'There's no just-a-driver here. Killing a policeman is a capital offence. You did just as much as your friends. That's the way the law looks at it too. Your two pals are singing like canaries. According to them you do a lot more than driving.'
Duffy tried hard not to show some relief. He knew this cop was lying. He kept his head down. Maybe he'd get out of this one.
'Where'd you get the car?'
'In Dublin.'
'Where'd you get the car?'
'Like I-'
The chair leg shrieked as Duffy rolled toward the wall. The plain clothes at the door kicked him in the shin. As he tried to roll away, Galvin kicked him in the small of the back. His legs went numb. The light in the room began to pulse and run up to him. He remembered the name they gave these cops in the South, The Heavy Gang. He felt himself pulled up and he was left trying to stay standing. He couldn't. He fainted.
When he came to he was in the chair again. A smell of baby came to him, strong. He had puked down his shirt, he realised. He looked up. Nothing had changed. He tried to turn slightly and check where the other cop was. How much time had passed?
'Where'd you get the car?'
'I swear to God,' Duffy began. The voice, his voice, resonated through his skull. He was sure it was someone else's voice. He knew what he wanted to say, but his hearing wasn't picking up what he thought the voice was saying.
'… I came down on the train is all. That's all. I was told to meet the others at a hotel.'
'What hotel?'
'The Bur… the Burg. The Burlington.'
'When?'
'The day before yesterday, yes.'
'Who told you?'
'I just got a phone call. A fella phoned.'
'Where did you meet these two before?'
'As true as God, I never did. They're from Belfast.'
Vaguely, Duffy wondered if he could control what he was saying. It was like being stoned-you didn't know if you said it or just thought it. He understood he had to keep the shared illusion about the other two being caught. He doubted they'd be taken. They were hard men and they were wanted, so they had little enough to lose. They had made him nervous the way they hardly said a word all day.
'All I know,' the voice continued,' is that they told me to lose that patrol car. I remember we ran into a dead end and they jumped out of the car. I remember them shooting. And me trying to get out the door on my side. I was half-way out. I was lucky not to get me leg sliced off so I was.'
'What were you at this afternoon?'
Duffy hesitated. Like a magnetic force, he could feel the closeness of the cop behind him. His skin tickled alarms.
'I think it was a bank job. The boys was bored.'
'Where?'
'Cruising is all. They never told me anything, as true as…'
'Where have you been staying?'
'At that hotel. Same as them,' Duffy added.
A light knock at the door. Plain clothes opened it. Galvin left the room. He closed the door gently behind him.
In the hallway, the Special Branch man whispered,
'No sign of them or the guns. We think they got out of the area right away.'
'This yo-yo says they're Belfast and that's all he knows. They'll be headed back into the city now. They were staying at the Burlington so set the place up overnight anyway, though I doubt it. Get in first and have a look around. Remember who you're dealing with. They might have handguns.'
'What about your man inside?'
Galvin stroked his chin.
'Ah, he's only a dummy. He's not trained at all. He has the willies with Moroney in there.'
'We have the check-points up on the Bray Road and Merrion Road. Nothing yet. We're starting the house-to- house about now,' the Special Branch man said.
And there'll be nothing from the check-points either if that little shitebird is telling the truth, Galvin added silently. Hard men.
'Set up something for this fella in the Bridewell, would you. They can't keep him here. We'll be done with him in a few minutes. For the moment anyway. Make sure the door-to-door thing is kept up. And I want every house on our lists visited by a policeman tonight, especially on the south side of the city. Sympathisers, politicos, hangers-on, I don't give a shite. Show the flag. They'll know that they can't hide out there.'
'Yes, sir.'
'And get a bit of first aid for this fecker in here. Maybe a concussion or eardrums. Don't take any guff out of him. He fell down a few times and hurt himself.'
'Yes, sir.'
When Galvin re-entered the room, Duffy looked over to him. Duffy was hunched over in the chair. The room smelled bad. It was hot now.
'Duffy. In between now and the time we see you again, you have some thinking to do. You should opt for self-preservation if you have any savvy at all. Your mates are in the same boat. And here's something else to dwell on while you still have fond memories of my colleagues here. Your outfit will be told that you're singing away here, so you'll have to square it with them in the clink when you get there. Who knows, we mightn't have you alive enough after that to hang you anyway. Doesn't matter what you say. We have the finger on plenty of your lads here and all we have to do is lift a few of them and drop your name, Volunteer Duffy. You don't know the half of it. Start remembering quick. You're up to your oxters now so all you can do is buy your way into some kind of protective custody. And even that won't mean much unless we see our way to some allowances later on. Remember: you killed a Garda officer. We can have you looking like a Hallowe'en mask at the end of a rope.'
Moroney saw the wariness in the prisoner's eyes. The side of his head was swolleiralready and there was a drying film of blood at the corners of his mouth. Galvin felt a final rush of contempt for this pathetic fool. He thinks he has one up on us because we're codding him about his cronies being in custody, Moroney reflected. No training. Maybe it'd never dawn on him how suggestion worked. We know that he thinks he knows, that's the control. Moroney believed Duffy would get his story in soon enough. He also believed that it wouldn't amount to much.
'Get this worm out of here,' Moroney said.
CHAPTER TEN
Minogue felt it was taking him forever to reach the shopping centre. His mind was cluttered with dark forms whose details escaped him as he tried to concentrate. He felt cold and he felt old. Maybe this is how it is when you lose your nerve, or when you let yourself admit you've lost your nerve, he thought.
Minogue parked his Fiat two rows away from the supermarket. He checked his pocket for money. He stopped walking and stood between parked cars, fingering coins to the side of his palm. The air was thick and moist around him. He pocketed his find and resumed walking. An expanse of glass confronted him beyond the rows of parked cars. He could see himself, head and shoulders above the car roofs as he stepped out onto the roadway. He felt damp and creaky out of the car. The sky was low, greyed and browned. He smelled a faint diesel scent hanging in the air. In the gutter ahead of him lay a discarded umbrella, like a broken bird. He stepped across rainbowed splashes of petrol now quite prominent after the rain.
Ahead of him, his figure became larger. This is how I must look to other people, he realised. People were
