“The mother has high blood pressure you know. She nursed the husband after the heart attacks.”
“I’m sorry now, Mr. Nolan. Far better that a member of the family relays it first. Here are two phone numbers for you — ”
“Maybe she just had it, you know? Got sick of work? Everyone gets that… ”
“True for you.”
“Just needed a break, a bit of space? Well she’d like to have kids, I know that. The whole career thing, the biological clock, I mean. It’s so tough.”
A hiss from the phone caused Minogue to check the battery strength.
“There’s no way I can say ‘foul play’ to Mrs., you know. No way.”
“Say we’d like to get in touch with her, Mr. Nolan. That we’re concerned.”
“Christ, wouldn’t it be a gas if she just phoned tonight from somewhere. London, maybe? ‘Changed my mind, stayed in London! Surprise!’”
“To be sure it would ”
“When will this go to the media again?”
“I’ll be asking the press office to issue it as soon as I can. We’d like to be okay with the next of — her family, I mean, before it comes up on the news.”
“That gives me a few hours, I suppose.”
“We can’t be waiting The nine o’clock news tonight will be definite.”
“You’ll phone as soon as you have news?”
That’s my question, Minogue wanted to snap at him.
“Depend on it.”
“Okay then, I have to work on this. Okay. I’m going to start on it. Okay?”
Minogue pushed the end button several times. He stared at the charge level. Malone had rolled the wrapping into a ball. He was chewing on ice cubes now.
“What’s the story with the brother-in-law? Freaking, is he?”
Minogue nodded.
“Her car’s gone, right?”
“It’s not parked there anyway. It might be in a garage getting serviced while she’s away. Have to chase that now. I don’t see her driving to the airport, but.”
Malone lifted a bag of chips from his lap.
“No thanks,” said Minogue. “How much do I owe you?”
Malone shifted in his seat and stretched his neck.
“You’re all right. I’ll eat them. Buy me ten or twelve pints sometime.”
An ambulance with flashing lights sped by. Minogue thought of the evening ahead of them. He’d just have to take the time to map it all out tonight.
“Shit,” said Malone. He threw the empty chip bag on the floor. “Rain’s back.”
Minogue studied the fine drops forming on the windscreen. He hoped Malone wouldn’t turn on the wipers yet.
“Will we head?”
“Wait and let me call into Tynan. Before I forget.”
Malone tugged at the collar of his coat, grabbed the steering wheel, and then flicked at the wiper stalk
O’Leary had kept him on hold for two minutes.
“It’s all right, Tony. I don’t need to bother him if that’s the case ”
“Are you in town?”
Minogue slapped Malone’s arm. He’d kept jerking the stalk to get more windscreen fluid on the glass. The wipers squeaked. Minogue flicked them off.
“Nassau Street, Tony. I’m on a cell phone.”
“He’d like you to come by then. Soon as you can.”
“I’ve nothing, Tony. We’re still clearing a path here.”
“He’s in a meeting. He wants you in on it. So: will I tell him you’re on the way, Matt?”
Brusque for O’Leary. Minogue studied the raindrops on the bonnet. O’Leary said, “Concerns your case, says to tell you.”
“What can I tell him that I didn’t tell him two hours ago, Tony?”
“It’s different. There’s people pushing info here. The father, Leyne, is here. There’s a meeting, in the commissioner’s office.”
Malone drove along Andrew Street. He barely stopped at the junction of Wicklow Street.
“Is this a regular gig or what,” he said to Minogue.
The inspector had been thinking of a hot whiskey.
“What gig,” he said.
Malone accelerated hard up South William Street.
“Well I don’t recall any get-togethers between Tynan and the Killer, do I.”
“Really.”
“Well, fella might think, you know.”
“A fella might think what?”
Malone raced through a red light by York Street flats.
“That you have the inside track here with the Iceman. Mr. Excitement.”
Minogue looked at the parked cars. An Irish coffee would do it. For the taste, not for the bite from the whiskey.
