up. Ciaran somebody. The air in the room was suddenly overpowering: pungent bleachy mix of genitals, the cheesy stench of the man’s socks, his cigarette smell. A picture of him pushing into her flashed into Minogue’s mind again. For the first time, he felt angry. Is this what she wanted? You know she did. You know it. “We can meet later on.” Didn’t you hear her? She doesn’t care. The man she had called Ciaran glared at Minogue and flicked his hair back from over his eyes. His sleeve brushed Minogue’s as he walked by, hopping slightly to right the sit of his trousers. Minogue smelled sour sweat from his clothes as he passed.
“Well,” came the lilting sarcasm in a man’s voice from the hall.
“It’s all right,” Ciaran grunted.
Minogue headed out after him.
“Go back, can’t you, go back,” Ciaran hissed, and waved his hands.
“You came up short, did you?” the voice taunted. “Here, maybe I should have a go-”
“Fuckin’ move!” Minogue heard Ciaran reply.
The Inspector reached the doorway and saw him push another man back toward the kitchen. The drinking pal from the night before at the pub, he noted. A stricken look came into the second man’s face and his bloodshot eyes bulged. Minogue’s eye was drawn to the stud in the man’s earlobe. He smelled whiskey-breath now.
“Who the fu… How did he…?” and his mouth stayed open.
They know me, thought Minogue. Sheila Howard’s interrupted lover, whom Minogue wanted to believe was not her proper lover, at least not in the way he imagined lovers, pushed the other man again.
“Cause you were pissing around, drinking in the fucking kitchen,” he whispered fiercely. The man’s eyes were still on Minogue. “So go and do your fucking job!”
The Inspector decided to wait on the steps outside. He wanted to take this Ciaran aside and give him a going-over. At the same time he knew how absurd that was. As Minogue turned, the man with the earring stumbled and fell backwards. He swore as he fell, landed first on his backside and then turned on his forearm to stop himself rolling back feet-up.
“Stop fucking pushing,” he grunted as he came to rest. Minogue gave him a contemptuous glance and the man started to get up.
The gun clattered onto the floor from under his jacket. It lay there, still, while the three men looked at it. Minogue held his breath and looked from the gun up to Ciaran and then to the other man. For several seconds, the Inspector could not get beyond bewilderment. Were these two lesser species of Special Branch assigned to guard Mrs Howard? He imagined tumbrels clicking into place somewhere in the back of his addled mind. His heart seemed to be soaring into his throat. He heard a soft slap of elastic clicking over the sound of an ad for fertiliser. Sheila Howard putting her knickers on again, a part of his mind registered.
“Look what you’ve gone and done now, you fuck-” said the one with the ear-ring.
“Are you Branch-” Minogue started to ask.
Ciaran dropped to the floor. In one smooth movement, he had the pistol up and the barrel of the automatic drawn back.
“It’s done now, so shut up,” he said. The panic on the man’s face had frozen Minogue’s thoughts.
“You stupid, lazy fucking-” Ciaran began.
“I didn’t hear him!” shouted the one with the ear-ring. Minogue continued to stare at him. His entire face was red now and his moustache seemed to quiver. Locks of curly hair stood out over his ears.
“You with the stupid radio on-”
“He didn’t drive up! I woulda heard him!” He turned to Minogue. “You walked or something, didn’t you?”
Ciaran waved the gun from side to side at Minogue and moved to the foot of the stairs. Minogue felt the door near him and his body almost leaned toward it.
“See!” cried the other. “He’s after sneaking up! Close the fucking door! There’s probably a mob of them around the house! Jesus! It’s a fucking trap, Ciaran!! We’ve been set up!!”
Ciaran’s eyes turned frantic and his fingers flexing and grasping the grip of the automatic took Minogue’s thoughts. The Inspector felt his legs begin to quiver. Were they both drunk? How could he buy time?
“It’s a fucking set-up! They knew all along!”
