history stuff?
He watched the slide show move from Vikings to Medieval Dublin, sounds of battle gave way to the marketplace. There’d be plenty more of the battle sound track, he reflected.
Higgins clicked the mouse and the screen froze. He took the can of Pepsi and squeezed it with his fingers in and out.
“It’s a new paradigm,” he said. “Do you have paradigms in the Guards?”
“We have a specially trained squad alright, but it’s very hush-hush. How did you get to hear about it?”
Higgins continued to flick the mouse around in short, precise moves.
“With digital technology and telecommunications, we broadcast. We send out, like. People can download the information. Words, pictures, sounds, short movies even. We don’t wait for people to come to us anymore. No need to wait for planeloads from Cleveland to hit Shannon for this.”
“Tourism you mean. Or entertainment?”
Higgins spread his hands. Why that gesture — indifference, resignation, indecision — reminded him of a priest’s gestures at mass, Minogue didn’t know.
“Heritage, isn’t it?”
Minogue stared at Higgins but he had turned back to the computer.
“All working out is it?”
“Everything’s on target, yes. We’re looking good.”
Malone was walking through the doorway, Garland fussing behind him.
“Do you have a number I can reach you at, Dermot?”
“The museum number. There’s voice mail now.”
“I mean outside of the place.”
Higgins turned back to Minogue. Garland was saying something to Malone about a meeting date next Monday that Aoife would be chairing.
“Why?” Higgins asked. “What for?”
“Just a chat maybe. Talk about virtual reality or the like?”
Higgins eyebrows arched.
“It’s neither,” he said “I’m just a programmer.”
Minogue laid his card on the table next to the mouse. Higgins picked it up. He scrutinized it and looked up at the inspector.
“Minogue‘ Is that you? I thought I heard Muldoon or something. Wait a minute. I know you. You were in the paper the other day.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Not you, wait. It said you were with the Murder Squad. A sister of yours? Some family connection? Something to do with the arts.”
“Iseult; I’ve a daughter,” said Minogue.
Higgins rapped at the table with a knuckle.
“That’s what it was. She’s the one with the Holy Family?”
“Quite the yapper,” said Malone, “is what he is. Cagey too, but wouldn’t let on.”
“Drawers weren’t locked?”
“No. I just walked in and started on her desk. While you were playing video games out there with Super Mario.”
Malone edged the Nissan up on the footpath by a cordoned-off hole in the street near Dawson Street.
“Heard of Ovation, Tommy?”
“Like a standing ovation?”
“Same word, yes.”
“A new brand of johnnies. Condoms, like?”
“Try again.”
“Chocolates.”
“Jimmy’s right about you. A right barbarian. All right, try ‘online’?”
“Methadone clinic?”
“‘Interactive’?”
“This one’s easy: all the way on your first date.”
“Try telecommunication, then.”
“Another easy one. Phoning the ’mot to see if she’ll take me out for a few jars. Come on, will you. Give me a tough one.”
“‘Download.’”
“Same thing. You drink a feed of beer, like, you download them.”
“Haven’t you picked up anything from John Murtagh?”
He’d try Murtagh then. The same Murtagh remained a computing enthusiast. He complained about bugs and crashes but he enjoyed fixing them. Minogue couldn’t understand it. He recalled Eilis taunting Murtagh about something called Flight Simulator.
“You want a Big Mac?”
Minogue sighed. It was Murtagh who had gotten him onto McDonald’s. His embarrassment hadn’t abated over the years.
“I could get you a sambo but they’re lying around all day.”
“Nothing with cheese anyway, Tommy. Thanks.”
He dialed the site van at the airport.
Fergal Sheehy answered. He asked Minogue to wait a minute while he double-checked. Two detectives were interviewing one of the security staff about a row earlier in the day. It was about the Public Works fans getting overexcited the other day. There had been four arrests and charges of assault on three of them.
“How many tickets are still outstanding from the car park?”
“Thirty-something,” Sheehy said. “I sent three lads out looking up and down the cars to see if we could spot any on dashboards.”
A group of teenagers walked by the Nissan. One of them stopped and held his coat up to shield his lighter. Minogue tried to count the rings in the eyebrow.
“What’s the story on the video cameras put there, Fergal?”
Sheehy moved something around near the phone. There was a slap as something hit the floor nearby. Sheehy muttered something. The teenager caught up with his friends, elbowed one, and turned as he walked to eye the Nissan. “Yes, it’s a Garda car, son,” Minogue murmured, “and don’t walk into the parking meter.”
“Don’t be talking to me about video,” said Sheehy. “Joe Kerr is in charge of that stuff it looks like.”
“Is it a cod entirely, Fergal?”
“The nearest points to the car park are duds. Black and white, dim. Useless.”
Minogue didn’t want to press Sheehy. He checked the clock on the dashboard again. He couldn’t put off phoning Tynan much longer. He thanked Sheehy, asked to be remembered to his horse.
Malone returned carrying two bags. The scar tissue over his left eye shone as he sat heavily into the driver’s seat. Minogue knew that his colleague liked eating fast food in the car.
“We head back then?”
“Let me phone Tynan’s office, Tommy.”
“What for? Have we anything to give him?”
Minogue pushed the antenna in and drew it out again several times.
“Well, no. There are no go-aheads from the site yet. The timetable’s full of holes still. The freephone call-ins, or lack thereof… tell me that Shaughnessy had a magic car that doesn’t need petrol — ”
Minogue let go of the antenna and stared across at his colleague.
“What?” asked Malone “There’s no cheese in it. I heard you — What? What’re you looking at?”
“Does Aoife Hartnett have a car?”
Malone looked down at his Big Mac. He shook his head once.
“Oops,” he said. He turned the burger, eyed it, and bit into it.
