Islandbridge (38 page)

She placed her hand flat on her desk and pushed slowly to try and stop her heart racing.

“That's the future,” he said. “There's work for these people, and if I'm thinking straight, there's going to be lots more. Get them in from Mongolia, anywhere. Look, we'd be giving these people a start, that's my way of thinking, right? Maybe learn a bit of English, see? You have to start somewhere. Do you see what I'm getting at?”

“I think so, but Mr. Rynn–”

“What? If the Irish won't work, I say, give someone else the chance. Here, I'll bet your outfit hasn't considered that now, have you? Ah, it's obvious I'm barking up the wrong tree with yous. I mean I can't be waiting and explaining here. You don't know what's going on out there at all, by the sound of this. Let's just forget it, there.”

“Mr. Rynn,” she began but stopped, had to clear her throat.

“No. I can tell I'm at the wrong place.”

“I have to pass on a message to you.”

“What message? Look, I'm not interested in ‘a message.'”

Everything rushed up at her then. She almost put the phone down. She squeezed it harder instead, and she opened her eyes again.

“Are you listening?”

She could tell by his voice that he was suspicious now, irritated.

“What? What do you mean? Are you going to give me the brush-off here, what's your name again? You never told me your name.”

“Maura. Someone wants to meet you, today.”

“Who does? What are you on about?”

“It has to be today. In an hour. She says she has a very important message.”

“She? She who?”

“Eimear Kelly wants to meet you.”

“Eimear who?”

“Eimear Kelly. Declan Kelly's wife. Garda Declan Kelly.”

She waited for the line to go dead. She looked down at her hand. She had twisted the telephone cord around her finger enough to leave a criss-crossed red weal.

“And what would this person have to tell me?”

“I believe,” she said, pausing to swallow in her throat gone suddenly dry. “I believe she can tell you something that could stop you spending your life in jail.”

“Is that what this person told you, now? And when did she tell you this?”

“She says to meet her, in a pub near Kimmage Cross Roads. She said you'd know it. Come on your own.”

“Who are you? Who put you up to this?”

“A quarter to four.”

“This is a joke? Who the hell is this?”

She held the receiver an inch over the base for several moments, watching it waver as she tried to still her hand. She heard his voice grow louder, he started to curse, she put down the receiver and then she let her forehead down on the desk.

Chapter 22

T
HEY BROUGHT
M
INOGUE, AND
M
ALONE
, down to Pearse Station. They: a hyperactive detective named Brendan Somebody and an older, untidy-looking sergeant with yellow teeth and a sagging look to him that his moustache did not bolster, one bit. Minogue had already forgotten the sergeant's first name, twice. He waited with some embarrassment for the chance to hear it from the other Guard, or even Malone. Malone still looked shook. He didn't offer even the slightest bit of humour that might ease the tension. Minogue saw his hands shake, even under the fidgetiness and finger work, the drumming, the incessant patting Malone kept up to hide the shakes.

The evening had set in. Minogue had felt stupid being driven through the pedestrian area. Stupider still when the driver put on the light to cross four lanes so he could swing around Pearse Street. A taxi man braked hard during this. Minogue didn't need to be a lip-reading expert.

“Come on up,” said the sergeant when they got off Townsend Street, and the door of the car park closed behind the car. “We'll be done in no time.”

To Minogue, something in the voice's inflection came over as a subtle tilt to whimsy. While he conceded that it had probably not been intended at all, he still speculated on the origins of the man's accent. He couldn't decide Carlow, Wicklow, or even Wexford behind how the words were spun and set in the air.

“Or do ye want to slip into Mulligan's there, maybe apply some lotion?”

Minogue offered a tight smile but declined the bogus offer to go to the well-known pub around the corner. He was thinking about the small cloud appearing from the wall above Malone's head back near Merchant's Arch, the pulverized mortar thrown out by the bullet, hanging in the air a few moments.

“The Naas Road, you said,” said the sergeant and held open the door. “This fella? ‘George'?”

“If it's him, yes.”

