“The Dan Howard re-election committee, you mean,” said Eoin.
The fat man’s cheeks made slits of his eyes when he grinned.
“God, they haven’t pulled the wool over your eyes, Eoin,” he said. “Wide-awake you are, boy.”
He turned his attention to Minogue and squinted out from the pouches around his eyes. The Inspector folded his wife’s twenty and handed it to the barman.
“I know you from somewhere… Ah, yes! You’re the brother, the Guard up in Dublin. Wouldn’t know you from Adam if I wasn’t seeing you here next to the brother. Wouldn’t know you at all.”
Minogue took custody of the whiskeys and the bottles of stout.
“Maybe if you did, you wouldn’t want to,” he said.
The fat man regrouped with a smile and a nod. The barman changed the channel on the television. Minogue followed Eoin to a table and sat next to his brother.
“Don’t mind that half-wit,” said Mick. “He’s Deegan from up the Saint’s Quarter. ‘As I roved out.’ Does odd jobs for the Howards. Since Tidy’s gone, I don’t think there’s much love lost between Dan Howard and your man here. Always trying to get a rise out of one or the other of us.”
Dimly the Inspector recalled a family of Deegans. He rolled a soupspoon’s worth of whiskey around under his tongue and then nodded it back to his tonsils. The heat detonated in his chest first. Minogue, one: early winter in the west of Ireland, nil. A man took an accordion from a case at a nearby table. Good, thought Minogue as the whiskey crept further through his intestines. Now he had an excuse for Kathleen: There was a session, my dear. How was he supposed to fob off advice on Mick or Eoin?
The musicians were soon loose and free with their instruments. A teenager with a pony-tail and the faint and distracted smile Minogue associated with expert musicians started to fiddle. The accordion player began to slip in the extra notes and flourishes which are the insignia of Clare composition. The bar began to fill. Deegan had left the bar for a seat next to the fireplace where he drank with two younger men. Minogue spotted him looking toward their table once. During a break in the music, Mick wanted to talk about hurling. Minogue made a big effort to appear interested, but the music and the drink had set his mind rambling. Several times he glanced down at his empty whiskey glass, but Mick didn’t get the hint. His own glass had remained half-full for the past twenty minutes. Mick’s hands had closed on one another as he talked and his hands worked slowly at stretching the fingers. Many would never straighten again, Minogue knew. God, another drink, he decided.
“Well, look,” said Eoin, and leaned sideways to see around standing patrons. “The man himself.”
Mick broke off his monologue, looked up and wrinkled his nose. Minogue caught a glimpse of several men as they came through the door and made their way toward the bar. A hand rose and waved across the heads of the crowd at someone unseen to Minogue.
“Who?” he said to Eoin.
“Dan Howard and the crowd from the PDDA. Howard makes a point of dropping in here for a jar after the meetings. Oh, and here’s the wife. Jacqueline Kennedy, I heard her called the other day.”
“A state visit,” grunted Mick. “His own damn pub and all.”
Some memory came faintly to Minogue, but it disappeared before he could place it. She had straight white- blonde hair, lately trimmed, framing a ruddy, tanned face. The Inspector was observing a woman who looked after herself, who had money and plenty of outdoor pursuits to make light of her years. Horsey maybe, he thought, with that fresh-faced, American sort of health. She wore a green loden over knee-length boots. A burrowing presence low under his ribs seemed to grow still. Confusion snared his thoughts tight; he realised that he was staring at her. From her gaze the Inspector knew that she was well aware of eyes on her. He watched her shrug off her coat. His throat was suddenly dry. He took a breath and tried to swallow.
“Never passes up the chance of shaking a few hands toward the next election,” said Mick. “He has the music organised for the same night as the PDDA meetings. Cute hoor, by God.”
