Tynan clasped and then released his fingers.
“There’ll be a court injunction landing on her editor’s desk if he decides to leave her insinuation that we’re covering up anything in the Smith case.”
“When do these articles come out?”
“Well they’re not sure now. That’s their line anyway. She was doing a series: ‘The Changing of the Guard,’ or so we thought. Now they propose to open with this Larry Smith case. Want some previews? ‘Seriously disaffected’ ‘Malaise.’ ”
Minogue sipped more coffee. He felt O’Leary’s eyes on him. “Listen to me now,” Tynan said. “Do I care a damn what Jim Kilmartin thinks, or doesn’t think, about the criminal justice system, juvenile offenders, the murder of a Dublin gangster, the prison system, or the price of eggs in a modern Europe?”
He tapped his knuckles twice on the marble tabletop.
“A little tact, that’s all. There’s enough talk about things being out of hand. Racketeers, drug barons.”
Minogue sat back.
“I didn’t hear what Jim said. So how could she? She was further away.”
“You’re used to tuning him out when you want to. She heard enough.”
Minogue watched Tynan shove crumbs from a scone to the edge of the table. He wondered if Tynan would drop any hint that he had engineered Kilmartin’s absence for three weeks. A right operator, was Kilmartin’s take on Tynan.
“So,” Tynan went on, “You’re acting CO now. You may receive inquires from the media. That’s why we’re having a chat here. There are people who might let things slip by accident on purpose, if you take my meaning.”
Kilmartin had left bruises in his wake on investigations, Minogue knew.
“There could be inadvertent remarks,” said Tynan, “internal or external to the squad. Remarks that could be construed as lending credence to any innuendo leaking out of this article, this series.”
Tynan’s eyebrows crept up.
“Translation: watch your back. And watch who you say what to.”
“Why did Lawlor guest Gemma O’Laughlin into the Garda Club?”
Tynan’s eyes stayed on his for a moment. His jaw moved from side to side.
“Ask me a hard question, why don’t you. The idea was to allow her a glimpse of hardworking men and women relaxing off duty. The chat, the jokes. Good-natured, decent Garda officers. Sure, it was PR. But now we have her telling the public that the Murder Squad doesn’t know the difference between over seeing and over looking things in the investigation of the murder of a criminal.”
“Come on, John. The place is lousy with gossip. Always. She knows that.”
“Do you hear me arguing? The Larry Smith case is still open, isn’t it?”
“The Smiths would love to stick it to the Guards.”
“Sure,” said Tynan “But do you think that there are people who believe or want to believe that a death squad murdered Larry Smith because the law couldn’t get enough of him?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Wrong answer. You’re not a tabloid man. So you’re not up on this.”
“You’ll get someone to plea bargain,” Minogue said. “Wait and see. Sooner or later we’ll have some gouger sitting waiting on his lift to court and he’ll decide to sell us whoever killed Smith.”
“But there’s been no movement in the case, is there,” said Tynan. “Flat, right?”
“Well Intelligence summaries float in every week. But there haven’t been any fresh leads for months now.”
“Jim’s still trying to ram the file back in the letter box of Serious Crimes?”
“Sorry. We’ve tried. Can’t touch them. Get the RUC on it.”
“Paramilitaries down from Belfast still?”
“We’d still be going for that, yes. A contract, maybe. Drugs in it somewhere ”
Tynan licked his fingertip, picked up a crumb from his plate and examined it. A cell phone chirped at the far side of the restaurant. Minogue watched O’Leary slip a phone out of his jacket, pluck out the antenna, and turn away.
“So,” said Tynan. “We can expect more of those damned posters going up all over town.” He glanced up and saw that Minogue didn’t get it.
“No,” he added, “not the Citizen Against Drug Dealers ones. The phony ones that Smiths got up.”
Right, Minogue remembered No one had discovered for sure who had paid for the ones that had appeared weeks after the Smith killing: WANTED FOR MURDER OF LAWRENCE SMITH, HUSBAND AND FATHER: THE STATE AND THE GARDA SIOCHANA. He, like others, had put it down to some kind of bitter retort by Smith’s family or cronies. Smith himself, Smith the pusher and ringleader, had appeared on CADD posters as wanted for murder by causing overdoses and even several suicides.
“Enough of that,” said Tynan. “Last night, the airport. The American.”
Minogue thought back to the wind whipping at the nylon tarp over the car.
“He was beaten to death, John,” he said “Left in the boot of a car he rented.”
“How long is he dead?”
“A couple of days anyway. He might have been still alive when he was dumped in the boot.”
Tynan was watching O’Leary now. The sergeant pushed down the antenna and nodded at the commissioner. Tynan looked at his watch.
“Was that our ten o’clock?”
O’Leary nodded. Tynan looked back at Minogue.
“Tell me again, Matt. Sorry.”
“He was badly done about the head. I didn’t spot signs of a scrap yet.”
“Two or three days you’re thinking?”
“Probably,” Minogue said. “It was there the whole time, I’d imagine,” he went on. “There was a dent, and a break in the seal under the spare tire. I’d bet the car was driven hard somewhere. Hit a rock sticking up in a boreen or a rock flying up under it maybe.”
“Why only yesterday evening then?”
“Derek Mitchell had his eyes open, if you’re asking. Security. He’s new.”
Tynan stared at the sugar bowl.
“Is this because he was an American, John?”
Tynan glanced up and then resumed his study of the sugar lumps.
“Well he was booked into Jury’s for Saturday night,” said Minogue. “His ticket out was for Monday. Missing Persons told me the nearest they had was a stay in a bed-and-breakfast in Sligo on the Wednesday. The C65 went out a week yesterday.”
Tynan settled his cup on his saucer and turned the spoon to face Minogue.
“I’d be expecting better after we do a press release.”
“All right,” said Tynan. “You’ll need to know this. I had three calls from the States about Shaughnessy. One of these calls was from the State Department. Shaughnessy’s family was distressed to learn that he had not returned on schedule to the U.S. One call from our Minister of Justice.”
“We’re going as fast as we can. We phoned him in as probable just after we secured the car last night — ”
“- Let me finish now. The second call was from the American ambassador.”
Tynan gazed at Minogue.
“And he expressed his thanks in anticipation of our keen efforts in the matter.”
This was what unsettled Kilmartin the most, Minogue thought: Tynan’s faculty of transparent irony. Kilmartin took it to be sarcasm.
“Thanks in advance,” said Minogue. “That’s always nice. A sort of a bonus.”
Tynan’s eyes wandered the table top now.
“So Shaughnessy’s family were alarmed then,” Minogue tried.
“His father had an associate here in Ireland phone us. That associate told me Shaughnessy’s people were concerned — well before the missed plane.”
