everything in its place.”
A key was inserted deftly in the hall door. It opened immediately. Paws slid and scratched on the lino.
“I’m back, Mary!”
“Keep Timmy on the lead now, Joe. I have a visitor here.”
Mrs. Byrne’s eyes darted from the cooker to Minogue and back.
“Who?” Joe Byrne called out. The dog barked. Minogue heard metal tinkle-the lead, he decided-and a door close. The next bark was muffled.
“Come in and don’t be shouting at me, Joey.”
Joe Byrne appeared in the doorway. Minogue half stood and watched the frown slide down Byrne’s forehead. He felt that familiar voltage course through him, and he looked for that sign, that recognition of contact, from one who might be or might become his quarry.
“Hello, now, Mr. Byrne. We met the other day, you and I.”
Byrne’s eyes disappeared behind the reflections of the window in his glasses.
“The, em, canal? Oh, yes.”
Minogue kept staring at the dual images on the lenses.
“On the news, Joey,” said Mary Byrne. “They were asking for any… The poor girl!”
Several moments passed. Byrne’s eyes seemed to have locked onto his wife’s. Minogue still couldn’t see through the reflections on his glasses. His lips twitched once. He turned to Minogue.
“I don’t know what she told you, but you’d have to take it with a grain of salt now. I mean, you know the way the women are.”
“Will we sit down and have a chat maybe?”
For a moment he expected Byrne to tell him to get lost. The lips moved, the tongue pushed at a denture. Byrne dipped his head and his eyes came into view again. He blinked several times.
“All right. So’s I can set you to rights here now.”
Mrs. Byrne moved stiffly around the kitchen, filling the kettle and taking down cups and saucers.
“Are yous, I suppose, getting along with it?”
“Not as I would like-as we would like, I should say, Mr. Byrne.”
Byrne pushed his glasses back up his nose. Big hands, thought Minogue. The dog began scratching at the door.
“Mary. I’ll finish the tea now. We’ll let this man talk here with me, won’t we? I’ll bring you a cuppa there now in the front room.”
Mary Byrne scuffed her way over the lino, blocking the dog’s entry while she closed the door behind her.
“What did she tell you?” Byrne asked.
“That you took a walk there later on the night Mary was murdered.”
“So…?”
“So it sounds like you wanted to hide something.”
Byrne’s eyes left his and went to the bottom of the door.
“So it’s a matter of getting our facts and information straight now.”
Byrne looked up and rubbed his nose.
“Are yous going around the area, like? To see if anyone knows anything?”
“We need to take a walk down by the canal, you and I, Mr. Byrne.”
Joe Byrne’s lips began to move again but he closed them tight. He had been carrying a carton of milk from the fridge. He raised it and looked at it before placing it on the table.
“But tell me first about that night.”
“Nice,” said Byrne. The alarm yipped as Minogue pressed the remote. He dropped the keys into his pocket.
“Dear enough, the Citroen,” Byrne went on. He looked down at the styled aluminium wheels while they waited for a truck to pass. “But they lose their value quick.”
“You were in the motor trade, Mr. Byrne?”
“ ’Deed and I was. I remember those Citroens during the war. They were a good yoke back then.”
Byrne had gotten over his sulk anyhow, Minogue concluded. They crossed to the canal bank. Byrne took off his glasses and began wiping them with a hanky.
“Up by the bridge here, you said?”
Some faint movement around Byrne’s mouth lodged in Minogue’s mind. Byrne stepped down onto the bank ahead of him.
“I don’t know what Mary told you, now, but-”
“You went for a walk later on. After she had gone to bed. Half ten or thereabouts?”
“Well…”
“Well what? You didn’t think it worth your while to phone us after you had learned there was a murder here? Even after I bumped into you the other day?”
Byrne put his glasses back on. He cleared his throat.
“Well, like I was telling you earlier on, Mary now, she doesn’t have the full run of herself, you know.”
Minogue stepped in front of Byrne.
“Mr. Byrne. Give over complaining about the state of the nation and get down to details. It was half-ten and you going out that night, right?”
Byrne bit his lip.
“After the UTV news. I don’t need much sleep this last while. When you get on a bit, you know…?”
He nodded toward the railings by the bridge.
“Anyway. Down there, where you can’t see. There’s a little corner there. As a matter of fact, you can get in under the bridge there if the water’s not up. There’s a path.”
The Inspector looked down at the dry grass which had been trampled into the ground. God Almighty, the worst place. The patches of clay were flattened, packed hard. He spotted squashed cigarette butts, foil bubble-gum wrappers.
“Were you down here on the bank?”
“God, no! I wouldn’t go down there. I was up above on the footpath.”
Minogue stared at the ground again: look at the grid and get the lads who had gone over this part. Maybe it wasn’t too late.
“Half-ten?”
“More like a quarter to eleven, actually.”
The streets would be empty as people ran into the pubs for last call, Minogue reflected. He turned back to Byrne.
“Listen, Mr. Byrne. I want you to do something for me. Go back up onto the street there, up by the bridge. Go the way you were walking, the pace especially. I’m going to call out to you from that corner there. I want to know whether you can see me. Keep me in sight there until I give you the billy to go on.”
Minogue studied the ground ahead of him as he made his way forward. Weeds; beer can; broken glass. He squatted down. Bits of newspaper two weeks old, yellowed already. He stood, leaned in and peered around an abutment which formed a retaining wall for the railings and wall overhead. A torn plastic supermarket bag. More cigarette butts, a tin squashed, its brand unrecognizable. He turned around and saw Byrne’s head and shoulders above the wall.
“Okay,” he called up to him. “I’m heading around this thing here and I’m going to move right over to the wall by the bridge. Count to ten or more so’s I’m there ahead of you. Start your walk then, the same way you did the other night.”
Byrne pushed at his glasses and nodded. Minogue stepped around the pieces of rubbish. The noise of the traffic receded as he closed on the corner where the bridge met the wall. The water eddied out toward him from under the bridge, dark and sluggish. He finished his count.
“You up there, Mr. Byrne?” His voice echoed.
“What?” faintly from above.
“Huh,” Minogue muttered. “You can’t hear me either.”
