full-time on airport leads was little enough for Tynan to take. He looked at the blank TV screen. No phones ringing. The nine o’clock news would deliver?
“‘Touring the west,’” said Minogue. “Where’d that one start?”
“The girl at Emerald,” Murtagh said “She’s certain. He asked how long to Donegal. She advised going through Sligo and staying out of the North.”
And he might well have taken her advice, Minogue thought. He’d push that over to Tynan too. The commissioner could decide for himself who’d put in the request for assistance from the Brits on border traffic. The phone rang.
“Yes it is,” the detective said. He waved at the group by the boards. “Good. What’s her number?”
“John,” said Minogue. “The one who thinks he was traveling with a woman. Did you get anything there?”
“It’s the one in Sligo, Mrs. Rushe. I had a chat with her about four o’clock. She said that Shaughnessy showed up looking for a place. ‘Nice enough, American.’ Half an hour later, a woman shows up and signs in. ‘ Irish, well dressed.’ She had her own car, but Mrs. doesn’t know what kind. Signed in as Sheila Murphy. ‘Nice girl,’ midto late- thirties. Well spoken. It was only the next day Mrs. got the idea that the woman and Shaughnessy might be connected. Chatting at the breakfast, they were, says she.”
“A color even?” Minogue tried. “The car, I mean?”
“Nothing on that. I’ll have to try again.”
“They left around the same time anyway,” said Murtagh.
“Does Mrs. know who was sleeping where that night?” Minogue asked.
“She doesn’t be inquiring, she says. As long as there’s no messing going on.”
B amp; Bs in rural Ireland not checking for wedding rings or the like? Now there was progress, Minogue reflected. He’d tell Leyne that too, if he was asked.
Murtagh nodded at the computer screen.
“There’s no Sheila Murphy in the crime box,” he said. “Social Welfare has thirty-seven Sheila Murphys. Twenty-something of them could match the age.”
“Any description of this woman to go on, John?”
“‘Refined’ ‘Casual, but well turned out.’ She thought Dublin first, but says she heard a country accent under it. Very fair hair, stylish do. A pageboy kind of cut, Mrs. said, the way you see it in the magazines. Jeans though. An over-the-shoulder class of bag was all Mrs. saw. Paid cash.”
“She went out later on in the evening?”
“She did. So did Shaughnessy. Mrs. heard one of them coming in about twelve. Only one, she thought, but then she heard some whispering. She didn’t check who went where.”
“A one-night stand?” asked Malone. “Did you ask her about the sheets?”
Minogue leafed through the photos again. He lifted out the one taken at the opening of the art exhibition. The woman’s back was to the camera. You could only see from her shoulders up. Her hair was blond.
“A hairdo like that, maybe?”
Murtagh sat back.
“I suppose I’ll be looking out for it.”
One of the detectives handed an information slip to Murtagh.
“Call in from Donegal, a garage in Gweedore. A fella thinks he sold petrol to Shaughnessy awhile back. He doesn’t remember any red car. He’s going to go back into the books and see.”
“Follow it,” said Minogue. “Get a statement out of him. The day’s the first thing we need — and if there was a woman in the car too.”
The phone rang again while Murtagh was plotting a route on the map with the end of his Biro and guessing the times it took to drive without stops. Minogue watched Brophy writing up the information form. The other line rang.
“A bit of life now,” said Sheehy. “Maybe we’ll get the jump yet.”
Minogue wrenched his gaze away from Brophy’s Biro. The biscuits has done in his appetite. He wondered about soup. He should phone Kathleen and let her know he’d be late. As if she didn’t know. He was getting a headache. The phones had gone silent again. He didn’t want to go checking in with Tynan.
Eilis was signing for an envelope from a courier when he stepped out into the squad room. Murtagh had taken the package already and had opened the flap. Photos slid out. Contact sheet, seven or eight 8 x 10s with yellow stickies on them.
Murtagh laid them out on his desk.
“These are the indies your man contacted for us.”
It was Sheehy who spotted her first. Minogue looked at the tag.
“That’s the same gig,” said Murtagh. “The art exhibit. Look: Shaughnessy there next to her. Give us the other one there — see the hair, the collar. That’s her.”
“Here she is again,” said Sheehy. He pointed to a group standing in front of a blown-up shot with fields and stones stretching to the horizon.
“Not the one with the belly and the dickey bow,” said Malone. “The Humpty Dumpty looking fella.”
Murtagh had pulled off the tag.
“That’s some European Commission somebody. And that’s her, according to this guy, O’Toole. Aoife Hartnett. The Humpty Dumpty fella there is Sean Garland. Dr. Garland, a big one in the museum. The opening of some exhibition at the National Museum. The… C-a-r-r-a? Carra Fields, it looks like.”
“O’Toole,” said Minogue. “The photographer? Have we a phone number for him there?”
Murtagh scribbled on a notepad and slid it whole across to Minogue.
“Casual enough there,” Malone murmured. “Shaughnessy I mean.”
Minogue studied the group again. Murtagh read out the list of names Turloch O’Toole had written on the tag Museum staff, a member of the European Commission with a French name. Some smiler from Mayo County Council, another one from Bord Failte. The daughter of the schoolmaster who’d stumbled across the site. Minogue let his eyes rest on the photo for several moments. He turned to Malone.
“Portugal, huh,” said Malone.
Murtagh slid a file folder out from under the photos, took out two pages stapled together, and laid it on the table.
“There’s a copy of that statement from Garland there. It’s an approximate about Shaughnessy’s visit, when he showed up — as Patrick Leyne, mind you. There’s staff phone numbers and extensions there. Her address is Terenure somewhere. It’s on the search we sent to Aer Lingus to see what flight she took.”
Minogue couldn’t make out much of the other pictures in the backdrop behind the group. There was a piece of a diagram with back spots and some pattern, half of the title visible: The Carra Fields, a Stone Age enclosure of 3,000 acres that was causing people to rewrite all the history books. Was it Kathleen who’d mentioned them awhile ago? Kilmartin?
“John,” he called out. “Can we get ahold of Garland this time of the day?”
Murtagh was halfway through a bag of cheese and onion crisps. He looked around for something to wipe the grease off his fingers before he plucked at the file.
CHAPTER 9
The voice was shrill, querulous. Seventies at least, Minogue guessed. Rambling probably, was Mrs. Garland.
“Who is it again?” she demanded. “A Guard?”
The piping, haughty tone was sweetened with what he believed must be a Cork, a dignified Cork, accent.
“Minogue, ma’am. I’m an inspector in the Guards.”
“Minogue? Clare, sure where else. You’re a Corofin Minogue now, are you?”
“Further west, ma’am. Where might your son be?”
