The living-room had boasted no knick-knacks, it seemed. Books borrowed from the public library still lay atop a low table, the chaos on the floor all about it. There were no plants in the room, no pictures on the walls. Two ashtrays, both clean: copies of the Irish Times; magazines scattered on the floor. A colour telly with rabbit ears had been toppled, the screen cracked. The gravid atmosphere of the house begin to weigh on Minogue. He sat down on the doorstep next to Hoey.
'Who do we have available as of tomorrow morning, Shea?'
'There's you and me, sir. Pat Keating, of course. The two detectives from Stepaside; I know one of them- Driscoll. There's two Gardai from Stepaside taking statements and feeding them to Driscoll for us. I phoned in to get a crop of likeues off the Criminal Record Office… Johnnie Carey is back in court tomorrow again and it might be for most of the week. The pub stabbing back in March. The defence threw a surprise in last Friday and they're rubbing Johnnie hard on how he got the confession. He's lost to us for the week, I'd say.'
Hoey drew on the cigarette. Minogue had a sudden lust for a cigarette himself. Keating stepped around the seated policemen.
'Well, the percentages so far,' Keating began with a yawn, 'tell me he was killed right in the kitchen. I was talking to the lads who went through the kitchen… '
Minogue's attention was taken by the lurid light from the spots flaring against the gable wall. A uniformed Garda walked gingerly by them, nodding.
'… Nothing to suggest a struggle in or near the door. Not dragged in either.'
'Heavy class of man anyhow,' Hoey added.
'Can we place him at all yet, for the Saturday?' asked Minogue.
'Driscoll and the Stepaside lads are chipping away there, sir,' Hoey reminded him. 'They know the area. Never knew this Combs, though. A reclam-… a recl-'
'A recluse,' Minogue said.
'That's it. A loner. Mrs Hartigan says he took a jar in the pub all right. He wasn't a total hermit.'
'In a bit of a state, I suppose. Is she at home now?' Minogue went oh. Hoey flicked open his notebook.
'Here's her number. The house is about half a mile back the road.'
Minogue rose and yawned. Hoey stood then. Keating stared off at some point in the darkness beyond the oasis of light. Minogue followed Hoey down the lane. Hoey yawned again as he got into Minogue's Fiat, holding his notebook to his mouth. Keating took the radio-car which he and Hoey had driven out from Dublin.
'So the Killer is back on his feet,' Hoey whispered through a yawn. Minogue spied Hoey's embarrassment with a glance. Kilmartin's nickname had slipped out. He smiled faintly at Hoey in the green glow of the dash light. Hoey rubbed his nose and switched on the interior light. He looked through his notes of his interview with Mrs Hartigan. Minogue drove off into the night. Kilmartin, Killer, he mused. Hoey absent-mindedly lit another cigarette. Hardly anyone has nicknames anymore, Minogue realised. What was that a sign of? Progress?
The nickname originated with quips which dated back to the renaming of the Murder Squad. Unlike its like- named counterpart in London, from which the name and the organisational structure had been derived, the Squad's name had gone under to the dictates of more hygienic prose. That prose had drifted in on airwaves and print from the American century which had lain offshore until the late 1950s. Irish people were now expected to rationlise their lives. They should now express opinions about the balance of payments and to use words from the new religion, words like fulfillment, relationship, interaction…
The Murder Squad had emerged from this confusion as the Investigation Section. It formed a branch of the Technical Bureau, itself a branch of the Central Detective Unit. The CDU's new headquarters was based close to the City Centre in Harcourt Square, and CDU detectives rubbed shoulders with the other glamour boys of the Security Section, the Special Branch and the Serious Crime Squad. Austrian-made folding submachine-pistols, souped-up pursuit cars, computerisedradio and telephone links, border shoot-outs… the whole shemozzle, as Kilmartin was wont to remark caustically over a Friday afternoon pint to Minogue. Television policemen, he called them.
The Murder Squad's transfer from the claustrophobia of Dublin Castle had brought it to St John's Road, close to Garda Headquarters in The Phoenix Park. Detectives working on the Murder Squad didn't mind a bit of glamour themselves. When other Gardai would ask them what it was like to work in the Investigation Section, they were told that it was murder, handily consonant with the nickname of the head of the section-the Killer himself, Kilmartin. The conceit around Kilmartin's nickname added to the Squad's reputation as being driven, meticulous and successful.
Less out of delicacy than sympathy, Minogue did not air his view that Jimmy Kilmartin was such a tiger abroad because he was a kitten at home.
CHAPTER 2
Mrs Hartigan's husband hovered uneasily by the door to the parlour. The Hartigan's house was a County Council labourer's cottage, scrupulously clean and suffused with the smell of a mixed grill. Framed photographs of weddings and children were marshalled on a dresser next to the door. Mrs Hartigan perched in the corner of a thickly stuffed sofa. A restless poodle lay across her oblivious feet. Two patches of colour stood out on her pallid cheeks. Her eyes were ringed red. Below the eyes her face seemed to sag. Like a stroke-victim, Minogue thought. Hoey sat next to a new television set while Minogue fell back into a tired spring armchair.
'To be sure, Mr Hartigan,' Minogue looked up at the grizzled pensioner in the doorway. 'Rest assured that your good wife will suffer no duress.'
Hartigan scratched skeptically at a leathery ear.
'The doctor says she should be taking it cushy. She has blood pressure.'
'Mr Hartigan. Our best opportunity for catching the person who committed this crime is with quick work. As much information as we can gather, as quickly as we can gather it.'
'It's wicked,' Mrs Hartigan interrupted. Her fixed stare hadn't shifted from the fireplace. 'To do that… and the mess. It was like… I don't know what.'
Hartigan withdrew, closing the door soundlessly. Minogue didn't care that he might be eavesdropping from the hall. Hoey flipped open his notebook to a fresh page.
'I spoke to this nice young man, didn't I?' Mrs Hartigan said drearily.
'You did, ma'am,' Hoey said. 'A little more might be the key. We won't tax you with repeating things, though, so we won't.'
Minogue gathered himself at the back of the chair.
'Now, Mrs Hartigan, I know you didn't see Mr Combs since last Friday. But do you know what he did on his weekends? In general, like. A Saturday.'
'Well. I told this nice man here that Mr Combs took a drink. He liked a drink. That's not to say… But Joseph, my husband, saw him the odd time in the pub. Up in Fox's pub.'
'Did he entertain visitors?'
'No, he didn't. I don't know what he did the days he'd go into Dublin, though. Or on his little trips out for his drawing and painting. Did I tell you that he liked the horses?'
Hoey nodded. _
'The races. Leopardstown, for a flutter. He used to say that-'for a flutter.' Oh,' she sighed as she shifted in the sofa, 'he had expressions I never heard of before. Sometimes he would have me in fits. Putting on the talk, you know. Sometimes after a little sup of drink he'd be very funny.'
Mrs Hartigan seemed to catch herself. She frowned as she looked up over at Minogue.
'I'm not saying that Mr Combs was a, you know…'
'A heavy drinker?'
'Yes.'
Her expression changed abruptly into a withered smile.
'I don't think he gave people a chance to know him, to like him. Talk to Joseph there and he'll tell you. He was always asking me what Mr Combs was like. People didn't know him. He could be terrible funny. Charming and gentle…'
She looked toward Hoey but her eyes did not focus. The poodle's legs twitched. It bared its teeth in
