“Mrs Garland, please I don’t want to waste the resources of the Gardai sending out Guards to find him.”
Mrs. Garland said nothing. Minogue listened harder to the rustling sounds.
“Hello?”
“Don’t be interrupting me! I’m checking his appointments here.”
Minogue looked across at Murtagh. He was on hold on another call. He grinned wearily and shook his head. He heard Mrs. Garland whisper, pages turning.
“Now… Here we are. Yesterday was… Wait… What kind of people are we?”
“Pardon?”
“Set-aside, do you know about that?”
“I do, ma’am.”
“Do you now. We have farmers paid by the paper boys in Brussels not to grow anything. And a lot of them spray the fields to prove they can’t put in a crop there so’s they’ll get the grants. Poison, man — rank poison! Can you credit that? With everything we have, someone in Brussels tells Irish farmers to set aside land, a thing we fought and died for — even to poison it — and we do it? Sure land means nothing anymore. What have we turned into, answer me that. With the year of our lord two thousand bearing down on us… We might as well call ourselves a new name. Euroworms or something. Is that the way to start the next thousand years, is it?”
“Hardly.”
“Here we are now. Sean is at one of his regular things. They go to a restaurant below the back of Merrion Street there. Do you like Gilbert and Sullivan?”
“Which place, ma’am?”
“L’Avenue.”
“He’s at a function there is it?”
“He’s eating his dinner there. They go off to a pub afterward. Tuohy’s. Do you know Tuohy’s’ Do you know what they did to it?”
An ex-football player had lavished a million and something pounds to disassemble a country pub and reassemble it, board by board, in the middle of Dublin. Minogue gave her no chance to start in on it.
“Thank you, Mrs. Garland. I do. Here’s a number for me if I should miss him. If he phones, would you be kind and tell him that I’m leaving this minute to find him, ma’am?”
Minogue threw more water on his face. Still his eyeballs ached. He studied the droplets falling from his nose into the sink. The sneezing hadn’t yet proved a cold was here. Maybe it was working its way express and stealthily to his chest though.
Malone was waiting for him by the door. He had phoned L’Avenue, gotten to speak to Garland. Garland had told him he’d wait for them there. He nodded at Murtagh hunched over his desk.
“John’s gotten ahold of the sister. The Hartnett woman’s, like.”
Minogue took an extension and listened. Fiona Nolan was close to hysterical. Murtagh asked if she could give the key to a Guard and they’d let themselves in. Caught between panic and suspicion, Fiona Nolan said she’d have to discuss it with her hubbie.
Murtagh kicked off against the desk. He rolled no more than a foot.
“She’s freaking out, boss,” he whispered.
“Get her husband to bring the key then.”
“See what she — Yes. Mr. Nolan? Yes Garda John Murtagh, attached to the Technical Bureau.”
Nolan asked if there was an investigation in which his sister-in-law figured. Murtagh rolled his eyes, gave Minogue a look and pointed at the phone. “Can’t,” Minogue mouthed. He put down the extension. He heard Murtagh begin to explain to Nolan as he headed for the door.
Malone took Thomas Street. He drove directly through the Coombe to Kevin Street where they met with the last of rush hour. He said L’Avenue several times, trying out different inflections each time.
“It’s oo, Tommy. Not jew ”
“Lava-noo.”
“You’re close ”
“Doesn’t sound right. Sounds like Lava Noo. Who learned you your French anyhow?”
“Nobody. I picked it up.”
“Garland’s gay, I betcha.”
“Why?”
“He lives with his ma.”
“You were living at home until not too long ago.”
“That’s different. That was on account of the brother.”
Minogue answered Murtagh’s call as Malone drew up in front of the laneway. He eyed the painted sign for L’Avenue high up on the wall.
Nolan, the brother-in-law, was willing to let them into Aoife Hartnett’s place, but only in an hour.
“What,” said Minogue. “After he’s been through it?”
“I suppose,” said Murtagh.
“Tell him to smarten up, John. We’re not across from one another in court.”
“I leveled with him. He’s worried. He’ll come around quick enough.”
Malone turned into the laneway. There was an interior design place, a cake shop with a Russian-sounding name, an architect’s office that looked like some of Daithi’s Legos from twenty years gone by.
“There’s nowhere to park,” said Malone. “I’ll park back out by the bank.” L’Avenue was half full. There were skylights, vines that looked real, wrought iron dividers. Garland was sitting with two men and a woman. One of the men looked familiar. He had the guarded expression of someone who’s well known. Minogue couldn’t place him.
“I’ll come quietly,” Garland said.
Minogue managed a brief smile in return. The size of the head on this fella, he thought. And why did he remind him of a pigeon? The giant’s head, the ruddy face over swelling wattles, and a spotted bow tie stole Minogue’s attention for several moments. On the end of his short arms were fingers like sausages. Minogue made an effort to keep his eyes on Garland’s face.
The others at the table returned the inspector’s nod. The woman smiled. Garland grasped his jacket. He eyed the inspector.
“God, your timing is perfect. Inspector?”
“Matt.”
“A close call entirely. — Colm here was about to extort more wine from us.”
Garland must have told them there’d be a Guard coming to call. Glamorous, no doubt, a whiff of danger, something to tell their cronies about.
“Oh yes,” Garland went on. “He was getting ready to explain the subtexts in A Rebel Hand.”
That’s who the Colm was’ Colm Tierney, newspaper columnist, prognosticator. Minogue’s nose began to tickle. He searched his coat pocket for hankies but he couldn’t find any.
He knew the surge of irritation wasn’t just from having a cold coming on. There was something about these people here that annoyed him. Crank he was, and prejudiced. He knew it, and he felt badly about it, but he knew that wouldn’t alter much of his impressions later.
“Colm’s the man, I don’t know if you’re aware of it now… ”
Garland waited for Minogue to blow his nose.
“Well Colm broke the news that Ireland had disappeared several years ago. ‘The man who lost Ireland,’ we call him ”
Tierney’s lips pursed. The smile, or whatever it was supposed to become, never made it He looked down instead at the glass he was turning on the cloth.
“I keep on finding it,” said Garland. “But he doesn’t believe me! He’s our resident postmodernist — here, did anyone hear the one where some scientist crossed a Mafia boss with a postmodernist?”
Malone had entered the restaurant. He spotted Minogue and made his way over. Minogue finished blowing his nose and glanced at Garland. He’d caught a bit of the punch line, something about an offer you couldn’t understand.
“Can we chat here at one of the empty tables?”
A waitress followed the three. Minogue asked if the coffee was fresh. He gave Garland the once-over again.
“It’s like I was saying to you on the phone, Dr. Garland,” he began.
“Sean. Please.”
“Sean. We’re trying to locate Ms.. Hartnett. We need her help in our inquires.”
Garland looked from Minogue to Malone and back.
“She’s gone to Portugal. That’s what I know at the moment.”
“Did she tell you anything about the hows and wheres of her trip?”
“Well, in a word, no. She has oodles of overtime built up, so — well, she did mention to me that she’d found a seat-sale thing…”
“Did she give a name, a destination?”
Garland’s frown changed his face completely.