“People actually leave their cars in a car park in the airport for days on end?” Malone asked.
“Gas, isn’t it,” said Sheehy. “The most of them are only a few days, but it’s getting popular.”
“If he was done outside and then the car was parked at the airport,” said Malone, “then someone had enough of a cool head to dust the shagging trail by taking the ticket from the car.”
“Or a clean-up man after the event,” said Minogue.
Murtagh turned up the volume. The first shot of the news item was of the whole table. A voice-over introduced Mrs. Shaughnessy and played the last of her words. A tear glittered but didn’t run.
“Here, look,” said Malone when Minogue came on. “You’re baldier than I thought you were, er, boss ”
The next shot was of Tynan. It was prefaced by a remark that the Gardai needed the help of the public. The Garda commissioner stared out at the viewers as he spoke. The Iceman indeed, thought Minogue. The help-line number appeared on the screen. Then the newscast veered off to a civil war in Africa.
A phone was ringing already. Murtagh lifted it and waved it at Minogue.
“You’re on the telly,” said Iseult.
“You’re in the paper,” he said “A paper, anyway.”
“Looked quite extinguished I’d have to say,” she said. “Tie done up, the hair combed.”
Minogue’s head had began to feel very heavy.
“Thanks for the slagging now,” he said. “I don’t get half enough on the job.”
“Ah grow up,” said his daughter. “Has Ma seen the Neighbors thing yet?”
He watched Sheehy pointing to the entry to the car park on the map of the airport. Eastlands, they called it. They christened car parks now?
“I don’t think so, love. Why don’t you phone her, find out?”
“Ah, I couldn’t. That’d be showing off!”
“Better you explain it before she sees it cold herself.”
“What do you mean, ‘cold’? And this ‘explain’ bit?”
“Well phone her up and do whatever gostering and the like you want.”
“I thought you were beyond that kind of thing. Since when does art need to be — ah, now I get it. She’s going to think it has to do with…”
“That’s right. Think it over, now. I have to go. We expect to be busy. People phoning like.”
“Oh the brush-off now, is it? Well I’ve me own things to do, you know.”
Minogue pushed his fingertips hard into his temples. Touchy, he’d forgotten.
“We’ll talk later, can we, love? You’re taking everything handy now, I hope?”
“It’s not a disease, Da. You’re like Pat. ‘Sit down, dear I’ll do that, dear.’”
The inspector squashed the urge to ask about Pat, how his lectures were going. Iseult’s husband lectured three days a week in Limerick. Kathleen had been sharply rebuffed again the other day with her inquiries. She had been petrified to learn from Iseult herself that she, seven months pregnant, had been waist high in the sea by Killiney one evening recently. What in the name of God did she do that for? Wasn’t it cold, wasn’t the water dirty, couldn’t she have lost her footing even with Orla there? Didn’t she know how dangerous the tides were there? Iseult had cut her off. Didn’t Kathleen know about intrauterine intelligence? That babies learn so much in the womb? Imprinting? That they respond to music and talk?
Minogue remembered Kathleen trying to understand what Iseult was saying. He had turned up to a lunch date with Iseult to find her sound asleep on a seat in a great hall in the National Gallery. She was sprawled under an enormous picture, with a guide tiptoeing up and down next to her. Imprinting, she told him while she ate a meal bigger than his: her baby would feel the beauty she felt. A piano recital at the opening of a Cubist exhibition was proof, she told him. She’d never felt him — or her — move around so much.
“It’d please me to know you’re not going to be bungee jumping or the like ”
“Ah don’t be fussing! I’m only going out into the bay proper, for a real dip.”
“You’re serious? I can’t tell. I want to sleep — ”
“It’s all arranged. Orla’s da. He has a boat.”
“Any chance you’d swap that for a walk in the woods by Katty Gallagher?”
“What are you going to do, roll me up to the top?”
