John Brady - The good life

“Oh, my God,” he heard her gasp. “Oh, my Jesus. Oh, my sweet Jesus.”

“Have you people in the house?” Minogue asked. “I think we should maybe go in and sit down for a minute.”

“Kevin,” she yelled. Her voice was ragged now. “Kevin!” One of the group walked over.

“Get your mother, Kevin. And hurry up with you!”

Malone parked behind an ambulance. Minogue rolled out of his seat and opened the back passenger door. Irene Lawlor made no move to get out. She sat there with the door open, staring down at her hands. Malone looked across the roof at Minogue. Irene Lawlor had said little in the car on the trip over. She had rebuffed most of Minogue’s queries with a stare fixed on the roadway by her window. Her companion, a Mrs. Molloy, had big eyes and what looked like goitre. She’d chainsmoked and murmured to Irene Lawlor all the way into the city centre. Whatever she’d said had had no noticeable effect. Irene Lawlor’s glassy stare remained.

Mrs. Molloy walked around the back of the car and leaned in. Minogue saw the red lines of the car seat impressed on the back of her thighs where her miniskirt had been creased. He stepped back and Mrs. Molloy pulled Irene Lawlor out. She walked in a crouch as if trying to recover from a punch to the stomach. She entered the hospital, with her arms wrapped around her waist.

Murtagh met them inside the front door. He fell into step beside Minogue.

“Any word, John? Bag? Witness?”

Murtagh shook his head.

“They wanted to start the PM in half an hour. Which one’s the mother?”

Minogue glanced back at the two women.

“On the left. Can’t read her much yet.”

Minogue had pieced together some things from the few words Irene Lawlor had let slip, often mere monosyllables which she seemed to wish to, but couldn’t summon the will, to prevent the garrulous Mrs. Molloy from detailing. Where did Mary live? Inishowen Gardens, off the South Circular Road. Shared a flat with another girl. When had she last seen Mary? April sometime. Didn’t get on so great the last while. Phoned the odd time though. Recently? Couple of weeks back; forgot which day. Had she seemed worried? No. Money troubles maybe? Didn’t mention any. Boyfriend? Didn’t know. Mary worked in the city centre. Some hairdresser’s, as far as she knew. As far as she knew: the phrase kept cropping up. Had Mary any contact with her estranged father? Didn’t want to have any. He’d gone on the dry a couple of years back. Where was he? Didn’t know. Somewhere in Ballybough, she’d heard. Did he contact her? He’d come by the house a half a dozen times before he finally took the hint. Asking to see Mary. Did he say what for? Wanted to make up with her, she supposed. Mary didn’t want anything to do with him. He’d gotten Jesus or something because it helped him dry out. Mary had told her a while back, last year maybe, that her father had tried to talk to her a few times on the street. He’d seen her and him driving by in his taxi. She told him to get lost. To drop dead. She hated him. Irene Lawlor hated him too. Did she know or had she maybe heard anything about Mary lately, anything that suggested things were not going well? It was the only time Minogue remembered Irene Lawlor taking her eyes from the passing roadway and looking at him. Mrs. Molloy with her big mouth broke that one up. What sort of trouble, she’d asked, and Irene Lawlor turned back toward the open window.

Minogue took Malone aside.

“You go with John too, Tommy. Take it handy with them. Gentle, no matter how they react.”

“What am I supposed to say, like?”

“Don’t say anything if you’re not sure. The attendant will pull back the covering as far as the chin. John’ll ask them. Okay?”

Minogue stepped over to the two women. Mrs. Molloy’s face had lost all its pink now. Her arm was twined tight around Irene Lawlor’s.

“Mrs. Lawlor. Detective Malone will escort you along with Detective Murtagh here.”

He cleared his throat.

“You don’t actually need to follow through here. We’ve already identified Mary from our end. Any time you want to change your mind now…”

Irene Lawlor’s words came from between her teeth.

“I know what they do here,” she said. “I want to see her.”

“No Jack Mullen,” announced Eilis. Minogue heard her type something else in. The phone was greasy in his hand. Minogue looked up from the page in his notebook where he had listed the points. Jack (John) Mullen-father. Mary in London. Egans, the gang.

“Doyle was looking for you,” she said, still typing. “Returning a call about her.”

“I’ll phone him in a minute. You’re sure about this Jack Mullen?”

“Nothing. He’s clean.”

“All right,” said Minogue. “I’ll try his place one more time, then we’ll go after the taxi companies. Capitol Taxis, the missus thinks. Ex-missus.”

Minogue switched the phone back to stand-by.

“Nothing on Mary Mullen’s da, Tommy. I’ll see what Doyler has.”

“Darlin’ Doyle? Prostitution?”

Minogue nodded.

Malone turned onto Dorset Street. The sun fell on Minogue’s side now. He was left on hold for over a minute before he heard Doyle’s voice.

“Morning there, John. Matt Minogue, yes. Have you anything to update the file on this girl Mary Mullen?”

“I’m afraid not. She hasn’t figured with us here since her last conviction there three years ago. Left the canal trade or maybe got sense.”

“Well, now that I have you, maybe you can smarten me up on things. I was wondering if, say, some of the trade down at the canal is done independently, like. Girls on their own, I mean. What are the chances she got the treatment from someone for not paying her way there?”

“Well, we’d probably get to hear about one in, God, I don’t know, one in twenty of that. Unless a pimp is beating the head off one of the girls in broad daylight.”

“But she could be there for some time and ye wouldn’t know her?”

Doyle didn’t reply for several moments.

“Well, now, you said it. As regards pimps now, we break up stuff by the canal pretty regularly. But it’s gotten right tough to make charges stick. The sting has to be good. Depending on things, Harcourt Terrace and Donnybrook stations take turns at cleaning up the trade. You always get gougers and girls moving through the area though. Girls doing business there very irregular, like. They might do a few tricks one night and that’d be all. Be gone in a few hours with a hundred quid in their pockets. But you’d see a lot of the faces turning up there again and again. Users who need more and more cash to feed the habit or pay off debts from their dealer.”

“The dealer and the pimp could be one and the same thing then?”

“Right, Matt. Pimps often double as pushers. Some of them feed the girls, see? But there are girls out there solo.”

“How about a crowd called the Egans? Do you know them in your line of business?”

“Does the Pope fall to his knees of a Sunday? But this is not their big thing though, is it? Unless they’ve changed. They’re more into the organized crime, I believe. Drugs, moving cars around, fences, all that. Protection rackets and stuff too. That falls more to Serious Crimes really. There’s, em, a gale of work being done on that very outfit lately, I believe.”

Code for go ask the Serious Crime Squad, Minogue registered.

“Well. Thanks now, John, I suppose.”

“Sorry and all but. I just haven’t had anyone finger them directly in the trade yet-but here, wait a minute. I’ll give you the name of someone who runs a drop-in centre up near the canal. For girls on the street, addicts and so on. Sister Joe, do you know her?”

Minogue didn’t.