Kilmartin opened his eyes wide again. No wonder Eilis had headed for the sanctuary of the ladies’ toilet, Minogue thought. Perhaps he should join her there.
“Grand thanks. Grand. No problem.”
“No, em, questions you couldn’t answer?”
“Man dear, there are no questions that I couldn’t answer.”
“Virgin Birth, then. Start with that one. How’d they do it?”
Minogue’s taunt had no noticeable effect. Instead of provoking Kilmartin into wrath, his colleague merely looked down at the floor and shook his head.
“Ah, Matt, Matt. Will you never get sense? Always the wag. Always the tart quips. That’s attention seeking, you know. No. Keane and Co. were intrigued, I’ll tell you that. Very intrigued. Of course, I was well-briefed. I had nothing to worry about, did I?”
Minogue ran his tongue around his upper teeth while he gave Kilmartin the eye.
“Oh, yes,” Kilmartin went on. “Got the signal very early on. I knew things were going to go smooth.”
“Ah.”
“ ‘Ah’ yourself. Did you phone him?”
“Phone who?”
“The Iceman. He was sitting up there at the head of the table. Looking very pleased with himself.”
“John Tynan?”
“Did you phone him?”
“Yes.”
Kilmartin slowly nodded.
“Well, now. I sort of thought so. As I was saying. Tynan set the mood. Do you want to know what happened? Of course you do. Yes, Tynan backed us up to the hilt. What’s this he said again? Something about orthodoxy for its own sake… Very smart, I remember thinking… Ah, I forget. Anyway. It’s Keane’s stuff now. He thinks he can use the bit in Tierney’s statement more than Kenny’s. About the source of the drugs, I mean. It’s a bit better than hearsay so he might just stuff a warrant with it when they pounce. Says it’ll be a handy option for when they put the drop on the Egans.”
“The bit about what Mary said on the phone to Tierney?”
“Yup. How she was out of her mind worrying that Eddsy’d come after her if she couldn’t come up with the money. Odd she never mentioned Kenny to anyone, says Keane to me later. Who cares, says I.”
“Kenny was her own job, I think. She didn’t even mention Tierney’s name to Kenny when she threatened him with the same Tierney either. She’d learned to keep things in different compartments.”
“Um. I think you have it there all right, old bean. Yes. Keane wanted to talk to me all day about the whole thing. So did Daly, the other fella… Oh, yes. Well, I left them shaking their heads, so I did. You know the style.”
Indeed Minogue did. Few things pleased James Kilmartin more than seeing other Guards slack-jawed about how the Murder Squad closed a case. Keep ’em guessing was so often Kilmartin’s byword.
“What a dummy though,” said Kilmartin. “Tierney, I mean. Right thick. A sucker.”
Minogue sat back and looked out the window. Kilmartin’s mood seemed to be holding.
“She turned to him in her hour of need and all that,” added Kilmartin.
Minogue’s mind went to the canal that night, to Mary Mullen’s panicked vigil by the bridge. The minutes must have crawled by for her, worse as each passed. Everything was crumbling about her, slipping away, falling back into the world of fear and violence which she had grown into and struggled to shake free of. Kenny’s expression when he had talked about her that night: where did she get the ideas she had about how money was made, from the television or something? She had tried to cross the line but Kenny had left her out there in the night.
“Whatever about Tierney, that Kenny fella should swing for some of this,” said Minogue. “I’m going to look it over again and get some advice toward a file.”
Kilmartin nodded. Minogue fell back to wondering. And who else could Mary Mullen have turned to? She had learned too well how to shut others out, to keep her secrets and her ambitions free within herself alone. That was what had gotten to Patricia Fahy, that reserve of Mary’s, her refusal to admit another into her life. Her determination to win out, to make it.
“Only Tierney,” murmured Minogue.
“What?”
“She phoned Tierney because she knew he couldn’t turn her down.”
“And that’s where it went wrong, you know,” said Kilmartin. “That’s what I decided on the way here in the car. She might have been able to work it out with the Egans. Sure we’ll never know. The main thing is the bullet- proof statement from her nibs, Fahy.”
Minogue remembered when he too had concluded that Patricia Fahy’s statement was what would send her away for murdering her flat-mate. It was when Malone had paused during the reading aloud of the statement she had signed, that he, Minogue, had felt eyes on him. They had belonged to Patricia Fahy’s lawyer and, for that moment, they had a resigned cast to them.
“So,” said Kilmartin. “Any forensic on her helmet yet?”
“No word yet. Maybe I should phone Eimear again.”
Kilmartin waved the suggestion away.
“I tell you, Matt, I believe Tierney when he says he didn’t know until they got home. I do.”
“I sort of believe him myself.”
Kilmartin lit a cigarello.
“Sure, how was he to know he’d started the whole thing just by telling the girl-friend, the Fahy one? I mean, he probably thought it was for the best. Let her have a chat with Mary, see if the two women could sort it out. Calm her down a bit maybe.”
Minogue nodded his agreement.
“And then he lets her have her way,” Kilmartin went on. “Letting her go down to the bridge to talk to Mary first. But did he really think that the Fahy one could sort it out or something? I say he was too scared to go down and talk to her himself.”
Minogue looked over at the thoughtful face of his colleague.
“He thought Patricia Fahy could help out. She admits to suggesting it.”
Kilmartin blew out a cloud of smoke.
“When she takes off the helmet and Mary sees who it is, that’s when the shouting and roaring starts. Patricia Fahy loses her cool and lashes out with the helmet. Bang! And that’s that. Some rap off one of those if you’re swinging it, man. Ow.”
Kilmartin slid his jacket off his shoulder and sat back further on the desk-top. He planted his cigarello between his lips. Minogue looked down at his job list. Eilis returned from the bathroom, nodded at Kilmartin and threw a quick glance at Minogue.
“How’s himself,” she said.
“Steady enough, Eilis. For the day that’s in it. Count us off operational with the Mary Mullen case now, will you. We’ll start back with the hit-and-run John Murtagh has tagged there, rake through the-”
Minogue was closest to the phone. He continued to study Kilmartin’s jacket while Iseult talked. A summer- weight wool, he guessed. That’d be two hundred quid’s worth.
“Did you hear me?”
“Sorry,” he said. “I was distracted. Half twelve, you said.”
“And we’ll bring the stuff. The rolls and things. You like red, right?”
“With soda water, yes.”
“And we’ll bring something waterproof for the grass.”
“Good.”
“You know where I mean now? You won’t get lost?”
“Yes. No. By the trees, back from the fence near the camels.”
“And we’ll pick up Ma, don’t you worry.”
They had a car, he had nearly forgotten.
“I won’t worry.”
