John Brady: The good life

“Are you okay?” Karen asked her partner. He hadn’t shaved. He was undercover.

“I been better,” he said, and grinned. She tapped him on his good shoulder.

“Hope she has the safety on,” murmured Kilmartin. Malone picked up his glass.

“What’s the story with the gouger in the bin,” he said. A squad car came tearing down the alley. Minogue turned away when the ad for Guinness came on. Malone drained his glass and headed for the toilet. Kilmartin’s face gleamed in the light of the television.

“What kind of weather is this,” he grunted. “Day after day of tropical I-don’t-know-what.”

The three policemen were temporarily truant from a wedding reception for Detective Garda Seamus Hoey, a colleague of theirs on the Murder Squad. To the consternation of many, Hoey had taken a leave of absence several months ago and flown out to Botswana to be with his fiancee Aine. He had stayed for two months helping to build a medical centre in the village where Aine had begun lay missionary work. Amoebic dysentery had floored Aine and Hoey had accompanied her back to Ireland. It had become doubtful whether she’d return to Botswana at all. Hoey had reported to the Inspector that Aine had asked him to marry her. Minogue often wondered if Hoey had told Aine that he had half-heartedly tried to kill himself some months previous to his leave of absence.

That letter which Aine-a woman he hardly knew even yet-had written him from Botswana still puzzled Minogue. She had thanked the Inspector for “all he had done for Seamus and myself.” He took that to mean the bullying he’d done to get Hoey his job back on the Murder Squad.

Kilmartin examined the bottom of his glass. Minogue did not take the hint.

“I thought it was a joke at first,” grunted Kilmartin. “Honest to God.”

“The wedding?”

“Maybe. No, the messing with the drink, I meant. With the no drink, I should say.”

“Not to put too fine a point on it now, but Shea’s a recovering alcoholic.”

“So the likes of me has to pour that stuff in the bowl into me gullet?”

“I don’t know now, James. I rather enjoyed the punch myself.”

“ ‘Punch,’ is it? Fairy piss. Turned me stomach, so it did.”

Minogue looked around the pub. The tables were covered with empty glasses. A girl with yellow and pink hair, a tattoo of a snake on her shoulder and a black tank top was looking at Kilmartin. The man next to her wore a half-dozen ear-rings. His head was shaved bald up to a topknot. Kilmartin returned the woman’s stare for several moments.

“Welcome to civilisation,” he muttered. He waved to the barman and called for drinks. He rubbed his hands and fell to looking at the bottles on the shelves.

“Never been to a dry wedding in me life. Honest to God. Can’t even spell Methodist. As for getting married in a registry office, well… At least Aine gave God a look in.”

Minogue raised an eyebrow.

“I meant the few bits of things she said right after signing the forms,” said Kilmartin. “The ‘God is love’ thing. Of course, she’s deep enough into the religion and all. Missionary, of course. Stands to reason, doesn’t it?”

He lowered his brow and squinted at Minogue.

“But you and I well know she’ll have her work cut out for her with Hoey-sure he’s a hairy pagan. Your influence, I might add. Oh well, love is blind.”

Minogue eyed the Chief Inspector.

“ ‘God is love,’ ” he said. “Right?”

“Good man,” said Kilmartin. “You’re getting the idea. There’s hope for you yet.”

“And ‘Love is blind.’ Right?”

“Well, in a manner of speaking.”

“Then God is blind. Right?”

Kilmartin gave him a hard look.

“Depend on you to come up with that. You ignorant savage. Hey. That, ah, lump of rock thing you gave Hoey and Aine for a present? Don’t get me wrong now. But, well, what the hell is it exactly?”

“It’s a stone I took from the beach at Fanore. A friend of Iseult’s did the work on it.”

Kilmartin stopped rubbing his eyes and looked at Minogue with a pained expression.

“A stone. Okay. But what’s it supposed to be?”

“Iseult’s friend put the faces on it.”

“Oh. Faces. Sorry.”

“You’re supposed to feel them with your fingers more than just see them.”

Kilmartin’s expression slid into one of happy disdain.

“Is it for the missus to feck at Hoey in their first scrap maybe? Here, do you know how much I paid for that bloody Waterford glass Hoey has on his mantelpiece from this happy day forward? Well, I’ll tell you how much. Eighty-seven quid.”

“A beautiful piece it is, James.”

“You’re not codding, it is. And what do I get? All Hoey had to do was say two simple words, two words normal people use: cash bar. Would that have been such a mortaller?”

The barman planted the drinks on the counter and looked to Kilmartin. The Chief Inspector took out his wallet with a show of great reluctance, eying Minogue all the while.

“A bit slow on the draw there, aren’t you?”

Minogue shrugged and listened to the weather woman relating the prospects of another hot day tomorrow. Kilmartin glared at the barman and held out a tenner.

“Fella beside me’s throwing money around here like a man with no arms.” The barman grinned.

Kilmartin wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

“Christ. Fallen among thieves, I have. With you, it’s the short arms and the long pockets; with Hoey, it’s the bloody Prohibition all over again. Place is gone to hell, that’s all I can say.”

Minogue swallowed more lager, placed the glass on the counter and licked his lips.

“It’s hard on him, Jim. Hard on Aine too. The drink is a curse.”

Kilmartin grasped his pint of ale and gave Minogue a hard look.

“Huh. Married man now, by God, oh yes! ‘Aine says this’ and ‘Aine says that.’ Lah-dee-dah. More of the usual. Another good man out in the wind.”

Kilmartin took a long draught and patted his stomach. Malone was chatting to a couple sitting at the far end of the bar.

“Will you look at that,” muttered the Chief Inspector. “Molly will probably want the pint I just bought him delivered down the far end of the bloody bar.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to be seen in public with two bogmen like us, Jim.”

With careful deliberation, Kilmartin placed his glass on the counter and turned to face Minogue. The Inspector looked away from the weather forecast and returned Kilmartin’s stare.

“You’re sailing a bit close to the wind with that one, mister. Yes, you! Oh, and the face on you like a goat pissing on a bed of nettles! Do you think for one minute that I want to be seen in public with the likes of a Dublin gurrier like Molly there? Do you think I wanted him on staff at all? What damage bloody Tynan didn’t finish doing to the Squad, you did. You and Sometimes shagging Earley.”

Kilmartin grasped his glass, gave an angry flick of his head and downed more ale. Minogue returned to the weather forecast in time to hear mention of high pressure remaining over Ireland.

John Tynan, the new Garda Commissioner whose nickname Kilmartin had lately alternated between Monsignor and Iceman, had reorganised the Murder Squad and its parent Technical Bureau. Kilmartin had fought hard to preserve his fiefdom. Tynan had had several conditions for allowing Kilmartin to keep his Squad intact. The Chief Inspector was to cut permanent staff numbers, and he was to set up an interview board for screening and interviewing applicants to the Squad. With Seamus Hoey gone for a two-week honeymoon, and with court attendance and casework backlogged, Kilmartin had secured an extra position for this year, a ‘floater’ on the Squad. He and Minogue and Sometimes Earley, an avuncular Inspector from B Division rumoured to be on the fast track to the top, had interviewed from a short list of applicants for that position.