“Andy! You’ve got to, man!”
Footsteps again, in a hurry. Was the guy going away? They stopped.
He rolled around again. The kick seemed to stop everything. Colours, noise, the stink of his own sweaty clothes. His mother’s face when she’d be asleep in front of the telly. The trees in the Park. He was falling now, and there was nothing he could do.
“Well, you seem to know what you want,” said Kathleen. He eyed her.
“We’re having a heat wave, Kathleen. And it’s a celebration.”
“Any excuse.”
Minogue nodded to the barman. The Minogues were in Gerry Byrne’s pub in Galloping Green. Minogue liked the place a lot less since the management had banished darts from the bar. With the darts had gone the working- class clientele. Bar and lounge alike now routinely housed clutches of men in golf sweaters.
“You’re taking it very well,” he observed.
“What choice do I have? I often thought it’d lead to this. Her and Pat. Their arrangement.”
He pushed his empty glass with his forefinger.
“We can’t live in the past, Matt. God is good.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. He had expected fireworks, tears, a call to arms. It was dusk when he had rolled into the driveway. He had hurried her out. For a drive, she had asked? At this time of the evening?
“She’s never had a real job,” he said. “And Pat looks like he’ll stay a student another while.”
“Listen,” she said. “I’ll tell you one thing about Pat. His decision to be married in a church stands to him. He must have known, and that’s why he insisted. Whatever else he’s done, he’s gone up in my estimation, I can tell you that.”
The barman let down a fresh pint.
“She knows how we think anyway,” Kathleen went on. “She can never say that she didn’t. God knows we’ve had enough rows about this and matters like it this last while. Woman’s right to choose and all the rest of it.”
Minogue took his change and a mouthful of the lager. Who would sleep the least tonight, he wondered: Iseult, Kathleen or himself? What about Pat? He took another gulp.
“I want to talk to her tomorrow,” she said. “So make sure you phone her early.”
“Yes, Kathleen.”
“Now! I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I won’t get dug into her.”
“I know you won’t.”
She frowned as she examined some part of his shirt collar. Her voice fell to a murmur.
“She could never do wrong by you, could she?”
He looked down at the stain left by the glass.
“She couldn’t, Kathleen. She could not.”
He looked up from the counter and met her eyes. They were hard and tired. She blinked and looked away again. She reached in under her cuffs. No hanky. She slid off the stool and made her way to the toilet.
“Rain, Matt,” said the barman as he filled another pint. “Can you believe anyone these days-is that yours, that bleeping thing?”
Minogue switched off the pager, unhitched it from his belt and looked at the message. The Squad number. Kathleen passed him as he picked up the phone.
“Have you a twenty pence piece for this thing?” he asked her.
The Guard was a lanky recruit with a recent haircut. He was reading the paper when the Inspector walked in. He stood and dropped the paper on the chair behind him.
“Howiya,” said Minogue. He studied the face on the pillow. One eye was completely closed. Iodine stains all down the same side of his face. The lips were swollen, held together at their corners by dried blood.
“Is he sleeping or is he-”
The eyes flickered but only one opened.
“Ah.” Minogue walked closer. A bandage had been tied under his arm and then across his other shoulder. The bruise seemed to be spreading away from the bandage as he watched. Broken rib or ribs, Minogue guessed. Collar-bone maybe. The one eye was covered in a film but it followed him as he leaned in over the bed.
“Well. They really did a number on you. Any idea who?”
The eye stayed on his face but it remained out of focus. Minogue turned to the Guard. The Guard shook his head. Minogue sat down on the edge of the bed.
“I’m Matt Minogue. An Inspector down at the Murder Squad. We’ve talked before, Liam.”
He scrutinized the eye for a reaction.
“You nearly left it too late there, Liam.”
The eye slid away but the lips moved a little.
“Who did that to you? The Egans?”
The eye travelled across the ceiling, lingered on something and drifted off to the far side of the room. Minogue got up again and motioned to the Guard. They stood by the window.
“Not a word, huh? Well, can he talk? Is his jaw broken or something?”
“He was talking to the lads who found him. He told them he was okay and to leave him alone. He’d had a row with mates of his but it was okay.”
The Guard had halitosis. Minogue held his breath.
“Then he collapsed again?”
“Yep. Hasn’t said a word since. No ID, no money. Kind of pissed. It was Mooney who thought he’d seen him somewhere before. Mooney used to work out of Crumlin. He’d arrested him a few years back. He remembered the last name so he sent it in on the way here to the hospital. Your mob had the name tagged. Is it the fella you’re looking for?”
Minogue had to breathe again. He stepped back and turned to the bed.
“I think so.”
He let his eyes linger on the man he believed was Leonardo Hickey. The eye was still open, staring at the ceiling.
“Liam?”
He could see the effort the man was using not to look over.
“Liam. You won’t make it a second time. Don’t throw yourself away, man.”
The eye began its slow tour of the ceiling again. Minogue took another step back toward the bed.
“They’ll kill you next time, Liam.”
The eye found Minogue.
“You don’t believe me?”
The lips began to move but they didn’t part. Minogue sat on the bed again.
“Tell me about Mary in the old days, Liam. Before she got mixed up in the life. Before you lost her.”
The jaw quivered and the eye closed. A tear erupted from the corner of the eyelid. The hand that came up from under the sheet was heavily bandaged.
“When you were kids, Liam. Before all this trouble. Before all this mess. Tell me about Mary then. The friends you had, Jammy Tierney and them. The things you liked to do.”
TWENTY-THREE
Minogue rubbed at his eyes again. They were burning. It was just gone nine o’clock. He’d slept four hours last night. He’d be destroyed by the middle of the day. Kathleen was still rummaging in her handbag. He looked down along by Stephen’s Green at the bank of clouds. No mirage. Did they seem so white just because they were high?
“Yes, I have it,” said Kathleen. She brandished the money-purse. “I thought for a minute I’d left it at home. The head is gone on me.”