“I might. Tully, then — no climbing? A little pick-me-up in Jerry Byrnes on the way home. -”
“- Oh you’re cruel, so you are! I haven’t had a pint since I found out.”
“Sorry. I forgot. Watch me drinking one then, can’t you Imprint that?”
“Ah you’re a bad pill, Da!”
The smell of fresh tea brewing had made Minogue even dopier. He nibbled slowly on the biscuits. Nearly eight million a year passing through Dublin airport. He listened to the two detectives Murtagh had detailed to handle the call-ins. No, he assured one of them, they didn’t have to okay a follow-up by him. Murtagh was the ringmaster for communications within the squad, or what was now technically a task force. What procedures need they follow to secure resources from other Garda departments, a Serious Crime specialist, for example, one of the detectives wanted to know. Demand instant compliance, Minogue had murmured. Only half joking, he told the most visibly surprised, a Liam Brophy new to the pool from the Kevin Street station. Run it first by John Murtagh if he, the inspector, was not there.
He reminded them that all lines in were monitored and recorded. He warned them again that while most of their calls would be coming in through the switchboard, there could be directs. These were often the most valuable They needed to be handled with extreme care The request for a trace was automated now the orange button to the side of the redial. Signal immediately to a squad member if a direct came on: don’t worry about being overcautious. A corpulent, fuzzy-redhead detective named Boyle asked if they’d be detailed interviews on follow-ups.
It was only when Minogue was listening to Sheehy explaining why it would take so long to go through the flight lists for stand-by passengers that he remembered he had meant to phone Kathleen. He thought of the barbed wire, how Iseult had wound it around the piece. What have we done, I done, Kathleen must wonder, that my daughter could think like this. Nothing personal Ma, it’s art?
Sheehy moved on to a summary from Serious Crimes. A Danny Donegan from Fairview had tried a small ring of car specialists at the airport several years ago. One of his cronies, Peter “Bongo” Murphy, had been done for breaking into cars there. Murphy was currently in jail for later offenses: house breaking, several shops, a lorry load of beer he’d robbed at a new stop on the N 11, and tried to fence solo in Galway. Serious Crimes were stuck for staff as usual. They’d try to get time for follow-up on them. Drug Squad and Intelligence were compiling a list of operations they’d handled that had any airport connection.
Charlie Blake was the current liaison officer between the Gardai and the Airport Police and Fire Service. Minogue studied Blake’s profile while he spoke. What kind of a bird would have a beak like that nose of Blake’s, he wondered. The divinity that shapes our ends indeed. The way he tugged at his nose: was that body language for I don’t want to be here or I don’t really know what I’m talking about? Minogue picked up another biscuit, eyed it. Shouldn’t, he thought, and bit into it.
There was no organized ring working cars at the airport recently, Blake believed. The passenger baggage flows had all been done since the new terminal went up. Hoax runs had turned up excellent results. Money spent on state-of-the-art electronics, the imaging and the sensors, was paying off The last paramilitary run on the place had been two years ago: a header from a breakaway bunch of the UDA tried to place incendiaries. The APFS had done a joint snatch with some of Trigger Little’s squads. Minogue remembered a would-be bomber claiming that one of Trigger Little’s squad had shoved a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
“Fergal,” said Minogue “We keep on hearing video and electronics and the whole rigarmarole. So how come we find nothing on the car park?”
“‘Upgrading,’” said Sheehy. “‘Updating.’ ‘Long-term area’s not a priority zone.’”
“It would be if there was a shagging car bomb parked there,” said Malone.
Sheehy put up his hands. Minogue studied the map on the board again. He followed in his mind’s eye the access road in from the motorway.
“So I think we’ll have to ask…” Sheehy was saying. Minogue scrambled to retrace the comments he’d been half-listening to.
“To be sure, Fergal. I’ll phone myself and turn the wheel.”
Promised the world, he thought seconding two detectives from Serious Crimes, short of staff or not, to go
