John Brady - The going rate

He pulled on the handbrake. Tight, maybe too tight. He couldn’t ignore the squeak from the chassis as the Peugeot tried to roll back against the brake.

“I’ll see what the story is ahead,” he said to Kilmartin. “Are you coming?”

“I’m not,” Kilmartin replied. “I’m grand here. In your nice new French car.”

Minogue climbed out of the car, lit a cigarette, and began to stroll toward the other Guards. The first lungfuls of smoke invigorated him as much as made him dizzy.

There was a mocker’s gleam in Burke’s eyes. He shook Minogue’s hands a bit too heartily.

“Matt. Never knew you smoked.”

“Eoin, how’s things with you and yours.”

“Top form, and thanking you. Is that himself inside in the car with you?”

“None other.”

“The funeral, I take it? Or what are we calling it, the memorial service?”

“I’m not sure of the official title. To pay our respects.”

Burke squinted at the shiny windscreen of the Peugeot, mischief flickering around his mouth. Minogue half-remembered Kilmartin grumbling about Burke’s self-promotion some years back: was it a wall-eyed bastard he had called him?

“You frisked Jim, I hope.”

Minogue prepared to give him the eye, and to verify if Burke’s eyes did indeed merit Kilmartin’s jibe, but a gust of wind took Burke’s hair and drew it straight up. Minogue glanced up to the rioting comb-over instead. He hoped Kilmartin was watching.

“What do we have up the road?” he asked Burke.

“Crash,” said Burke. “Fifteen, twenty minutes ago. The ambulance came already. Hardly worth your while to find another road now. Not that there are any up here.”

Delahunty closed his phone and issued Minogue a nod.

“They’ll give us the go-ahead in a minute,” he said. His modulated Cork accent couldn’t quite shed that nasal uplift at the end, and robbed of its melody, it came across to Minogue as strained, and even querulous.

The wind was now prancing about in uncertain bursts, tugging and then releasing Minogue’s coat. He looked at the drooping brambles that swayed and jerked over the roadway, and the new rushes bowing in the breeze.

He caught Burke glancing back at his new Peugeot.

“Wild enough, here,” said Burke, stifling a yawn. “Nice all the same,” Minogue said.

“I suppose,” said Burke, suspecting contrariness. “But if it’s wild we want, we should go back to Dublin, hah?”

Minogue made no reply. He had long ago given up trying to find a subtle way to advertise that he, a countryman like most of his fellow Gardai, was not therefore a reflexive slagger of Ireland’s capital city.

“Baker’s dozen the other day,” said Delahunty. “Including that Mulhall fella.”

Minogue didn’t like the light-heartedness in his tone.

“Canoodling with his mate’s wife, I heard,” Delahunty added. “‘Lying low?’”

“How many’s that for the week now?” Burke asked.

“Eight in the last ten days,” Delahunty said. “Spring cleaning is what they’re saying. And a fine Hundred Thousand Welcomes to our friends from across the water.”

Quite the pair, Minogue thought. He drew on his cigarette, and realized he had no idea what Delahunty meant.

“Welcome to Ireland,” said Burke. “‘We have enough of our own bad guys and gougers thanks very much. So bang bang, and pip-pip. Home in a box.’”

Delahunty turned to Minogue with renewed interest.

“But sure you’d be the man of the hour on that,” he said. “Wouldn’t you? Liaison keeping tabs on the flotsam and jetsam washing up here from wherever?”

“Hardly,” said Minogue. “I’m only a runner-in there. Learning the ropes.”

Neither man believed him, Minogue was sure. The subject was gone after a brief lull. It was Minogue’s chance to disengage.

Burke had read his mind apparently. He demanded to know what Minogue thought of the big upset at the Munster Finals last year. Minogue mustered his own staged indignation.

“I’m always upset by Cork hurlers,” he declared. “Especially the one or two good ones they seem to be able to muster.”

“Oh the diehard Clare fan,” said Burke. “Go away with you, and the rest of the Clare crowd. Department of Lost Causes.”

Minogue managed to make his way back down the road, alternately eyeing the saturated mash of dirt and humus by the ditches, and the mountain slopes in the distance.

He elected to finish his cigarette standing by the passenger side of his Peugeot.

Kilmartin stepped out presently.

“Stretch me legs,” he said. “And just so’s you know, I won’t be hiding in a car from the likes of Burke. Ill Be Hooves himself. He’ll have to find someone else’s grave to dance on.”

“Sounds like you’re setting yourself up to having a go at him.”

“I would if I wanted to,” said Kilmartin, mildly. “No better man, I tell you.”

Minogue was suddenly uneasy. Kilmartin might be unpredictable, already moved off into the territory where nothing much mattered any more, and where he had nothing to lose. He exchanged a glance with him.

“Look at you,” said Kilmartin, with a wry expression. “Expecting the worst.”

“Behave yourself,” Minogue said. “You Mayo bullock, you.”

Kilmartin looked through the dense thicket of hedge.

“I saw them eyeing me,” he said. “Those two feckers. What’d they say?”

“They asked to be remembered to you.”

“You lying whore’s ghost. I could tell by Burke’s face.”

Kilmartin buttoned his overcoat. Minogue noted how loosely it fit him.

“You should have the sense to give up the fags now,” said Kilmartin. “I’m going up here a bit and see what the commotion is.”

Minogue took a last, long drag of his cigarette while he watched Kilmartin’s progress up the road. In time, he set out after him. He kept his distance following him nonetheless, all the while taking in the forward cant, that assertive flat-footed gait, and the weary swagger that still hinted at a man who had been limber and strong, and once purposeful.

They left Murph ’s car parked at the side of the warehouse. Fanning made a quick survey of the half-dozen sagging and rusted transport trailers huddled on the broken asphalt alongside the building, slowly sinking in amongst the weeds. A smell of engine oil hung in the air, pierced every now and then by a brackish, industrial tang. He heard the hush of traffic on the bypass a half-mile away.

“Any more news on your friend,” Fanning said. “Mulhall?”

“News?” said Murph. “What do you mean news exactly?”

“Like, what happened?”

“He got offed, didn’t he. That’s the news.”

“I just thought you might have heard something since. Being as you’re in a position to hear things.”

“Meaning?”

“Well he was a friend of yours, you said.”

Murph made a flick of his head.

“There’s friends, and there’s friends,” he said.

Two men were waiting by a metal-clad door propped open at the side of the warehouse. They didn’t seem interested in Fanning’s or Murph’s arrival. While Murph stopped to light another cigarette, Fanning counted seven parked cars, and two vans.

“Hey,” Murph said. “Stop gawking! That scrutinizing. I seen that before.”

Fanning said nothing. The excitement he had felt on the drive here was gone, and in its place was a restlessness that was making him more uneasy as the minutes passed. He was used to Murph’s oscillations between bluster and sly charm.

“So cut it out,” Murph added. “People’ll think you’re a copper.”

“Which reminds me,” said Fanning. “What did he say, your copper, Malone?”