“But what do you want from me?”
“All your little collection.”
“It’s all here. Every bit. Who was murdered?”
“Someone that I believe you took pictures of. We want all of your stuff.”
“You didn’t find her here? Let me look…no, I don’t even know who she is.”
“You say that you only get some of the pictures back.”
“Right. Yes. Only some of them.”
“Your employer, for lack of a better word, kept the ones he liked best, do you think?”
“I suppose. Look, really. The most I’d ever know might be a first name.”
“Try ‘Mary.’ ”
Ryan blinked and scratched at his forehead.
“Well, Mary’s a common name like, isn’t it? I can’t really say I remember.”
“Maybe a session down in Harcourt Street station would refresh your memory.”
“I’m doing the best I can! A lot of the time you wouldn’t really remember a face even. Honestly, it gets like that. Then there’s make-up.”
“Who put it on?” asked Malone.
“Themselves, or to one another. Some of them really pour it on so as they won’t be recognized. It’d get all messed up then and we’d have to wipe it off.”
“‘We’?”
“Me and Danny. Danny, the fella driving my car. Look-have you got a picture of this girl that was, you know…?”
“Murdered?”
“Yes.”
“Before she was murdered, Mr. Ryan, or after?”
Ryan bit his lip.
“Bring over both if you please, Tommy,” said Minogue.
He watched as Malone reached into the Citroen for the folder.
“Are you nervous, Mr. Ryan?”
“It’s boiling here. I’m not used to being… to being talked to by the Guards. That’s all.”
Malone slammed the door and walked to a traffic warden who was surveying the parked Citroen. It was almost rush hour.
“You know the kind of things the Egans get up to, don’t you,” said Minogue.
“Yes.”
“You’re scared of them, aren’t you.”
Ryan stopped rubbing his hands. The parking attendant scrutinized Malone’s card and nodded.
“Well…”
“Was it Lenehan and Balfe together used to, er, supervise these sessions of yours?”
He kept his eyes on Malone but he heard Ryan swallow.
“Well,” his voice turned to a creak. He cleared his throat. “Four times out of five, it’d be, em, Lolly-Lenehan.”
“He likes to hurt girls, right? Or see them hurt.”
When Ryan didn’t answer, Minogue turned around. Head down, Ryan was rubbing his thumb and forefinger through his eyebrows. Minogue studied his scalp.
“He’d show for the other stuff usually,” said Ryan. “The props. The bars and stuff.”
“Has he got some of these photos?”
Ryan’s fingers now ran up from his forehead through his hair.
“Wouldn’t surprise me.”
Malone flopped back into the seat and opened the folder.
“Before,” said Minogue. Malone handed him a photocopy of Mary Mullen’s record. Minogue folded the sheet until only the face was uppermost.
“Just the face now, Mr. Ryan. Do you recognize this person?”
He studied Ryan’s frown in the mirror.
“Sometimes it’s hard to tell… Make-up and hair-dos, you know. That’s a good photocopier, I tell you… I think she was in one of the sessions. Yes. I think so.”
“You think so,” said Malone. Ryan raised his hands.
“You’re trying to trap me,” he said. “I’m being totally on the level with you. I can’t be certain and I have to tell you that. Jesus, I wish I could say ‘no’ but I want you to know-”
“When?” asked Malone.
“Wait a minute now,” said Ryan. “No matter what I say here, how do I know you’re going to take it the right way? I mean to say. I can’t remember ‘when.’ I just think she was one. Obviously she’s not one of the ones I got back.”
“Obviously,” said Malone.
“She’s graduated then,” murmured the Inspector. He handed the photocopy back to Malone.
“Pardon?”
“She passed the test.”
“What test?”
Minogue took the keys out of the ignition.
“Is this over with now?” Ryan asked. Minogue glared at him while he muttered to his partner.
“A word outside, Tommy.”
FIFTEEN
Malone followed the Inspector around back of the Celica. Minogue rested a foot on the bumper and began massaging his neck. Malone looked in at Ryan.
“Will we book this Ryan yob and let him sit in the system a while?”
Minogue looked at his watch.
“Great minds think alike, Tommy.”
“You think he’s playing with more than the one deck here?”
“I’d say he’s trying to cover himself, yes. Keep an eye on him while I phone in.”
Minogue ambled over to his Citroen and retrieved the phone. He sat with his feet resting on the footpath, Eilis told him that he was just the man she was looking for. He asked her if he was the first man she’d told that to today.
“That’s a different matter entirely. Do your business with his Lordship, can’t you, and I’ll give you your messages after. I have a message for Master Malone, too.”
“What?” said Kilmartin a moment later.
“A fella called Ryan took the pictures. So far I haven’t found ones of Mary Mullen but I have ones of Patricia Fahy.”
“Aha, the flatmate. Are they any good?”
“The pictures are bad, Jimmy. We call them pornography, remember?”
“Late in the day to be playing the iijit with me, head-the-ball. Are you going to the Fahy one with this under your belt?”
“Eventually, yes. But I’m phoning so’s you can-”
“Who’s this Ryan?”
“The link is Lenehan, the gouger who went haywire this morning. He was at some of the photo sessions, I suppose you’d call them.”
“What else?”
“What else yourself. That’s why I’m phoning. Where are we as regards filling in all the holes? What Mary Mullen did all day, for starters.”
“Huh. I tried the mother again, just on the phone. She stuck to it, got a bit annoyed. Didn’t know what the daughter was up to at all. I almost lowered the boom on her, let me tell you. Ready to take her down to the local station and do the talking there. I told her to try hard and remember, as I’d be phoning again later on, begob.”
“Anything turn up at the flat?”
“Nothing of note. No money. No cheque-book. No bank cards. No drugs for that matter.”
“And no sign of the handbag?”
“Divil damn the bit.”
“Sheehy and company, door-to-door…?”
“Don’t ask.”
“The quare fella, Leonardo?”
“Am I repeating myself here? No sign. John Murtagh talked to the mother again. She’s very agitated but still no lead on where he might be. Johnner has the impression she didn’t want to tell the whole story at all. I tell you, Matty, there’s a quare lot more people scared of gangsters than they are of us good guys.”
Minogue stared at the people leaving the offices along the street. He felt the phone slipping along his palms. He changed hands and wiped his free hand on his knee.
“Well, James. We’re going to sandbag this fella Ryan for a while. Then we’ll move on to Patricia Fahy.”
“‘We’ my eye,” said Kilmartin. “You might end up doing a lot of running around on your own.”
“Why? What’s up?”
“Your new sidekick. Voh’ Lay-bah. Eilis got a call for him. Personal, but I got a whiff of it though.”
Minogue opened the door and laboured out onto the street. He returned the pedestrian’s glances, the phone still jammed against his ear.
“Something to do with the brother,” said Kilmartin. “He’s out of the nick.”
He knew that rubbing it wouldn’t help, but it was driving him mental. He shifted around on the cement and shoved his knuckle into his eye. He stopped rubbing and looked across the car-park at the dust rising from the building site. Rubble had been bulldozed up into a heap and a JCB was loading it into dumpsters. He tried to open his eye again, but it hurt. He covered the eye with his palm and looked about. There was grit mixed in with the sweat on his forehead.