“And if it wasn't? Who else would be taking potshots at you two?”

Malone paused to give the sergeant a look.

“You did time here in Pearse Street, I understand, er, Matt?”

“A good long while ago, yes.”

The sergeant nodded, as though in sympathy. Then he rubbed his hands

“A cup of something then?” he asked. “Those statements will be typed up, I mean word-processed, in no time. No time at all.”

Minogue knew that someone, likely the sergeant, would be comparing his with Malone's before he'd give them a look for corrections in the signing copy.

Inside what passed for a canteen there were four uniforms lazing about. Their patrol gear was strewn on other chairs. A few nods ensued, a non-committal “how's it going.” Malone started looking for a kettle or something but tipped a cup on the floor. He stood staring at it for a minute.

“I hope you're not the team's goalie,” Minogue heard one of the uniforms say.

“Sorry about that,” said Malone.

“How well you might now,” said another. “And it being the most important cup we have here.”

The lush and twisting accent of Clare arrowed straight to Minogue's brain. He looked over at its issuer, a heavy, ginger-headed loafer sunk into a deep slouch against the wall. He was now observing Minogue with a testy eye.

“You'd better have your prayers said, lads,” he said. “that was Big Joe's cup you destroyed.”

“Big Joe?”

“Ah now, go aisy on yourself. We don't want to be frightening you.”

Malone was fetching about for something to sweep up the floor. Minogue filled the kettle.

“Bicycle Joe,” said another Guard. “You don't want to mess with Bicycle Joe.”

The door opened and a Bean Garda came in. She was hatted and kitted, ready for the streets already. One of the Guards laughed.

“Speak of the divil. Joe, this man's after destroying your cup.

Lookit.”

Malone turned and nodded.

“Were you the two caught up in that fooferaw down in the Temple Bar,” she said. “I heard it on the radio downstairs.”

Malone nodded. One by one, the Guards began getting up from the table. There was a loud, long groan from one, and the lazy-eyed Clareman stretched himself and wheezed.

“Clareman, are you?”

“Straight up my spine,” said Minogue, “to the top of my big, thick head.”

“Well, you can break every damn cup in the place so.”

Malone kept at his sweeping. One of the Guards asked if he'd gotten the bruise just now.

Togged up, their walkie talkies tested, the Guards began to file out. The Bean Garda took out rubber gloves to check them and then pocketed them again.

“The times we're living in,” she said to Minogue.

“Tell me again when you're Commissioner,” he said.

“The charm just rolling off you,” she said.

“What's the Bicycle Joe thing, do you mind me asking? If it's salacious now . . .”

But she laughed.

“Not a bit of it, no. It was a stunt I had to pull one night. Not by design, I can tell you. Me and one of the lads – Mikey Mac here, the Clare Superman you were talking to – we were doing closing times down O Connell Street. Two gorillas came our way, fully intending to do the business. Fierce drunk, and looking for trouble. Mikey Mac and one of them got into a tussle. But the other one was no gentleman, let me tell you. Equal opportunity and all that. So, well . . . I had to throw a bike at him to settle his hash.”

“A bike. How did that turn out?”

“He was a bit surprised. And then I took a leap at him. I pinned him under the bike until the clown car showed up.”

“She pushed the handlebars into a delicate spot on him,” a Guard called out. “Had him saying his prayers right quick – tell the truth, Joanne, you fecking hooligan.”

“Mind yourself,” Minogue said. “We'll talk again.”

Malone scooped up the pieces of china. The kettle began ticking and soon purring. Minogue walked to the window. It looked out on a lot of barbed wire over the wall that ran along Townsend Street. There were a lot of lights on now, and the sky was beginning to glow.

The cupboard door closed behind him. He wondered again what Malone had thought when that lunatic had come back up the steps, shooting.

“He'll turn up,” he said to Malone. “That I know. He's our man, and he's going to pay for this.”

Malone was leaning against the cupboard. He seemed to be studying the floor.

“Right, Tommy?”

Malone nodded, and then he looked up.

“How many casings, would you say?”

