back up to Dublin anyway? So he could avoid being bloody-well asked to do something for Bourke. He thought again of Jamesy Bourke’s body being lifted from the compost heap as though he, like his dog, had merely to be disposed of. “Gone instantly”-no: Jamesy Bourke had died slowly over the last twelve years.
The phone was picked up at the other end.
“Minogue?”
Minogue packed two changes of clothes, extra socks and a few books in a soft-sided overnight bag and went downstairs to wait for Kathleen. He tried to imagine her reaction. Would she laugh? She’d want him to take up the job of talking to Mick and Eoin again. Hoey had stretched out his legs and was pouring more tea while the ads rolled. Minogue sat across from him and watched an aging rock star peddle soft drinks.
“Last night,” Hoey said.
“Around eight o’clock, he said,” replied Minogue. “According to what the Guards told Crossan, this Spillner fella thought that it was the same thing that had happened the night before at another place.”
“Was Bourke…?”
“Not at all. He was mooching around the man’s car, looking for something.”
Hoey drew on a fresh cigarette, blew out smoke and scratched at the back of his neck. The pop star of forty- five landed improbably on his feet and was surrounded by teenagers who made skilled, jerky motions in a wave around him. He grabbed one of them-a delighted girl-and she hung on to his arm while stars burst behind them.
“Well, I don’t want to be…”
Hoey left the sentence unfinished and fell to staring at the fireplace. Minogue squirmed and thought of phoning Kilmartin tonight. He looked down at his watch and decided against it. Half-ten. God
Almighty wife of mine hiding out at Costigans’ while we sat here like iijits watching rubbish on the box.
“I don’t want anything backfiring, Shea,” Minogue stated. “I feel bad enough about not having talked to Bourke. I have to go down and find out what happened, at least. But I can’t be looking over me shoulder. You know what I’m saying now.”
Hoey’s puffed eyes remained fixed on the fireplace.
“I might be shaky, but I’m game,” he muttered.
“Look, Shea. It mightn’t be smart to be getting involved in something like this. At this stage.”
Hoey drew hard on his cigarette.
“Did the Squad get a call on it at all yet?”
“Don’t know. I’ll ask Eilis in the morning. This Spillner fella who shot him was brought to the station. He’s been moved to HQ in Ennis since. Crossan told me that he heard that there’s someone coming down from the German Embassy to sort it out too.”
“Where did he get the shotgun?”
“Well, I’m only going on what Crossan was told. Apparently Spillner brought it with him in the boot of his car on a trip here last summer. Since the trouble below in Clare and Limerick and so forth. The arms finds and the shooting and the foofaroo starting up about the tourists buying up places. Last I saw of him he was sitting next to a musician, clapping his hands.”
Kathleen opened the hall door. He intercepted her in the hall as she was taking off her coat.
“Guess where I’m going?” He paused and decided. “Where we’re going, tomorrow. Shea and myself.”
CHAPTER SIX
A bad patch of road outside Nenagh jostled Hoey’s lolling head against the headrest. He elbowed up slowly and licked his teeth. Minogue looked at his watch. Two and a half hours from Dublin: that was fast.
“Sorry,” said Minogue. “But that’s Tipperary County Council for you. Did you sleep last night?”
“I did, I think,” said Hoey. “Better than the other night, I can tell you. These bloody pills. Stayed up awhile talking to Kathleen. It’s too bad she didn’t want to come down…”
He looked out at the fields. It was midday now and sluggish clouds had moved in from the coast. Minogue had expected rain since Portlaoise.
“Nenagh,” Hoey whispered. He stretched and felt his pocket for the orange bottle of pills.
“That’s it. We’ll be in Ennis before you know it.”
The Inspector had made several phone calls before leaving Dublin. Kilmartin, still in his kitchen, hadn’t argued with him as much as he had expected. Eilis reported that no call had been logged to the Squad yet about Bourke. Minogue had phoned Crossan and arranged to call to his office by dinner-time.
“Look at that,” said Hoey.
By a bend in the road Minogue spotted what he took to be a County Council crew working with little vigour to remove slogans spraypainted onto a wall. Hoey turned in his seat as the car passed them.
“EC Robbers Beware. What’s the other one? Irish Land for Irish People.”
“Maybe they should write their slogans in German or Dutch or whatever,” Minogue murmured.
Forty minutes later he was accelerating out the Ennis Road from Limerick.
Ennis had changed, he believed. The town of bright streets and busy shops was now slow, dulled by clouds and stillness. The streets were almost deserted. Not every day can be market day, he tried to reason with himself. That logic didn’t gain any ground against his impressions. The air felt heavy. The walls of the buildings seemed to be thicker, their windows turned inward. He reached Bank Place and drew into the curb by Crossan’s office. He touched the horn and looked up at the windows along the terrace. Crossan appeared at one and waved once. A minute later, he closed the door behind him, paused to throw on a raincoat and swept down the steps toward the Fiat.
Minogue introduced Hoey.
“Let’s go to the Garda Station first,” said Crossan.
“Have you heard more about Spillner?” Minogue asked.
“Well, I don’t know if he got bail yet.”
“I’d expect him to be held over for even having the gun,” said Minogue.
“Word is that Tom Russell, the Super in Clare, has asked Dublin for new commando-type outfits to patrol the place,” said Crossan. “The ones trained to eat their children and run through walls with their heads.”
Minogue crossed the bridge and turned down the cul-de-sac toward the Garda Station. He debated telling Crossan about his run-in with the Special Branch out at the farm but decided against it.
“So Russell and Co. haven’t phoned your mob for expertise,” Crossan went on. “Maybe he lost your number, do you think?”
Minogue parked behind a black Mercedes. Crossan squinted at the CD plate on the grille.
“Look at the shine off that car, will you,” he said. “Blind a beggar, so it would.”
A chauffeur stepped around one of the gateposts that formed the entry to the yard of the Station and began to study the dowdy Fiat and its passengers.
“A fiver says that’s down from the German Embassy in Dublin,” said Crossan. “Herr Spillner being the big- noise industrialist back in the fatherland.”
Minogue plucked the key out of the ignition and nodded at the chauffeur, a well turned out man in his thirties, thick-set without looking at all flabby.
“ Guten tag,” said Crossan. The chauffeur stood with his feet spread and nodded.
The lawyer strode down the short avenue and sprang, it seemed to Minogue, through the architraved door into the public office. A tall Guard with a bony nose and a flushed complexion looked up and greeted Crossan before allowing his eyes to search Hoey’s features. God, thought Minogue, Hoey probably looks like a suspect they were bringing to a lock-up. The Guard studied Minogue’s card for several seconds.
“Are ye expected, now?”
“We’re here to see Sergeant Ahearne,” said Crossan.
The Guard tugged at his tunic to straighten it under his belt.
“Hold on a minute, yes,” he said. “He’s on the premises, I believe.”
