he asked. Kilmartin’s elbow was sharp.

  “No jokes about this bucko,” he said, between his teeth. “Ever. It’s beyond—”

  Malone was holding the door open. Sonia Chang’s face showed the same tentative self-assurance that had always baffled Minogue. Working their way around customers toward them, Malone reached for her arm, and Minogue caught sight of the ring.