The Coroner’s certificate presented at trial, autopsy performed by Dr J. Marum of Galway city, author not called.
Kilmartin blew a smoke-ring across the desk at Minogue.
“Jimmy, here’s a case that we never had a hand in. Not even consultancy that I can see.”
Kilmartin blew another ring. “Maybe there wasn’t an unlawful killing involved.”
Minogue ignored the sarcasm.
“Didn’t you hear me telling you that it’s an old file copy?” Kilmartin went on. “Wherever it came from was all Divisional work. That’s before your time here. Ancient history.”
“A girl killed in a house fire near Portaree, County Clare. Convicted for manslaughter, received a life sentence-”
“A life sentence? Sounds tough. Are you sure?”
“-James Bourke. No participation by the Squad.”
“You said that already. That’s back in the time of the Rood, man. A lot of stuff wasn’t in place and coordinated back then, as I recall.” Another well-formed ring emanated from Kilmartin.
“Common enough then,” Minogue went on, “to let the local Guards dispose of a murder case?”
“Christ on Calvary hill, man, don’t you be listening to me at all around here? That’s what I keep on banging me head against the wall about trying to convince the powers that be, every time the bloody topic of ‘decentralisation’ comes up the shagging pipe from some crank Super in frigging Ballygobackwards. Things have improved since then, we all know that, but the same thing could conceivably happen in the morning.” Kilmartin paused and puffed on his cigar.
“ ‘Conceivably,’” said Minogue.
“Shut up a minute,” suggested the Chief Inspector. “Such was done, that I can say. And several times there was an almighty pig’s mickey made of things, let me tell you. Do you remember the case of that young fella killing the married woman, the Shaughnessy thing in Cork? He nearly walked the first day of the trial on account of know- it-alls in Mallow that decided they could handle everything. They made a bollocks of it. Lost half their evidence when some bloody barrister fresh out of school in his robes drove a coach and horses through the exhibits.”
Kilmartin perched on the edge of his desk and leaned in over Minogue. “Christ, tell that one to Tynan if he gives you the chance. Don’t you remember that one? Jesus wept, man. Some of the exhibits were kept in a drawer along with first-aid stuff and leftover egg sandwiches. Stuff wasn’t even catalogued! And then the fella who attended the PM got sick and left the room for a half an hour, bejases, so the defence nearly put it over that the Guards didn’t even have consistent control over the bloody corpse to be sure of cause of death! Such a mess! Comical.”
“I had a conversation with a barrister below in Ennis-”
“Your time is your own to waste, man. It’s a free country.”
“-and what he recalled of the thing is true so far. According to him, the whole thing deserves a good scrutiny at the very least.”
“A good scrutiny indeed,” Kilmartin whinnied. “Sue us, then. The bollocks.”
“Sue the Guards in Portaree and in Ennis, you mean.”
“But maybe they had an open-and-shut case then. Christ, maybe the local Guards actually got it right for once and someone’s taking you for a gom, pal.”
“Count in the last ten years the number of murder cases which didn’t have our involvement.”
“It’s not statutory procedure that we invade every town and village in Ireland when there’s a murder,” said Kilmartin. “I’ve seen murder cases put to rest with a coroner’s inquest. But if you think any case was made a bollocks of, or hushed up… Far be it from me, etcetera.”
Minogue flipped the folder shut. The pungent staleness of the papers lodged in his nose.
“The fella who was convicted, he’s back on the streets. I saw him.”
Kilmartin put on a biddable expression.
“Look, now. If you’re fishing for prime examples of Guards down the country making iijits of themselves when the Squad is not called in, you should find something more recent to feed Monsignor Tynan with. I’m all for that.”
Minogue looked at his watch. Hoey’d be finished by now. He stood up.
“Here, lookit,” Kilmartin said brightly. “Are you planning to kill someone below in Clare, yourself? And then close the case in record time to make headlines? Public relations, like? What about the potshots they’re taking at the tourist cottages down there?”
“You’re a laugh a minute, James,” said Minogue, barely listening.
Something remained just outside his grasp as he sat there. Kilmartin issued smoke-rings indolently into the squad room. Minogue’s eyes began to smart from the smoke that now hovered in layers around him. He looked up at his tormentor and friend. Up, he decided. Out of here to get Shea Hoey. He rose and picked up the file.
“Tell me something. Are the records for sittings of the Central Criminal Court from, say, more than ten years back or so still kept in paper?”
“The books of evidence, yes,” Kilmartin declared. “The summaries of judgements, yes. You know yourself that transcripts are typed up in full only if there’s an appeal launched-and only then if it’s not ab initio.”
“ Ab inito?”
“Will I turn that into normal conversation for you? It means you throw the old trial out completely and start from scratch again. That’s what it means.”
“I didn’t know you spoke Latin.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, jack. I could nearly say the whole Mass in Latin. Yes I could, by God. Memory is a very odd thing, the way it all comes back to you after I don’t know how many years. I remember the whole thing nearabouts. The whole mass.”
“I should ask you to say it, so.”
“Huh. A lot you’d know about going to Mass. I’ll tell you this: you could find out a lot more that’d surprise you, if you try to give me the shitty end of the stick with this, this…whatever bollicking around you’re going to do between Hoey and Tynan.”
“I’ll bear that in mind now, James.” He waved the file at Kilmartin.
“Watch your back, that’s my advice,” Kilmartin called out. “And keep your eye on the ball.”
Did he mean Tynan? Hoey? Crossan? Minogue rolled his eyes at Eilis as he hurried out into the sunlit morning outside.
Minogue caught sight of Hoey immediately he turned the corner by the National Gallery. He stopped behind a lamp post to observe him. Hoey was leaning against the lip of a water trough set into a monument opposite the Gallery. Sunlight filtered through the branches hanging over the railings of Merrion Square. Very occasionally, a leaf fell to the footpath, unhurried by the passage of the constant traffic on Merrion Row.
Framing Hoey with its tired splendour was a memorial fountain erected two centuries ago to the Duke of Rutland. Dublin’s coal-smoke winters had rendered most of the cornice moulding and the edges of the pilasters above Hoey indistinct. It had been over a century since either lion’s head had spewed water into the troughs. Minogue had been used to seeing down-and-outs lying on the stone benches at the foot of the monument. He watched Hoey watching a couple as they marched by arm in arm and kicking at the leaves. His features were tight and drawn as though a wind unknown to others on the same street was blowing dust into his face. The Inspector took a deep breath, put on a smile and skipped across the street. Hoey watched him approach.
Minogue gained the broad footpath, and the stone mass loomed over him. Hoey stood on his cigarette and shoved his hands into his pockets. Minogue glanced up at the monument. Sculpted stone panels that had contained figures in mourning were incomplete. Other sorrowing figures in Roman dress were missing heads; supplicating arms had broken off at the forearms. Noble death in classical relief, Minogue thought. And here’s Hoey, a round- shouldered and pasty-faced survivor in a creased coat, looking small and defeated. Minogue’s stomach went wormy and the fake smile began to lock his jaws.
Hoey nodded and looked to a passing bus. Minogue nodded back but could think of nothing to say.
“Well,” he tried at last. “Let’s pick up some stuff from your place and put it in the car. Then we don’t have to be chasing wardrobes around the town.”
“I don’t get it.”
