around and crying on the next man’s shoulder…”
“It’s not uncommon these days, James.”
Kilmartin coughed out smoke.
“Don’t be talking to me. Sure everybody’s at it. (The psychology racket.”
Minogue poured a third of a cup of milk and placed it in the microwave. The Chief Inspector rubbed at his eyes with his free hand.
“Arra sweet and holy Jesus,” he groaned. “Even me own wife is talking about stuff like that. Everybody’s-a- victim style of thing. ‘Couldn’t help it, Your Honour. Me ma looked sideways at me in the maternity ward. Never got over it.’ ‘Case dismissed. Hire ten shrinks to look after the poor lad.’ ”
“Maura?”
“Yes. Maura Kilmartin. Got a letter from the young lad. He’s in Philadelphia now. Maura got herself in a state about it. I must have put me foot in it somehow. She starts in on this stuff, as if there was something wrong with me-me, the man she married thirty-one happy years ago, bejases! Oh, we’ve had our spats and everything. But sure, who doesn’t?”
Minogue nodded. He recalled Kilmartin’s jibe about the stone he had given Hoey and Aine.
“You probably know the routine. ‘Let’s talk’ kind of shite. Babbling on. All this feelings stuff-they make a religion out of ’em. Everyone’s their own tin pot God now. We’re all victims of one thing or another. Hand out badges, I say. We’d all be millionaires and Shakespeares if only the da or someone hadn’t given them a right well- deserved kick up in the arse. Are you with me?”
Minogue looked in at the revolving tray in the microwave. Kilmartin warmed to his subject.
“Oh, yes,” he resumed. “It was the sixties done us in if you really want to know. We were all softened up: the ads, the self-esteem crowd, taking away the leather from the schoolmaster. Everything is supposed to be perfect now, isn’t it? Everybody deserves everything they want. Want? Demand is more like it! Jesus, we’re taken for iijits. Anyway. I thought that at least that kind of eyewash hasn’t gotten into my house when Maura gives me one of those looks.”
Minogue glanced over.
“Come on now, Matt-you know the ones I mean. Out at a dinner. I’m not stupid, you know. I knew that maybe I was a bit, er, strict and all, but, sure, life isn’t all holidays in Greece and wine and ‘feeling good about yourself’ now, is it?”
Minogue recalled his ten blissful days in Santorini last year. He registered the jibe with a nod.
“That look on her face. Anyway. Right in the middle of eating this very nice bit of dinner, says she: ‘Were you very close to your father, Jim?’ What do you think of that?”
“A tough enough question. Even when your mouth isn’t full.”
“You’re telling me. Ch-a-rist! ‘Not if I could help it,’ says I.”
Minogue unplugged the kettle and poured water into the jug. The two men stared at the coffee maker.
“Even if Mullen has fares all evening, he has the few minutes it took to go by the canal and spot the daughter,” Kilmartin said.
“His taxi is nearly done, is it,” said Minogue. Kilmartin nodded. He pushed away from the counter and pointed his cigarette at Minogue.
“This bloody Victory Club I’m reading up on. Gentle Jesus and all that stuff tagged on to it. ‘Charismatics,’ yippy-eye-ay kind of stuff. Crying and shouting and floating off the ground? Waving their hands around and singing? These bloody group talks often ended up with his pals telling him he needed to find his daughter. I’ll tell you what ‘find’ meant to Jack Mullen, will I?”
Minogue thought of Iseult.
“I don’t know, Jim. The social worker fella that sits in on their meetings says it’s all part of the recovery deal.”
“Huh. Social workers-oh yeah, I forgot. They’re in charge of everything now. What does that mean anyway, according to him?”
“‘Find,’ meaning build a proper relationship with Mary.”
“Me arse and parsley, man. I know English better than these frigging social worker experts seem to: ‘find’ means go out and get her. Get her. That’s plain English as she is spoken.”
Minogue prepared the plunger at the top of the jug of coffee. Kilmartin mightn’t be far off the mark, he reflected.
“What did Mullen say again about God lifting her or something like that?”
Minogue thought for several moments.
“‘God called my daughter and lifted her out of her dejection.’”
“My God, how you remember stuff like that. Holy Joes.”
Kilmartin held out his hand and shook it in a manner which reminded Minogue of farmers at a mart ready to settle on a price. He plucked at his little finger first.
“Let’s talk about the real world. One, he has a history of threatening the daughter. Two, he broke up with the wife. He used to beat her up too. Three, he’s taken up with a cult-ah now, don’t go interrupting me. I know about this ‘recovery’ stuff. Four, he gets the idea-here, I’ll use a big word just to keep you happy-an obsession: he has to save the daughter.”
“Saved in Jesus?”
“No need to be disrespectful there now, pal. But yes. He tracks her over time, he finds a pattern. He doesn’t need to be James Bond to do that, now, does he. He follows her that evening, tries to talk her into the car or the like. She gives him the P.O. He loses the head and clocks her. Rolls her into the water. She never goes near the taxi.”
Minogue pushed the plunger slowly, watching for grounds escaping around the rim. Kilmartin drew on his cigarette and studied the operation.
“So?” said Kilmartin when Minogue had poured coffee into the cup.
“I don’t know, Jim. A bit early, let’s remember.”
“But bear it well in mind, that’s all I’m saying. Stick with routine. Pin the alibi to the clock. Wait for the finals from the taxi. Check the site again. Go door-to-door with Sheehy and company if you’re too jittery waiting. Pull Mullen in again tomorrow and throw the same stuff at him, compare it with this statement and the tapes. I’m going to give serious thought to a twenty-four-hour surveillance on Mullen for the next week, that’s what I’m going to do.”
Minogue nodded. Kilmartin blew smoke at his shoes.
“All right there? Look, I’m game if you want to stick it to Mullen hard later on, the three of us. Object lesson for Molly in there.”
Minogue’s tongue moved to his front teeth. The coffee was stronger than he had planned.
“‘One a year,’ Matt. Hate to say it, but it looks like one. Do you think?”
Minogue looked up at Kilmartin.
“Well, why don’t we just sign it over to you?”
“Nice try there, pal. Like hell you will. Haven’t I given you Tonto to help you on this one?”
Minogue returned to sipping coffee. Kilmartin’s axiom was that at least one murder case per year turned out to be the most frustrating, difficult and head-banging case the Squad had ever handled. There was little point, Minogue knew, in reminding his colleague that this case looked like becoming about the seventh or eighth “one-a- year” this year. James Kilmartin claimed that these cases brought progress and improvement to the Squad’s procedures. This they did, he explained, by extending the rigorous use of police science and its sundry ancillary support services. He was easily wily enough to turn “one-a-year”s to good account by transforming them into Trojan horses for departmental budget claims. Over a pint, however-over several pints-the Chief Inspector usually lost little time in putting Police Science in its place: “All very well and good, but a man needs to know when to put it in the P.F.O. file.” It was one thing for Squad officers as adepts of police science to methodically take everything about a murder case into account; it was quite another to understand what to discount.
“Seven weeks pregnant, Jim. I’m hoping she tried with this drop-in centre.”
“Short of money for going to England to get the, you know, the job done?”
“The father.” Minogue looked up from his cup. “Patricia Fahy has to know him. She must.”
Kilmartin stroked his chin.
