“A word out of earshot of Sheila, if you don’t mind,” Howard began. “I woke up shaking this morning, I can tell you. But not that shook that I couldn’t see that the thing last night wasn’t about murdering anybody.” He paused and smiled. “What do you think, yourself?”
Minogue studied the smile.
“I’m inclined to agree with you.”
“Publicity, I put it down to,” said Howard. “Brazen, cocky. A half-arsed effort to be like the War of Independence, making the country ungovernable.”
“I thought the parliamentarians and public service were well on the way to achieving that already.”
Howard chortled.
“You still have your wits about you anyway. But I’m sure part of the plan might be to have the likes of me close shop and hide up in Dublin.”
“Which you may do…?”
“Hide, no,” Howard murmured. “Stay there awhile, yes. I was going to go up for a few weeks to finish off the sitting anyway. There are bills coming up for final reading and… Well, you know, the hazards of public office, I suppose.”
“Going back up to Dublin?”
Howard smiled. “Not that alone. No. I meant shootings. I imagine that Alo wouldn’t be so keen on this side of public life, any more than I am myself.”
Said so easily, it took Minogue several seconds to realise that the remark had carried a charge of something else. What had he missed?
“As to…?”
Howard looked at some point on Minogue’s forehead.
“You know that Alo has his own plans for public office, I take it.”
The Inspector felt his cobwebby, morning mind awaken with a sharp stab. He looked again to Howard’s face but all he met with was the fixed look, a stare both sardonic and intent.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Alo will be running for something. I wondered if you knew. Yes. County Council, I hear. Fine man that he is, Alo may not have considered the kinds of attention we received last night. Very effective way to get national attention, firing off gunshots in the window of the local TD’s house.”
Howard folded his arms and leaned against the wall.
“I’m sure someone will be happy to take the credit for last night soon enough. They’ll not be frightening me out of office, I can tell you.”
Minogue thought of Crossan and felt his resentment grow suddenly large. The detective with the moustache crossed the foyer toward them just as a young man in a leather jacket came through the door of the hotel. Howard’s smile turned into a grin.
“Thanks be to the hand of God,” he murmured. “Tom Neilon from The Clare Champion. The press is here- we’re saved. I’ll see you again?”
Minogue stood aside and studied the carpet. His thoughts staggered around, colliding into one another. Was Crossan having him on all this while? He trudged back to the table. Crossan had arrived and was talking to a wary Hoey about horse-racing, something Minogue had never heard Hoey show an interest in before. The lawyer seemed to pick up on Minogue’s mood.
“Trouble?” asked Crossan.
Minogue sat down on the edge of the chair and looked beyond Crossan’s shoulder to Sheila Howard. To an innocent eye, she was looking through a newspaper, but Minogue noted her attention directed in her side vision toward his table.
“That was a hell of a thing last night,” said Hoey to Crossan.
“Don’t be talking, man,” said Crossan. “It was wild.”
“It’s hard to imagine that whoever was doing the shooting was actually meaning to kill anybody,” Minogue said in a low voice.
“How does it change things for us?” Crossan said. “That’s what we need to decide this morning.”
The Inspector felt the resentment turn to anger as he turned to Crossan.
“There’s something I just heard which may change our approach, counsellor. Dan Howard said something to me that I wish I’d known before now. Concerns you, counsellor. Or should I say councillor?”
Minogue gave Crossan the full weight of his stare which, along with the calm tone and expression, had unnerved even the likes of Kilmartin. A screen seemed to come over Crossan’s eyes and his eyelids relaxed a little. He looked down his nose at Minogue.
“Go ahead, Guard,” he said. “And don’t stint yourself either.”
“You are interested, involved, planning, intending-whatever-to run for some public office, something in the line of politics, aren’t you?”
Crossan spoke with light-hearted whimsy. “Well, I thought I might take a run at being a town councillor here in Ennis.” He arched his eyebrows. “Do you think I’d be right for the job, now?”
“If you’re planning to waltz into public office by dragging people through the mud or, perish the thought, playing trick-of-the-loop with me, I can tell you that-”
“That I’d be the equal of any of the blackguards in politics at the moment?”
Hoey folded his arms and studied the sugar bowl.
“That you’d be a damn sight worse than them,” Minogue retorted. “You won’t be making a monkey out of me en route either, mister.”
Crossan’s eyes locked on Minogue’s.
“That’s a very harsh judgement, Your Worship. Rest assured I’ll be launching an immediate appeal.”
“That’s nothing to what will happen if I find out that you’ve been codding me here.”
“Don’t be such a gobshite, Minogue!”
The Inspector leaned forward in his chair.
“Don’t you be stupid, counsellor,” he retorted. “If I think that you inveigled us down here or concocted bits of information to suit your own ends, all as a way to run the Howards into the ditch because you have some grudges-”
“Hah! You must be the right gobshite entirely! Do you think I’m interested in making you look stupid while Dan Howard gets dirt on him, is that it?”
“Declare your interest then,” Minogue growled.
“I belong to no party. No faction, no jobs-for-the-boys, no backscratchers! No fat-arse gombeens! What I would like to do, you probably wouldn’t understand. But for the record, I plan to go for election to Ennis town council. That way, I can get houses built for poor iijits so that they won’t end up breaking-and-entering and robbing and beating the shite out of one another, and then sloothering up to my door bothering me. I want to be put out of business. So there.”
Crossan leaned in over the table and pushed aside cups and saucers. Hoey blew smoke out the side of his mouth and blinked at the Inspector. Sheila Howard glanced over as did the detective at the table next to her. Crossan waited until she had returned to her newspaper and then he spoke behind his hands.
“They’re trying to derail you with this case-”
“This is not ‘a case,’” Minogue snapped. “And, for that matter, it wouldn’t take much this morning, with you trying to hang some class of a Chappaquiddick around Howard’s neck.”
“Don’t walk away from it now,” said Crossan.
“What are we walking away from? Except for finding out that people did stupid things. Guards included.”
Crossan pointed at the table as if explaining a route on a map.
“Lookit,” he said, “Jamesy Bourke is dead. Whatever life he had before that was torn away from him by the State. Jane Clark went back to where she came from little more than a bucketful of cinders.”
“And you want to tar-and-feather the Howards and a few Guards on the head of it?” Minogue asked.
“Are you going to ignore what we’ve discussed? Bourke’s trial?” Crossan raised his hands. “Can you? Do you think for one minute that I’d sit here telling you this if I didn’t believe in what I was doing?” He looked to Hoey as though he were a judge considering an appeal.
“Don’t look at me,” Hoey murmured. “I’m from Galway.”
