with senior Gardai. Serving the public. Eilis had a varied repertoire but she sometimes recited the user-friendly incantation. Such was the charge of sarcasm Kilmartin had noted in her tone one day that he directed her to return to her former delivery of “Yes?” or “Murder Squad.”
“Where are you now?” Kilmartin barked.
“I’m in Ennis.”
“Hah. Signs on you’d be in the thick of it, you chancer. Ennis is a hot part of the country today. Did you know that, bucko?”
“You hardly mean the weather.”
“Damn right I don’t. How’s Hoey?”
“He’s gone out to buy sausages. We slept it out. We were up and down the west of Ireland yesterday.”
“I wouldn’t mind being in your boots if that’s all you were doing. Have you come up with anything?”
Kilmartin had heard nothing of Naughton, Minogue believed. He considered his answer but came up with the truth instead.
“I don’t know, James. But something stinks.”
“Ho, ho, mister. I don’t want to know about it. Save your problems for Monsignor Tynan. He’s the one who shanghaied you into this caper, pal.”
Minogue ran his finger along the top of the phone. Hoey opened the front door and stepped in. Minogue nodded at him and mouthed Kilmartin’s name. Hoey blinked, shrugged and headed for the kitchen.
“Well, it’s a mixed bag, really,” Minogue said to Kilmartin. “I’ll tell you when we get back up to town. We’ll be off within the hour.”
“All right. Here, I got a call from that bollicks Hynes. Asking when you were due back in Dublin. Have you something going with him? I hope to God for your sake you don’t. Because if you do…”
“All right.”
“What does ‘all right’ mean?”
“It means, mind your own business, James.”
“Oh, tough talk now, is it? You’re the right hoodlum and you on the phone. Come up here and say it to my face. I dare you.”
“I need the Howards’ address up in Dublin.”
“Take your time, there. Are all your little deals going sour?”
“The address, man. Stop fighting with me.”
“Oh, too busy to talk, are we? Don’t be so stuck-up. I say you’re right to get out of this in one piece. Leave Tynan swing. Leave them to their manoeuvres down in Clare. Stay out of the way. Did you know there’s a big operation on to flush out the Libyan stuff that’s buried around Clare?”
“Hard to miss it,” said Minogue. “The Howards’ address.”
“The Howards. What are they up in Dublin for? I found out, bejases, that the Branch has men by the house out behind Leeson Street. Someone let fly at their house in Ennis, I find out. Did you hear anything about that?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And you didn’t tell me? Well, Christ, man, keep well out of the way of flying shite.”
“Your advice is well taken, James. Give me the address. Now.”
Kilmartin gave him the telephone number first and told him to okay it with Special Branch before going for a visit.
“All right. I’ll be seeing you.”
“Is that it? You’re not going to sneak off to the airport and head for that sanatorium place, what do you call it, on the sly?”
“Santorini. S-A-N-T-”
“Whoa, boy! Christ, you’re in a royal snit this morning. Just tell me that you’re not keeping something up your sleeve here. Fair and square now, Matt. I scratch your back and all the rest of it, hah?”
Mrs McNamara came from the kitchen with a laden tray. She smiled at Minogue and toed open the door to the dining-room. Hoey followed her and nodded at the Inspector.
“I was talking to the Guard who was first to the house that night. Tom Naughton. He’s retired a few years now, in Limerick.”
“When that young one, the Canadian, was killed?”
“Yes. The fire.”
“What did he have to tell you, so?”
Minogue heard the gunshot again, and he swallowed.
“Well, Shea and myself were talking to him and, well…”
“Well, what? You’re holding out on me. You found something, didn’t you? What about this Naughton fella?”
“Well, he pulled a gun out of a drawer and he shot himself.”
“He what? What did you say?” Kilmartin shouted. “He what?”
“He killed himself. I’ll tell you when I get back-”
“Wait a shagging minute! Don’t just land this on me and-”
Hoey had an appetite. He finished Minogue’s bread and poured more tea.
“You dropped the phone on him,” Hoey murmured again. “He’ll be dug out of you for that.”
Minogue studied his lukewarm tea and nodded.
“I don’t doubt it,” said Minogue.
“I’m going to phone the Howards and set up a meeting. Then I’ll settle up with Mrs Mac here and we’re off up the road to civilisation.”
Hoey saluted him with a full cup of tea and looked out through the window at the foggy shroud over the Clarecastle Road. Minogue returned to the hall and opened his notebook to the Howards’ number.
The embossed wallpaper had had several coats of paint. The Inspector studied the pattern and traced his fingertips over its curlicues and ridges. Mrs Mac kept her house well, he reflected. Parts of the pattern had been flattened and further smoothed by the coats of paint. He could not make out the pattern completely with his eyes but his fingers picked up the pattern as they moved across the wallpaper. He dug a fingernail into a rise in the paper but it failed to pierce it. He stopped and looked down at the phone as if he knew it was about to ring. After a half- minute of staring, the phone still did not ring. Mrs McNamara came out the kitchen door.
Mrs Howard, did you not visit Jane Clark at her house the night of the fire? Did you, upon hearing of the incident with your husband, take it upon yourself to have words with Deborah Jane Clark? Did you not drive away from the pub, go to her cottage and then return to the pub less than a half an hour later? Why did you not tell us that you had left the pub that night?
“I am, thanks. I reversed the charges, like the other call.”
“Great, so.”
Mrs McNamara smiled and entered the dining-room. Hoey stepped into the hallway after her. His look to the Inspector was an appeal to get him out of the clutches of Mrs McNamara.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Hoey. “Hit the road.”
“Sheila Howard is still in Ennis.”
Hoey frowned and blew smoke out the side of his mouth.
“I phoned their place in Dublin, talked to Dan Howard. He told me she decided at the last minute to stay and get the place fixed up. She had to farm out the two horses to be looked after while they’re away.”
“I want to see her on my own,” Minogue said.
Hoey tossed his packet of cigarettes into the air and caught it with a limp palm. “You’re going to ask her where she went during the time she left the pub,” he said. “Aren’t you?”
“Of course I am.”
Hoey looked at the frosted glass on the front door and threw the packet into the air again. He grasped it on its descent with a firm hand.
“You’re the boss.”
