had scrutinised the photographs asking himself if there was anything different about the child that he should have been alert to. Something different from the start, Kathleen had maintained over the years after Iseult was born-that bold, spoiled, raucous miracle.
Eamonn’s face under the teddy bear: his first thought, as the room exploded around him, the terror and awareness of death in the room changing everything, had been that Eamonn had suffocated. The quiet in the house, dawn, the stillness that had brought him from bed and across the hall, knowing something was amiss. Though the infant’s hands were cold, Minogue believed that Eamonn had died just before dawn. He recalled wanting his own death for relief from the pain.
He swung his hands over his head and clenched his eyes tight. There must be a way out of this. He stopped stretching: a car outside? He put his ear to the wall. Couldn’t tell. He scraped his fingertips hard over his face then but his mind had allowed the words out already-kidnap, hostage. He stopped and stared into the darkness: were they going to kill him? The darkness, the cold, all immediate things fell away. To his surprise, he did not free-fall into panic. His thoughts became clear instead. He began to go through the possibilities. They could hold him until they were safe away. But were they well enough in with whatever groups they belonged to to be handed passports, money and plane tickets? Not likely. These were local men and, if they were heart-and-soul IRA or affiliates, they’d want to be on home ground, not hanging around shopping malls in Cleveland or Cologne waiting five years for things to die down.
Kill him? No: they’d try to deal their way out. But they’d get seven to ten for possession of the guns alone. Add to that kidnapping, assault. He traced the lump and the split skin on his head again. His nausea had gone and, except for any sudden move of his head, the ache was manageable. He pushed his knuckles into his eyesockets and tried to think again. Make some strategy or some fall-back position. Lie, talk-Over the water came the breeze, rippling the surface, wave and trough alike. The sea-skin stretched, swelled again and drew toward the rocks. Still it seemed to move nowhere. Sea-wrack drifted, sank and rose again. The fish searched below and then fled among the rocks. There they were, the shapes moving so fast, turning, moiling, streaming cascades of bubbles behind, revolving in rapture. As the image faded, he rose slowly to his feet. Still he couldn’t focus on a plan. Where did she fit? Why would she- Something had been going on all around him, Minogue knew, and he had finally stumbled in, clumsy and stupid. He had let his instincts carry him and had even dragged Hoey along. And, in the end, none of this mattered. All past and beyond reach now. No going back. The best of intentions-what did they matter anymore?
An electric jolt ran up his whole body when he heard the steps. They were coming for him. Suddenly frantic, he tried to put words together for argument. Where the hell was Hoey? Someone was working at the lock. He backed away into a corner. Stand firm anyway, he thought. Run at the door? If there was any chance at all.
The light blinded him. Could it be just those two lousy light bulbs? He squinted though his eyelashes. A flashlight beam ran over his face and chest. He wanted to say something.
“Just fucking well do it, Shea!” Kilmartin roared. “Don’t start up on that again or I’ll walk on you.”
“Well, I can’t just sit here like an iijit for a few hours-”
“You can do it and you’re going to do it because I’m shagging ordering you to do it! Do not leave the station. Do you hear me?”
Hoey bit back his reply. It wouldn’t help Minogue for him to fuck Kilmartin from a height on the phone here. The Killer could work things over the phone for now, get the personnel and the search started right away.
“Are you listening?” Kilmartin asked again.
“Yeah.”
“You last saw him at ten, right? And his car is still parked out at the house, the Howards’ place.”
“So is the woman’s, Mrs Howard. She has a Renault parked in a garage in the yard.”
“Where’s this fuckin’ lawman? Crosbie.”
“Crossan. He’s here.”
“If Matty has been diddled in any way by this little shite Crosbie, so help me, I’ll fuckin’ burst him. Crosbie, Crossan, whatever the hell his name is. You tell him that, do you hear?”
Hoey surveyed the listless barrister across the table.
“Okay.”
“Is Russell there yet?”
“Haven’t seen him come in.” Hoey was suddenly weary. “Let me ask. He might have come in and I didn’t notice.”
He put his palm over the receiver and asked Ahearne. The Sergeant shook his head, looked at his watch, blinked and returned to chewing the inside of his upper lip.
“No. Not yet.”
“Keep this line open. Sit by the phone. Anyone puts their hand near it, give ’em a puck in the snot. Hard. I’ll phone the Branch again.”
While he waited, Hoey returned to scraping the remains of a round sticker from a desktop in Ennis police station. Drops of sweat itched in his armpits and on his forehead. He could be back in five minutes from a pub. He scraped harder, oblivious to the sticky detritus collecting under his nails. Guards continued to come and go in the station. Hoey and Crossan had been called in but once to detail what Minogue and they had been doing. Hoey had noted the Emergency Response Unit men checking their pistols in the hallway.
Ahearne was standing by the table, holding a mug.
“No,” said Hoey. “Thanks.”
Ahearne laid down the mug, glanced from Hoey to Crossan and sat down slowly with a sigh. Two Guards in plainclothes walked in from the yard and stopped by Ahearne.
“Within the half-hour,” Ahearne said to them. The two trudged off to the main office.
“Have you picked anyone up yet?” Hoey asked.
Ahearne shook his head. Hoey checked his watch. Kilmartin had told Hoey that he’d be at Ennis Garda station within the hour.
“There’s always the chance it might turn out to be a false alarm,” Crossan said.
“Shut up,” said Hoey.
Crossan considered retaliating but he found that Ahearne was staring at him. The Sergeant’s usual expression of detached politeness had been replaced by a hard, empty look. Hoey had relayed Kilmartin’s threat to Crossan verbatim, unalloyed by sympathy or parody. Hoey had then told him that what Kilmartin might leave intact of him, he, Hoey, a man of modest mien who had given the barrister the appearance of being a cautious, repressed man, at best indifferent to him, would take apart.
“They came back to take the Howards and your man happened to be there at exactly the wrong time,” said Ahearne.
Hoey maintained his stare at the window.
“They probably wanted Dan,” Ahearne tried again. “Bold and brazen of ’em to come back the next day to do it, I say. Exactly the last time and place anyone’d expect to try and lift Dan-”
“What for?” said Crossan.
Ahearne shrugged. “Well, I’m not up on that. But they’d want to drive some kind of a deal, I imagine.”
“How did they know that Mrs Howard was staying put in the house?” Hoey asked. “They’d hardly expect the Howards to stay put in the house after the shooting.”
“And a deal for what?” Crossan probed further.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Ahearne quickly, as though fending off an accusation. “That’s what we’re waiting to hear, seems to me.”
Hoey turned from the window and looked at Ahearne for a moment.
“Someone had started repairs to the windows anyway,” said Aheame. “They’re still trying to reach Dan Howard in Dublin to get the name of whoever was hired to fix the place. Maybe they saw something.”
Kilmartin came through the doorway, followed by Russell. Hoey stepped smartly to the side of the door and suffered Kilmartin’s sharp, interrogative stare for several moments. Kilmartin nodded at Ahearne who stood. He spoke in a low voice.
“Are you Crosbie?”
