John Brady - All souls

The anger tingled in his arms before it burned his chest. The rainwater ran across the road in little rippling waves like the sea ebbing on the strand. The drugs would only keep him asleep. That was like letting part of himself stay dead. It was time to wake up. Better this way than hanging on, hanging around with half a life. He called out to the dog and his heart lightened when he saw the wagging tail, the willingness. There were prisons with bars, he thought as he set out for home, and there were other prisons too. His prison now was his own memory, but he had been locked out.

Kilmartin was waiting for him. Minogue bowed to Eilis, the secretary of the Murder Squad, as he passed. She spared him a smile and a mock curtsy in return for his.

“Your Worship,” she intoned in her native Irish.

“Aha,” Kilmartin called out. “Hardy Canute himself. Howiya?”

“I’m a bit shagged.”

“Well, that’s life in the big city, pal.”

Minogue glanced at the mass of his friend and colleague, Chief Inspector James Kilmartin. Eilis scratched a match alight next to him.

“A real beaut,” said Kilmartin, thumbs behind his belt now.

“Kathleen doesn’t think so,” Minogue baited. “Says it’s depressing.”

“I didn’t mean the fecking weather. I meant last night. The job done above in Drimnagh. Signed, sealed and delivered.”

“He had enough drink in him to get manslaughter, I’m thinking,” said Minogue. “So does Legal Aid. The way I heard her anyway. She’ll go wild when she hears he confessed. Expect a call, I’d say.”

Kilmartin’s expression turned thoughtful.

“God, you’re crooked today,” he murmured. “‘Her’?”

“Kate Marrinan.”

Kilmartin rolled his eyes. “Jesus. That one? A grenade disguised as a barrister. She gave me a few kicks in the balls when she was defending that fella what killed the fella with a hammer…Hogan. ‘Victim of society’ shite, right?”

“She didn’t give me the treatment last night anyway.”

“Wait till court, bucko. Jesus wept. She’s an expert on everything. Did you hit the sack at all?”

“Enough of it. Is Shea in?”

Kilmartin’s brow creased with the effort of holding back a comment. Minogue wondered if Kilmartin knew of Detective Garda Shea Hoey’s habits lately.

“You know I’m off starting tomorrow. Get a break for a few days.”

Kilmartin’s brow shot up. He nodded toward his office. As Minogue followed him, he saw a yawning Hoey slope in past Eilis’s desk.

“Just give me a hand in drafting a press release to warn all the gutties and head-cases that they’re to wait until you come back from your holiday to-”

“You’re a howl, Jimmy.”

“Just a bit of levity, Matt. Don’t get your rag out over it. Course there’s no bother. Sure haven’t you overtime built up like a bank?”

“Good, so.”

“Yes. Morale is everything.” The Chief Inspector nodded his head as he spoke now. “A bit of R and R to keep you sharp. It builds morale, let me tell you. You can throw your hat at the technical stuff if you haven’t the morale built up. Amn’t I right?”

The phrase echoed in Minogue’s thoughts: Build the morale? Sounded like Kilmartin was trying out a phrase he had heard in his hob-nobs with senior Gardai. The new Garda Commissioner, John Tynan, had made Kilmartin and other senior Gardai jittery. Kilmartin knew that Tynan was planning a major reorganisation of the Gardai. The new Garda Commissioner’s back was not for slapping and Kilmartin, the tribal chief with his repertoire of bombast and charm, still struggled to find a purchase on the metropolitan modern, Tynan. Minogue bumped into Tynan more than chance allowed. Wary of him, he still liked the Commissioner’s dry wit, especially its effects on the likes of Jim Kilmartin.

“But Jases, look outside, it’s bucketing. Are you going to hide at home and do a bit of wallpapering and painting or something?”

“A visit to Clare for a day or two. Then I was half thinking of somewhere like… Santorini.”

Kilmartin frowned but Minogue let him dangle for a few moments.

“It’s in Greece.”

“Well that’s very exciting, I’m sure.”

“Wouldn’t mind a week there if we could get a cheap seat. Morale, don’t you know.” He frowned back at Kilmartin. “Build morale, like.”

Kilmartin didn’t register receipt of the gibe.

“Have you court?” he asked instead.

“Ten days’ time,” Minogue answered. “State has no plan to call me up. Yet.”

“All right so. But listen. There’s something I heard last night that I didn’t like one little bit. Not saying there’s a fly in the ointment as regards you and Kathleen having a fling off in wherever.”

“Santorini. You have to ride on the back of an ass to get up from the ferry, I hear.”

Kilmartin’s brow creased again.

“Arra Jases you can do that below in Belmullet, man,” he scoffed, referring to his home town in Mayo. He narrowed his glance.

“I bumped into Tom Boyle at a shindig. You know Tom, don’t you? Got a kick up the ladder the same time Tynan got the throne.”

Minogue remembered a slim, dapper Chief Superintendent Boyle from a drinks party at Kilmartin’s new house in Killiney. Boyle now occupied Tynan’s former position of Assistant Garda Commissioner.

“I know him not to run him over in the street, I suppose.”

“Uh-huh. Well. Tom says that Tynan’s a week away from a final decision about ‘reorganisation.’ Says Tynan is a holy terror in committee. Won’t listen to reason. Do you know what I’m saying?”

“I do and I don’t.”

Kilmartin flashed a wily smile.

“Come on now, Matty. Don’t lay the ace and you with the knave in your fist. You and Tynan are thick enough when you want to be.”

Minogue’s thoughts had flown to the prospect of a large white coffee in Bewleys. A read of the paper, plenty of noise and chat. Sociable, solitary, solace-noisy Dublin’s best secret.

“Well? Has he dropped any hint to you about folding up the Squad here?”

Of course the travel posters would have been treated to highlight the blue of the Mediterranean, Minogue thought, throwing up the whitewashed walls to startle the eye. Turquoise…but the pictures couldn’t be all hammed. Fishing nets and boats bobbing in the harbour. He heard Kilmartin’s tones straying into the combat zone.

“He doesn’t use me as a sounding board, Jim. It’s just social and how-do with him.”

“That a fact?” Kilmartin asked with his eyebrows arched. “Well, Tom Boyle isn’t one for idle chat, let me tell you. No flies on Tom, by Jesus. No sirree Bob.”

Minogue turned his gaze on Kilmartin but didn’t see him. He knew as well as Kilmartin that there had been a stay of execution on the current structure of the Murder Squad for several years. The Squad had been slated to move to Garda Headquarters proper in the Phoenix Park, adjacent to the Forensic Science Lab and the nabobs who could look over Kilmartin’s shoulder day to day.

But by dint of Kilmartin’s work, the Squad had not yet been folded back into its parent group, the Technical Bureau. Kilmartin had parleyed, parried and placated his way into preserving his fiefdom. He had taken in more trainees from Garda Divisions all over the country. He had circulated Murder Squad detectives through other areas of the Technical Bureau to broaden their expertise. Kilmartin had made exemplary use of the new and emerging technologies. He had integrated computers and new communications protocols flawlessly. He had sat through complaint sessions with ranking Gardai from the country who were riled at having to run to Dublin for help in murder investigations.

“I really don’t know any more than yourself, Jimmy.”