“That’s right.”
“With the drugs in the car.”
“With the package in the car, yes.”
“You wanted to teach her a lesson.”
“I never said that. I planned to come back later and try again. See if she had cooled down. See if I could talk some sense into her.”
“You made no attempt to find more money.”
“Absolutely not. No way! Look. You know I’m telling you the truth. I’m not going to grovel. Just look at the proof I’ve given you!”
“Proof? Sorry. Proof of what, now?”
“Proof that I’m telling you the truth! Proof I had nothing to do with what happened to Mary.”
Minogue looked down at the table-top, at the random marks of a biro from some other interview. Couldn’t the cleaners get them off or what? He rubbed at them with the heel of his hand.
“Mr. Kenny,” he said, and rubbed harder on the marks. “I have to tell you that I’m puzzled.”
“Puzzled? Okay. I mean, why? I don’t get it.”
“Puzzled. You are not obviously a stupid man. You have waived, or at least not exercised, the right to be represented by counsel. You have tendered information to us here, all building up to a substantial and useful statement, a statement I’m assuming you’ll sign your name to this evening.”
“I stand over everything I said here, that’s right.”
“Good, Mr. Kenny. Very good. Listen, now. You are right to be afraid of the Egans. It is a sensible and natural reaction. It’s an adaptive behaviour which has brought us out of the mud and the jungle to a fine city like ours here. With all its faults, of course. Many people are afraid of the Egans. That is business for the Egans. They make money out of fear. Now you seem to recognize that your rashness had led you to a pretty pass here. It’s after bringing you over the line where the law is concerned.”
“Technically, maybe,” said Kenny. “But you’ll see the package with your own eyes. It hasn’t been touched by me. Where is that Guard anyway, the one who I gave-you gave-my house-key to? He should be back by now, shouldn’t he? I never gave you or any Guard permission to search the flat for anything more than that, to retrieve that package, I mean.”
“Traffic,” said Minogue. “You know how it is. Dublin wasn’t designed for traffic.”
Kenny tapped his fingers flat on the palm of his other hand.
“Look. I swear it was never opened. Don’t you understand? It was Mary who made the arrangement, the time. If she had been there, I would have given it back to her. I would have dumped it on the path at the very least if she was still nuts. If she had just been there! You see? She should have been there when she said. I keep thinking that. She should have been there.”
Wrong, thought Minogue. Mary Mullen didn’t belong there. She had worked her way out of that place. She had been determined never to go back.
“You were late, Kenny,” he murmured. ”That’s what did it.”
Kenny’s stare slid to the table-top. His hands began to work through his hair again.
“You wanted to teach her a lesson,” Minogue went on. “Didn’t you?”
“I never thought…”
“You wanted to show her that you weren’t going to be pushed around by a-well, Mr. Kenny, perhaps you have the word for her? No? ‘Who does she think she is,’ right?”
“You’ve got it wrong. The most of it anyway.”
“Okay, Mr. Kenny. This is why I said I am puzzled. You have told us things that could incriminate you further. And still you haven’t gone baying for a solicitor.”
“I’ve nothing to hide.”
“I’ve worked on the Squad a while, Mr. Kenny. I have this picture of you in my mind’s eye, driving over to the canal. On time. Ahead of time, even. I see you annoyed at her. Ready to lose your temper. You look after yourself, Mr. Kenny. In the physical line, I mean. Bet you have a substantial arm from that squash, don’t you?”
“Squash? What does that have to do with anything?”
“You have means, Mr. Kenny. You have motive. Client or no client, dinner or no dinner, you cannot yet account for all of your movements that evening. So now I see that you have opportunity.”
He stopped and looked at Kenny’s head going from side to side. Were the roots a different colour?
“All right. Let’s go at it again. The first time, she dropped the bag onto your lap…”
“Are you sure?” asked Kilmartin. Minogue’s mug slipped and hit the desk-top with a bang.
“Not once,” he repeated.
“Ah, go on with you. I bet he knew, the bugger. Accountants aren’t stupid, you know. He’d have guessed you’d be looking for the giveaway. ‘Expecting’? ‘Pregnant’?”
Minogue said nothing. He looked over at Malone. The detective was still talking quietly into the phone. Leaning in over the desk-top, Malone seemed to be trying to smooth the deep lines in his forehead.
“Not even ‘in trouble’?” said Kilmartin. “That’s a good old reliable, isn’t it?”
“No. He thinks he had been set up from the beginning. He puts it down to pressure on her from the Egans to rope him in good and proper.”
“Huh. Maybe he thinks he has us codded. Kenny. Any percentage in us picking him up again and working on him tonight?”
Minogue looked down into his own mug. Paris: capitale du monde. Kathleen had bought it for him four years ago. He had mended the same break in the handle twice now.
“No, Jim. Let him sit in it. A sleepless night will do him good.”
“Joseph Byrne,” said Kilmartin. “The oul lad with the dog and the honest wife. He hears the row at ten o’clock. Kenny gets there late for the showdown, the final payment. It could fit.”
Kilmartin pushed a folder in toward the centre of the desk-top and folded his arms. He stared at Minogue’s mug from Paris for several moments. Then his face wrinkled up and he twitched.
“Ah, Christ,” he hissed. “What am I thinking? Sure Byrne is half blind! I saw a copy of his prescription that you got. Jesus, he couldn’t see the Holy Ghost if He appeared to him at the end of the bloody bed. Couldn’t put Byrne in a witness box, man. It’d be a circus.”
Minogue took another mouthful of coffee. He held it at the back of his mouth before he let it drop down his throat. Malone was nodding slowly now. He could see the mark of the ear-piece on Malone’s ear as he shifted it. He looked at the clock. Phone Iseult’s again. Kilmartin rubbed his eyes.
“Kenny didn’t think she was bluffing about getting a heavy to work him over,” said Minogue.
“I’ll buy that all right. He believed her enough to rake up a good lump of money.”
“So did she, could she, would she?”
Kilmartin looked across at Malone. Still yakking away. Looked worn-out.
“If it was a planned job from the start, in with the Egans, I mean, she would have called in the likes of Lenehan… Ahhh. A load of crap!”
“What is?”
“Almighty God!” Kilmartin cried out. “Maybe he didn’t clock her, but by God, he knows more than he’s told you! This Kenny creature… He’s lying, lying, lying. Frigging lying! Come on, man. Hold him over. Let him get as scared of us as he is of the bloody Egans!”
Minogue shrugged off Kilmartin’s pique.
“I still say leave him out there. Let him sweat.”
“If she’s freelance trying to put a con on Kenny, would she bluff about calling in a heavy? I don’t know… Hhhnnnkkk. God, the wind.”
A whiff of Kilmartin’s burp came to Minogue. Bluff, he wondered; would she have given Kenny another chance to come up with the money? Or had she run out of time?
“Never screeched for the solicitor in the end.”
Kilmartin wheezed and coughed and belched again.
“Huh. You’d expect the likes of him to be all over the shop, calling in the UN. Stampedes of barristers running down the halls.”