All along? They knew who he was? How?
“Did you?” asked Ciaran in a soft voice. The other man closed the hall door.
Minogue’s instincts had already begun to size up the pair. Ciaran with the gun didn’t look drunk. He acted with a natural authority. The one with the ear-ring had been drinking, hence an unknown. Better Ciaran to have the gun? What could he play on, appeal to? They knew he was a Guard. He had seen their faces. If he tried to fool them into believing there really were Guards surrounding the house… Sheila Howard stood in the doorway to the living- room. Minogue lost track of his calculations and thoughts. He felt himself falling into panic. He looked into Ciaran’s eyes.
“Well, did you?” said Ciaran.
Minogue sensed with a dull, awful certainty that this Ciaran was the most dangerous. Behind the calm he felt his rage. When this fella acted, there’d be no warning, he knew. The details in the hall pressed in on Minogue. Furniture polish, the picture frames, the stupid music from a stupid DJ in Dublin who couldn’t imagine Minogue’s terror here.
“There is! We’re fucked!” hissed the other. “I’m telling you! It was this bastard-!”
He threw a sudden punch at Minogue. The Inspector tried to dodge it but the blow glanced off his cheek. He tottered to the wall off-balance, bumping against Ciaran on the way. The shock woke something in him and he came back from the wall in a crouch, his head still roaring from the impact.
“Stop it,” he heard Sheila Howard shouting. “Don’t, don’t!”
Minogue took Ciaran down sideways and chopped at him with his elbow as it met his stomach. The gun fell to the floor and sour breath whooshed out over Minogue’s face. He rolled over the downed Ciaran and looked around the floor for the gun.
“Don’t!” Sheila Howard shrieked.
Minogue tried to claw himself up but stopped when he saw the gun pointing directly into his eye, the wide- eyed face behind it and the stud glittering to the side of his head. Ciaran began to wriggle beside him and Minogue looked down. As he did, he heard Sheila Howard’s shriek again. The hall turned white and disappeared into the glare. In the whiteness and pain and noise, he felt himself falling. Terror and anger overwhelmed him. Kathleen, he thought, I shouldn’t have.
Jiggling, dull and constant noise, squeaks. Someone spoke far away. Pain-awful pain he could not endure. His cheek was pressed down on a rag smelling of paint. If things would only stop. He was on his chest. He felt the van’s tyres clip the innumerable cuts in the tarred road, slap the bigger holes and then bounce over the corrugated bumps the moving bog had pressed up from below.
Alive, he thought. He turned his head slightly and sent flashes of pain across his eyes. Minogue groaned. The van bobbed and rose to the top of its springs before it dropped back, swaying and shuddering.
“Slow down,” said a man’s voice. “We’ve enough on our plate. Don’t dump us all in the ditch.” The van slowed and Minogue opened his eyes again. Sheila Howard was leaning against a wheel-well, looking down at him. Her expression told him nothing.
“Your man’s back with us,” said a voice from the front.
Minogue recognised Ciaran’s voice now. The van braked hard then, and Minogue slid forward. Sheila Howard fell over and rolled into the back of the bench seat. Minogue yelped as pain shot through his neck. Her hand came to rest inches from his face. The van leaned hard to one side. Minogue felt the tyres dig into the tar macadam. He heard the start of the ripping scratch that presaged a skid proper and braced himself, but the van righted itself with a sudden bob. Minogue rolled over and gritted his teeth against the flashes of pain.
“Jesus Christ!” Ciaran shouted. “Can you do nothing right today? Are you trying to fucking kill us?”
Minogue’s eyes seemed to swell. The van began to climb and Minogue opened his eyelids slightly. The grey shapes of boulders slid back into the fog in the wake of the van. Minogue opened his eyelids a little more. The side of his face on which he had been lying still felt numb. He held the back of his neck and pushed up on one elbow.
“Hey!”
Minogue looked up. Ciaran was leaning over the seat-back.
