The Going Rate (35 page)

Cully seemed to consider a response.

“As a matter of fact,” he began, but then shrugged away the rest of what he was about to say.

“Go on.”

Cully shook his head

“Some other time, maybe.”

The road through the pine forest crossed the river that ran along the valley floor dividing Two Rock Mountain, whose coastal side was part of the skyline of Dublin city, from Djouce, the first of the mountains that backed higher into Wicklow.

The car began to sway and even wallow as the roadway cut its way around the side of the valley. Fanning was visited by brief, scattered memories now of picnics when he was small, of the rock-strewn stream in the darkness alongside.

The headlights tunnelled in to the night, revealing the clumps of died-back grasses that the winter had bleached. Fanning inclined closer to his window and again looked up to the sky. There was only the faintest lightening high up where the slope met the night sky over Dublin City.

Cully was humming.

“Creepy isn't it,” he said. Innit, Fanning heard.

“Be different now in the summer,” he added.

“You know the place here?”

“Well, I did. Some time back.”

Then, when Fanning didn't follow up with questions, Cully added, “Boy Scout stuff? Didn't get out of the city much then.”

“Dublin, like? Growing up?”

Cully nodded, and resumed humming. There was no break in the flat darkness of the mountains to Cully's side.

“Expecting someone?”

“No.”

He thought he heard Cully snort faintly. Then he slowed and scrutinized the roadway ahead.

“Around here. The road.”

“A forestry road?”

“I suppose, yes.”

“It's just a track then.”

Cully nodded.

“Just about… there.”

He braked hard enough to scatter the gravel from the edges of the road.

“Here?”

“Yep, this is it.”

The BMW's bonnet leaned and then dropped as it descended, lopsided, through the long puddle, the lights scouring across the undergrowth, then bobbing up to the conifers.

“There'll be a gate,” said Fanning. “You wouldn't want to try going up in a car anyway.”

The yellow gateposts caught the headlights.

“We're in luck,” said Cully.

Fanning put his hand on the armrest to moderate the slow bucking of the car. He heard a metallic thump as Cully drove over a rut that turned into a low embankment.

“Won't be much left of Murph's car at this rate,” he said.

Cully opened the window, and cold air scented with pine needles and sodden earth filled the car. Fanning heard a swish from the front wheels as Cully steered through another puddle. The rear wheels sizzled, spinning for a few moments, spraying water and mud hard on the underside panels of the car. Cully eased off the accelerator and sat forward as if to coax the car through.

The wheels found grip then and the BMW shot out of the slough. They were in the woods now. The track took on the dull khaki colour of the needles. The trees seemed to be moving in slow procession with passage of the headlights.

“How loud does it get?” Fanning asked.

“Louder than you think.”

Cully switched off the engine.

“What about a silencer thing?”

“A suppressor, it's called. You're not going to get one of those.”

“Why not?”

“Let me explain something. Even if that dickhead had one to fit the piece of junk he gave you, he wouldn't give it to you. You know why?”

“Because, I don't know, I'd wreck it?”

“Because you'd be renting the gun to use it.”

“So…?”

“You don't get it. That's bad for business. If you use it, it's dirty. I don't mean dirt, I mean it's tainted.”

“Traceable?”

“Right. So if you're asking for something with your ‘silencer' thrown in…”

“I get it,” said Fanning.

He listened to the ticks of the engine cooling. Staring into the darkness he could soon distinguish gaps of less dark sky. Cully released his belt and let it slide quietly into place. He yawned and pulled back the sleeve of his jacket to see his watch. He made no move to get out of the car.

“Are we going to…?”

“Soon.”

“What are we waiting for?”

Cully rubbed at his eyes pinching the bridge of his nose and then stretched.

“We are waiting,” he said slowly in a stagy voice, “we are waiting, for the right time. That's what we are waiting for.”

Chapter 35

M
INOGUE STRETCHED AGAIN
. A familiar sournes came to his nostrils – the stale smell of late hours in the same shirt and jacket, of early morning hours spent sitting in interview rooms, or slouched in cars.

Duggan had moved his chair back to the wall so he could lean his head and shoulders against it. Wall looked as fresh as ever somehow. Minogue wondered how, but then decided that Wall's strong faith probably had an inner glow of freshness and cleanliness, signs of everlasting life conferred on the chosen, perhaps. Like the clean-cut Mormons.

Minogue eyed the pictures again. He settled on the one of Tadeusz Klos' bloodied face, his teeth bloodied and broken, the swollen lips, the terrible sneer of death.

Duggan opened his eyes slowly.

“I had this brilliant dream,” he murmured.

“It was perfect,” he added, swallowing dryly.

“That Amy Winehouse one again?” Wall asked.

The unexpected humour heartened Minogue. Maybe Wall wasn't all piety. Maybe he actually had a bit of give in him.

Duggan shook his head.

“Long gone,” he said. “That tramp deserted me, so she did.”

“Is it too late to start a support group?” Minogue asked.

“Ah, no – but thanks anyway. I'll suffer in silence. Wait, no: I'll blog it.”

“That's Monaghan men for you,” Minogue said. “‘Stony grey hills…'”

The puzzled expression that was Duggan's response brought a little dismay to Minogue. Did nobody read Patrick Kavanagh's poetry anymore?

