John Brady - A Carra ring

“I wonder… Then there was the heat from some of the operations. Remember that?”

Minogue nodded.

“You know how they treated me with that bit, don’t you? It was get out of active operations with the response crews or take a walk. Right?”

“I’d heard.”

“Just because of a screwup on one job. One job. ‘The public’ they told me — ‘the public can’t countenance this.’ Jesus. The public? Ah, what’s the use…”

Minogue steered onto the bridge. The front wheels slapped on the edge of the planks. He let his hand slide down the handbrake.

“We’re going to try Oz,” Little went on. “The kids know. I wouldn’t go to the States. I have a brother in Sydney. He has an in with a security crowd. Corporate business. It looks good.”

“What else did Daly get you to do?”

Little looked over.

“Are you going to talk your way into the fucking grave, Matt? I have a lot of respect for you. That’s why Head-the-Ball is in the boot, and not out there floating around belly up in Dublin Bay. What, you want to ask about the fella in the van?”

Minogue said nothing.

“Let me guess: you want to but you don’t want to, is that it? ’Cause you’re in too deep. Well he’s dead. And yeah, I shot him. He was a gangster. Remember those guys, Matt? The bad guys, the gougers, ‘the crims’? What else do you want to know? That I parked a robbed car the far side of the rocks? That I’m covered?”

The lights onto the Howth Road were red.

“Where was he taking the statue?”

Little’s eyes were boring into him.

“Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, is it? That’s a dangerous fucking game, Matt. Well I’ll tell you then. But consider this proof of what I’m going to offer you here when we get a bot of breathing space. You’re going to get a deal you can’t say no to. And you’d better do some quick thinking here for you and Tommy. Turn right here when you get the green. Out to Howth.”

Minogue let out the clutch.

“To finish the job,” said Little. “Delivery guaranteed. I want him to see what the sharp end of business looks like. The dirty work.”

Little’s voice had fallen to a murmur. Minogue glanced over.

“So’s he doesn’t forget, and so’s he can express his damn gratitude in the appropriate manner. I’m going to dump it all in his lap, just like this bloody statue. And then we’re going to discuss the future with him. Yours, mine, and Tommy’s. Here, you’ve got the light.”

Minogue searched the road ahead as he turned. No Garda cars.

“And Matt?”

He waited until Minogue looked over.

“There’ll be no going back. For me, for you. O’Riordan knows that. Larry Smith knew that too, for about ten seconds, I’d say. He was headed up the same road, looking for his jackpot when he found out.”

Minogue searched Little’s face.

“That’s right, Matt. When you do a job, you do it right. What, Smith? Smith was a lying, thieving little shite. He sold amphetamines to kids. He beat up women. He hurt people because he liked to, more than for money. He tried to put the heavy hand on Guards like me. He helped to fuck up my family. Then he thought he’d hit the big time because he had a hook on that moron, Byrne. Whatever his name is, I can never get the nickname right.”

“Cortina?”

“Him, yeah. Smith thought he could put the fix in there. Blackmail. A piece of the band, he wanted, if you don’t mind. Delusions of fucking grandeur or what. Not just a payoff, oh no. Or even a wage out of it. He thought he was a businessman. There’s big money here. You wouldn’t know how much. That’s another story. Hey, you probably want the basics, am I right?”

Minogue looked over again.

“The basics are that I kept that prick Byrne out of jail. How about that. What he really needs is someone to take him out the back of his bloody mansion and give him a good hiding. Break his jaw for him. See if he can sing for a while.”

“Smith went to O’Riordan, then.”

“No. He went to Daly. Daly went to O’Riordan. And then… that’s where I get hired.”

Minogue strained to listen for sounds from the boot, if the motion of the car would bring Malone around.

“Come on, now,” said Little. “Tell me you’re not surprised. What, you think Smith didn’t deserve what he got? It was a win-win thing. Dance on his grave.”

Minogue waited for several moments before he spoke.

“What about Shaughnessy?”

“Ah, don’t bring that up. That bloody — it came out of the blue. O’Riordan got this phone call. Do you know anything about him? That he was a headcase? An addict, he was. He was chasing some statue to give to his oul lad. Leyne. I don’t know who put him on to this statue thing, but he ended up killing that woman out there in some godforsaken bog hole.”

“How do you know?”

“Ah, he airs it all to O’Riordan. Phones up in a panic. This woman has put the arm on him, he says. She wants something out of him, to get his oul lad to do something. I don’t know, some history thing. To set up an outfit here she could run. Computers, history, museums, I don’t know. He made her these bloody promises he could never deliver on, that’s what.”

Minogue’s fingers were down the side of the seat now.

“History?” he tried.

“History, right. Like we don’t have enough. Like it matters a damn anymore.”

His fingertips traced over grit trapped in the carpet, collided with the seat rail.

“All I know is there’s some priceless rock out there under about four foot of water. A king something. Christ, there I was there by those big boulders waiting for this fella. I used to train out here for years, did you know that? In the sand. Endurance runs, you know? Conditioning. Anyway, there I was thinking: what’s going to come out of all this tonight? The Battle of Clontarf was here, then I remembered — the Vikings. Brian Boru? The last high king wasn’t he, finally putting the boots to the Vikings here, wasn’t it? The Viking hordes. The barbarians, that robbed the monasteries. Plundered, all that stuff we learned in school…”

The Opel was gaining on a cluster of cars. Minogue didn’t want to have to change gear. He let up on the accelerator.

“What about Shaughnessy, then?” he asked.

Little gave a short laugh.

“God, the things you ask. And me telling you, what’s worse. Did you do those courses up at the Park, the Techniques course?”

“Back years ago,” Minogue replied. “When they were starting out.”

“One of the Interview ones, I’ll never forget it. About an unconscious thing: wanting to unburden yourself. Wanting to tell, needing to tell, like the punishing parent thing. Guilt. Do you believe that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well just remember this, Matt: there’s two sides to it. The more I tell you, the more hangs on your decision. You aren’t going to walk away from this tonight if you can’t persuade me. And you’re deciding for him there in the boot, you hear?”

Minogue let his hand rest, but Little was suspicious now.

“Get your hands up there on the wheel where I can see them.”

Minogue geared down instead of braking for the traffic ahead.

“Shaughnessy: O’Riordan dumped it down on Daly. Tit for tat: after all, Daly owed him one for taking Smith out of the picture, didn’t he?”

For a moment, Minogue was back at the scene by the Strand Road all those months ago: the Fiat van peppered with automatic fire, the gray and crimson bits of Larry Smith’s head across the roadway.

“Daly knows everything about coming and going with the band,” said Little. “This Shaughnessy is going to drop the works on O’Riordan, because…?”