John Brady - The going rate

McNamara filled his cheeks with a breath, held it for several seconds, and then let it out.

“It won’t be textbook,” he said in a voice little above a murmur. “Will it, now.”

Minogue was tempted to let McNamara in on how many sites he had worked on, sites that had been trampled on too. But McNamara’s remark took on its intended meaning before he said so, however. Collusion was being called for, if he and Malone were going to get anywhere. He wondered what favour Malone had called in to be allowed into the site before the Technicals showed up and began their painstaking prowls, like ghosts or Hallowe’en figures in their suits.

“If it was textbook forensics we did every time, we’d be in the ha’penny place,” he said to McNamara.

McNamara looked at the splintered edge of the door. He seemed to weigh Minogue’s words.

“A quick once-over then,” he said, and reached into his jacket, “while the going is good. Very quick. But if the Scenes lads arrive, you’re out that door in a flash. Nod’s as good as a wink?”

“In a flash,” said Minogue.

McNamara handed Minogue one, then another glove. Malone was already pulling on his own.

“What’s that smell,” Malone said. “That perfumey one. Do you smell it?”

“Maybe it’s yourself you’re smelling,” said McNamara.

“If it was I’d be passed out on the floor. No, there’s some pricey kind of smell. Men’s stuff.”

McNamara gave him the eye. Malone shrugged.

Minogue looked ahead before each footstep, stopping each time. The blood on the carpet was almost black already, and gave off no sheen.

“How’s this for witnesses, Brian?”

“Zero. There’s no night staff.”

“Access, I wonder?”

“Child’s play from the outside. Have a look at the delivery door out the back, on your way out. That’ll tell you plenty.”

Minogue looked back at the splintered doorframe, and the door, with its smashed edge sticking out like feathers.

“Classy joint,” Malone said.

“They might have a nice honeymoon suite,” McNamara murmured. “Tell herself, why don’t you.”

“That’s it,” said Malone. “You’re off the guest list.”

“Not that I was ever on it.”

“Sonya only felt sorry for you,” said Malone. “Thought she might be able to get you fixed up, you know.”

McNamara had no smile, but in his voice Minogue now heard the dry restraint of the Claremen he had grown up around.

“If you mean getting me a date with some wall-eyed cousin from Hong Kong, yous were doing me no favours. It’s Sonya or nobody for me. She’s too good for the likes of you.”

“You’ll answer for that one in the ring. Mister Tough Guy.”

Ah, Minogue realized, a cohort from the Garda Boxing Club.

McNamara took a plastic bag from his pocket, and held it in his palm, arranging its contents.

“UK driver’s licence. Justin Anthony Kilcullen, the one carted to hospital.”

Minogue squinted at the photo, the expected neutral expression. Dependably nondescript.

“Looks real enough,” he said.

“Maybe so,” said McNamara, quietly. “But he’s a goner now. I don’t know why they didn’t put one in his brain, but.”

McNamara let other cards slide into view.

“The fella on the floor is going by the name of Gary David Parker. Is. Was.”

There was a spray of darkening blood on the wall by the window where the man’s body lay. Most of the lines down ended after a few inches in the maroon beads that Minogue expected. Blood had pooled in his armpit, and freckles of it were under his jaw. A pistol lay eighteen inches from the man’s knee.

“Is that gun taken care of,” he asked.

“It is,” said McNamara. “It was a full clip that came out. He didn’t get one off at all. The other fella’s was still under his pillow, if you can believe it.”

“That fast,” said Malone. “There had to be a few of them.”

Minogue eyed the awkwardly turned leg and the one outstretched arm that ended in a bloody pulp where the palm used to be. Had he reached out to grab the gun?

The boxer shorts were saturated with blood, and his singlet had been pulled up in his last movements.

“‘The Hammers’?” Minogue said. “What is that?”

“Don’t you know that?” asked Malone. “I was going like the hammers in me new French car? Like the hammers of hell…?”

“Hardly, now.”

“Do you have a thing called a telly vision in your house out there in wherever?” Malone asked. “And when you’re finished milking the cows or whatever yous people do out there on the south side, do you look at the front of the telly vision, the glassy-looking bit? There does be a thing called soccer on there, a lot. A crap team called West Ham.”

“Okay, I get it. I would have gotten it by myself eventually.”

Malone gave him a skeptical look.

The smell of latex from the gloves was beginning to irritate Minogue’s nostrils.

“Savages for fans,” Malone added. “Looks like they have one less now.”

“Any particular items you’re looking for?” McNamara asked.

“Effects belonging to some people,” Minogue said. “Any sign at all.”

“Are you sure about that.”

McNamara spoke with no hint of exasperation that Minogue could detect. Still, he made sure of his footing, and his balance, and he half-turned to McNamara.

“I’m not being contrary,” said Minogue. “I actually have no idea.”

“Fair enough,” said McNamara. “Now did Tommy here tell you anything? These pair aren’t, weren’t, shoplifter league.”

McNamara pulled at his gloves over his knuckles and looked over at Malone.

“Tommy. Your outfit got the same bill of goods as we did, right?”

“What kind of a question is that,” said Malone. “Of course we did. Even faster than yous.”

“On your arse, you did,” said McNamara. “You chancer.”

He turned back to Minogue.

“Was he like this when you worked with him?”

“Worse. Infinitely.”

“Doubt that,” said McNamara. “So you know then that these two were serious business. Ex-army, dog-rough and all. They’d be getting well paid for their trip here. Well, whatever the going rate for hit men is, fancy ones. So housebreaking wouldn’t be high on the agenda.”

“It could be they were up to no other stuff,” said Minogue. “Their own sidelines, as it were.”

He returned to his study of the floor, a location that he had learned over many years was where gravity placed items that would be useful in his investigations. He eyed the folded pieces of silver paper by the half-empty bottle of vodka, and began to make his way over. No traces of powders that he could see.

Malone had made his way foot-over-foot to the toilet, where he squatted, opened a pen-knife and used it to lever up the edge of a towel. He stood slowly, and leaned out to look into the shower stall. Minogue heard him lifting the lid on the toilet tank, and replacing it.

“So,” said McNamara. “There was some expertise on show here, planning and carrying this out. That much we know.”

Minogue continued his inventory of what he could see from where he had stopped. Half-bottles of white rum, empty; a takeaway coffee cup, salt and vinegar crisps, a remote for the television. No cigarettes. Bits of paper — receipts they looked like — on top of the chest of drawers, next to coins. Jeans in a ball by the leg of a bed, T-shirt, one sock. Malone was looking behind the television now, balanced on one leg like a ballerina.

“A setup from the start, even,” said McNamara. “What do you think there, Tommy? Are the Egans that underhanded?”

Malone merely snorted.

“Those bags,” said Minogue, looking at the soft-sided bags by the door to the toilet again. “Could we…?”