Minogue had counted eight shots, he thought.

“Seven or eight, I think.”

“Nothing yet from where they found Lawless?”

“They haven't said, that I know.”

“You know what I'm saying,” Malone murmured. “Right?”

Knowaramsane
echoed in Minogue's mind.
Ryigh
? He should phone Kathleen. He wouldn't say a word unless she asked him straight out.

“I get where you're going there,” he said. “I'll be very keen to find out too.”

Malone had to go to the toilet. Minogue stayed by the sink and waited for the kettle to finish. He heard – felt, more – the low hum from the public office below. Then he went to the window again, and soon the afternoon's doings began to replay in his mind.

Malone came back smelling of the industrial soap they had in the dispensers now. His short bristly hair was wet and his bruise darkened the pale face almost as much as the dark-ringed eyes.

“Don't tell me,” Malone said and eased himself into a chair. “No sign of the bastard. And never will be.”

Minogue wondered why no other Guards were coming through the canteen. Had someone told them to give the place a wide berth, because these two were in it? Two detectives that seemed to drag all kinds of calamity in their wake?

“Be nice if he dropped it somewhere,” Malone murmured. “Broke a leg maybe.”

The motorbike, Minogue realized. Dropped: crashed.

“Just the one broken leg would do. For now, like.”

Minogue brought over the teapot. He thought of begging one of the Guards or staff for a smoke. He determined to wait out Malone for a few words, or even for Malone to start drinking his tea. He studied the Formica faux-granite tabletop, the walls.

The detective who had driven them over arrived.

“How are we doing, lads?”

“We're managing,” said Minogue. He eyed the way this Detective Brendan Mad-energy was rubbing his hands and then clicking his fingers. It was of a speed and a pattern too complex for him to divine yet.

“They found the bike, the motorbike. Yup! They think it's the one.”

Malone sat up. Minogue took in the darting eyes, the way Brendan kept running his lower lip under his top teeth, in and out, chewing and releasing.

“Registration?”

The finger-clicking and the hand-rubbing stopped.

“Well guess what,” he said, very still for the first time Minogue remembered.

“Fake? Robbed . . .?”

“The first. We've started a search with the importer.

Kawasaki.”

“Anybody spot him though?” Malone asked.

“No. Not yet – but that won't last.”

“Well, he's a huge big tall bastard,” said Malone, “wearing a helmet. Hard to miss. Know what I'm saying?”

“Oh, someone saw him – or someone – ditch a helmet. They think. It's up in the Liffey there, at the end of the quays. But we have feet on the ground there right now and plenty of squad cars.”

Kingsbridge–Heuston train station, Minogue thought: right by the Phoenix Park too, and the start of the motorway. Gone for sure.

“Sergeant says will ye come down, he's just printing out the statements.”

“That fast?”

“Voice recognition. It actually works now.”

Minogue and Malone followed him down the stairs and threaded their way over to the sergeant's walled-in cubicle.

“Take your time,” said the sergeant. He rubbed both ends of his moustache with the thumb and middle finger of one hard. The sergeant's head was doing the moving, Minogue noted, while the elbow remained planted on the desk all the while. Like a cow rubbing its neck on a fence.

“Mark it anyway you want. We have it all – delete, search, and replace. Oh yes.”

Minogue sat on the edge of one of the chairs jammed into the partition wall, and he glanced over the first page. The sergeant answered the phone. Minogue stopped reading when he heard the sergeant speak, after a pause.

“He's right here with me now. I'll ask.”

“Are you able to take a call?”

That'll depend, Minogue wanted to say.

“Work?” he said instead.

“That too, I imagine,” said the sergeant. The whimsy in the tone grated hard on Minogue, more even than the wildly annoying stroking of the moustache that the sergeant had resumed with. It felt like teasing now, and slagging he didn't need at the minute.

“A Superintendent Kilmartin,” said the sergeant, more prescient than Minogue had allowed. “Inquiring after your welfare, I believe.”

Minogue couldn't help himself. He put down the papers, glanced at Malone, and scowled.