“You’re not going to persuade us. We’re going to decide that for ourselves.”
“But haven’t I got the sheet of me fares for the night, addresses even?”
“It’s incomplete, Mr. Mullen. You know better than I do about switching off a meter.”
“So if I can’t account for ten seconds that night, then I’m still on a list or something?”
Minogue hauled his legs in under him. He put his watch back on.
“We’ll be talking to you again, Mr. Mullen. Look, I hope you last it out with the drink thing. Get together with someone, can’t you? Your, what do you call ’ems, mentors?”
Mullen rose to his feet.
“Look, let me just tell you one last thing. I don’t like this way you treat me. But I accept it because I’m depending on you to find whoever did this. Being treated like I am is a part of my penance for the past, isn’t it? You see, I’m not one of those people that thinks anything goes. Right? Even in the Church, you get a lot of do-it-if-it-suits-you kind of morals. I lost my daughter to that world out there. That’s my hell. And you are part of that hell because you don’t understand.”
Minogue nodded at Malone. Mullen looked out the doorway and then turned to the Inspector. The words came out in a monotone.
“Nothing just happens, you know,” he said. “There’s a reason for everything.”
“Jesus,” said Malone.
“Not quite, Tommy. Just one of His more vocal supporters.”
Malone looked over.
“Okay. A looper, then.”
“Well. Did you take all that in?”
“Haven’t met many of him, I can tell you that.”
“Do you believe him?”
Malone gnawed the inside of his cheek while he piloted the Nissan through traffic. Minogue wondered what shape Patricia Fahy would be in for the hard questions.
“Don’t know yet. Fella I knew went religious after a car accident. Oh, yeah. Before the crash it was ‘fuck this’ and ‘fuck that.’ Then I’d bump into him and him hobbling around on crutches. ‘God bless,’ ‘salvation,’ ‘love’ was all I got out of him then. Told me he woke up in the hospital and God was floating on the ceiling. What about the fifteen pints, I said. Ha, ha, like. No. Not funny.”
“Why?”
“Preferred the old way. You knew where you stood. Must have got brain damage, like.”
Minogue shifted in his seat. The small of his back prickled with heat. Tiny pieces of grit seemed to be stinging his eyes at regular intervals. The traffic was at a standstill for three minutes now.
A short fat man in a fluorescent vest waved a reversing lorry out ahead of them. Minogue studied the nearly completed block and counted eight stories. The sea-green glass reflected the sky as grey. A crane was lifting more windows up the outside of the building. The load turned slowly as it rose and the sun caught the glass.
“Jases,” said Malone and raised his hand over his eyes. He inched the Nissan around a forklift and turned into East Wall proper.
“Those windows’ll be a right target for young lads around here. Boom.”
Minogue grinned. This area east of the city centre and north of the Liffey had been the toughest beat for a century. The adjoining docklands were being redeveloped as Ireland’s new international financial centre. The glass-clad buildings which had recently sprung up there were epic exercises in New Brutalist style, so far as Minogue could make out. Hope springs infernal.
“A bit hard on the Dublin crowd, there, aren’t you, Tommy?”
Malone stood on the brakes as a motorcycle shot through a gap in traffic ahead.
“Ya fucking bollicks!”
Minogue caught a glimpse of the driver. A helmet covered in front by dark plastic, a radio strapped next to his chin.
‘“Scuse the language there, er… Those fu- those couriers. I must be a bit edgy.”
“Don’t be worrying. This is your first case.”
“Ah, that’s not what has me so jumpy-Whoa. Number 27. Here we are.”
Malone pulled in abruptly, switched off the engine and rolled up the window.
“What has you so jumpy?” Minogue asked.
“The brother.”
“You expect Patricia Fahy to give you more slagging about him?”
“Yeah. And I’ll probably get no end of slagging when you-know-who finds out.”
“Jimmy Kilmartin? Sure he knows about it already.”
“Yeah, I know that. It’s a new page in the story though.”
Malone’s voice had fallen to a murmur. He rubbed his forehead hard with his thumb.
“Terry’s time is up. He’s getting paroled. Yeah. Terry hits the streets tomorrow.”
SIX
He slipped off the bus, and lit his second-last cigarette. He watched the bus turn out of sight down the road. He’d have a bit of something to eat, have a wash-up and head back into town. He’d try the pubs along Leeson Street. Dwyers, O’Brien’s, that Unicorn kip. She might have gone to that club, Stella’s. Wash his hair and put on something sharp so’s he wouldn’t have the bouncer at Stella’s looking down his nose at him. But if he had to go to Stella’s to look for her, that’d mean money. A fiver cover charge! And she might be sitting with one of the Egans. Christ! He looked up and down the street. She’d throw a bleeding fit if she thought he’d come looking for a freebie.
He drew hard on the cigarette. The steady pulses over his eyebrows were getting stronger. There was a headache on the way, one of those killers. Then his stomach’d go wormy, about the same time he’d get that freaky feeling, like a thirst all over his body. He’d start to think of doing anything. An oul one even, with her shopping bag and a cane, and he’d see himself kicking her in the face just to get her bag. One of these days it’d happen. It was like he couldn’t stop it happening the way he had seen it going to happen, like it was somebody else with his face doing it. What was a fella supposed to do, for Christ’s sake? Kill someone to get a bit of help or money? His chest heaved with the first impulse to cry out. It frightened him. Was he that close to losing it? This is what a bit of blow does to you? He’d heard stuff but didn’t really believe it. The ones that cracked up had their own problems. No willpower. It was just lighting the fuse for a lot of them. Headers. It didn’t take much to put them right over the wall.
He had often thought about getting his hands on a gun. Noel O’Rourke had told him he’d get him one for seven hundred quid. Noelie thought he wasn’t smart enough to cop on that any gun he’d come by was probably dirty. Maybe even a cop getting shot with it. A gun’d do it, though. He could freelance for a few jobs. The Egans’d look at him different if he carried a gun. No one would dare fuck with him. No way: boom. You won’t do that again, you stupid…
He headed for home. He had it all worked out now. Mary had always seen the good side of him, the paintings and drawings he’d done. She liked that stuff. He’d bring her the one of the people with animal heads. Maybe if she was in a good mood, he’d try to suss her out about the chances of selling his stuff to that gobshite she had on the side. Mister Money, whatever the hell his name was Tony something. Alan? Alec? Him and his mates were the types to buy art, weren’t they? If she’d just level with him about what she was up to. How would he say it: Don’t you trust me, Mary? Let me in on it. I’ll be your back-up.
He rounded the corner walking faster. It was when he’d sit down at home, when the Ma would give him that look or start nagging, that he’d have to keep a cool. Another couple of hours, that was all. He could handle that. As long as he was doing something, he was okay. Exercise or something. Running. When he got that stash started up, he’d get a motorbike like Jammy-no, a car. Yeah! No. The stuff about a car was all shite. He’d buy a bike and get fit and everything. They’d laugh at first but then they’d see how organized he was, how he was his own boss. He’d eat right too, then there’d be no stopping him. Basically he was very healthy. It wouldn’t take much to get fit-