“You’re not one of my normal fans.”
“Serious Crime Squad, Mr. Balfe? Oh, no. They’re the tough guys to be sure. I’m much more reserved and genteel really. Murder Squad.”
Balfe frowned.
“Murder Squad?”
“Let’s begin again now, Mr. Balfe. Start us Monday morning and take us with you all the way through until you woke up Tuesday morning.”
ELEVEN
Minogue listened to Kilmartin’s rationale. An hour and a half with that head-case Balfe and he was no wiser. The phone slid around in his hand. He pushed Polaroids of Mary Mullen’s trashed flat around the desktop with his biro.
“What about the other character, the sidekick? Lenehan.”
“No sign of him. To get back to Balfe here.”
“What do you want to do? Put him to the wall or through the wall?”
“Through the wall, James. Doyler ranks him number one in the bully league.”
He spun one of the photographs. He heard Kilmartin flicking a lighter.
“He talks like he has a wallet full of alibis, Jim. I haven’t found a gap yet.”
“So? You can’t put him near Mary Mullen in the recent past?”
“Not yet. He said he met her once but that he didn’t know anything about her.”
“Well, you got that out of him. Fire it back in his face if we find out different later on. The way you talk it’s obvious we need more. This Lenehan fella, he’ll turn up soon enough.”
“Any word on Hickey yet?”
“No. Still on the run, it looks like. Look, Matt. Push this clown Balfe on any association with the Leonardo fella. Tire him out, catch him- the routine.”
“I’ve done that,” said Minogue. “There’s no sign of a giveaway. He didn’t try to dirty anyone. No hint of a deal either. He seems willing to take the hard option.”
Kilmartin said nothing.
“I want to pitch him out, Jimmy. I’m tired. We can hammer away at the alibis and his statement on paper and then work from there.”
“Fine and well then.”
From the tone, Minogue knew that Kilmartin felt different. He waited.
“Well,” said the Chief Inspector. “You could round up a couple of lads there from CDU, lads what know Balfe. Then take yourself off for a little walk. Down to Bewleys, your usual shirking zone. Come back in a while and there might be a different tune. Falling down the stairs can do a lot for a man’s tongue.”
“Come on now, Jim. All those conferences on methods? The tour of the FBI college?”
“Get smart there, hair-oil. Do you think they never take the gloves off over there?”
“Balfe knows the routine. He’s been broadcasting about his solicitor since he got here. Either we hold him now and get serious or we call it a day.”
“Umhhk,” said Kilmartin with a soft belch. “Well, far be it from me, etcetera.”
Far indeed, thought Minogue. He trudged back to the interview room. The air was stale. Arms folded, Malone had slid down the chair. He was staring at Balfe.
“Aha,” said Balfe. “You found a phone that makes outside calls?”
Minogue glanced at Malone.
“Okay, Mr. Balfe. That’ll be all for the moment.”
Balfe gave him a blank look. He blinked and sat back in his chair.
“Just when we’d got to the interesting bit, huh, Tommy?”
Malone gathered himself up and stood. Balfe also stood.
“You think I’m messing, Tommy, do you? Not this thing, the girl who got killed. I mean the psychology thing. Very interesting, no joke. How come you’re the Lone Ranger and Terry’s not?”
Minogue leaned against the wall. Whatever that was about, the tape would have picked it up.
“What did she have belonging to you, Mr. Balfe?” Minogue asked.
“Who?”
“Mary Mullen. When you went through her flat, Mr. Balfe. Did you find it?”
Balfe’s eyes seemed to recede a little into his head.
“You’ll have to do a lot better than that if you want to try stitching me up, pal,” he said. Minogue thought about Kilmartin’s suggestion that he go for a stroll and leave three or four Guards from the Hold-up Squad with Balfe.
“I’ll show you out, Mr. Balfe,” he heard himself murmur. “That way, next time you’re back, you’ll know the way yourself.”
Minogue swung around South King Street and turned into Drury Street. He registered the plastic bottles and beer cans lying in the doorways, the pub doors wide open to admit more of the sultry air. Two men in shorts and copies of Ireland’s national soccer team’s t-shirts staggered by. He levered the car into Wicklow Street and parked it.
Back Then was dark. Hot air thick with the smell of cooking vegetables washed over his face. His eyes began to adjust to the light and he navigated toward a table against the wall. World music came on strong from the ceiling speakers. He ordered a tumbler of water and looked about. The restaurant could pass for a workshop or studio. Bold design with haphazard objets trouves seemed to state that this was a provisional set-up and would remain permanently provisional. Work in progress. Iseult was suddenly composing herself in a chair opposite.
“Will we stay?”
“Didn’t we decide to?”
“All right.” He watched the waitress approach, the glitter of something on her nostril.
“You don’t like it?”
“I’m not used to the idea that the restaurant is not finished but merely abandoned.”
“God, Da, the older you get! What’ll you eat now?”
“Your mother was asking for you.”
Iseult cocked an eye and held the glass of water to her cheek.
“I’ll phone her tonight,” she said.
“She’s excited about the wedding. So am I.”
Iseult searched his face for sarcasm. He kept his gaze on posters across the room.
“I suppose I should get her more involved. Plans and everything. It was to be the Registry Office, I hope you know.”
Was, thought Minogue. Her hands searched around the table, touching the vase and its single flower, the tumbler, the cutlery.
“‘Was,’ ” he said. Iseult arranged her knife, fork and spoon in overlapping patterns. “Did I hear you right?”
“Pat’s parents dug in their heels. They won’t go unless it’s in a church.”
She picked up the knife and stared at it.
“I had a monster row with him over it,” she said.
“And?”
She began to finger the handle of the knife. The tip held some fascination for her.
“I thought I knew him.”
Minogue said nothing. Thin, clear soup arrived.
“So what are you going to do?”
She blew on the spoon.
“What I told him I’d do.” She put down the spoon and joined her hands over her bowl.
“He comes home the other evening and starts hemming and hawing. I thought he was having me on.”
She sighed and returned to her soup. Minogue thought of Pat’s parents. He had met them half a dozen times. The mother, Helen Geraghty, was from Meath and was very active in community groups. She liked amateur theatre and took classes in writing. The father, Des, was a bank manager in Terenure. He liked golf and expressed keen interest in the Minogues’ visits to France. He had buttonholed Minogue after a few jars at the Christmas and spoken darkly of the state of the country’s coffers and conscience. We have to pull up our socks here in Ireland or we’d never be taken seriously in Europe-or anywhere else for that matter, according to Des. Minogue had become used to the prospect of knowing the Geraghtys better as in-laws. Kathleen and Helen maintained correct and cordial relations. Compliments were plentifully exchanged and neither woman allowed earnest discussions of politics and other contentious matters to blunder into argument. Both sets of parents were punctilious in maintaining the open secret that Pat and Iseult lived together.
“His parents are gone barking mad since the abortion referendum,” Iseult said.
Minogue had tired of the soup. Barking mad, he repeated within. Pat’s parents, those golfing, innocuous and charitable suburbanites, those people with generous and tolerant instincts, had declared themselves committed to following Church teaching. Helen Geraghty had referred to the matter with almost apologetic earnestness, he recalled, but he hadn’t missed the glint in her eye: “Really now, Matt. When it all comes down to it, there’s only one choice, isn’t there?” He’d been stunned later to hear Des Geraghty reading the lesson at Sunday mass broadcast on RTE. Was Des Geraghty in that thick with the Church, he’d spluttered to Kathleen. What did he mean “in that thick,” was her reply. He glanced at Iseult.