The glow of the city's lights came faintly over the hedges to the north, obscuring the stars there. Minogue sensed something moving under the caravan. He looked down at the collie, which rested its front paws just inside the shadow.
Joyce jostled by his wife. Minogue followed him in. The inside of the caravan was tidy and crowded. It smelled of smoke and cooking, bed-warmth, child's piss. Joyce blundered to a built-in cupboard beside what passed for a sofa. Children scampered under clothes at the other end of the caravan.
Joyce tore out plastic bags and threw them to the floor. They seemed to be full of clothes. He reached his arms in and drew out a bridle and noseband. He stepped back, kicked the bags at his feet and thrust the straps angrily at Minogue.
Josie Joyce's jaw dropped when she saw Minogue take out his penknife. The children stood silent and gaping like their mother.
'What in the name of God is he doing with that…?' she began.
'This was a present to ye from Mr Combs?' Minogue asked without looking up. The straps had been machine-stitched. The stiff leather was tight and creaking.
'And he said ye could keep it after ye took the horse back, am I right?' Minogue went on.
'I suppose,' said Josie, darting glances from her husband to Minogue. 'But if it's ours, it's ours. T'was a present. You can't be destroying it.'
Minogue could not safely tease his knife under the stitches. He snorted with frustration.
'Damn it to hell. Have you a good sharp knife, Missus, one with a point to it?'
Josie Joyce's eyes bulged wider.
'Go on with you,' Joyce muttered.
Minogue worked the point of the knife into the stitches and began slicing them. He levered the two straps open.
'That's a fierce amount of cash money for tackle the likes of that,' Josie began.
A small plastic sachet escaped Minogue's palm and fell to the floor.
'What in the name of…' Joyce frowned. Minogue picked up the sachet. He felt his chest expanding, his heart beating in a huge space. When he tried to talk, his words came out in a hoarse whisper.
'This, Michael Joseph, this little thing is what's going to put the bit between our teeth, man.'
He held the sealed packet against the propane light. The negatives were stacked perhaps four deep, singly, in two groups.
'Guard, come in here, will you? Be quick, man.'
Flahive appeared in the doorway, his nose wrinkled in distaste at having to enter a tinker's caravan.
'Get the station to phone the Technical Bureau. Tell 'em it's me and that I want Photographic and Video. I have black-and-white negatives to be developed and blown up.'
'Negatives, sir?' said Flahive warily.
'And I'm going to leave them in their wrapping until they get them.'
'And you want these things developed, is it?'
'Yep. And blown up, man. But big.' spacebarthing
Minogue did not hear Kathleen coming down the stairs.
'I thought it was Daithi in late,' she whispered. 'But sure he's in bed hours already.'
Her hair was down, an arm holding her dressing-gown together.
Minogue had helped himself to two sizeable glasses of Jameson. He was not tired and he did not feel drunk. He had prints of all the negatives in his lap, along with a plastic magnifying glass.
'It's three o'clock in the morning. What in the name of God are you doing?… What are those? Photos? Are you gone dotty? They're not photos of people at all. What is it, bits of paper?'
'It's something very unusual,' Minogue began. 'A very, very delicate matter entirely. And I'm not sure what to make of it at all,' he began. The drink had had its effects, he realised then. It was too much to explain to Kathleen now.
'Can't you sleep on it?'
'I'm only just home from town this last fifteen minutes. I can't sleep with this stuff in me head. I don't know if I can swallow the thing as real at all. That Combs man that was murdered.'
Kathleen shivered.
'Can't it wait until tomorrow?'
Minogue noted the edge to her question.
'It'll have to.'
Minogue had checked the streets which Combs mentioned. If this was raving fiction about the Second World War, then Combs had gone to a lot of trouble to get his names and places right. Most were now in East Berlin. Unter den Linden he'd heard of before. Combs called Kufursten Damm the Ku-damm, something Minogue had also heard of before. The Rathausstrasse, where he claimed to have made the broadcasts from, had been levelled by bombing. And that man that was betrayed on purpose, Vogel. Combs thought that Vogel's family had lived in East Berlin. He wrote that he never met Vogel but only heard of his fate after he himself had gotten out. After 'Russians' he had written 'our allies!!!' and underlined the words several times. But Minogue kept returning to the name Costello. Combs had had his dates right, but he couldn't have known for sure about Costello's killing. All he could do was repeat Ball's hints about Costello and his grisly fate.
Kathleen eyed the bottle of whiskey now dangerously at large, out of the safety of the sink cupboard.
'Once in the blue moon, Kathleen,' he murmured.
He laboured to rise from the chair. Kathleen waited by the door. William Grimes, had he heard that name before? No, just the illusion of familiarity brought on by a few drinks.
'Are you still expecting to get up early?' Kathleen whispered at the foot of the stairs. Minogue did not miss the reproach. He scooped up the note he had left for Daithi.
'I'll have to get started on this very early tomorrow, and that's a fact,' he replied, following his wife up the stairs. They tiptoed to their bedroom. Hooking his thumb into his socks, sitting on the edge of the bed, Minogue smelled the sugary sourness of his whiskey breath. Maybe he should be hanging off the phone downstairs trying to get ahold of Corrigan or a Superintendent or two. Whatever about three o'clock in the morning, they'd have enough questions for him when he did tell them tomorrow.
CHAPTER 13
Corrigan sat sideways in the front passenger seat. He still looked tense, leaning around the head-rest to talk. Minogue was not disposed to being sympathetic to Corrigan. He badly wanted more coffee. Dunne, Corrigan's driver, had watched Minogue gulp down two large white coffees bought on the hoof from Bewley's in Dundrum Shopping Centre. Minogue caught him looking askance at Corrigan, as if to seek reassurance from the Inspector.
Minogue's hangover had hit him as thirst and sluggishness. The want of sleep had left his joints aching, but he had woken up with that tremulous sense in his chest, the excitement. While he had been driving in to town to meet Corrigan, he had had enough opportunities to wonder if the plan wasn't as mad as Corrigan would say it was. Corrigan was getting edgier by the minute. He looked at his watch before thumbing to transmit.
'— Chestnut Control to Chestnuts One and Two. Come in.'
'What's the Chestnut bit, Pat? Did you sack Alpha and Bravo and Foxtrot?' Minogue asked.
'— Chestnut Two Over.'
'Any sign of our man moving around?' Corrigan asked Dunne. Dunne was toying with the handset, the link with the photo team working the house.
'No, sir,' said Dunne.
'What's the Chestnut stuff, Pat?' Minogue repeated.
Corrigan let the mike drop lightly into his lap.
'Us being the Branch, we thought we'd start using the names of trees instead of Foxtrots and Tangos.'
It was the first laugh Minogue had had all day. It relieved his own unease at any rate.
