with a young wan. Hee hee. Are we right?' the old man continued.
The Garda behind the wheel looked wearily at McAuliffe, then at Moroney.
'We need you to look through a few pictures of cars for us,' McAuliffe said to the old man.
'Are you joking? Sure I've done what I can. I have to get home. Jases.'
'You can call the wife from the station. We'll drive you home. You'll get your tea too,' said the Garda in the passenger seat.
'Feck it, lads. God forgive me for cursing. Magnum P.I. is on the telly. I never miss it.'
McAuliffe waved the van into the laneway. His men were putting on jackets and dispersing. A couple who had walked into the laneway stood staring as the van disgorged wires and lights and boxes. McAuliffe made himself scarce in the hubbub. When Moroney went off to look for him, he was gone. Moroney was still angry.
He found Galvin, gawking like an adolescent looking at donkeys at it in a ditch, a far cry from the heavy who had thrown the Duffy fella around that afternoon.
'Here. Leave these fellas alone. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to buy a pint of stout apiece for yourself and myself and a big fuckin' sandwich below in O'Neill's. What do you think of that?'
Galvin frowned. It wasn't like Moroney to be so coarse.
As the two detectives walked out under the arch to Baggot Street, they passed several people looking down the alley at what must have looked like people making a film. There were three squad cars parked beside theirs now. As they passed one Garda, Moroney said, 'The hard man, is it yourself. How's things out in Blackrock?'
'Divil a bit,' the middle-aged Garda replied and shook his head.
They walked on. As he opened the door of the car, Moroney's pessimism rolled up relentlessly behind him and broke over him.
The birds had flown, he realised. It was dark now.
The following day being Friday, Kilmartin did not feel too aggrieved at having slept poorly. He had had a feeling which persisted into his dreams that something was unravelling nearby, but that it couldn't be detected. Were there a forced choice, Kilmartin would have preferred 'prosaic' to 'man of fantasy' on his gravestone. Nonetheless he felt as a child felt upon awakening, knowing it had snowed in the night, even before opening the curtain. This morning, Kilmartin's snow was quite invisible. He felt gruff. He smoked four cigarettes in the car on his way to work. Eight hours ago, the two gunmen in Blackrock had not been found. He had gone home after midnight, despondent and furious by turns.
Of the two men who waited outside his office, he would have preferred not to see Minogue. Connors he could send on some errand. Minogue's odd face gave Kilmartin a tiny pop in his stomach. He groaned inside at the thought of a morning's gas.
'Good morrow, Matt. Tea, then?'
'Good morning yourself,' Minogue replied, fingering the folders under his arm.
'Step in, step in. Connors, would you kindly root out some tea?'
Minogue sat lightly in the chair. Kilmartin sat on the edge of his desk, wondering if the clackety clack of the typewriters would now add a headache to his woes.
'Any big moves, Matt?' inquired Kilmartin gently.
'Well now. This thing will be eclipsed by other concerns, I'm sure, so I'll make a long story short. Someone tried to run me over yesterday. They could have tried a bit harder too, I've been thinking.'
Kilmartin started. He stared at Minogue.
'Odd, isn't it? In a carpark. Of course I didn't tell Kathleen, but someone phoned the house masquerading as an old school friend, if you please. Some yarn about a reunion. All rubbish of course, but he knew where to find me and what I looked like.'
This was it, Kilmartin was thinking. Minogue has gone batty. The signs were there and it's only now they're coming together.
'Yes. All part of an elaborate play. I'm thinking someone is trying to push this drug thing on me.'
'I don't get it, Matt…'
'I'm being led. That's what I'm saying. I believe that boy's girlfriend or whatever you'd call her. I'm not sure why.'
'Her account of the boy…?'
'Yes. I'm not happy with the two yobbos in Trinity pushing those hints about drugs.'
Kilmartin thought for a minute. Minogue seemed relaxed and somehow resolute about this. Had he changed a bit somehow? 'What makes you feel that you're being led down the garden path, Matt?'
'There's the rub now. I haven't an inkling. Well, actually now I shouldn't say that at all. I have the feeling that something is happening and that time is a factor. Like while the show is on, someone is picking pockets in the cloakroom.'
Kilmartin stood up and walked to the window. He risked a small burning fart for relief. Minogue's thing was contagious, damn it all. Hints and inklings, suspicions. What Kilmartin really wanted was to be called to help in this business last night, not to be left eavesdropping in the radio room for great events which made careers for other men. Something you could leap into and work at and get credit for.
'Anyway. I'm hoping the car was stolen and that it'll turn up. There's no reason for people trying to bump me off, you know. The old grey matter is nagging at me to believe there's something in this to do with that boy Walsh.'
Indeed, thought Kilmartin. Well now, Matt Minogue, I'm not going to come straight out and tell you what I think, but I'll give you a hint.
'Tell you what, Matt. Give it until this evening or over the weekend. Then we can get someone else to start from scratch and rehash it.'
Kilmartin caught wind of his newborn fart. It had emerged and lain in waiting only to burst when he had congratulated himself for his discretion. Holy God, it was a killer. The window was stuck. So was Kilmartin. A sulphurous aroma rose around him. Minogue uncrossed his legs and brushed lightly across his nose with his fingers.
'Right so. I'll look over the parents' statements again and rethink it,' said Minogue, rising from the chair.
'Good, Matt. Look, do you want me to follow up on this thing yesterday? Where that car came at you?'
Minogue recognised the challenge. Minogue is gone loony, right?
'No. I'll go through the thing myself.'
'Sergeant Minogue? Doherty here. You asked about a car.'
'Doherty? Right, the one from the Vehicle Bureau.'
'Yes. Are you Pat Doherty's brother?'
'I am.'
'Tell him they haven't a ghost on Sunday in Nenagh. The Wex-ford crowd will take the day. Ye'll have to play the wings and pass the ball more.' „
'Go on out of that,' Doherty said. 'If the rain comes again, we'll scalp that crowd. The Wexford crowd hate the rain.'
'My eye,' said Minogue.
'I'll put money on it,' Doherty replied.
'I don't want to be robbing you.'
'Well. A white Ford Granada was stolen on Churchtown Road in the afternoon. Are you with me?'
'I am.'
'Reported at 10:53 three last night. Some old bollocks had been in a pub all that time. And then he wanted to drive home, but he couldn't find his bloody car.'
'Comical.'
'The country is gone to pot,' Doherty said. His Galwegian indignation came softly to Minogue, who thought of the long, open bogroads by Clifden with the clouds rolling in over the horizon, sea on the air.
'Well, it turned up today in Dundrum. Next to a bus-stop. The cheek of it, I ask you. Do you know, it caused a bit of havoc in the traffic this morning.'
As if he intended we find it, Minogue realised.
'Where is it now?'
'Store Street Station.'
