John Brady - The good life

“She might know more. She’s a nun. Here’s her number.”

Minogue scribbled it in his notebook and hung up.

“File on Mary is all we seem to have, Tommy,” he muttered. “Doyler and company don’t know her since then.”

Malone opened his hands on the steering wheel and shrugged. Minogue returned to watching the passing doorways.

“Didn’t expect the mother to talk afterwards,” said Malone. “Did you?”

“Maybe she didn’t believe us. Didn’t want to believe us.”

“Wonder what Mary was really up to the time she was in England though.”

Minogue looked down at the notebook again.

“Hairdressing course, beautician stuff. Well, we can check.”

Minogue looked at his watch.

“So we all get together?”

“To be sure, Tommy. Statements, leads, progress reports. Collate, exchange, talk. Drink tea. Evidence, rumours, leads. Dreams you had, even. It’s too early for any tight forensic. Depending on how I divide the job, we’ll split into teams. And that can change in an hour too. We pull in who and what we need from CDU and stations.”

“What about Mary’s place? I mean, what happens with that?”

“The gas company, the ESB or someone may have an exact, Eilis has put through a call to the local station too. When we have the number of the place, a station patrol car will go out and keep it for us. Then it’s up to you and me, when we’ve accounted for ourselves back at the ranch. The meeting probably won’t take more than half an hour. Get a cup of coff-”

The trill startled him. He picked up the phone off the floor. Kilmartin asked him where he was.

“Five minutes, Jim. Start without us.”

“Stay away,” said Kilmartin. “You have work to do. That place you got for the girl, the flat. Eilis phoned in for a hold on the place. Turns out that a woman the name of Patricia Fahy phoned in to report a burglary there last night. She’s the Mullen girl’s flatmate.”

“Have you talked to her?”

“Nope. She’s up at the flat now.”

“F-a-h-e-y?”

“No e.”

Malone drove fast. He was lucky with traffic lights. Minogue let his arm dangle out the window. The Nissan’s door panels remained hot under his hand. He checked his watch as they turned into Inishowen Gardens: ten minutes. A group of boys was tapping a scuffed soccer ball across the street to one another.

“There’s another one,” he heard one of them, a boy with protruding ribs and shoulder-blades and a Spurs shirt wrapped around his waist, call out.

“There’s a squad car anyway,” said Malone.

The boys followed the Nissan to a house where the squad car was parked. A small crowd, mostly children, had gathered at the gate. The house had been split into two flats. Minogue stepped up the pitted concrete steps to the open door. Already he could smell perfume. A Guard was coming down the stairs sideways from the flat above. Minogue introduced himself. The Guard headed back up the stairs, the wet patch on his shirt shifting from side to side as he ascended. Minogue thought at first that the flat must have been a chemist’s shop or a beauty parlour. The floor was littered with hair spray cans and tubes, nail polish containers, mascara brushes and shampoo.

A woman with short, stiff, black hair was talking with another Guard. She had a pale face and dark eyelashes. Minogue glanced at her before picking his way through the mess on the floor to peek into the other rooms. A tiny kitchenette similarly wrecked, the fridge door still open, the cupboards emptied onto the floor. Both bedrooms had been turned upside down. Minogue made his way back to the Guard.

“How’s the man. Listen, has she mentioned the flatmate?”

“She hasn’t. We got the word to hold fire until you showed.”

Minogue looked around at his feet. The perfume stung high up in his nose.

“What kind of a place is this anyway?”

“This one worked as a hairdresser. She was always trying out new stuff, she says. Jases. I have two young ones at home and they’re just starting off on this stuff. ‘Da, I have to get this,’ ‘Da, everyone wears it this way now.’ Jases. Is this what’s in store for me too?”

Another Guard came to the doorway and gestured to Minogue.

Minogue turned back to the first Guard.

“Do you know this house for anything before?”

The Guard shook his head.

“But she looks like a tough enough young one to me. Been around, like.”

Minogue negotiated his way over the litter. Patricia Fahy was still talking to the second Guard. The Guard nodded at Minogue, folded his notebook and tiptoed around to the door.

“Hello,” Minogue said to her. “My colleague Detective Malone. I’m Inspector Minogue. Matt Minogue.”

Patricia Fahy stood with her arms folded. She kept flicking her cigarette.

“Are yous with them, then?”

“No, we’re not,” replied Minogue. Her face seemed to lift a little. “We were notified when you called in to report the burglary.”

“Burglary?” She spoke with more humour than disdain. “Jases, more like a demolition squad.”

She took a long pull of the cigarette. It came away from her lips with a soft pop.

“So, what are yous going to do about it?”

“We’ll do our utmost.”

She squinted into the glare from the window. On her shoulder by a strap of her top, Minogue spotted a tattoo of a butterfly. The sun glinted off the jewellery in her nose.

“Goes to show you, doesn’t it,” she said. “I mean to say we’re the ones out working and trying to pay our bleeding way and lookit! Rob you blind, so they would.”

Some memory slid around in Minogue’s thoughts: Iseult at fourteen, eying him after saying something provocative. She was staring at Malone now.

“Jases,” she declared. “I seen you before. You’re not a Guard. I know you. Remember? With Jacko and Eileen and…? Down in Sheehan’s pub? It’s you, is’n it?”

Malone bit his lip.

“No. Wasn’t me.”

Her face twisted up in a sneer of disbelief.

“Bleeding sure it was you! You ended up in the nick too, if I remember. What’s that?”

Malone let her take his card. She turned it over, brought it up close, scraped it with her nail.

“Well, it looks like you. Is this a joke or something?”

“What time were you home last night?” asked Minogue.

“Home here? I wasn’t. I was with me fella. We were over at his place.”

“You came home from work yesterday and…?”

She engaged his look for several seconds.

“What?”

“Was Mary home yesterday?” Minogue asked.

“No.”

She drew on the cigarette again and squinted through the smoke at Minogue.

“Not at all?”

“What’s all this about Mary?”

The cigarette was shaking now, Minogue noted.

“What’s going on here? Yous aren’t here just because the place got broken into, are you?”

“When did you see her last then?” asked Malone.

“Day before yesterday. Why?”

“She doesn’t spend all of her time here, you’re saying,” Minogue tried.

“I’m not saying anything. What’s all this about? Who are yous?”

Something in Minogue’s expression made her frown. She turned to Malone with words framed on her lips, but none came. Minogue waited until her eyes came back to his. She backed away from him.

“No way,” she whispered. She pointed at Malone. “You’re trying to set me up or something! But I seen you before, I remember you! Yous are trying to pin something on Mary!”

Minogue shifted his stance.

“Why would we want to do that?”

“Oh there you go now! Now you’re starting!”

“Why?”

“Just because once she was…”

She didn’t finish. She let the smoke curl up from her open mouth and she stared at Malone.