John Brady - The going rate

Cully started the engine.

“Okay,” he said.

Fanning allowed himself a bit more room to stretch.

“Don’t forget your belt there,” said Cully. “Don’t want a fine now.”

He pulled out slowly onto the road.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” said Fanning.

“Falluja,” said Cully. “Let me guess. That’s another story. But not now.”

“No, I wasn’t thinking that. More like, why you’re interested in this stuff. What I’m doing, I mean. Scriptwriting is not that exciting, you know.”

“Oh I don’t know about that. But to tell you the truth, I’ve always been interested in films. I mean who hasn’t.”

He looked over at Fanning.

“Larger than life, and all that? Better than the real world, and that’s no joke. Right?”

Fanning was not in a mood to disagree.

“Money, of course. There’s money in making films, isn’t there?”

“Not enough,” said Fanning. “From my end anyway.”

Cully had dropped something down between his seat and the door. He stopped fumbling for it to change into third gear.

“Never quite realized the impact of a camera,” said Cully, and began fumbling again. “But, like I mentioned there, you see things.”

“What place is that?”

“Falluja. Actually not in the place itself.”

“I thought it was an expression of yours, you know, I’ve got a pain in the fallujia, or something? Like a cockney expression or something?”

“Cockney?”

Fanning saw that he had stopped fumbling.

“Just a guess,” he said to Cully. “It’s not important.”

Cully looked over at him. His face had taken on the blank expression that Fanning remembered from the dog fight.

“I’m Irish,” said Cully. “People don’t seem to think that’s proper, or something.”

“No offence,” said Fanning. “Really. Look, at this stage, I’m just babbling, I’m so knackered. Just stupidity. I’ve been saying stupid things all night. But I’m going to fix that. Starting with Brid. She’s right, you know.”

“They’re always right,” said Cully, absentmindedly, and returned his attention to the road. “Aren’t they.”

Fanning closed his eyes to yawn. Opening them, he saw lights in the mirror, a car turning onto the road behind them. An early shift, he thought; nurse maybe, bakery or the like. Cully had noticed it too.

“Much more practical,” said Cully, glancing in the rearview mirror again. “Women. Wives.”

Something was working its way into Fanning’s mind now, and it suddenly loomed.

“They say that men are the facts people, but it’s not true,” Cully said. “They make things up more than the women, I tell you.”

He turned in his seat to look at Fanning.

“They lie more too.”

“Wait,” Fanning said loudly, the terror already engulfing him.

He saw Cully’s hand come up, and the flash that came at the same time as the explosion. The belt cut hard at his neck. There was another flash but he did not hear any sound this time.

“Jaaay — zzus,” said Malone, and pocketed mobile. Minogue hadn’t even tried to pretend he wasn’t eavesdropping.

“They had a row, you say,” Minogue said.

“They did all right.”

“Over what he was doing, she said?”

“Or not doing,” replied Malone. “But, man, she’s upset now, I’ll tell you.”

Minogue spotted the Toyota coming around the bend at speed.

“Her mother, I think,” said Malone. “I got her to phone them.”

“Well it’s father driving, I think.”

Malone climbed slowly out of his car. Minogue half-listened to the hurried conversation with Brid O Connor’s parents. The mother had been crying. The father looked angry and frantic, drilling a stare into Malone as though to extract something from him.

Malone was patient for a man who had been up all night. Minogue heard him say something about all avenues. He hardly means the roads around here.

“Hard to know what to tell them,” Malone muttered as he sat in again.

“You phoned him in officially, did you? Missing Persons?”

Malone nodded.

“She’s beating herself up over it,” he said. “Over why she waited. On account she was so mad at him. All in the past now, I can tell you.”

Both detectives looked over at the house when they heard a shriek. Brid O Connor clung tight to her mother. The door closed awkwardly.

“What do you want to do,” Malone said.

Minogue shook his head. He thought of Matthews, and Twomey, the two girls. Proper little bitches, he remembered the desk Sergeant muttering yesterday evening.

“Climb back into that poofy new car of yours, and go back to bed?”

Minogue didn’t bother replying.

“I actually don’t want to think about this anymore,” said Malone. “That woman in there. And the kid. Bad enough that I’m so wired already.”

He shook his head slowly from side to side.

“I’d better do something,” Minogue said. “Those two fellas are up in court at eleven, looking for bail. I have to get my stapler going on the bits and bobs of paper for that.”

“What about the two young ones you were telling me about, the ones you decided to release last night?”

“Going to charge them,” said Minogue. “No sexism here.”

Malone sat up and frowned, and he gave Minogue a hard look.

“Why are you going around wrestling paper for this stuff? Aren’t you case officer for this? Get some of your butties there to do the court appearance and all the rest of it.”

“So I can do what instead?”

Malone waited a few moments.

“So you can see how we do real police work instead. Tracking down these two fellas that Fanning told her about.”

Minogue thought about it.

“Nothing’s going to happen without a bit of something to eat,” he said. “A cup of something.”

Malone knew his way around Rathmines. In spite of the traffic, he and Minogue were seated in The Red Shoes, their fry ordered and coffee before them on the table. Malone had to go outside to take a call from his boss. He came back in just as the plates were put down on the table. He stood by the table, eyeing the scrambled egg and the two shiny sausages as though they held a secret for him.

“Sit down, you’re making me nervous.”

“We have a bit more from our friends in the quare place,” he said quietly. “The Big Smoke.”

London, he meant, Minogue realized.

“And it’s beginning to look like we’re dealing with the same people. Head-cases, I should be saying.”

Minogue forked some of the egg onto a piece of toast, but much of it fell off when he lifted it.

Malone went on in a thoughtful tone.

“What he told the missus. ‘English, probably, gangsters.’”

“Not all English people are gangsters.”

“Didn’t want her worrying, maybe,” said Malone.

“A bit cryptic all the same.”

“Whatever that means.”

“Mysterious. Like he didn’t make it clear.”

Malone sighed and launched into his breakfast. His phone went again.

“Where?” he asked, and he sat up straight. He looked at Minogue.

“Two of them? How deep is it there?”

He listened, chewing on the sausage that he had picked up with his fingers.

“The sooner, the better,” he said. “If they’re asking my opinion.”

“Two cars,” Malone said after he had hung up. “In the water there, up by the Port of Dublin. Not far from the quays.”

He gave Minogue a knowing look.

“They’re starting on it in a while,” Malone added.

Minogue was feeling full now. He concentrated on the coffee.

“Any more on the two men?” he asked Malone.

“One they think is a fella, Kilcullen. Great name for a soldier boy, I suppose.”