John Brady: All souls

“Hello, Matt. Arra you know how it is. We’re nearly swimming. The Stone Fields and Durrus are under water these three weeks. It’s fish we should be farming.”

A name for every field and ditch, Minogue remembered. He had his nail under the wrapper now.

“Was it ever any other way, Maura love?” he tried. The foil slid up under his thumb and chocolate showed. “And how’s Mick?”

“Well enough now. The joints are bad with him in the morning, what with the weather and the time of year. And of course there’s the age. Like they say, closer to the wood. There’s no avoiding that, is there? God has His own plans.”

“We’ll be down by tea-time tomorrow, Maura. Make sure you have a pack of cards in the house and a bit of meat.” Kathleen laughed, at his pronunciation of meat as mate, he believed.

“God, Matt, you’re a caution. But listen now. I phoned for a reason. It’s to tell you or Kathleen that there’s an envelope of stuff here for you. It’s from Mr Crossan, the man we talked to about Eoin’s predicament there…and he gave us the best advice. Very nice man, but his own way about things. Maybe you know him, do you?”

“The barrister Crossan?” He recalled seeing or hearing the name somewhere. Yes, with one of Kilmartin’s cronies, that was it. Grumbling about Crossan demolishing some case brought against an IRA man.

“The very one. It was his work that got the charges dropped against Eoin the next day.”

Maura’s voice dropped lower. Minogue imagined her shielding her words from someone passing in the hall, Mick most likely,

“Well, it came up in the course of a chat that you were a Guard, and, of course, in no time at all he knew your exact department. Very interested he was and all. Well, Matt, I don’t know how I should put this to you, I’m not much good at this…”

Minogue sensed the awkwardness betokened some transaction in the rural commerce of obligations felt and favours returned. He could feel Maura’s nervousness, the effort it had taken her to tell him, and his irritation disappeared.

“I’m not the sworn enemy of the legal profession, Maura. Officially, at any rate. What’s Crossan about here now?”

Her voice was almost a whisper now.

“He mentioned the name Jamesy Bourke to me. Do you remember him?”

“Bourkes out by Kilrannagh? Wasn’t there some trouble with them years ago?”

“That’s them. Jamesy’s the only one left. He was in prison these years. He only got out a few months ago and he’s living up above in the mother’s place since. It’s only a shed really. Walks the roads like Methuselah with the beard and a big stick he carries. Talks to no one except himself or his dog. They say he went cracked in prison. The locals’re afraid of him too.”

“Do you recall what he ended up in prison for?”

Maura’s reply came in a whisper. “He murdered a girl.”

Minogue placed the chocolate on his tongue.

“And that’s what Crossan wants to get in touch with me about?”

“Well, to make a long story short. Mr Crossan had left an envelope about it with me a week ago so’s I’d give it to you and you coming down. But he phoned today, asking would you be down soon-”

“Was he, em, in some class of a hurry with this, er…?”

She paused before replying. “Well, Matt, now he didn’t say as much, but…I think so. But if it’s any trouble to you, don’t have anything to do with it. I told Mr Crossan that you were a very busy-”

Minogue thought of her laughter, her radiant smile, the hospitality she had showered on them over the years. She and Kathleen had grown to be like sisters.

“Ah, you’re all right there, Maura, oul’ stock,” he said. “Don’t be worrying. Keep that thing out of the floods you have and give it to me tomorrow evening.”

“God bless, Matt!”

Kathleen watched her husband unwrap another chocolate.

“Leave a few for the children, can’t you.”

He rolled the foil into a ball, placed it on the telephone table and began flicking it about.

“Did you know anything about that?” he asked.

“The barrister fella? Yes I did. If you want my opinion, he put her in a corner. If I meet him, I’ll tell him to his face, too. They’re all the same, that mob.”

“What are you saying?”

“‘The best in the county, Mr Crossan,’ Maura tells me. Of course she went straight to his office in Ennis when Eoin was arrested. She would have sold the bloody farm if that was what it’d take to get Eoin out. As it turned out, this Crossan wouldn’t take any money from her.”

“So why are you dropping rocks on him?”

“I maintain that he knew all along that Maura was related to you and that he knew she’d feel under the obligation to him. That way she’d put him in touch with you. That’s the way country people are.”

“Tell me more about country people, Kathleen.”

Kathleen didn’t take the bait but examined her nails instead.

“Probably knew they were hard up for money as it was. Probably has some dirty work for a client that’s willing to pay him buckets of money.” She looked up from her nails. “Wants something under the table from you, no doubt,” she declared.

An IRA lawyer, Minogue reflected again, or so described by a disgruntled senior Garda friend of Kilmartin’s. Conniving afoot?

“Maybe I should give him a well-aimed kick so,” said Minogue. He reached for another chocolate. “And tell him it’s from you.”

The shot cracked in the dusk like a branch snapping. He laughed and lowered the gun.

“There’s a grand kick off this,” he said. “Not too much, and not too little.”

“Jesus Christ, Finbarr!” shouted the other man. “Don’t be such a fucking iijit! What the hell do you want to be doing that for?”

“You’ve had your bit of fun for the day. Why can’t I have mine?”

The other man, a little taller than the one with the pistol now dangling loosely at the ends of his fingers, bit back a retort. He swung the stock of the machine pistol back and stuck it in his armpit. Too short. Not meant to rest there? He stood up and slung the strap over his head before returning the stock to his armpit. He pulled the strap tight by shoving the gun forward. That’s more like it, he thought. He looked down in the grass by his feet where he had laid the plastic wrap and the ammunition clips which he had been filling.

“Was it good?” asked Finbarr.

“Was what good?”

Merry, heavy-lidded eyes met his. “The ride. Was she good today?”

“Shut up. I told you before about that.” He pulled the barrel down to feel the strap on his shoulder again. Good, steady. He spread his feet.

“Only asking.”

“Don’t ask. Mind your own business.”

His companion looked down into the bottle. “Very touchy today, aren’t we, Ciaran…darling?”

The other man ignored the gibe. Finbarr suddenly raised the Browning and loosed off another shot.

“You stupid fucking yob!” hissed Ciaran. He reached for the pistol but Finbarr turned and held it out of his reach. “Put it away and stop playing with it. Do you think it’s a bloody toy or something? Give it to me!”

His friend chortled, thumbed the safety and dropped it onto the plastic. He raised the bottle again.

“Well now, Ciaran. For a man who was supposed to have had a good time there, you seem awful jittery to me.”

“If I am a bit jittery, it’s because I’ve been watching you swallowing vodka and waving that gun around!”

He unhitched his gun and laid it carefully next to the pistol. As he stood stretching, he turned on his heels. Around him lay the Burren. Like the last place on earth, he thought. He had worked on the buildings in England for six years until the slump came. This is what he had wanted to come home to? Below him was the cottage they had been gutting and renovating for the new owners. They had been hired by Howard whose company acted as a go-between for the Germans who had bought the place. Do it right, Howard’s foreman had told them, and there’d be plenty more work like it.