Crossan slouched back in his chair and joined his fingertips under his nose. Now, looking over at Minogue, his searching eyes seemed monstrous. Minogue looked away in exasperation toward the window. For a split second he saw the tall, bearded Bourke and his dog at the wall across the street. He shook his head and blinked. His nerves were more rattled than he had realised. When Crossan spoke again, his voice had taken on the scornful, challenging tone of the courtroom.
“So tell me what you want to tell me then, and get it over with.”
Minogue let him hang for several seconds. The same Bourke screaming in his dream last night, the circle of faces gathered around the blazing cottage.
“I want to eat my breakfast,” he said.
Crossan rounded on him.
“So you’ve been put off by Dan Howard putting a flea in your ear then? Or is it because her nibs has put stars in your eyes?”
There were small trembling shapes in front of Minogue’s eyes when he looked away from the window at Crossan. His chest was swollen with the anger and his arms tingled. Hoey divined his anger and sat forward, closer to the lawyer, staring across at his colleague’s face. Crossan looked away momentarily, then returned to the Inspector’s reddening face. Crossan dropped his knife and fork on the table and reached into his jacket pocket. He drew out an envelope and dropped it in front of Minogue’s plate.
“What’s this?” he asked. “More snapshots?”
Crossan didn’t reply.
Minogue flicked it over and saw that it was addressed to himself. He fingered through a hole in the flap and tore open the letter. The page was a photocopy of what looked like a bill.
“There are two names on there that you’ll recognise,” said Crossan. “I didn’t anticipate having to give you this so soon, but I’m not going to sit here and fight a losing battle with the pair of ye.”
Minogue read the name Thomas J. Naughton. Hoey wiped his fingers on the serviette. Minogue handed him the paper.
“That’s a dividend statement for Naughton. He’s a shareholder in that outfit. Dalcais.”
“What’s Dalcais?”
“Dalcais owns four hotels, one folk village and a castle where the Yanks sit down to mediaeval banquets after they are carted off the jumbos down in Shannon.”
“Put things together then,” Minogue said to Crossan. “Let me hear it from you.”
“I’m giving you this to catch Naughton on the hop. He might just clam up on you. Naughton was the first Guard to the fire that night, remember. Ask me who owns 53 per cent of Dalcais.”
“The Howards.”
“Not bad,” said Crossan.
“Why didn’t you tell me this last week?”
“Because I didn’t need to and you didn’t need to know either. It’d prejudice matters.”
“My God, man, I didn’t know you had such delicate nerves,” said Minogue. “No more shenanigans. What the hell else have you up your sleeve?”
“I admit that I need ye here to shake up the place. That’s my strategy here. Ye’re Guards, ye’re down from Dublin. We need to shake up the box and see what falls out-”
“Give us a bit of plain English, man,” Minogue cut in.
“I told you that I couldn’t find anything in the trial records that’d help Jamesy. And I’m not optimistic that anything can come from a full transcript of the trial either. My only real chance is to put a bit of pressure on people and see what happens.”
“Damn-all will happen except buckets of trouble if you’re playing us for iijits,” said Minogue.
“You want a token and you got it,” Crossan resumed in a scoffing tone. “How did I get it and copy it? I tracked down the firm that handles Naughton’s stuff-his will and deeds and the rest of it. I paid a clerk by the name of Margaret Hickey a hundred quid to get me anything on Naughton. Christ, man, that’s the damn prejudice I’m talking about! To hell with Naughton and the rest of them-it’s myself I’m throwing to the wolves here!”
Minogue glared one-eyed at the lawyer.
“Now. Are ye still in, or what?”
“What are you going to do if and when you have to tell anyone how you came by this?” asked Minogue.
“Do you really need to ask me that? You’re the Garda inspector. The quiet fella here in the corner is taking it all in too. My goose is well and truly cooked now. I have no other tricks for ye. So what do ye say?”
Minogue poured lukewarm coffee from the jug and tried to think. The most he could do was dither. Crossan had taken a big risk handing him this paper and telling him in front of Hoey what he had done. And yet it could lead into another cul-de-sac. Wasn’t Naughton entitled to buy and sell any damned shares he wanted? Couldn’t he sink his money into any investment he might have heard about during his years in Ennis? Like nuns, teachers and publicans, Guards were notoriously cute with their money.
Minogue looked at the photocopy again.
“How long has he been receiving dividends?”
Crossan shook his head. “I could find out but I’d be digging me grave deeper. Listen. I was looking for where to put some pressure. Any weak point. Naughton had the name of being an alcoholic, but he had it well under wraps. Didn’t you ever meet an alcoholic that kept at it for years and years, hail-fellow-well-met? Could do his job and turn up every day but had his bottle hidden above the cistern in the jacks, hah?”
To his side Hoey blinked and froze. Minogue nodded.
“Well, Naughton was one but he didn’t drink all his money by the looks of that. It’s not a fortune by any means, but it’d pad out a pension into real comfort. I’m still waiting for your answer.”
Minogue glanced at Hoey.
“We’ll proceed with Naughton in Limerick this morning,” he said.
Crossan’s face seemed to lift as Hoey’s frown descended. The barrister flipped his wrist over and drew his cuff back from his watch.
“It’ll take you until dinner-time if you go to Limerick right now. I even have Naughton’s address here. Find out from him-”
“What do you think we should be finding?” Hoey asked.
“Ah, for Christ’s sake, don’t you start in on me now!” Crossan snapped. “Have ye forgotten everything we’ve talked about?”
Minogue repeated Hoey’s question. “What do you think we should be finding?”
Crossan spoke in a controlled, even tone.
“Garda incompetence. New evidence. Changes in testimony. Gaps in testimony. Inconsistencies in testimony. Don’t tell me that you decided to spend your off-time down here only because I put you up to it!”
“You’re right, I won’t,” said Minogue.
Crossan looked at his watch again and drew in a breath.
“When do you think you’ll get back from Limerick? I mean, how long do you think you’ll be…?”
Minogue was rubbing his eyes slowly and distractedly. He kept it up for a half-minute before he paused, opened his eyes and looked at Hoey.
“As long as it takes, counsellor,” he said.
Crossan bounded up from his chair, plucked the photocopy from the table and launched his lanky body toward the foyer.
“I’ll phone a taxi for ye this very minute,” Minogue heard him say.
“What a tricky bastard,” said Hoey.
Minogue shrugged. His anger was gone now.
“Well, a point in his favour has to be the way he’s put himself out with the Dalcais stuff,” Minogue offered. “But I just wish to God he had told us about his plans before Dan Howard told me.”
“Very tricky people down this part of the country,” said Hoey. “Still don’t trust him as much as…”
A yawn stole the rest of Hoey’s words. Minogue’s Fiat leaned into a bend on the dual carriageway that skirted Shannon Airport. The fog had given way to a blue sky. The sun was hard and bright on the windscreen of Minogue’s car. A jet passed low overhead, its shadow racing across the fields inland.
“No rest for the wicked,” said Hoey, and returned to looking out the window.
Minogue turned the mirror down until he saw the boot-lid bouncing against the rope he had been given to tie it down. His thoughts went to Naughton, and he recalled Naugton’s growl when he had phoned with a wrong-number yarn. Naughton was sixty-six. Still going strong, was Crossan’s arch description. Not bad for a drunkard, in other words. He thought of Hoey then. The Inspector’s misgivings broke free of their leash and tumbled into words.