“So there’s still the two separate worlds: Ms. Quinn the fiasco, all the linen and lace, and then the slumming and slagging around with Mary Mullen. How’d he hold it together?”
“ ‘The edge’, Kenny calls it.”
“ ‘The edge’? Slinky suits and hair-dos. Telephone in the pocket. I see more of them every day. The type’d cut you in two in the traffic. Frigging counter-jumpers. And they want everything now, right this minute. A crooked breed we’re rearing these days, with our United Europe shite. Christ, man, we were better off in the bog.”
“You were maybe.”
Kilmartin’s eyelids drooped.
“Is that the way with you? Busy pissing on the Kenny blackmail idea, but I don’t seem to remember you leaping across the floor and into my office there with the case cleared. Did I miss that?”
Minogue kept his gaze on the statements on his desk. Kilmartin turned his head.
“Whose is that?”
“Tierney, James Tierney. Patricia Fahy’s beau.”
“Are you getting anything from it maybe?”
“A headache.”
“Speaking of which, where’s Molly? Voh’ Lay-bah, the owil yuu-nion’s nummbahr waahn!”
The Chief Inspector suddenly waltzed across the floor.
“ He wheels his wheelbarrow
Through streets broad and narrow
Crying cockles and mussels
Alive-alive-O ”
He turned on the balls of his feet and let his imaginary partner rest on his arm.
“Next dance, please. Well, where is he?”
“Jimmy: give over. He has stuff to deal with.”
“And we don’t?”
“Don’t come to me looking for half your jawbone if you push him over the edge. Call it quits.”
“No sticking power, that’s the problem. If Molly can’t-”
“Who scored the winning goal for United on the night of Mary Mullen’s murder?”
“What? Who cares? Why the hell would I know that?”
“James Tierney knows. It’s in his statement.”
“So?”
“And the other goal-scorers. The penalty that was missed. The fella given the yellow card.”
“Oh, great. Soccer is a load of cobblers anyhow. Curriers, beer cans, riots. Like England.”
“I wonder if his girlfriend is so keen on it. Patricia Fahy.”
“On what? The you-know-what?”
“The soccer.”
“I hope not-”
Minogue grabbed the phone before it had finished its first ring.
“My God, you’re fast,” said Kathleen. Minogue sat back and let out a breath.
“For a married man,” he said. “Is it yourself that’s in it, love.”
Kilmartin nodded and moved off. Kathleen asked if he would be home for tea. The Inspector didn’t know whether he had an appetite or not. He told her he’d probably have to stay late. She talked about an apartment which had come on the market today. He felt the outside of his coffee mug. The back of his tongue was still sour and chalky nearly an hour after he had drunk the last cup. He looked down at the file folder of statements he had been reading and began to push the cup around it. Like a boat trying to land on an island, he thought. The mug slowed. He pushed harder and it tipped.
“Goddamn that bloody-!”
“Pardon?” asked Kathleen. “Pardon?”
He grasped the corner of the folder and yanked it up. Sheets slid and darted out, floating down to the floor. The coffee spread in a pool the size of a saucer. A map the shape of Africa, he thought.
“Spilled something,” he said. “Give me a minute.” He laid the receiver down and dithered. Kilmartin reappeared by the desk.
“Christ, you’re an awful messer,” said the Chief Inspector. He took out a packet of paper hankies, dropped them on the desk and began picking up the statements. Minogue dropped the tissues at strategic intervals over the spill.
“Use the tail of your shirt,” said the Chief Inspector. “Like the rest of the Clare crowd.”
Minogue lifted a saturated hanky and squinted at Kilmartin.
“Jim. Thanks. Now go out and play on the train lines There’s a Cork train due.”
“Ah, howiya there, Kathleen,” Kilmartin called out. “Take him home, will you. He’s losing the run of himself here.”
Minogue spoke between clenched teeth.
“Jim says hello.”
“Do you see an end to it all soon, love?” she asked.
“Not really. I’m trying to find anything we might have missed.”
“Ah. Well, have you spoken to her?”
Minogue looked down at the brown mess where his coffee had been. Definitely Africa. He wondered if his headache would get worse.
“Who?”
“Iseult. Your daughter.”
“Sorry. No. I tried the flat, but there was no answer. Listen, did she drop a hint as she flew the coop?”
“She just leaped up from the table and out the door with her. It’s the wedding. The cancellation, I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe there’s some way to talk her out of it. Get her to see reason. Talk to poor Pat maybe?”
Poor Pat? He studied the flash of the outside line on his phone, its constant glow as Murtagh picked it up.
“I’ll try her again around tea-time,” he said.
“Yes. And you could suggest to her-”
Murtagh was waving and pointing at the receiver in his left hand. Kilmartin walked smartly to Hoey’s desk and grabbed the extension.
“Have to go, Kathleen. Got a call. I’ll phone you back.”
“It’s Hickey,” Murtagh whispered. He tapped at his head. “Sounds like he’s out of it.” Minogue’s heart began to beat faster.
“Ready to try again then?” he whispered to Murtagh. He pushed down the button.
“Liam? This is Matt Minogue. How are you?”
He heard the dull bass of television voices nearby.
“How do you fucking think I am?”
Murtagh waved. He had the line open to Communications.
“I’m glad you called, Liam. I was hoping you would.”
“So’s you get another chance? I seen yous racing around the place two minutes after I dropped the phone, man! What kind of fucking treatment is that?”
Slurred all right. Minogue bit his lip.
“It’s police procedure, Liam. Straight out.”
“Wait a minute there, you! Just hold on there a minute! This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. Why amn’t I getting more of the social worker crap? ‘Come on, Liam, I understand your problems.’ Huh? ‘Let’s talk about it, Liam.’ What if I just drop the bleeding phone right now?”
Minogue waited for several seconds.
“Then you’d be a damn liar, Liam. You’re no friend of Mary’s.”
The Inspector looked around the squadroom. Murtagh was rubbing his ear. Kilmartin’s brow had lifted and the Inspector caught a glimpse of teeth as they scraped on his upper lip. Hickey wasn’t talking.
“So prove me wrong, Liam.”
“Don’t… you… fucking talk to me like that! What gives you the-I could just drop the phone-”
“Listen to me, Liam. Your alibi is coming out pretty clean. Tell me who you fenced the stuff to, the camera and the jacket.”
“Why? So’s I get the guy into trouble and have him and his mates after me too? All he’d tell you anyway is the opposite of what I’m telling you. ‘Never heard of the guy.’ Christ, that’s what I’d say if the cops landed in on top of me, man! Forget it.”
“Well, give me something definite then. I mean, someone else could have robbed the stuff and told you about it. Tell me what else you took out of the car.”
“What do you mean, what else?”
“If you’re lying, you don’t know what I mean then, do you?”
“A Walkman. I kept it.”
“What kind of a Walkman?”
“Sony. The batteries ran out.”
“What tape was in it?”
“What kind of a fucking question-”
“What tape was in it, Liam?”
“What’s the guy. He has a group. The guitar guy. Ahhh… Dire Straits. Brothers in Arms.”
“What did you do with it?”
“I still have it in the… Wait a minute. What are you trying to do here? You’ll pull me in on robbing the car and then throw me somewhere the Egans can nail me!”