“You’re sailing a bit close to the wind with that one, mister. Yes, you! Oh, and the face on you like a goat pissing on a bed of nettles! Do you think for one minute that I want to be seen in public with the likes of a Dublin gurrier like Molly there? Do you think I wanted him on staff at all? What damage bloody Tynan didn’t finish doing to the Squad, you did. You and Sometimes shagging Earley.”
Kilmartin grasped his glass, gave an angry flick of his head and downed more ale. Minogue returned to the weather forecast in time to hear mention of high pressure remaining over Ireland.
John Tynan, the new Garda Commissioner whose nickname Kilmartin had lately alternated between Monsignor and Iceman, had reorganised the Murder Squad and its parent Technical Bureau. Kilmartin had fought hard to preserve his fiefdom. Tynan had had several conditions for allowing Kilmartin to keep his Squad intact. The Chief Inspector was to cut permanent staff numbers, and he was to set up an interview board for screening and interviewing applicants to the Squad. With Seamus Hoey gone for a two-week honeymoon, and with court attendance and casework backlogged, Kilmartin had secured an extra position for this year, a ‘floater’ on the Squad. He and Minogue and Sometimes Earley, an avuncular Inspector from B Division rumoured to be on the fast track to the top, had interviewed from a short list of applicants for that position.
Detective Garda Thomas Malone had been fourth in line. Minogue ascribed the detour in his nose and the close-cropped hair to what was listed in the file as “Sporting Interests”: Tommy Malone was still ranked second in the Garda Boxing Club. A stocky Dubliner with postcard blue eyes and a laconic manner which Minogue sensed was studied rather than natural, Malone had not been Kilmartin’s favourite. Minogue still smiled in recollection of Kilmartin’s aggressive questioning during the interview and the results it had brought him. Why was Malone’s brother in jail, was Kilmartin’s opener. He’d messed up, was Malone’s reply. What experience did the candidate think he could bring to the Squad? Malone had enumerated the record of service and commendations from his file in a tone which suggested to Minogue that he, Malone, knew that Kilmartin had read it. Kilmartin had pressed him again with the same question, altering it only by adding a really and giving Malone a deeper frown. Earley too had almost laughed out loud at the reply. Experience, Malone had replied after a calculated pause. Living with me brother, I suppose. Earley had had difficulty stifling a snigger.
Minogue’s and Barley’s combined votes had produced a black mood in Chief Inspector Kilmartin which buying him three glasses of whiskey after the interviews hadn’t much lightened.
Part of Kilmartin’s stock-in-trade was nicknames and he wasted no time in setting to work on Malone. ‘Molly Malone’ was too easy, he liked to grumble. Kilmartin’s atavistic disdain for Dubliners, their championing of trade unions and their votes for the Labour Party at the expense of the rurally based populist carpetbagger party he, James Kilmartin, had supported all his life, gave birth to a nickname which Minogue thought had the most bite: ‘Voh’ Lay-bah.’ Decades in Dublin had honed Kilmartin’s mimic abilities and he could manage an accomplished delivery in the classic ponderous, nasal Dublin drawl. Malone seemed to be weathering Kilmartin’s sarcasm well.
Kilmartin balanced his glass on his palm.
“Oh well, what the hell,” he said at last. “Here’s to Hoey. Whatever else you could say about Shea Hoey, he’s no gom. He’ll soon learn to put the foot down. Did you see where she keeps her own name and everything? What’s the point, I’d like to know.”
Minogue said nothing. He believed Aine’s maiden name, Moriarty, was too good of a name to walk away from. Kilmartin lit a cigarette.
Minogue took another mouthful of lager. The Chief Inspector began tugging at the loose skin under his chin.
“Eighty-eight quid actually,” he murmured. “That Waterford glass bowl I gave Hoey.”
Malone made his way back to the two detectives just as the barman laid down another round of drinks. Kilmartin eyed Malone sorting a handful of change. He winked at Minogue as he called out to Malone.
“Hoi,” he said. “What poor-box did you rob to get that fistful there, Molly?”
Malone’s eyebrows inched up but he kept counting.
He stepped on his cigarette and stared at the car. It wasn’t just the heat, he knew, that made him feel that his chest was full of smoke. His hands were tingling too. The dryness in his mouth had spread to his throat. He might get forty for the leather jacket on the back seat. Probably a tenner for the Walkman. As for the bloody racquets and the bag, he hadn’t a clue.
