John Brady - A Carra ring

“John and I got along well. Odd, isn’t it? But we married different people — when we married, I mean. He’s not well, you know.”

Minogue nodded.

“He asked me on the plane coming over. I knew he couldn’t sleep, that he’d been thinking about it, that it hurt him so terribly. He asked me if it would have made a difference to Patrick if we’d had more children. Oh, it wasn’t sniping or blame or anything.”

She dabbed at her eyes with a fresh hanky.

“Without going into detail let me just say it wasn’t medically possible back then. It was me, not John. Things didn’t go well. Patrick was premature The delivery didn’t go well even. I was left with complications. We would have liked more kids. Patrick had difficulties. That was clear right from the start. This was before they had all the lingo they have nowadays. ADD — do you have that over here?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Hyperactive kids? Attention Deficit Disorder?”

“I think I’ve heard of it.”

“Learning disabilities?”

“Oh, to be sure. Now I’m with you. Plenty to go around here.”

“Good health though, that was Patrick. Nannies came and went. He’d be up all night as an infant. I had no idea kids could be like that. He couldn’t sleep sometimes. And he had a tough time of it dealing with other kids when he went to the nursery — the only child thing now. It was more than he couldn’t really manage everything that was going on around him… One specialist thought it was a kind of manic depressive thing, even.”

“He lashed out at people?”

She let down the rolled up hanky on her saucer.

“Yes.”

“It carried into adult life, did it?”

Her voice was low when she replied.

“I think you know that by now. John and I agreed we could hide nothing.”

Minogue watched the white-haired woman cleaning her glasses. An albino — of course. Albina?

“If he brought it on himself we must face up to that,” she said.

Minogue wondered if Patrick Shaughnessy had struck his mother.

“The thought occurred to me, Inspector, that my son — ”

He saw her bite her lip. He wasn’t ready for the glimpse of her contorted face as she lowered her head. He stood and drew his chair around beside her. The detective with the beard was watching him. Her words came out in the squeezed and bitter whispers Minogue had heard so often in interview rooms from innocent and guilty alike.

“He wasn’t a psychopath, you know. He wasn’t.”

He nodded at the older detective and mouthed “sister” at him. Her shoulders were bony, he realized. He didn’t know whether to hold her arm instead. Why had he thought her so remote?

Geraldine Shaughnessy’s sister arrived out of breath. A small enough resemblance, he couldn’t help thinking, between Anne Boland and her. He let go of her shoulder and stood up. Behind the lenses, the white-haired woman’s eyes were enormous. Still she squinted. Minogue stared at her but she seemed not to notice. He headed off the older detective in the doorway.

“I don’t want her leaving town now,” he said. The detective scratched at the back of his head.

“There was talk of them going to Cork today. There’s two escort cars set up already, I know that much.”

“Tell them no can do then, if you please. I didn’t get to recent stuff with the son at all. We have to have her here in Dublin until she can talk.”

“Fair enough. I’ll pass it on. Who do we call if there’s a scrap over it? All we have is ‘do what the family wants.’”

“Call Tynan.”

The detective’s eyelid drooped a little.

“Tynan, you said?”

“That’s the one. Have your scrap with him.”

“You’re probably right,” he said to Malone. “She just realized then that he wasn’t coming back. Ever, like. ”

Minogue leaned around the partition.

“Anyone call in about Mrs. Shaughnessy, Eilis? Is she sticking to some plan to go to her family below in Cork?”

Eilis shook her head. Minogue returned to the table. Murtagh tapped his Biro on the duty schedule again.

“Farrell took that APF fella’s statement. Murphy, Michael — Mick. Murphy leveled with him. So the car could have been there all through those shifts.”

“Are the others still playing holy?”

Murtagh shrugged.

“They don’t want to get kicked, boss.”

“Tell Farrell to go after them in earnest. Round two.”

Minogue looked down the list again. Murtagh was eying him. Something he’d said?

“Just pretend I’m Jim Kilmartin for a while, John,” he murmured. He turned to see Murtagh’s reaction.

“Still nothing solid on phones? People who used the car park?”

Murtagh shook his head.

“Tell me about the photos then, how they’re coming. The, er, celebrity mob he was cozying up with.”

Murtagh stood, tugged at his belt, and waved at the photos pinned to the side of the map.

“This fella’s a stockbroker. He made a killing on the markets there a few years ago. That’s down at the auction place, what do you call — Goff’s. Doesn’t remember Shaughnessy at all. Nobody does. Oh, this one here, the fat fella, Kavanagh, he remembers being introduced to ‘an American.’ That’s all.”

Malone strolled over. He held out a bag of crisps.

“Those are the horses there, right,” he said.

“Good for you, Tommy. ”

“Is that O’Riordan there?”

“That’s him, yes.”

Hard to match this beaming face with the reserved, diplomatic companion to Leyne and his ex-wife Minogue remembered from the hotel.

“Have we set him up for an interview?”

Murtagh let go the crisps he had drawn from Malone’s bag.

“He’d be, er… ”

“It’s all right, John, I’m not going to bark. ”

“You see him knowing much about Shaughnessy? ‘Friend of the family’?”

“Try anyway. Get hold of him. Tell him we’ll be wanting a statement. If he fights shy, I’ll talk to him. Eventually. Shaughnessy must have had at least a chat with him. Even if it’s only a how-do. There he is — and again — two places they’re in the same crowd.”

“He’s a big deal, boss. You see the picture in the papers a lot.”

“The ponies, the castles for the Hollywood mob, yes, I know. ”

“More to him than that, isn’t there? He put money in films here at the right time. Remember that one that got it all started there about ten years back, Leaves Are Green, was it?”

“ Leaves of Green,”said Minogue.

“You saw that?” from Malone. “The drug one and the IRA? Shite wasn’t it?”

“Never got around to seeing it.”

“Well the Guards look like iijits in it,” said Malone. “Shaughnessy was in on the music scene too, when it took off, right?”

Minogue nodded.

“The Thicks were the first. I remember them. Then there was Goddammtohell, remember the ones used to piss on the stage? Then came the Works, managed from day one. But where’s whatshername, this Aoife Hartnett, in this?”

Minogue searched the eight-by-tens.

“That’s her next to the sculpture. There’s the side of Shaughnessy. Looks like he’s smiling at someone. Nothing in his hands there — look.”

“Put it on a table,” said Malone.

“Maybe. Or maybe he went on the wagon,” said Minogue.

“Huh. She has something. Wine.”

Minogue stared at the shots of Shaughnessy in a group next to a banner about film.

“Is she in the Film Museum thing?”

“Don’t know yet, boss.”

Minogue searched the half-turned faces, even the ones in shadow behind Shaughnessy. The hairdos were so short now, shaved almost.

“Will you look at all the black in that,” said Malone. “Artsy-fartsy crowd. What’s the story there, with them always standing around looking pissed off?” Minogue stepped over to the shots of the Carra Fields.