O’Callaghan opened the door. Minogue caught him halfway in. Would he mind letting him get something out of his bag in the back, he asked. He followed O’Callaghan around the back, wondered if he had downed more than one pint.
“Is that peppermint you have?”
O’Callaghan gave no sign he’d picked up on the sarcasm.
“It is,” he said briskly. “Would you like one, there…?”
“Matt. Thanks.”
Minogue took out the folder Mairead O’Reilly had given him. He sat back in.
“Peppermint, Tommy?” Malone’s reply was just as leaden.
“It’s all right. I’ll wait till we get to Dublin for me, ah, peppermints.”
CHAPTER 18
Minogue wondered if O’Callaghan had been daring him to say something. The Mercedes had been doing one hundred and forty coming in the Lucan bypass. Malone had been dozing. He’d opened his eyes when O’Callaghan braked for the end of the motorway.
“Turn left there, if you please,” said Minogue.
O’Callaghan left them by the door.
“Technical Bureau,” O’Callaghan said “Is that like a lab?”
“Adjacent,” said Minogue. “We moved from across the river two years ago. Will you give us our bags now, and thanks very much.”
It had rained recently. Malone stretched.
“Only half-ten,” he said. Minogue took the bag from O’Callaghan.
“You know how to get to the city morgue, do you?”
“I have it here. Down by the Custom House ”
“You’ll wind up there yourself if you keep driving like you were.” Minogue looked down at the evidence bags.
“Sign them in, Tommy, will you. And drop in the cassette for duplication.”
He nearly dropped the videocassette taking it out of his carryall. He shoved the folder into the carryall and zipped it up again. Malone watched him.
“Do you want to go over anything before we knock off?”
“No.”
Minogue fingered his key ring and pushed the remote. The lights on his Citroen flashed and the alarm chirped once.
“It’ll wait until the morning. I’ll drop this in the car and do a quick check of what’s come in.”
Malone followed him over. Minogue set the video case on the bonnet.
“The airport,” Minogue murmured.
“Yeah?”
“Any closer on when the Escort was parked. If any of Shaughnessy’s stuff has turned up. Her effects too. Call-ins from outside Dublin. See if we can find Aoife Hartnett too on any of those days.”
Malone cleared his throat. He was about to spit, but he turned aside instead and gently let it go on the tarmac. Minogue looked around the night sky and listened for trains in the tunnel beneath this city end of Phoenix Park where Garda Headquarters was housed. His mind wandered back to the empty hills, the cliffs.
“With her,” said Malone, “can we wait till the morning, like? The news?”
“We can,” said Minogue. “The crowd she worked with. Garland. After the next of kin I’ll phone her brother-in-law at home first thing in the morning. There’ll be nothing on the news until tomorrow. Let ’em sleep if they can tonight.”
Minogue slowed when he saw the thumb out. He’d at least drop a hint to this gawky, bedraggled teenager that standing on the side of the Bray Road after midnight thumbing a lift should have a health warning.
The girl noticed him slowing. He had almost stopped the car when he spotted the two fellas sidling out from the gateway behind her. He didn’t hear much after the first shout. It was the girl doing most of it. Maybe they were too drunk to try to chase him. Annoyed and disheartened, he sped up to eighty passing Belfield. He thought about phoning them in. Or worse, go back and pick them up and speed off back to the Donnybrook station. Sit across the table from them and give them a bit of grief. Drugs, he wondered. No: he was overreacting.
He imagined Kilmartin in a swanky conference facility retailing war stories from the squad. Profiling: when, in the name of God, would the squad ever be using FBI profiles? He thought of Larry Smith, the brother finger-wagging at the camera, the dark warnings to the Guards. How the other drug gangsters must be laughing. The Citroen wavered only an instant as he turned sharply up the Rise. It was enough to alert him. He geared down. Why the hell was he driving like a madman? He was still thinking of Kilmartin’s junket when he turned into the driveway.
He pulled out the key and waited for the Citroen to settle. The edges of his keys felt like teeth against his thumb. Vegan, that was it. Iseult was a vegan, according to Kathleen. Iseult mightn’t be getting some vital vitamin or something. Unhinged her, couldn’t think logically. How could he check? He stepped out onto the driveway but he turned instead and walked back to the gate.
The pillar had never been straight. The gate had always scraped even in the days when he’d made a point of closing it. Iseult, wouldn’t you know it, had found a way to unlatch it soon after she had learned to walk. Meat is murder, wasn’t that one of the slogans? Drisheen, eggs, sausages: the Holy Family though? Low.
The lamplight from the road showed patches of wet on the driveway. The faint bass thumping came on the breeze from the neighbors. Gearoid, Una Costigan’s youngest, the one giving her the willies, no doubt. Still at it in the middle of the night. Shaved head, history graduate, unemployed. Nice lad; bone lazy. Or just unwilling to head off out on a plane somewhere? Gearoid thought he’d had a break at Christmas with a concert in the community center, but it didn’t come off. Gearoid wore sunglasses, the insect-eye models, nearly all the time now.
What was Aoife Hartnett trying to do for God’s sake? Did she and Shaughnessy have a thing going? There were no stars that he could see. The breezes barely stirred the hedge Park the damn car in Cabinteely tomorrow evening no matter what, by God, and walk up by Tully, sit awhile, down Bride’s Glen and… Inveigle Iseult out too. Try and get her to drink milk at least. Was that music getting louder?
The hedge should really be cut back. Why hadn’t he? Only the hall light on. He and Kathleen had a house to themselves. Stuff forgotten about was turning up. Iseult’s carving behind the lawn mower. Yes, Iseult called home her dacha. It had been months since she’d stayed overnight with them. The sudden ache reminded him of a paper cut.
Maybe that’s why Gearoid Costigan’s comings and goings had set his teeth on edge. It wasn’t the smell of dope drifting in over the hedge last summer. It was the fact that Gearoid was at home. He’d never actually left. His own son, Daithi, was on the American express, going wherever his training and job took him. There were twenty-two years of his son’s life upstairs in boxes and drawers. Lately he had found Kathleen’s mantras of when Daithi comes home again unbearable. At least he wasn’t the prodigal son.
Had Mrs. Shaughnessy written off her son? Johnny Leyne greasing the wheels and paying off predators to keep his one-and-only out of jail. Minogue ran his hand along the top railing of the gate, flicked off the drops of water. Remorse, that’s what had them there. They knew they’d messed up. What could he do, sit Mrs. Shaughnessy down in back at an interview room at the squad and work on her to give him the true story? Would they try to offer money to Aoife Hartnett’s family if it turned out that way, her mother, her sister, her nieces, her nephews…?
He stared at the area carved out by the light over the hall door. He followed the sharp lines between the light and shadow by the garage door, the weakening ambit of the light as it lost out to the darkness by the hedge. When Daithi comes marching home again. The sharp stab over the heart stopped his thoughts. Football games, swimming down at Seapoint and Killiney, meeting him for a pint after he started college. He’d loved going up in the woods at Katty Gallagher before it had been turned into a managed park. But that was when he was eleven or twelve. His friends still phoned: Barney, Lorcan; Sarah, who’d finally given up on trying to hook Daithi but wanted to stay a friend. The bent for mathematics, the indifference and even exasperation with English. At least he’d stopped smoking. Caty had put him right. She’d look after him.