Minogue blinked. He was ready with a retort about Hoey himself being shielded from Kilmartin when he spotted Crossan tramping across the dining-room carpet toward them. A relieved Minogue glanced at his colleague. Hoey’s stare stayed on the Inspector until Minogue looked away again to Crossan.
He pushed home the padlock on the cottage door, tested it and walked to the van. He was bone weary. They’d be finished this job in three weeks but he already planned to pad out the bill with a few days’ dossing. Plenty of money in Germany. The bastard’d never get tradesmen like him for twice his pay back in frigging Germany anyway. Nearly pitch-dark already, God. The radio was on in the van.
“Did you pack the blades and the masonry bits?” he called out.
“What?”
“The saw and masonry bits?”
“Yep. Are we right?”
An ad for holiday get-aways in Spain came on the radio. He clambered in and pulled the door behind him. The driver wriggled in the seat and started up the van. Get away from all this crap. Spain’d be nice. Take her too, do it in the water. Swimming and drinking and eating right. The lust hovering in his belly met with the misgivings sliding down his chest. She was getting out of hand: nearly running the show.
He looked across at his friend. Him, this, the dirt caked under his nails, the slogging away renovating this cottage for a German. And then to have people tell you that you were lucky to have a bloody job! Germany, he thought, and a little hope flared. Maybe. Drop everything, just walk away from it all and get a job over there. Be nobody there for a while. Tell nobody, just pack up one morning and go. No more worrying, holding back. No more watching and waiting. When was the money supposed to be rolling in anyway? You have to be patient, he was being told all the time, the insurance business takes time. Your clientele has to know that you’re serious. What about all the fucking Guards crawling all over the county this last while, he had protested. Be more careful, plan better and go at it, came the answer. They need to know that the cops can’t protect them, so they’ll have to strike a bargain in the end. The money’ll come in soon… Hah.
“You’re buying,” said the driver. The van wallowed at the end of the laneway.
“Aren’t you?”
“Amn’t I what?” The driver shifted in the seat and sat up from the chair-back.
“It’s your turn to buy the jar now.”
He didn’t answer but looked out into the night instead. Christ, the place had been emptied by emigration and famine, and now the rich wanted to take their holidays here. Culture, for God’s sakes-you can’t eat culture. They had money and they wanted culture: We have no money, just loads of culture. Sick joke. And he wanted receipts for every damn thing, this bloody German. He’d be flying into Shannon for the afternoon at the end of next week, coming to the cottage to inspect the work too. Suspicious, complaining. What effect would the Spillner thing have on them? They never just tell you that you did a good job. No thanks, just pay. Flying in for the afternoon, being driven up by a chauffeur probably.
The driver sat upright over the wheel and squirmed a little as he whistled to a tune on the radio.
“What are you doing? Is it fleas you have?”
“Ah, no. Are you buying or aren’t you?”
“Think of something else instead of the drink, can’t you?”
“Wouldn’t mind a ride, so…” The driver looked over knowingly and squirmed again.
“It must be fleas you have.”
“It’s my insurance policy.”
“What in the name of Jases are you talking about?”
“Well, I’m not going to be a sitting duck-”
The passenger suddenly understood. He lunged across and shoved his hand under the back of the driver’s jacket.
“Here! Fuck off, Ciaran! I’m driving!”
He felt it but the driver sat back and pinned his hand against the seat.
“Stop, can’t you, or the van’ll be in the ditch!”
He leaned over with his other hand and levered the driver forward. As he did, he grasped the pistol and yanked it out of the driver’s belt. He held it and ran his thumb toward the safety.
“You stupid, fucking iijit!”
“Gimme! Come on!” His voice was just short of a roar.
“You think this is going to help? Is this fucking cowboys and Indians you’re playing here or something?”
“Gimme, it’s mine!” The van was slowing. The driver held out his hand for the gun.
“Some kind of a fucking film you saw, is it? Jesus Christ, Finbarr! The place is rotten with fucking Guards and you’re walking around with a-”
“I’m not going to be caught with me pants down! I’m never going without a fight! Give it back, it’s my decision!”
“It’s not even your fucking gun, any more than it’s mine, you gobshite! He got this out of a dump along with the other stuff. We’re not supposed to have it-”
“It’s us that’s doing the dirty work! Don’t mind him! We’re the ones putting our arses on the line! And what do we have to show for it? Nothing! Fuck-all, that’s what! So don’t tell me how to carry on!”
The passenger laid the pistol on the floor and covered it with newspaper. To his astonishment, his anger had vanished. In its place was an overpowering feeling that he had lost something. It brought an ache of regret and hope to his chest. The driver picked up on the change in his friend and he returned his hand to the wheel.
“Come on now, let’s not be bickering,” he murmured. “We have to look out for one another, hah? Come on, now. We’ve always done it, haven’t we? It’s me and you, Ciaran.”
It was a sorrow he hadn’t felt since childhood, that sense of injustice and things going irretrievably astray which caused the passenger’s eyes to sting. What was the point, he thought. He couldn’t fight this. Spain. He knew then that tomorrow he’d be thinking about it all again. Maybe even Germany, work a few years away from all this, get a stake and buy a house back home. He thought about her then and that familiar turbulence began in his stomach. What would she do?
“Well?” said the driver.
“Shut up awhile, can’t you?” he mumbled. “And just fucking drive.”
“That’s right,” said Minogue, and reached for his cup.
“Up in Dublin,” Crossan added.
“That’s how it looks,” said the Inspector. He adopted a patient tone which he hoped the barrister would decode.
“So when I find out where, I’ll be talking to her.”
Hoey dropped a depleted ice-cube into his mouth and crunched it.
“You’ll let me know, so,” said Crossan.
“You may rely on it,” said Minogue with a heavier emphasis.
“Is there going to be an internal Garda investigation about Naughton?”
“We’re back off to Dublin tomorrow,” said Minogue. “Until I find out what Sheila Howard tells me this time around, I don’t know about any internal investigation.”
“But what Naughton told you about the fire suggests there was some kind of collusion going on,” said Crossan.
Minogue laid down his cup with a solid thud. “Collusion isn’t a term we should be throwing around here now.”
“Yet, you mean,” Crossan tossed in. “Step back a minute and look at what we have. Fact: Eilo McInerny was paid money to leave Ireland. Fact: We cannot account for key people the night of the fire. Fact: Naughton had a nice fat pad to his pension. Fact: Naughton knew plenty about that night, more than he was willing to tell you. Fact: Naughton killed himself out of some sense of duty or loyalty,”-he paused and looked from Minogue to Hoey-“to someone or something. It’s time to raise dust here, I say. Make it official. Time for your ‘inquiry’ to grow up into a proper investigation.”
Hoey looked up at the ceiling and blew smoke toward a lampshade.
