“Volunteering? Jesus, you’re definitely out of touch.”
“Tell me more,” said Minogue. Ryan began nibbling on a fingernail.
“That’s all there is. I told you everything.”
“‘Doesn’t take much,’ you said. What do you mean?”
Ryan still held his hand up under his chin, looking at the fingernails.
“Well, you’re not going to get much done without a leg opener, are you?”
“What kind are you talking about?” asked Minogue.
“I don’t know. A few jars. Whatever. Did I ask? I just showed up and took pictures.”
“How’d you get paid?”
“Who said anything about getting paid?”
“I did,” snapped Malone. “Because I say you wouldn’t lift a finger if you weren’t getting money for it.”
Ryan seemed to be deciding which fingernail to nibble.
“Sometimes I’d get a set of negatives. Not all of them, only some. Then the fee in an envelope. Be delivered to the office.”
He stared back into Minogue’s eyes in the mirror.
“How many girls are there in these books?” the Inspector asked.
“Twenty-five, thirty. Around that.”
“And you run off your own photos of these and sell them.”
“Sell them? Who says-”
“Shut up with that rant. Are these all the girls you’ve done this kind of work for?”
“No.”
“You’re telling me that, whoever your employers are, they only bother with some of these girls?”
“I suppose.” Minogue glanced at Malone.
“So where are the pictures of the rest of them?” asked Malone.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know a person by the name of Mary Mullen?”
“No.”
“Patricia Fahy?”
“I don’t ask names. Look, I’m only a middleman. This is a business.”
“Who calls you?” Malone asked.
“I told you. I don’t know.”
“The Egans.”
“I don’t know.”
“Record’s stuck,” said Malone. “Get with it there, pal.”
“You know them,” Minogue went on. “You know their do-fors.”
“Well, I heard of them. Who hasn’t?”
“You asked me who I knew and I gave you two names,” said Malone. “You remember them?”
“Maybe I do. Tell them to me again.”
“Like hell I will,” retorted Malone. “You knew them well enough to tell me they liked this stuff. Tying up and that. Do they visit you?”
“No.”
“How do you know them?”
“Same as how you came along today. A phone call, a meeting. I showed them samples.”
“Listen,” said Minogue. “Think very carefully about what I’m going to ask you.”
Ryan blinked. Minogue looked down the street.
“I’ve a feeling that you’ve dealt with Guards before. Am I right?”
“Spoke with some, yes.”
“You know Detective John Doyle?”
“Heard of him.”
“Umm. I note that you have no criminal record, Mr. Ryan. I’m impressed. I’m impressed because I believe you hang around the fringes of criminal groups and individuals. You’ve been trying to persuade Detective Malone and me that you were not aware of these dimensions. All very nice. Happy events. Wedding photographs. Do you do graduations?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“Baptism, First Communions? Confirmations too?”
“Done plenty of those.”
“That’s nice. Car, home out there in Howth. Nice. I’ll bet you good money that you’re thinking we can’t do much to you. Get yourself a good barrister and push the private collection bit? Maybe there’s a grand, big, flexible law has landed on us from the New Europe guaranteeing our individual rights and freedoms in the line of dirty pictures?”
Ryan almost smiled.
“Who knows,” he said. “It’s time we caught up with the rest of the world, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” asked Minogue. “What’s the worst, you’re thinking maybe. These two Guards sell me off to the Revenue Commissioners. I pay up, say, even a couple of thousand quid on undeclared income. Who’s to know, right? I bet you see that as the soft option to be sure. Compared to the other option. Right?”
“What option?”
“I believe you know exactly what I’m talking about-”
“What? The photos? What’s the big deal? Christ, Ireland’s not some bloody backwater with everybody shuffling off to Mass all the time! Look: people do what they want to do now. Life’s what you make it these days. Those girls weren’t forced into doing that. So it’s not like they didn’t know what they were into. Everybody wants to make something of themselves. That’s human nature, isn’t it?”
“Tell me about human nature then, Mr. Ryan,” said Minogue. “But some other time.”
Ryan’s face grew flushed.
“I’m doing a fucking service to those girls in actual fact!”
“Now, now, Mr. Ryan. Language.”
“I am! You don’t know a damn thing about life out there. A lot of these girls have nothing! Working in shops, no prospects. They want to get into, you know, modelling and stuff. It’s a free choice.”
“‘Modelling,” said Malone. “You’re a model, Ryan.”
“Nobody made them do it. What’s wrong with them wanting things? Clothes, money, a good time? You guys are all right, you have jobs. What if you’re twenty or twenty-one and there’s nothing coming your way?”
“What the hell do you know about growing up in the flats?” Malone demanded.
“It’s all about selling yourself,” said Ryan. “Everybody does it in one way or another.”
Minogue thought of the lipstick, the fake rapture. He was groggy with the heat now. He felt himself slipping into a stupor. He pushed buttons but the windows stayed up.
“You have to turn on the ignition,” said Ryan.
Minogue did so. He opened both windows. Malone was nibbling on his upper lip.
“Okay, Mr. Ryan. How many of these folders do you have?”
“The four you see there.”
“That’s all?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t believe you,” said Malone.
“Swear to God.”
“We’ll send a squad car out to your place in Howth and give it a good shake to be sure, then.”
“I told you-”
“Who else has stuff like this?”
“Christ, I don’t know! Whoever sets up the sessions, whatever they do with it. I don’t know!”
“Have you ever seen your stuff around? With other people?”
“No.”
“You’re a liar, Ryan,” said Malone. “And I’m going to find that out for sure. And when I do, I’m gonna be all over you.”
“What’s the charge?”
Malone looked over at Minogue. The Inspector rubbed at his eyes as he spoke.
“Obstructing police offers, inciting and abetting others to assault police off-”
“Aw, come on! You can’t be serious, man!”
Minogue took his fingers away and opened his eyes.
“And accessory to murder.” Ryan sat very still, staring into Minogue’s eyes.
“You’re bluffing,” he whispered.
“Me?” said Minogue. “Oh, no. You’re the one’s bluffing. Hot and grumpy-and the rest of it-I may be; bluffing, I am not.”
“I don’t believe you. I just don’t.”
“I don’t care,” said Minogue. He began rubbing his eyes again. He heard the soft clicks as his eyelids stretched and relaxed across his eyeballs.
“In your, em, collection there, Mr. Ryan,” he went on, “there is a picture of a woman who was associated with a murder victim. It is my opinion now that this associate of the murder victim may have concealed information vital to our investigation.”
He paused, glanced at Ryan and resumed rubbing.
“Do you want to tell us again you don’t believe us, Mr. Ryan?”
Ryan swallowed.
“I don’t know anything about this,” he whispered. “I swear to you.”
“A slippery slope, this, Mr. Ryan,” said Minogue. “If I had a pound for every brigand and smart-arse that’s come my way with their routines, their cat-farting around and lying and making fools of themselves, well, I’d be on my yacht parked below in the Mediterranean. I don’t like the idea that someone concealed potential evidence from me, Mr. Ryan. I really don’t. But she’s frightened. If I were her, I might be the same way. But you? I won’t be putting up with any tripe out of you.”