John Brady - A Carra ring

Minogue let his words drop away. The soreness in his knee came back to him.

“So that’s where your case goes off the map,” Tynan said then. “This is not just about smuggled stuff from old churches and graveyards down the country.”

“Shaughnessy, he lit the fuse, didn’t he?”

“Could be,” said Tynan. “But those gunmen today were part of something a damn sight bigger than you and your partner, and even your squad, can handle alone.”

“This is a squad case first and foremost,” Minogue said. “We can’t sit on our hands at the door here.”

Tynan eyed him.

“Seems like you have inherited Kilmartin’s selective hearing here,” he said “Safety’s number one: get through this, what just happened. And you can’t have an edge after this. You’re also going to have to take stock of the situation at home, get a break after this. Kathleen?”

“I’ll handle that. But we can’t walk away from this though.”

“There’s no disgrace,” said Tynan, his voice rising slightly. “We messed up because we were kept blind. You did the best job possible. Stand down for now, let me get Intelligence in with some of the old hands on the paramilitaries, going back to whenever. This won’t be buried any more.”

“We’re okay, Tommy and me,” Minogue said. “We have to keep a hand in, or we could lose momentum here, could bury the case even. It’s asking too much to walk at this stage. ”

“No, it damned well isn’t.”

Tynan’s murmur drew Minogue to check the anger in the commissioner’s dull stare.

“Everything costs something, Matt,” he said after a few moments. “Eventually. Sometimes a lot more than it’s worth. What I have from the minister is that you and Malone walk from that mess back at the hotel. ”

“It was obstruction,” said Minogue, “whatever way you want to dress it up. ”

“You should have listened,” Tynan said, “before you bounced them and whipped this Freeman off in the car. So. Hear me out now? You standing down means there’ll be no comeback from King or the minister, even. As for Hayes, I’ll deal with him myself, but part of the horse-trading on the phone this morning saves Hayes’s neck. If he wants to work for the minister, then he gets out of the force. And I’m going to see that he does within the week. Now, that’s what’s been happening this morning in my little world.”

Tynan’s stare returned to a gaze at the glasses on the countertop.

“This started as politics,” he said. “Or culture. Or heritage, whatever that is anymore. But it’s going to end as justice.”

O’Leary drove them down the quays after he had dropped the commissioner at Harcourt Street. The giddiness was gone but so was the panic: Minogue just felt more jittery now. O’Leary didn’t try any small talk.

“I have such a bleeding headache,” said Minogue at last.

Minogue knew that Kathleen would be at the squad by now.

“What are you going to do then?” Malone asked. “Go home and put the feet up?”

“Maybe.”

The Four Courts slid along the top of the quay walls. It looked ragged today.

“Hey,” Malone said to O’Leary. “Were you ever shot at?”

O’Leary nodded.

“Where, in Dublin here?”

“No.”

“Where?”

“In a small town in the middle of nowhere. Near the border with Sudan.”

“And what was it like? Not the place, but what did you do, like?”

“I ran the other way,” said O’Leary. “They were robbers. I was on leave with another UN fella. We probably shouldn’t have been there.”

“You weren’t a basket case after it though?”

“I don’t remember really.”

“Well, I thought I’d be a basket case by now. After this, I mean.” He turned to Minogue. “But I feel, like, up. I’m actually very fu — , very annoyed, like?”

Minogue shivered. O’Leary had them in the car park in short order. Minogue looked over at his Citroen. It looked damned fine. He longed to sit in and coast off, away out to the west in it. Himself and herself, the Galway road, no hurry. He returned O’Leary’s wave. There was a bite to the breeze now. He looked around the sky.

“So, are we going home or what?” Malone asked.

Minogue wondered what Kathleen would say. She hadn’t freaked entirely during the phone call, but she was damned if she wasn’t coming in to see him. How could he fight that off without hurting her.

“I’m going to do a bit of reading and a bit of thinking,” he said. “Maybe a bit of talking. I don’t care where I do it. But, I’m not sitting and waiting.”

Malone looked around the yard.

“Plans, have you?”

Minogue nodded.

“Was that an order from Tynan or a suggestion?”

“An order, Tommy. He has to answer to people too, as well as we do. ”

“There’s no way this was the Smiths’ caper then. Is that what you’re telling me?”

Minogue nodded. Kathleen appeared in the doorway. Minogue went for her. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, hugged him tighter. She was fierce annoyed. She let him go and held him at arm’s length. Her eyes were red but the anger made them bright and steady.

“They were after the other man,” he tried.

“How do you know?”

He shrugged.

“And does that matter anyway?” she insisted. “Does it?”

He gave her another tight squeeze when he felt the tremor in her chest. She sniffed and detached herself. She turned to Malone, his hand on the door.

“You look after this iijit, Tommy Malone,” she said. “You hear me?”

“Yeah, Kathleen. Sure all the culchies need hand-holding up here.”

They followed Malone in. Farrell and Eilis met them in the hall. The squad room was quiet. Kilmartin’s door was shut. Minogue wondered but didn’t care where Purcell was. Eilis drew on her cigarette and studied the boards.

“It has to stop,” Kathleen declared to no one in particular. “The place is being run by gangs and mur — ”

Her voice broke. Minogue smelled shampoo from her hair, felt the folds where her strap had dug in a little tighter over the years. She had asked him out of the blue if she looked fat the other day. He hugged her tighter and listened without much interest to a two-way about a man who had collapsed in a pub. In his twenties, he thought vaguely. Overdose, he wondered.

Minogue felt her relax. It was Kathleen who pulled away this time. Eilis slid a box of paper hankies across the table. Farrell looked up from his study of the floor.

“Cup of tea,” said Eilis at last. “Or a smathan from the cupboard?”

“Tea’s grand, thanks,” said Kathleen a little too quickly. “You’re a star, Eilis ”

Eilis stubbed at her cigarette and looked up warily at Kathleen.

“Tell us about Iseult, will you,” she said. Eilis. “I’m dying to know how she’s going on ”

Kathleen sat back in the chair and closed her eyes.

“Sacred Heart of Jesus, Eilis. Between Iseult and your man here…”

“I’m going to make coffee then,” Minogue said. He waited in the kitchen for Malone.

“Worse, are you?” he asked.

“It’s got to hit me sometime. But I’m still so bloody wired.”

Minogue took down the kettle and began filling it. Malone was fidgeting with a fork.

“Boss? If we’d stayed we’d a been in Hayes’s pocket, or King’s. Wouldn’t we?”

“Probably. Hard to say. I don’t know, Tommy.”

“Well that’s what I need to think right now. You know what I’m saying?”

Minogue glanced over. The tremor in Malone’s voice was quickly disguised. He plugged the kettle in and leaned back against the counter. Malone breathed out between pursed lips several times.