The driver had activated the alarm with the remote on his key-ring. Tall type, hair-do, nice clothes. Tennis, etcetera. He’d probably gone to one of those snob schools where they played rugby. Daddy had bought Junior a car for his twenty-first. Not this model though: a GTI cost over fifteen grand. Junior must have gotten a job. Maybe he’d gotten the girl free with the car. How was it that rich people never looked ugly? He’d smelled perfume hanging in the air when he’d walked by the car the first time. He held up his watch and twisted it until he got enough light on it to read it. Five minutes to closing time in the pubs. He’d have to go soon or else forget it. Then he might have to do something stupid in broad daylight tomorrow to get back on track. Otherwise, it’d be shitsville. That had happened last week. He’d messed up by sleeping it out until nearly dinner-time. It had taken him until four o’clock to round up enough money to score. That was a day to forget: out there on the footpath boiling in the frigging sun all day, ready to grab people and throttle them until they dropped money in his hat. It wasn’t like he was begging, for Christ’s sake. He was an artist. It was art they’d be supporting. Jesus, people paid thousands for some painting to hang on a bloody wall.
He couldn’t stop his mind wandering. He. imagined a huge drawing of Jim Morrison, a crowd half a dozen thick swarming around him, all oohing and aahing. Purples, yellows-the spotlights, maybe even some lyrics on the top. Put in Jimi Hendrix floating there somewhere too. Bob Marley. A black angel. That was the stuff to get tourists coughing up dough. You never know who’d be walking by on the streets during the summer. Dublin had a name for talent in the music scene. Some big exec from a record company might spot it: hey, we gotta have this guy doing our covers! Or something with a message on it? Save the whales. Just say no. Ah, there were too many iijits out pretending to be real chalkies now. He really should try looking for a steady. If he had a steady number for a job, he could plan. Join a fitness club or something. Get some exercise. Then he could handle it cold turkey. Not that he actually had a habit or needed to worry. It’d be no sweat when the time came. All it took…
Something caught in his throat and he began coughing. The bloody city was full of dust and dirt. He looked up through the yellow light at the sky. Buildings going down, new ones being put up all over the place. His coughing began to ease and he looked across at the GTI again. Four cars back was the alley leading into a building site with a half-dozen ways out to other laneways and streets. The handles of the plastic bag holding the brick dug into his fingers. His fingertips had gone numb. He moved the bag to the other hand and swung it in short arcs. Its motion gave him strength. He imagined the car window shattering, a shower of glass in slow motion exploding around him. Ten minutes gone. He let two cars pass and stepped out into the street. He couldn’t stop staring at the GTI now. It seemed to move, to float. He put his palm on his chest but his heart thumped harder.
“Deserved it,” he murmured.
Mister GTI had been in such a bleeding hurry to get into the pub for last call that he’d parked in a stupid place. He was probably a wheeler-dealer who made money just picking up a phone. Maybe he played the stock market or something. He had holidays in Spain or the States, someplace where all the women have blonde hair and look like models. He looked over the roof of the car at the glass-sheathed building behind it. Christ, he thought, and shuddered. All glass: someone could see out but he couldn’t see in. No, he thought then. If it was dark outside. The lights in the building were on so you could see in and they couldn’t… or was it? The glass held only the violet and yellow of the night street. Even the cleaners’d be gone home now.
He stepped out of the shadow. In the window opposite he saw himself sliding, misshapen and jerky across its surface, the bag beside him. He felt a sudden rage at his own fear and his weakness. He really should try to get someone else in on these jobs, even if it meant splitting the take and having to do more. Was that perfume still hanging in the air? Leaking out of the bloody car. Bastards have everything they want. He swung the bag and turned as the weight pulled his arm up. The bag rose to its full height overhead, came down with a thump on the hatchback window and fell through.
The car alarm shrieked. He yanked the bag out of the hole and swung again. It hit dead on. The hole in the glass was the size of a television screen now. The perfume coming out of the hole in the clouded window stung high up in his nose. He grabbed the leather jacket and threw it to the ground. His fingers scrabbled at the limit of his arm’s reach for the Walkman. He leaned in until his feet came off the pavement. A camera too. Must have been under the coat. The alarm’s shrieking seemed to be lighting up the whole street, knifing into his brain. The tennis
