The fright ran like cold water down to his knee caps.
“Goddamn you and your bloody machine!” he called out.
He spotted the curtain drawn back before he reached the door. He rang. Why was it taking so long to answer? The door opened to show Mrs. Mary Byrne, stooped and shuffling.
“You’re the Guard? The one was talking to Joey there the other day?”
Her face was damp, her eyes were small and intent.
“I am that. Mrs. Byrne?”
“Oh, none other. Do you use those cards now, like on the telly?”
“We do indeed. The card says I’m Matt Minogue.”
“Go on into the kitchen, will you. I’m a bit slow on the pegs.”
“Same as myself, by times, Mrs. Byrne.”
“Oh, yes. But I’ll bet you don’t have plastic things for hips now, do you? Sit down there. God, you’re a bit tall, aren’t you? Oh, well. Find your own way.”
Minogue eased himself into a kitchen chair.
“Does your husband know that I’m coming by?”
“No. I sent him down to the shop for rashers. He’ll be back in ten minutes, give or take, like. So you’re a Guard, are you. Which crowd do you work for?”
“You’d probably know it by its old name, Mrs. Byrne. The Murder Squad.”
Her eyes left his and Minogue looked around. The kitchen was spotless. The cooker gleamed and the counters were clear, what’s more. She had noted his appraisal.
“Oh, I can’t really take the credit for that! Joey does all the stuff around the house.”
“You’re well set up then, Mrs. Byrne. Is your husband a Dublinman?”
“ ’Deed and he is. Right down to his toenails.”
She grimaced as she shifted in her chair and squeezed out the words.
“Salt of the earth, he is.”
Her eyes were still closed.
“Are you, em…?”
She opened her eyes and smiled.
“Ah, I’m grand. It’s the hip. No. My Joey’s a man in a million. Doing housework all his life. Likes to be busy. Nicest man you could meet in a long day’s walk. Amn’t I lucky?”
“To be sure you are. Is he long retired now?”
“Eight year, so he is. You’d never guess to look at him but! And I’m not just saying that. Oh, no! I’m the oul wan in this family, so I am. Ha ha! I put on the wrinkles for the both of us. Joe’s the same today as he was twenty year ago. Oh, yes.”
“That’s great.”
“He used to be a ringer for Victor Mature. What more could a woman want?”
Minogue smiled and looked around the room again. Maybe all the grandchildren’s First Communion pictures etcetera were in the front room. His eyes returned to her face.
“Seventy-six he is. Oh, but you’d never guess! Sure, didn’t he lift me out of the chair the other day?”
Minogue’s wandering thoughts slowed.
“Swept you off your feet, did he now.”
“Ah, go on with you. Ha ha! No. I sort of got locked into position, don’t you know. The joints, like. And I’m no featherweight, I can tell you.”
He smiled.
“Great for a man of his age,” he said.
“Of course, being tidy and organized is second nature to him,” she went on. “A place for everything, everything in its place.”
A key was inserted deftly in the hall door. It opened immediately. Paws slid and scratched on the lino.
“I’m back, Mary!”
“Keep Timmy on the lead now, Joe. I have a visitor here.”
Mrs. Byrne’s eyes darted from the cooker to Minogue and back.
“Who?” Joe Byrne called out. The dog barked. Minogue heard metal tinkle-the lead, he decided-and a door close. The next bark was muffled.
“Come in and don’t be shouting at me, Joey.”
Joe Byrne appeared in the doorway. Minogue half stood and watched the frown slide down Byrne’s forehead. He felt that familiar voltage course through him, and he looked for that sign, that recognition of contact, from one who might be or might become his quarry.
“Hello, now, Mr. Byrne. We met the other day, you and I.”
Byrne’s eyes disappeared behind the reflections of the window in his glasses.
“The, em, canal? Oh, yes.”
Minogue kept staring at the dual images on the lenses.
“On the news, Joey,” said Mary Byrne. “They were asking for any… The poor girl!”
Several moments passed. Byrne’s eyes seemed to have locked onto his wife’s. Minogue still couldn’t see through the reflections on his glasses. His lips twitched once. He turned to Minogue.
“I don’t know what she told you, but you’d have to take it with a grain of salt now. I mean, you know the way the women are.”
“Will we sit down and have a chat maybe?”
For a moment he expected Byrne to tell him to get lost. The lips moved, the tongue pushed at a denture. Byrne dipped his head and his eyes came into view again. He blinked several times.
“All right. So’s I can set you to rights here now.”
Mrs. Byrne moved stiffly around the kitchen, filling the kettle and taking down cups and saucers.
“Are yous, I suppose, getting along with it?”
“Not as I would like-as we would like, I should say, Mr. Byrne.”
Byrne pushed his glasses back up his nose. Big hands, thought Minogue. The dog began scratching at the door.
“Mary. I’ll finish the tea now. We’ll let this man talk here with me, won’t we? I’ll bring you a cuppa there now in the front room.”
Mary Byrne scuffed her way over the lino, blocking the dog’s entry while she closed the door behind her.
“What did she tell you?” Byrne asked.
“That you took a walk there later on the night Mary was murdered.”
“So…?”
“So it sounds like you wanted to hide something.”
Byrne’s eyes left his and went to the bottom of the door.
“So it’s a matter of getting our facts and information straight now.”
Byrne looked up and rubbed his nose.
“Are yous going around the area, like? To see if anyone knows anything?”
“We need to take a walk down by the canal, you and I, Mr. Byrne.”
Joe Byrne’s lips began to move again but he closed them tight. He had been carrying a carton of milk from the fridge. He raised it and looked at it before placing it on the table.
“But tell me first about that night.”
“Nice,” said Byrne. The alarm yipped as Minogue pressed the remote. He dropped the keys into his pocket.
“Dear enough, the Citroen,” Byrne went on. He looked down at the styled aluminium wheels while they waited for a truck to pass. “But they lose their value quick.”
“You were in the motor trade, Mr. Byrne?”
“ ’Deed and I was. I remember those Citroens during the war. They were a good yoke back then.”
Byrne had gotten over his sulk anyhow, Minogue concluded. They crossed to the canal bank. Byrne took off his glasses and began wiping them with a hanky.
“Up by the bridge here, you said?”
Some faint movement around Byrne’s mouth lodged in Minogue’s mind. Byrne stepped down onto the bank ahead of him.
“I don’t know what Mary told you, now, but-”
“You went for a walk later on. After she had gone to bed. Half ten or thereabouts?”
“Well…”
“Well what? You didn’t think it worth your while to phone us after you had learned there was a murder here? Even after I bumped into you the other day?”
Byrne put his glasses back on. He cleared his throat.
“Well, like I was telling you earlier on, Mary now, she doesn’t have the full run of herself, you know.”
Minogue stepped in front of Byrne.
“Mr. Byrne. Give over complaining about the state of the nation and get down to details. It was half-ten and you going out that night, right?”
Byrne bit his lip.
“After the UTV news. I don’t need much sleep this last while. When you get on a bit, you know…?”
He nodded toward the railings by the bridge.