functions, exchanging asides with his wife between speeches, she laughing, he with a straight face. Tynan the cold fish, many thought; Rachel Tynan, whose face reminded Minogue of a peach.
“Oh, we monitor them at a distance. The routine seems to be that I reassure Kathleen. Then I get the willies myself when I see what they’re actually up to.”
Tynan took some more coffee from his cup and sat back.
“I need to pay yous a visit soon.”
Minogue nodded as though considering the news.
“Throw around a few ideas, you know,” Tynan added.
“Great,” said Minogue. Had Kilmartin been tipped off about this?
“Busy enough, are ye?” asked the Commissioner.
Was this a probe? “There’s always work. But we still don’t kill one another that much, don’t forget.”
“Compared to…?”
“Well, compared to the really civilised countries, I mean.”
The Commissioner continued his survey of the clientele in the restaurant.
“We need changes, that’s clear,” he murmured. “It’s a matter of how and where at this stage.”
“So they say in the press, John.”
Tynan gave him a glazed look.
“The Delahunty Factor, you mean?” Tynan asked, his mouth set tight. Minogue nodded.
An Inspector Delahunty, well-known and well-liked by his officers, had told a journalist that the solution to finding people with guns on them was to pull out your own-as long as you were Special Branch- and shoot them down in the street like dogs.
“‘Make-My-Day’ Delahunty. I’ve had more letters about that-”
“Were I not so discreet, John, I might speculate.”
“Let fly, so.”
“This same party let loose those comments as a way to see how our new Garda Commissioner would handle them, our new Garda Commissioner being but months in the office, I mean. And our new Garda Commissioner being a bit of an enigma as yet. One wonders if our new Garda Commissioner is one of ‘de boys’ or if he is one for rocking the boat.”
Tynan almost smiled before turning away. Nothing to tell Kilmartin here, Minogue thought.
“I’ve taken a long hard look this last six months,” Tynan murmured. His eyes returned to Minogue’s. “And what I seem to be seeing is something I last heard of twenty-five years ago when I studied mediaeval society. Warlords squabbling over their own territories. Some of it’s beyond an outrage. It’s nearly comical.”
Indolent and intent, his eyes bored into Minogue’s for several moments.
“It’s stifling. It’s bad for morale. It’s inefficient. And it’s going to stop.”
Minogue took in the force of Tynan’s determination. Should he report the warlord term to the Killer, James Kilmartin? The Commissioner was again looking at the faces around him in the cafe.
Minogue told him about the holiday he was planning. Tynan nodded and told Minogue that the islands were indeed beautiful. Minogue didn’t ask how he knew but he filed away this fact about Tynan to tell Kathleen later. Tynan turned in his seat and stared at Minogue. He seemed cautious now.
“I want you to drop by my office after your jaunt below in Clare,” he said. “A chat.”
“Jimmy too?”
Tynan flicked away the question with a quick movement of his hand.
“Don’t be fretting. It’s smarts that should be the basis of entitlement to comment, not rank alone. So don’t be kicking in the stall now.”
“I’ll be sure and phone you,” said Minogue. He felt pleased and bewildered. Tynan finished his coffee, rose and replaced his chair under the table. He looked down at the Inspector.
“Like the suit? There’s stripe to it but you’d need glasses to see it.”
Minogue issued a wink that he hoped might convey a sybarite’s approval. Tynan’s baleful gaze swept the room again.
“Well,” the Commissioner murmured. “I’m going to see if what some journalists write is true. That some Gardai are not, em, sensitive to Dubliners of lower socio-economic status.”
A swell of sympathy and liking swept over Minogue. He hoped that Tynan was not too isolated. “See you, John,” he called after him.
CHAPTER TWO
Minogue hummed along with the radio while he waited for Donnybrook to unjam itself. It was early in the afternoon for traffic jams, he thought. At least the sun had come out. An ambulance passed him, heading into town. A crash? Several teenagers in masks-one of Mick Jagger-trudged by carrying a shopping bag with the outlines of bottles straining at the plastic. Good day for pulling a bank job, thought the Inspector. The traffic moved. Minogue waved to a Guard directing traffic around a Toyota sports car which had taken down a lamp post on its way through the railings in front of a house. A youth with a sullen, pale face and a gash on his forehead sat in the back seat of the squad car. Joyriders, Minogue guessed. Were others hurt? The Guard was talking to himself and frowning. He didn’t wave back to Minogue.
The Inspector stopped in Donnybrook and quickly settled on a bottle of wine to celebrate the beginning of his break from work. Couldn’t be worse than the bottle of home-made plonk that Iseult’s boyfriend, Pat, had opened for dinner last week, the red stuff with the homemade label “Banshee.” Kathleen was on the phone when he turned the key in the hall door. “Maura,” she mouthed at him. “Matt’s just in the door,” she said. “Yes, that’s the job, come and go as you like…”
She handed the receiver to her husband. He exchanged it for the bottle of wine and raised his eyebrows. Kathleen shook her head.
“Down in the dumps again,” she whispered. “I told her we’d be down for sure tomorrow.”
Minogue tried to hide his irritation. He picked up one of the bars of chocolate that Kathleen had lined up for the Hallowe’en callers tonight.
“Hello, Maura, and how are you all below?”
“Hello, Matt. Arra you know how it is. We’re nearly swimming. The Stone Fields and Durrus are under water these three weeks. It’s fish we should be farming.”
A name for every field and ditch, Minogue remembered. He had his nail under the wrapper now.
“Was it ever any other way, Maura love?” he tried. The foil slid up under his thumb and chocolate showed. “And how’s Mick?”
“Well enough now. The joints are bad with him in the morning, what with the weather and the time of year. And of course there’s the age. Like they say, closer to the wood. There’s no avoiding that, is there? God has His own plans.”
“We’ll be down by tea-time tomorrow, Maura. Make sure you have a pack of cards in the house and a bit of meat.” Kathleen laughed, at his pronunciation of meat as mate, he believed.
“God, Matt, you’re a caution. But listen now. I phoned for a reason. It’s to tell you or Kathleen that there’s an envelope of stuff here for you. It’s from Mr Crossan, the man we talked to about Eoin’s predicament there…and he gave us the best advice. Very nice man, but his own way about things. Maybe you know him, do you?”
“The barrister Crossan?” He recalled seeing or hearing the name somewhere. Yes, with one of Kilmartin’s cronies, that was it. Grumbling about Crossan demolishing some case brought against an IRA man.
“The very one. It was his work that got the charges dropped against Eoin the next day.”
Maura’s voice dropped lower. Minogue imagined her shielding her words from someone passing in the hall, Mick most likely,
“Well, it came up in the course of a chat that you were a Guard, and, of course, in no time at all he knew your exact department. Very interested he was and all. Well, Matt, I don’t know how I should put this to you, I’m not much good at this…”
Minogue sensed the awkwardness betokened some transaction in the rural commerce of obligations felt and
