“A bit of character assassination in the service of diminishing his guilt,” said Minogue.
Crossan almost smiled.
“You kept your ears open in all those trials you’ve attended, I can tell,” he said. “God help you.”
“Yeah, well,” Hoey began, “how come it’s twelve years later and we’re talking about this?”
“Your man here”-Crossan nodded at Minogue-“asked me that the other day: ‘Why all these years later?’ Jamesy began to remember bits of things from that night. He thought it was the electroshock sessions he had after his breakdown that messed up his brain, his mind. Don’t forget, he was well and truly gargled the night of the fire. But he did say that he remembered Jane Clark hadn’t been drinking all that much that night. Nowhere near drunk enough to pass out.”
“How did he know that?” Hoey interrupted. “The way I heard it, he showed up at her place only to see she had the other fella there, Howard. Then they had a row and left. Bourke was away from the cottage two or three hours. Maybe she hit the bottle after he left.”
“She wasn’t drunk while he was there,” said Crossan.
“But she drank plenty,” said Minogue. “And had hash too.”
“Jamesy told me that he asked her for a joint but she told him it was all gone. And she liked to drink in the pubs, more than at home,” said Crossan.
“She could have been lying about the dope,” Hoey said.
“Whether or which,” Crossan continued, “I half expected this line from ye. I’m not complaining, now. Jamesy told me he remembered her saying she’d see them later on, after they made up.”
“That was in the thing he wrote too,” Minogue murmured. “But-I have to say this now-after all that time in jail, he’d have time to make up anything. Not even to speak of the mental trouble. He mightn’t even have known he was making it up.”
Crossan drew in his breath through his teeth.
“You may well be right,” he said, “but humour me a little, can’t you?”
“All right, so. I will,” said Minogue, “by changing the subject a little. I haven’t yet found any mention of smoke inhalation in the stuff I was able to collect so far. It’s almost always that finding which establishes clear cause of death in something like this.”
“Right,” said Crossan. His face had set into a grim smile. “And I haven’t been idle here at all. I’ve been trying to hunt down a copy of the autopsy performed on Jane. So far all I have is two telephone conversations with a clerk who looks after them. She got shy of me asking all those questions and as much as told me I’d have to put my request in writing-through Dublin, if you don’t mind, too. I’d sort of let the matter lie, but I think it’s time to hammer away at it again.”
Minogue stretched his fingers. Kilmartin should be exploding just about now, he reflected.
“In some respects Jamesy brought his own shovel to dig his grave,” Crossan said. He paused to swallow a portion of his sandwich and touched his lips as though to help the bolus descend past his protruding Adam’s apple.
“Here, you better take some of these before I have them all gone.”
Minogue took a half sandwich. Hoey slid down in his chair and crossed his legs at the ankles.
“Back to this memory thing now,” Crossan resumed. “The nervous breakdown probably confused things even more. Jamesy admitted to me that his memory was tatty enough. He also told me that they-the psychiatric staff, he meant-had robbed him of his memory deliberately. With the convulsive therapy and the drugs, he meant.”
“Uh-oh, here we go now,” said Minogue. “Deliberately for what?”
“I had the selfsame reaction,” said Crossan. “Didn’t ask him. When I heard him talk that way, I thought it was all a lost cause. If he couldn’t recall details I could verify, then I was at bedrock.”
“Well, how is it he was able to recall anything at all?” Hoey asked.
“He maintained that things came back to him over the last few years.” said Crossan. “He’d had dreams.”
Hoey released a mouthful of smoke and watched it travel in a ball toward the ceiling. Minogue’s wandering eyes looked up from where they had been browsing, and he became aware of Crossan’s anger.
“Look, I know what you’re thinking,” said Crossan. “Jamesy Bourke is-was-a head-case. Obsessed, paranoid, delusional-the whole bit. He probably had psychotic episodes. I never said I believed his version of things. I told you”-Crossan pointed his finger at Minogue-“that in no way was I sure that a proper verdict had not been delivered. Am I clear on this?”
Hoey looked to Minogue and shrugged. A lounge-boy asked if they wanted more sandwiches. Minogue waved him away.
“Okay,” said Minogue. “Let me move on again: the odd accounting of time and who’s where the night of the fire. I expected to find a better mention in the book of evidence of the people involved. Of course, if I had the trial transcript proper, maybe I wouldn’t be thinking what I’m thinking. But usually the book of evidence has the stuff laid out a lot clearer. You know, a clear run of events, the time, the people. I lit on this probably because I’m oftentimes the one who gets called up by the State and I bring a judge or a jury through the places and the times and the people with the proper prods from counsel.”
Crossan was studying the smoke rising from the ashtray. He looked up and nodded once.
“So you saw that too. Look. Think back to that night again. Jamesy Bourke is on the piss in serious fashion and he bowls around to Jane Clark’s place. With amorous intent, you can imagine. It’s around the nine o’clock mark. A fine summer’s evening.”
Crossan began stripping the crust from another sandwich.
“In the door he goes, with a great welcome for himself, no doubt. Thereupon he discovers that Jane Clark is, shall we say, in congress with another suitor.”
“Dan Howard,” said Minogue.
“Yes, the very man. In flagrante.”
Minogue noted Crossan’s delicate mannerisms. The barrister dropped a long section of crust with a deliberate gesture the Inspector read as a sign of distaste.
“Words are exchanged, a row starts. They end up rowing out the back of the cottage. Jane Clark starts laughing at them. So far it’s a comedy. She locks the door, throws Dan Howard’s clothes out into the yard. Dan Howard collects a few pucks from Jamesy and they give one another the odd dig. Shouting at one another, that class of thing. No major damage being done so far, except to the male ego, maybe.”
Crossan paused to take an exploratory bite of his new sandwich.
“Jamesy has cooled down a little. Don’t underestimate Dan’s ability to talk his way out of trouble, now. Anyway. They both leave for the village with their heads hanging. Yes, they sloother into the village without damaging themselves.”
The barrister looked down his nose at the sandwich. Something in the sandwich took his attention and he peered in between the slices of bread.
“Jamesy is by times threatening to beat the shite out of Dan Howard and then by times cursing Jane Clark. In any event, by the time they walk into the village, they’re mighty thirsty. Howard has conceded that Jane Clark and himself had a bit of a thing going, ‘a fling’ as one might say, for several weeks prior. He tells Jamesy that she was, quote, ‘only a hoor,’ and that, between friends, they should give her the thumbs-down and not fall out over her. Dan Howard and Jamesy repair to the pub. Howard pours oil on the waters by plying Jamesy with drink. They’re there until closing time and beyond.”
“Where were they drinking?”
“Howard’s hotel, the Portaree Inn.”
“How did Howard get around? Didn’t he have a car?”
“He did, but not that night. It’s as well too, I suppose. He was full of drink most of the evening and more or less legless by the end of the night. It was Sheila Hanratty who tracked him down in the pub and put him in the door of his house.”
Something in the way Crossan spoke her name released an airy feeling in Minogue’s stomach. For an instant he imagined her in sunlight, the light showing up fair hairs on her forearms.
“Didn’t she get called to the stand?”
“Yes, she did. She was one of the witnesses brought up to testify to Jane Clark’s mode of living as regards drink and carry-on.”
