CHAPTER 11
The voice answering, a man’s, had an edgy, suspicious tone. Minogue wondered if the detectives going through her apartment were listening in too. Aoife Hartnett’s brother-in-law was put out at being called by his name immediately. He asked Minogue to repeat the introduction.
“A technical bureau, did you say?”
“Right, Mr. Nolan. I’m the officer in charge of the investigation. We’re hoping to contact Aoife. We need her help in relation to a case.”
Minogue checked his notebook. Yes, the Escort had put up fourteen hundred kilometres. Murtagh had pulled up a Micra for Aoife Hartnett on the computer.
“I know,” said Nolan. “The American. Look, now that I’ve got a chance to speak to you — I’m getting very worried about all this. I don’t like it at all.”
“It’s goodwill, Mr. Nolan, and we appreciate your help. I can tell you that there was no thought of seeking a warrant. We’re concerned too.”
“Oh it’s not the property I’m talking about here. There’s nothing to hide on Aoife’s part. I mean that the whole family is this close to complete panic here at this stage. It’s as much now as I can do — wait, hold on a minute.”
Minogue heard the phone being placed on something hard, Nolan calling to one of the detectives not while I’m on the phone. Minogue eyed the traffic slowing by the wall of Trinity. Malone continued to suck hard on a large Coke.
“What are you getting at?”
“Is her car there, Mr. Nolan? A Nissan Micra. Where would it be parked?”
“Let me go and look.”
“May I talk to the senior detective there?”
Minogue asked Detective Garda Liam O’Connell what he’d found.
“Lives alone, it looks like,” said O’Connell. “No signs of disturbance.”
“Passport yet?”
“No. There’s bills and bank things and that but damn all else.”
O’Connell’s voice dropped to a murmur.
“Your man, the brother-in-law, is getting twitchy about us looking around in the wardrobe and the like.”
“Okay,” said Minogue. “He’s a solicitor. If he says enough, don’t be cute about it — just walk away from it. Any sign of travel plans?”
“Can’t tell if she took a suitcase or that… clothes, I don’t know.”
“What’s in the place then?”
“Built five years ago. It’s a two bedroom. She has a computer in one of them. Tidy enough. Kitchen’s well looked after. Tins of beer, some wine around. Locks are good. Place left tidy. She has a deadbolt and a serious chain on the door. Neighbors, well one is a couple, no kids. Meagher. Works in the bank, wife’s in insurance. Other ones not home. He thinks it’s a teacher or the like. Lecturer. They’re renting.”
“No stash?”
“Jewels, prize bonds, the old heirlooms? Not yet.”
“Where’s the car parked? Her spot, like?”
“I think there’s rows of places out the front of the whole place with numbers. Wait a minute, here’s your man back — ”
The phone changed hands.
“- I can’t see her car!”
Minogue heard panic clearly in Nolan’s voice now.
“Do you think she left it at the airport?”
“God, no — why would she…?”
Minogue knew by the tone that Nolan didn’t think so either. If you lived in Dublin, you wouldn’t park overnight at the airport.
“She could have driven to Belfast for a flight,” said Nolan. “Or Shannon… wait, who’d fly from Shannon to… Jesus. Listen, look…”
“Mr. Nolan. Give me some time here now. Have you a pen and paper?”
“You think something’s happened to her but you won’t say it straight out.”
“I don’t think anything. Help us on this. Can you — ”
“Wait a minute. This is upside down here. You’re telling me you want me to help you, or should I say help these Guards here going through Aoife’s belongings? What’s going on here? You haven’t told me half of it.”
“Give me a minute,” Minogue said “And I’ll tell you what we know — ”
He held the phone away from his ear when Nolan interrupted Malone glanced at him and rolled his eyes. He had wolfed down the Big Mac. Now he took the straw out of his drink and began stroking his nose with it.
“No,” he said when Nolan paused. “I’m not suggesting that Your sister-in-law met him several times.”
“I never heard of him, well, until this thing.”
“She was seen at at least two functions he attended. I want to ask her a few questions about him.”
“But she’s not actually ‘missing’ is she?” said Nolan. “I thought you had to be gone for weeks before they — before you — used that term. Right?”
Minogue listened to Nolan breathing through his nostrils, the phone moving about. Malone began to crush his straw.
“Listen, Mr. Nolan. I don’t want to alarm you or cause distress now. Miss Hartnett can’t be found. We have to step through this door. You can help us, help all of us, and speed things up.”
“What, then? I mean, of course, but this is such a shock.”
“We have the number of her car, the Micra. I’m going to issue an appeal on it. Tonight, even, on the news, but certainly tomorrow. It’s green?”
“Light green,” said Nolan. “A mint kind of green. It’s about four years old. Aoife bought her apartment two years ago. I remember helping with the move.”
“No fella?”
Minogue didn’t care how it sounded. He eyed Malone.
“Current, like,” he added.
“No. There was Gerry Whelan until last year. We got to know him fairly well. He’s off in Brussels. I think it was the long distance thing wore them out.”
Minogue’s Biro had hit a greasy patch on his notebook. He scribbled hard to write it. The damned hamburger had made his fingertips slimy.
“W-H-E-L-A-N?”
“Yes, I think. He’s an economist. Something to do with the OECD?”
Minogue skipped down the page and found a part that would take the pen. He tried to recall what OECD stood for.
“Brussels, I think,” said Nolan.
Magritte, thought Minogue, and saw the floating loaves, the clouds, and the levitating hats. We’d all be Belgians soon anyway.
“Would you or your wife know her travel agent now? Had Aoife done other trips like the one she mentioned, the Portugal idea?”
“Oh sure. She used to do them more, the weekend in London kind of thing, but she was more careful with the money after she bought the apartment.”
Minogue tried Nolan for places he’d heard Aoife Hartnett traveled to by choice. Liked Pans, he knew, went with Fiona, and he’d had the kids for five days — that was a few years ago. Munich for some conferences; a university thing on archaeology somewhere in Austria. A Celtic thing, he thought. She hadn’t done a huge amount of traveling in the job this past while that he’d heard anyway. Still liked going down the country the odd weekend.