Dan Howard was six feet tall but looked even taller in his double-breasted suit. Black curly hair tinted with grey sat over his rosy, dimpled face. His eyes twinkled, his smile was steady and wide. Howard’s hand strayed to his chest and searched out his tie, brushing it tighter inside his jacket. He shook hands with a young couple sitting at the bar and smiled at the musicians. One of them hoisted a glass in return. Minogue watched Dan Howard’s impish, benevolent gaze sweep around the room. His winks and waves continued. He gave a thumbs-up and a gleeful wink to someone Minogue could not see.
“See the little fella under his arm,” said Eoin. “He’s a German. A bloody millionaire. He flies over every month for these meetings. I’m not joking you.”
Minogue caught sight of a white-haired man with heavy, hornrimmed glasses on a head that seemed larger than it needed to be. Howard’s wife wore a loden, he remembered. A gift, maybe.
“Fell in love with the place. Yes, he’s taken a special interest in our little corner of the world.” Eoin’s sarcasm brought Minogue’s eyes to his nephew’s.
“Spillner. He brings people here every now and then to buy places. Clare’s ambassador in Germany.”
Minogue looked over again at the group by the bar. Howard was still looking around the crowd. His eyes lingered on Minogue as though he were trying to recall a name to go with the Inspector’s face, and he smiled broadly. Minogue nodded back. Someone handed Howard a glass of whiskey. The German had made his way over to the musicians and was talking animatedly to them.
Howard moved away from the bar and worked his way around the tables. He paused by one to shake hands with an elderly man. He inclined over another to listen to a joke, his smile broader with anticipation. His eyes focussed on Minogue while he listened. He showed perfect, even teeth when he laughed. The fiddle player drew his bow across the strings, set his jaw and launched into a reel. Spillner pushed at his glasses, laid his glass down and began clapping.
Mick eased himself more upright in his seat and grunted.
“Look at him, would you, for the love of God.”
The music had restored Minogue, renewed his thirst. He stood and made his way through the crowd. Damn it all, he thought, he’d do his best to spend the twenty-quid fee his wife had given him for parleying with Mick and Eoin. Danger money. He watched the barman uncapping the bottles of stout.
“So how’s Dublin?” called out the barman.
“Ah, it’s all right. A bit like Mars by times. But I like it.”
The barman shrugged and turned to the till. The fiddle wailed high over the guitar now and Minogue’s blood began to race with the music. His foot began rehearsing in miniature the steps to a Clare Set. Howard was still on the move. Minogue could not locate Howard’s wife, but as he stepped away from the bar he spotted her sitting next to the German. While he clapped vigorously she was looking at the musicians with a faint smile. She glanced over suddenly and returned Minogue’s gaze for several moments. The Inspector felt the soft compression about his chest again. A nudge on his arm from another patron drew him around to face the bar. The barman was shouting at him over the music.
“Your change!”
Minogue returned to the table and fended off money held out by Eoin. He wanted an excuse to stand up so that he could see her again. What was it about her that looked so familiar? Maybe she had been inspecting him to see if she could peg him from a family likeness. He thought of how her shoulders had rolled when she had slipped off the loden. And him like the world’s biggest iijit standing there, forgetting his change, staring at her. He took a gulp from his glass.
It was then that the Inspector noticed the customers moving away from the door. The man who now stood in the doorway seemed immune to the ruckus around him. He wore a thick black workman’s coat, a donkey jacket, with the collar turned up. Though he was tall and wiry, his shoulders were hunched under a mop of white hair. His beard was still almost completely black. The Inspector shifted to get a better angle and saw the plastic shopping bags dangling from the man’s hands. Others in the crowd had begun to look toward the new arrival now. The barman looked up from a glass he was filling and frowned. Several people edged closer to the bar. Minogue looked back at the bearded man. There was something more to him than that furtive alertness which Minogue associated with people who were cracked. In the animal shyness and caution was defiance.
The barman left the glass on the counter half-filled and lifted the hinged countertop. Men around the bar made way for him. The bearded man noted him coming toward him but returned to looking around the groups in the bar. The fiddle player left the guitar and the accordion to account for the melody and began to soar and fall around it. The German millionaire was smiling broadly, swaying from side to side on his stool. The barman’s face was set in
