Crossan turned his attention back to Minogue again. He spat out the words in a harsh whisper.
“You’re backing away from your own instincts. Covering for your pals beyond in the Garda Station. For all I heard about you, Minogue, now I know you’re a quitter.”
“Oh, so you did some research, did you, before you put out the bait?”
“Yes, I did-I freely admit it. It was too good a thing to pass up when your nephew hired me. I began to think you weren’t the common-or-garden cop so then I thought well, this must be meant to happen. The fates had turned kind to Jamesy for once in his bloody existence!” Crossan sat back, his eyes still blazing.
“But what I had underestimated was the degree to which Guards will cover up for one another.”
“I do not,” said Minogue. “So shut up throwing things at me. I have enough lumps on me head from pulling down things off high shelves, things I didn’t know were so damned heavy and awkward when I got the notion to take a look at them.”
“What is it, then?” Crossan pursued him. “Is it frightened you are after last night?”
“I think differently about the Howards after last night.” Minogue heard the defensive tone in his own voice. “So I don’t much like you sitting in their house, slashing away at them, in however clever a manner.”
“Hah,” Crossan growled, and sat back with an expression of disbelief. His eyes widened in glee and he glared at Minogue.
“You like her nibs, do you?” He nodded toward Sheila Howard but kept his eyes on Minogue. “And the heroic Dan standing steadfast here in outlaw country and won’t be intimidated? Our Clare Camelot, by Christ!”
Minogue said nothing but returned Crossan’s look with the policeman’s neutral observation of a specimen.
“Heroes, is it?” Crossan went on. “Well, you wouldn’t be the first to fall under her spell, so you wouldn’t. Dan the man owes half his success to her. Twice the man he’ll ever be. He has the charm and the rest of it but she’s the backbone of the operation. Make no mistake, Minogue. The Howards are going places. ‘She’ll drive Dan to the Park,’ they say here. And that’s his supporters saying that behind their hands, too.”
A cease-fire arrived in the form of the waitress who began unloading plates. Hoey might be right, the Inspector reflected. Get the hell out of the way of whatever was going to happen in the wake of last night’s shooting. Leave County Clare to the brick-faced gymnasts and ditch-crawlers with their submachine pistols and their souped-up, prowling Granadas.
“Don’t be rehashing public house gossip about the Howards to me,” Minogue murmured. “The Howards can do what they want.”
Crossan slouched back in his chair and joined his fingertips under his nose. Now, looking over at Minogue, his searching eyes seemed monstrous. Minogue looked away in exasperation toward the window. For a split second he saw the tall, bearded Bourke and his dog at the wall across the street. He shook his head and blinked. His nerves were more rattled than he had realised. When Crossan spoke again, his voice had taken on the scornful, challenging tone of the courtroom.
“So tell me what you want to tell me then, and get it over with.”
Minogue let him hang for several seconds. The same Bourke screaming in his dream last night, the circle of faces gathered around the blazing cottage.
“I want to eat my breakfast,” he said.
Crossan rounded on him.
“So you’ve been put off by Dan Howard putting a flea in your ear then? Or is it because her nibs has put stars in your eyes?”
There were small trembling shapes in front of Minogue’s eyes when he looked away from the window at Crossan. His chest was swollen with the anger and his arms tingled. Hoey divined his anger and sat forward, closer to the lawyer, staring across at his colleague’s face. Crossan looked away momentarily, then returned to the Inspector’s reddening face. Crossan dropped his knife and fork on the table and reached into his jacket pocket. He drew out an envelope and dropped it in front of Minogue’s plate.
“What’s this?” he asked. “More snapshots?”
Crossan didn’t reply.
Minogue flicked it over and saw that it was addressed to himself. He fingered through a hole in the flap and tore open the letter. The page was a photocopy of what looked like a bill.
“There are two names on there that you’ll recognise,” said Crossan. “I didn’t anticipate having to give you this so soon, but I’m not going to sit here and fight a losing battle with the pair of ye.”
Minogue read the name Thomas J. Naughton. Hoey wiped his fingers on the serviette. Minogue handed him the paper.
“That’s a dividend statement for Naughton. He’s a shareholder in that outfit. Dalcais.”
“What’s Dalcais?”
“Dalcais owns four hotels, one folk village and a castle where the Yanks sit down to mediaeval banquets after they are carted off the jumbos down in Shannon.”
“Put things together then,” Minogue said to Crossan. “Let me hear it from you.”
“I’m giving you this to catch Naughton on the hop. He might just clam up on you. Naughton was the first Guard to the fire that night, remember. Ask me who owns 53 per cent of Dalcais.”
“The Howards.”
“Not bad,” said Crossan.
“Why didn’t you tell me this last week?”
“Because I didn’t need to and you didn’t need to know either. It’d prejudice matters.”
“My God, man, I didn’t know you had such delicate nerves,” said Minogue. “No more shenanigans. What the hell else have you up your sleeve?”
“I admit that I need ye here to shake up the place. That’s my strategy here. Ye’re Guards, ye’re down from Dublin. We need to shake up the box and see what falls out-”
“Give us a bit of plain English, man,” Minogue cut in.
“I told you that I couldn’t find anything in the trial records that’d help Jamesy. And I’m not optimistic that anything can come from a full transcript of the trial either. My only real chance is to put a bit of pressure on people and see what happens.”
“Damn-all will happen except buckets of trouble if you’re playing us for iijits,” said Minogue.
“You want a token and you got it,” Crossan resumed in a scoffing tone. “How did I get it and copy it? I tracked down the firm that handles Naughton’s stuff-his will and deeds and the rest of it. I paid a clerk by the name of Margaret Hickey a hundred quid to get me anything on Naughton. Christ, man, that’s the damn prejudice I’m talking about! To hell with Naughton and the rest of them-it’s myself I’m throwing to the wolves here!”
Minogue glared one-eyed at the lawyer.
“Now. Are ye still in, or what?”
“What are you going to do if and when you have to tell anyone how you came by this?” asked Minogue.
“Do you really need to ask me that? You’re the Garda inspector. The quiet fella here in the corner is taking it all in too. My goose is well and truly cooked now. I have no other tricks for ye. So what do ye say?”
Minogue poured lukewarm coffee from the jug and tried to think. The most he could do was dither. Crossan had taken a big risk handing him this paper and telling him in front of Hoey what he had done. And yet it could lead into another cul-de-sac. Wasn’t Naughton entitled to buy and sell any damned shares he wanted? Couldn’t he sink his money into any investment he might have heard about during his years in Ennis? Like nuns, teachers and publicans, Guards were notoriously cute with their money.
Minogue looked at the photocopy again.
“How long has he been receiving dividends?”
Crossan shook his head. “I could find out but I’d be digging me grave deeper. Listen. I was looking for where to put some pressure. Any weak point. Naughton had the name of being an alcoholic, but he had it well under wraps. Didn’t you ever meet an alcoholic that kept at it for years and years, hail-fellow-well-met? Could do his job and turn up every day but had his bottle hidden above the cistern in the jacks, hah?”
To his side Hoey blinked and froze. Minogue nodded.
“Well, Naughton was one but he didn’t drink all his money by the looks of that. It’s not a fortune by any means, but it’d pad out a pension into real comfort. I’m still waiting for your answer.”
Minogue glanced at Hoey.