“A fella might get a puck in the snot,” he murmured. “For insinuating.”
Malone waited for a lorry to move out of the junction by Kevin Street.
“Why are you so touchy about it, then?”
“I’m not.”
“See? I told you you were.”
“There’s no inside track. It’s social with him.”
“How could it be social only?”
“Because I say so. Because it can’t be any other way.”
Malone looked over. The hooded eyes, the tightening to one side of his mouth, could only be Dublin, Minogue knew.
“That a fact, boss? Twice today we’ve been bounced around.”
“It’s part of the investigation. There’s pressure. Don’t you be adding more.”
Malone’s eyebrow stayed up. He dropped a gear and raced the engine.
“Get used to it,” Minogue said. “There’ll be others looking over our shoulder on this one. Ask Jimmy about his digestive system when he gets back.”
“Is that the one about the surgeons being able to make a map of his guts based on the big cases he’d run?”
“That’s it. So don’t be picking on me. I’m only an innocent countryman up here in the Big Smoke trying to get by.”
“Me arse and Katty Barry to that,” said Malone.
Minogue couldn’t but laugh. It turned to a cough. He tried to volley back with his own concocted Dublin accent but he lost it halfway. Malone kept correcting him on how to pronounce bollocks, a la East Wall. Minogue started laughing again. “Owney a culchie,” Malone said. He kept jabbing the inspector all the way up Camden Street. Sodbusters. Sheep shaggers.
Minogue hadn’t realized just how good a mimic this gurrier colleague was. Cork met Kerry, Kerry met Mayo and even Clare. Malone got better the more he said. Minogue heard Kilmartin, his own throwaway expressions, even Sheehy’s aggressively laconic tones.
Malone didn’t let up until he had pulled in by the checkpoint at Harcourt Terrace. Beads of rain flew off the car when Malone slammed the driver’s door. He looked over the roof at Minogue. The same look an opponent would get as the bell rang to start the round, Minogue decided.
“I’ll wait here,” Malone said. “Polish the car or something while I’m waiting.”
“Don’t start up this again, Tommy. For the love of God, man.”
Malone held his coat tighter.
“Hey, don’t get me wrong, boss. I like the variety, et cetera. But I’m not a fucking gofer here.”
“It’s part of the case here, man.”
“Oh yeah? Isn’t the whole idea to get out of our way, let us do the job?”
“ ’Couse it is. We get the staff, the OT. The lab priority, the carryovers from the other branches, Intelligence — ”
“Then how come we’re heading up to talk to the Big One here?”
“Call it an education then, Tommy.”
“Me bollocks. We’re on a leash, I say.”
“Tell him then. Don’t be annoying me.”
Malone cleared his throat, looked around, and spat. He followed Minogue at a distance. O’Leary met them by the door to the commissioner’s office. He ignored Malone’s glare.
“Poxy out,” he said. “Isn’t it?”
“Good for the greens, Tony.”
“Ah. A sign you’re finally coming around?”
“I can’t take it seriously, Tony. Sorry and all. It’s the clothes basically. Himself is free now?”
“In a manner of,” said O’Leary. “He’s with those people.”
O’Leary’s face betrayed nothing. Minogue understood again that he couldn’t help liking this how’s-it-goin’-drop-dead Garda sergeant. Wasn’t shy of a dust-up, loyal, quiet. Still waters, etc.
Tynan had told Minogue about several incidents involving O’Leary while he was doing his stint with the UN. O’Leary had knocked down a fellow UN policeman, a Dane he had become friendly with, for coming the heavy when a food riot was feared in a godforsaken village in Ethiopia. Self-preservation had been O’Leary’s explanation. A mob had been restless and then angry after a badly parachuted mess of supplies had fallen on fresh graves where mostly children had been interred. The golf course that O’Leary had made was rumored to still exist and be maintained. It had been play a bit of golf or go off the deep end, he had told Tynan. The Dane visited Dublin almost yearly. O’Leary was said to know every bar in a particular part of Copenhagen.