“With those Response Units foostering around, like,” Hoey added. “It’s like waiting for something to blow up.”
Minogue didn’t want to argue with a Hoey who this morning looked almost robust compared to how Minogue himself felt. He dodged Hoey’s eyes.
“Well. I’ll have a wash and a shave and we’ll mosey on over to the hotel for now.”
An unmarked Garda car materialised out of the fog, a creature with lights for eyes. Faces turned to look at Minogue as the car purred alongside. A face on the passenger side nodded at Minogue, and the car pulled in ahead of the two policemen.
“Who’re these fellas?” asked Hoey.
The far end of the street disappeared into the fog. Through the muffled whiteness Minogue heard the sounds of Ennis-clanging aluminium kegs as they were slung empty onto the brewery lorries from the doors of pubs, the shutters being rolled up on shops, the dull thumping of a hammer on metal somewhere close by-being carried on all around them.
“Cuddy, from Limerick. Special Branch. I met him down at the brother’s farm and I down visiting.”
“How’s the man?” said Cuddy.
“Better met than the last time, I’m thinking,” said Minogue. Cuddy gave a wan smile and nodded at Hoey.
“Shea Hoey,” said Minogue. “Works with me.”
“Are ye official here?”
“No, we’re not. But there seems to be an oversupply of Guards who are.”
A squeaky transmission erupted from a radio in the car. The driver turned it down.
“Were ye in town here last night?” asked Cuddy.
“Matter of fact, we were.”
Cuddy looked down the street before confiding more.
“We’re going to keep up the pressure. Something has to give, I just know it.”
He looked up under his eyebrows at Minogue as if daring him to recall aloud the episode at the farm. The Inspector looked beyond the policeman at the shroud of fog.
“Good luck,” he said to Cuddy.
The car slid down the street ahead of them before being swallowed up in the whiteness.
Alo Crossan was not yet in the dining room, but the Howards were. So were two detectives-replacements for the ones Minogue had travelled with last night. Their eyes were on Minogue and Hoey from the moment they appeared in the door of the dining-room. One of the detectives stood and the other kicked his chair back slightly with a coiled, careful nudge of his leg, Minogue noticed, as he laid his hands in his lap. His jacket came open as he leaned forward in his chair.
Howard waved, his mouth full.
“They’re Guards,” he struggled to say around the food. “Don’t worry.”
The Howards wore the same clothes he had seen them in last night. Minogue wondered if he himself could ever get away with such dereliction and still look well-dressed. Howard, with his shirt open two buttons, unshaven, looked genially rakish. Sheila Howard looked relaxed and curious. Something in the couple’s appearance startled the Inspector. He felt the beginnings of a blush as he approached them. They looked to him like a couple full and languid after a night of lovemaking. Howard made an elaborate swallow.
“…absolutely refused to eat a breakfast above in a hotel room,” he said. Minogue felt Sheila Howard’s eyes on him.
“Yes, yes,” the Inspector replied, working clumsily around an image of Sheila Howard’s body. He glanced at her by way of greeting. The detective sat down and the other sat back in his chair with a nod.
“Howarya,” one said to Hoey.
Dan Howard waved his arm at two vacant chairs. “Join us, can’t you?”
“Thanks, but we’re expecting company.” Minogue looked at his watch. It was ten minutes before nine.
“How are you now?” asked Minogue.
Howard exchanged looks with his wife.
“Could be better,” he said. “But sure, considering the alternatives… Yourself?”
“I’ve been worse,” Minogue avoided. “Any news from the house?”
Howard sat up and crossed his ankles.
“Yes, there is, and it’s not bad at all. There was nothing in the cars. And there’s nothing else suspicious about the house itself. So there.”
“Was that your yoke up at the house?” one of the detectives asked. “The blue one?”
Minogue glanced over at the boxer’s nose, the untidy moustache.
“Yep. Is it in one piece?”
“For the most part. Sure, that wasn’t a new car anyhow.”
“That Fiat was and is a damn fine car,” said Minogue. “What did they do to it?”
“They wheeled up a big shield. First they shook the car, then they drilled the lock on the boot-”
“They drilled out me lock?”
“The robot did.”
“With the video camera next to it,” the other detective piped in. “That’s it. Never saw the likes of it in action. It was great.”
His partner nodded, sharing in an accomplishment he had had no part in. Minogue sat down heavily next to Hoey. A waitress approached. Minogue looked to the window: no Jamesy Bourke standing vigil across the street ever again, he thought. At least the fog was beginning to lift. The waitress picked at a button on her blouse.
“I dunno,” said Minogue. “Coffee for a start, I suppose.”
Dan Howard rose from the table and cocked an eye at the Inspector. Me? Minogue fingered his chest. Howard nodded in the direction of the foyer.
“I’ll be back in a minute.”
Hoey shifted in his chair and reached for his cigarettes. The hard-case with the moustache accompanied Howard to the foyer.
“I have to make me confession,” Howard said to him. “You wouldn’t want to listen in on my sins, would you, but?”
The detective backed away a couple of paces. Howard’s amused expression lingered as he made a quick search of Minogue’s face.
“A word out of earshot of Sheila, if you don’t mind,” Howard began. “I woke up shaking this morning, I can tell you. But not that shook that I couldn’t see that the thing last night wasn’t about murdering anybody.” He paused and smiled. “What do you think, yourself?”
Minogue studied the smile.
“I’m inclined to agree with you.”
“Publicity, I put it down to,” said Howard. “Brazen, cocky. A half-arsed effort to be like the War of Independence, making the country ungovernable.”
“I thought the parliamentarians and public service were well on the way to achieving that already.”
Howard chortled.
“You still have your wits about you anyway. But I’m sure part of the plan might be to have the likes of me close shop and hide up in Dublin.”
“Which you may do…?”
“Hide, no,” Howard murmured. “Stay there awhile, yes. I was going to go up for a few weeks to finish off the sitting anyway. There are bills coming up for final reading and… Well, you know, the hazards of public office, I suppose.”
“Going back up to Dublin?”
Howard smiled. “Not that alone. No. I meant shootings. I imagine that Alo wouldn’t be so keen on this side of public life, any more than I am myself.”
Said so easily, it took Minogue several seconds to realise that the remark had carried a charge of something else. What had he missed?
“As to…?”
Howard looked at some point on Minogue’s forehead.
“You know that Alo has his own plans for public office, I take it.”
The Inspector felt his cobwebby, morning mind awaken with a sharp stab. He looked again to Howard’s face but all he met with was the fixed look, a stare both sardonic and intent.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Alo will be running for something. I wondered if you knew. Yes. County Council, I hear. Fine man that he is, Alo may not have considered the kinds of attention we received last night. Very effective way to get national attention, firing off gunshots in the window of the local TD’s house.”
Howard folded his arms and leaned against the wall.
“I’m sure someone will be happy to take the credit for last night soon enough. They’ll not be frightening me out of office, I can tell you.”
Minogue thought of Crossan and felt his resentment grow suddenly large. The detective with the moustache crossed the foyer toward them just as a young man in a leather jacket came through the door of the hotel. Howard’s smile turned into a grin.