“The place was packed, all right,” Sheila Howard added.
“Strange how you remember things when you get reminders, even a word or two,” said Howard. He shook his head slowly before sipping at his tea. Minogue noticed Crossan poised with his own cup. He was struck by Crossan’s alertness as the lawyer eyed Dan Howard.
“That’s it,” Howard said then. “St. John’s Eve, do you know it?”
“The midsummer’s night,” replied Minogue. “Yes.”
Howard sipped more tea and looked into the fire.
“The bonfires and everything,” he murmured. “They don’t do it so much nowadays.”
Minogue turned to Sheila Howard.
“May I ask you something, Mrs Howard?”
His voice sounded small in the room. The Inspector swallowed and glanced at her eyes.
“You may indeed,” she replied.
Minogue was struck again by her poise and stillness. Mona Lisa- Mona Sheila… Minogue’s gargoyle flung an image at his brittle composure: Sheela-na-gig. An image of those pagan carvings and statues of women came to Minogue. These statues of women and goddesses, with their knees up and their fingers tugging the lips of their vulvas apart, were widely regarded as grotesque and had been quarantined in the back rooms of the National Museum in Dublin.
“Were you aware…” He struggled through the question and swallowed again. “Were you aware that night of what had gone on out at Jane Clark’s house?”
“Yes,” she answered. “I became aware of it.”
The formality struck Minogue: ‘became aware.’ A rebuke to him for a phrase which did not belong in this chat, in her home? A phrase used in law, in court. He looked over to Crossan and again doubt came to him.
“The girls had heard about it,” she went on. “And you know what that would mean in town. It was no doubt the way Jamesy was acting that got them wondering. Word travels fast, especially inside a pub.”
He looked over at Howard.
“Well, I don’t doubt that I let something slip,” Howard said. “With everyone coming and going in the pub and all the chatting and what have you. And sure once one knew, they’d all know in a matter of minutes. There was a funny side to it, I’d have to admit. Before what happened later, I mean.”
“You were part of a crowd?” Minogue asked Sheila Howard.
She nodded. “The way girls hang around together. Our mothers told us to hunt in packs.”
Kathleen had issued the very same admonitions to Iseult. Did every Irish parent have the same script? He gathered his thoughts to frame the next question.
“Do you recall if Bourke himself was teased about what had happened back at the cottage, if he had his sensitivities tested on the matter by people in the pub that night?”
It was Dan Howard who answered.
“Well, people tend to slag a lot. It’s a pastime of sorts, and that’s common knowledge.” He rubbed at his chin and looked at a landscape print on the wall as though he believed it held the words and knowledge he needed.
“I didn’t slag him at all and I’ll tell you why: I didn’t want a puck from him. Even while he was drunk, he could still rear up on you and throw shapes. We were out in the street around half twelve or so.”
“Your people owned the pub, didn’t they?” Minogue interrupted. Howard frowned.
“Yes, yes. My father did. I mean, he still does, yes… Oh, I see what you mean. We didn’t live over the pub at all, oh no. Our house was out the Ennis Road. We had a man living over the pub. We hung around on the street awhile, a few of us. It was a warm night.”
“Jamesy went his own way,” Sheila Howard said.
“You were there?” asked Minogue.
“Yes, I hung around. I wasn’t tired really. But I went off home myself a little later.”
“After she drove me home,” Howard added.
Minogue began to draw detail out of the fog. “Ah, the car.”
“I had loaned the Mini to Sheila, remember?” said Howard. “She was gone to Galway for the day.”
Minogue put on his sage and satisfied expression to cloak his rambling thoughts. Were the Howards daring him to put pointed questions-police-like ‘were you aware’s-to them in their own house? He felt Crossan’s eyes on him and he looked over. The lawyer’s eyes were not at full-bore, but his expression was both expectant and mocking as he hooded his eyes slightly to signal Minogue. The Inspector looked away, baffled. Something was going on here that escaped him. He bargained for time by reaching for the teapot. Howard took some turf from a basket, placed it on the fire and sat back with a sigh.
Was this Crossan’s moment of spiteful triumph, having finagled a Garda Inspector into Howard’s home to embarrass the TD and his wife? Doubt clawed at Minogue.
“Yes,” said Howard, “I retired in disarray that night. Sheila poured me into the car and left me at home.”
Minogue decided to brazen his way out of his predicament.
“Did you offer a lift to Bourke?”
“No, I didn’t,” Sheila Howard replied. “I wish to God that I had. I wish that Dan or someone had shoved him into the car.”
“Now,” said Dan Howard. “We’ve been over that a thousand times. Don’t be taking it upon yourself.”
“I know, I know.” She cut him short and looked to Crossan. He returned her level, appraising look.
“I wouldn’t have been safe in the car with Jamesy.” She looked down at the teapot. “I’ll get more tea.”
Crossan sat back and crossed his legs.
“Just between us men,” he murmured. “Jamesy had a tendency to be mauling girls.”
“Rough, in any sense?” Minogue asked. “If they weren’t interested, like?”
“Not to the extent that you seem to be implying,” said Howard.
“Well,” said Crossan from his slouch. “The training in the law stood you in good stead with that one.”
Howard let out a breath.
“I’m sorry. I grew up overnight after that. I don’t mind admitting what I was like before that either. There was privilege and money in my family and I could do as I pleased, really. I didn’t have to look forward to buckling down to the farming like Jamesy would have had to. But I can tell you this.” Howard paused and looked up with a pained expression. “I can’t go around full of remorse about it the rest of my life. Yes, Jamesy saw in her the love of his life and all the rest of it. But I was hail-fellow-well-met, playing the field. It’s not my fault that Jamesy was the way he was, God rest him.”
“Thank you for being so candid,” Minogue said. “Rely upon this being a confidential matter between us.”
Howard nodded and looked to the fresh sods of turf beginning to catch fire.
“If only she had come down to the pub that night,” he murmured, “and got rip-roaring drunk with us, things might have been much different. She wouldn’t open the door to him at that hour of the morning, and, sure, why should she? Sick of the pair of us, I’ve no doubt.”
Minogue asked where a bathroom might be and excused himself. He stopped in the hall and looked into the greenhouse kitchen. Terra-cotta tiles, dried flowers, real wood panels and all the wizard devices. Here was something he had seen only in the colour supplements of the English Sunday papers. He had tried to persuade Kathleen that such kitchens existed only in showrooms and advertisements but here was proof otherwise. He heard a kettle purr stronger and a paper turn- Sheila Howard was there, he realised, and he moved off.
He switched on the light in the toilet. Blue water in a green porcelain toilet startled him. For that moment before he recognised modernity, he imagined some disease in a household member. He remembered that Kilmartin’s new home in Killiney harboured the same gentility. Tired, tired, he thought. No toys underfoot. A damn fine house, the Inspector decided. And the Howards seemed to be polished, accomplished people, with none of that gombeen smugness he had expected. They seemed well-used to one another and even intimate in ways he felt were sincere. He could not imagine them having a screaming row. There was the touch of the resting champion to Dan Howard at home here, the certainty of his return to dynamism and diligence tomorrow. Parliamentarian and businessman, Howard gave Minogue the impression of one who advanced steadily and relentlessly on some goal.
He flushed the toilet and stared at his face in the mirror. Howard’s no mere base charmer, he thought. He had that air of durability, a man you could dependably expect to be there in twenty years, higher in the constellation of public life. Maybe shaking hands with one of those plain-suited, smiling Japanese billionaires, both togged out in