“Well, in anyway,” said Duggan, gathering himself. “This one was about tonight, or this morning, whatever you want to call it. Set right here in this room.”

Minogue looked over.

“Yeah,” said Duggan. “All the yo-yos in there walked in the door here, along with their counsel, and confessed.”

“Wild out entirely,” said Minogue.

“It was brilliant,” said Duggan. He rubbed at his ginger stubble.

“‘Sorry to have kept you up so late,' said one of them, what's his face, the long stringy fellow, Twomey.”

“Come on now,” Wall said. “Hardly Twomey. He's a complete idiot. The way he's talking and posing? I swear he thinks he starred in some video or something. Did you hear what he said to his counsel after she showed up?”

“I know, I know,” said Duggan and yawned.

“‘Get out of here,' says he. ‘You're working for The Man!'”

“Well it was grand while it lasted, that dream.”

“Is that all?”

Duggan took his hands down from wiping his eyes.

“Actually, it wasn't. I think we all shook hands. And off we went.”

“Off where?”

“We went to a pub to celebrate. Now did you ever hear anything like it?”

“I never did,” said Wall. “But I'll bet you they hear it all the time up in Portrane.”

It took a moment for Minogue's tired mind to place the jibe: Portrane was for the criminally insane, right. A lull followed. The clock's hands had only moved five minutes since last time. Wall turned another page.

Duggan's yawn ended in a long groan.

“God almighty,” he said and he levered himself robotically out of the chair. “Something's got to give here now, or there'll be no bed for anyone.”

Minogue checked the time on his watch.

“Isn't it kind of sexist,” said Duggan, “to be trying to get the girls out, and not the two head-cases?”

“No,” said Wall, “it's about adults and children. The girls are supposed to be the children. Those two fellas are supposed to be the adults.”

“As the law sees it, at least,” Duggan grunted.

“Are her parents still in there?” he asked Minogue.

Minogue nodded.

“The father will turn Turk if she's held over,” said Duggan.

“Well we'll deal with that,” said Minogue.

“Begob, but it's raining. Drizzle. I–”

The knock on the door was a split second before the Guard off the midnight shift opened it.

“There's a solicitor wants to see ye, one of ye.”

Mahon now reminded Minogue of a Goya painting. His cheeks flattened and even sunken in a way he hadn't expected, the dark rings around his eyes.

“A request,” he said to Minogue.

“I'll be happy to oblige. If I can, of course. What's on offer now?”

Mahon shook his head.

“My client is very frightened,” Mahon said.

“Is this the same Mr. Twomey we spoke with earlier on?”

“He's beginning to understand the position he might be in here.”

“Okay. That's good for all of us.”

“He's very apprehensive at the thought of, you know.”

“Staying in a cell overnight?”

“Well, yes.”

“Well if he'd stop holding out on us…”

“He's not.”

“You say, that he says, that he's not.”

“I didn't come down in the last shower.”

“Fair enough. But I'm here since The Flood, and I don't buy that.”

Mahon drew a long breath.

“Your grounds for wanting him remanded are not clear.”

“Have I not shown you the site pictures? That is to say the photos from this scene, of Mr. Klos? Savage treatment. Brutal, sadistic, unrelenting. Now that's unacceptable.”

“Grandstanding isn't allowed in court either, I think you know.”

“Mr. Klos choked on his own blood.”

“My client admits to taking items off the body – with the others.”

“A body, or a live man? Unconscious and dying, and needing help?”

“Am I being cross-examined now?”

“One phone call from any of this foursome could've saved the man's life.”

“He'll be no use if he can't get a night's sleep.”

“Mr. Mahon. I'm not the one getting in the way of Twomey's shut-eye. You're the one made the request to keep this long consultation going so long. I mean, I admire your staying power tonight. Any other solicitor would be gone hours ago.”

“Your mind is made up?”

“It is.”

“Let me phrase it a different way. What is it exactly you are expecting from him tonight?”

“That he tells us what really happened. I'm more than content to wait until tomorrow and argue the same thing in the Circuit Court.”

Mahon rubbed at his eyebrows, and then looked over Minogue's shoulder at the open door.

“You're here because this is a high-profile case. A lot of pressure too?”

“That's immaterial and irreverent,” Minogue replied with a shrug.

“I know you have the girls here too. And you're playing everyone off against the other.”

“The world isn't flat, Mr. Mahon. It hasn't been flat for quite a long time.”

“Questionable process there. Juveniles, questioning at this hour of the night?”

“Phone a judge,” said Minogue. “Have a go. No hard feelings, whatever happens. Or doesn't happen.”

“Kids that age will say anything.”

Minogue gave him the eye.

“Your client already said so. Several times, if I remember. No one is saying either one of these two girls is sugar and spice.”

“I'm glad to hear you say that.”

“Which always means the opposite, in my experience. You're driving at…”

“That people have blind spots. All people.”

“Specifically?”

To his credit, Mahon wasn't flinching.

“That girls wouldn't be capable of doing it. That maybe the men here – boys really, or at least my client, I regard him as a boy really – have a misguided loyalty.”