Howard looked down at his empty glass.
“I thought they were all like that over in the States or Canada. The way you’d see them on telly, like-martinis and cocktails and that for their dinner. She was much the same person with a few drinks on as without, that I remember. She had the same…manner about her, I suppose you’d say.”
“Meaning she had the same appetites,” said Crossan, his eyes still on the embers.
Anger flared on Howard’s face, and it surprised Minogue.
“Alo, there are some things-” Howard began in a sharp tone, but he let the rest of his words go.
“That night,” Minogue persisted, “that night, she was not, can I say, terrible drunk?”
“I’d have to tell you that I had a lot of drink taken and I don’t like drinking on my own so…”
“So you poured a few for her.”
Howard nodded.
“And did she keep up with you?”
“She did.”
“Were you drunk and you leaving her house that night?”
“I was half-cut, as they say.”
“Can you hold your drink, then?”
“I can, I suppose,” said Howard, as though resigned to losing an argument. “I had plenty of practice. But look now.”
He paused and laid his hand over one of his wife’s beside him on the sofa.
“I don’t want you leaving here thinking she was a tramp or that. And there are things that I’d prefer we talked about on our own, you as a Guard, I mean, and myself.”
“Excuse me now if I’m bringing back…”
“Well, it’s never over,” Sheila Howard said. “Really, like.”
Minogue could not decide if her tone leaned more toward exasperation or pity.
“I was there at the trial, yes, and I heard everything. So don’t hold back on my account. Would you like tea?”
“Yes, please,” said Minogue. Crossan sat up as she left and sat forward, elbows on his knees, and rubbed at his eyes. Minogue had read Sheila Howard’s restless coming-and-goings for ice and tea as signs of her nervousness about their conversation. Maybe it was Crossan who was annoying her the most with his digs.
“How did you get out to her cottage that evening?” he asked her husband.
“I walked out. Sure it was only a mile or so out the road. A Clare mile, to be sure, but it was no great bother. A fine evening. I thought that she’d come in to the village with me after, for a few scoops and for the music. There were sessions with local box-players and a bit of set-dancing. She liked that.”
“Had you no car?”
“Yes, I did. But I had loaned it to Sheila. She was gone to Galway city for the day.”
So Sheila Hanratty had known him well enough to get a loan of his car, Minogue thought.
“You and Jamesy left her place, so…”
“Yes. Jamesy came in without so much as a knock. Barges in the door with a great welcome for himself and there we were. He had a bottle under his arm. Only it was full, he would have broken it over my head, I don’t doubt.”
“Ye proceeded to have a row,” Minogue led on.
“We did just that, yes.”
The Inspector heard in Howard’s tone embarrassment and impatience now.
“Not a pretty sight, as you can imagine. I’m trying to get me various articles of clothing on and Jamesy is working himself up to-”
“A volcanic fit of anger,” said Crossan with a sober expression.
Howard glanced over at the barrister and nodded as if to register the lawyer’s immaculate work of disguising the sarcasm.
“To add to my, em…”
“Predicament,” said Crossan.
“Predicament. Thanks, Alo. Jane seemed to find something funny about the whole thing. After she got over the initial fright, of course-”
“She was frightened of Jamesy Bourke?” Minogue interjected.
“No. Just the surprise factor, you might say. She turfed us out. While I was busy avoiding Jamesy’s digs and kicks, she took my stuff and threw it out the door. Quite the spectacle. Anyway. I managed to get out of the house and Jamesy stayed awhile giving out to her. There was plenty of shouting and roaring between them.”
“What did he say to her?” Minogue asked.
“He called her names for the most part. And he called me names too, of course. Bad language basically.”
Minogue looked to Crossan’s face. The mask was beginning to slip. An eyebrow fought to control the smile Minogue was sure had been building for several minutes now.
“Threats?” Minogue asked in a low voice, still watching Crossan.
“No. Name-calling. No threats or the like that I heard.”
“He called her names,” Minogue repeated.
Howard nodded.
“Would you care to enumerate any of the things he said about her? Or you, for that matter?”
“I wouldn’t really,” said Howard in a strained voice. “There was nothing you or I haven’t heard before. To the effect that she was a whore and suchlike.”
“No threats,” Minogue repeated. “Didn’t say anything about future meetings or looking forward or revenge? That class of thing?”
“No. He came out after me then and she locked the door. I heard her turn the latch and slide a bolt… Jamesy had boots on. I can recall being mainly worried that he’d connect with his boots. I got a few pucks and I gave him a few. But by then I had me stuff on and I was able to go.”
“What did he do then?”
“He tried to get back in the house. But of course he couldn’t. More shouting and roaring.”
“Could you hear what he was saying this time? How far away were you?”
“Well, I had hightailed it out to the road. I was caught between two stools really. I didn’t want him getting into the house for fear he’d hurt her. Then again, I didn’t want to be so close that he’d get a hold of me. I hung around near the gate.”
“You heard him shouting.”
“I did. He gave up pretty quick and out he came onto the road. He opened the bottle and took a big wallop of whiskey. He saw me and started up again but he didn’t run the greatest. I headed back to the village, trying to talk him down a bit. I was glad to get him out and away from the house. I offered him a few drinks but he wouldn’t at first. But between the exertions and what have you, maybe we sobered up a little because when we got to the village he said all right.”
“How did you calm him down?” Minogue probed.
Howard rubbed his ear and studied the mantelpiece.
“Well, for one thing, I didn’t try to make an iijit out of him. I told him that she was different from us, I remember that.”
“How do you mean?”
“That she didn’t have the same upbringing. That she would do what she liked, sort of.”
“Sexually?”
“Yes. She had told me that she had had plenty of, you know…”
“Lovers,” said Crossan.
“That he shouldn’t feel bad about it, that it was nothing personal.”
“Nothing personal,” Minogue echoed.
Howard nodded. “What I meant was that I didn’t take it personally, like, and that he shouldn’t. People were entitled to live their lives the way they thought was proper, and just because we were from the back of beyond in County Clare…”
