Such as?
“Oh, B amp; Bs. Hotel packages. Galway, I think. She really likes Clare, a lot.”
“Little wonder ”
“Pardon?”
“The west, you say ”
“Yes. She’s been up to her eyes at work, you know. It’s not that she doesn’t like it. She was out to Mayo and Galway there over the summer. That was work, I think, but she’d stay on until Sunday or even Monday morning.”
“The Carra Fields?”
“You know about that? Yes, that’s starting up. That’s right — look, I’m going to have to tell the mother-in- law. Right?”
“That would be a good idea, Mr. Nolan.”
“I don’t know what, or how I’m going to do it. Mrs H is just out of the hospital, you know. Maybe Fiona will. — Christ…‘ Excuse me. She’ll flip. It’s all so, you know, so sudden. What am I going to say anyway?”
Minogue looked at a passing bus painted over to look like a soccer match.
“Make a list,” he said. “Look it over a few times and then phone every third or fourth. Tell them to phone the others. It takes the pressure off you.”
“She loves her job, you know. She’s not the type to, you know?”
Minogue tried to figure out who the goalie making the impossible save was up by the back of the bus. Bonner? He wondered if Nolan would say it.
“… To do something to herself, I mean.”
Minogue let the pause stretch.
“I hear you,” he said. “It makes it all the more important to get details from people who know her.”
“The kids just love her. She brought our Emma on a dig there last summer.”
Emma. He’d overheard Iseult trying out that one on Kathleen one evening. She’d been slagging? Emma; Rebecca. What was wrong with Pat and Mary?
“Aoife never forgets a birthday. As busy as she is, and all… ”
“Will you ask at home, Mr. Nolan, and get back to me, soon as you can?”
“The mother has high blood pressure you know. She nursed the husband after the heart attacks.”
“I’m sorry now, Mr. Nolan. Far better that a member of the family relays it first. Here are two phone numbers for you — ”
“Maybe she just had it, you know? Got sick of work? Everyone gets that… ”
“True for you.”
“Just needed a break, a bit of space? Well she’d like to have kids, I know that. The whole career thing, the biological clock, I mean. It’s so tough.”
A hiss from the phone caused Minogue to check the battery strength.
“There’s no way I can say ‘foul play’ to Mrs., you know. No way.”
“Say we’d like to get in touch with her, Mr. Nolan. That we’re concerned.”
“Christ, wouldn’t it be a gas if she just phoned tonight from somewhere. London, maybe? ‘Changed my mind, stayed in London! Surprise!’”
“To be sure it would ”
“When will this go to the media again?”
“I’ll be asking the press office to issue it as soon as I can. We’d like to be okay with the next of — her family, I mean, before it comes up on the news.”
“That gives me a few hours, I suppose.”
“We can’t be waiting The nine o’clock news tonight will be definite.”
“You’ll phone as soon as you have news?”
That’s my question, Minogue wanted to snap at him.
“Depend on it.”
“Okay then, I have to work on this. Okay. I’m going to start on it. Okay?”
Minogue pushed the end button several times. He stared at the charge level. Malone had rolled the wrapping into a ball. He was chewing on ice cubes now.
“What’s the story with the brother-in-law? Freaking, is he?”
Minogue nodded.
“Her car’s gone, right?”
“It’s not parked there anyway. It might be in a garage getting serviced while she’s away. Have to chase that now. I don’t see her driving to the airport, but.”
Malone lifted a bag of chips from his lap.
“No thanks,” said Minogue. “How much do I owe you?”
Malone shifted in his seat and stretched his neck.
“You’re all right. I’ll eat them. Buy me ten or twelve pints sometime.”
An ambulance with flashing lights sped by. Minogue thought of the evening ahead of them. He’d just have to take the time to map it all out tonight.
“Shit,” said Malone. He threw the empty chip bag on the floor. “Rain’s back.”
Minogue studied the fine drops forming on the windscreen. He hoped Malone wouldn’t turn on the wipers yet.
“Will we head?”
“Wait and let me call into Tynan. Before I forget.”
Malone tugged at the collar of his coat, grabbed the steering wheel, and then flicked at the wiper stalk
O’Leary had kept him on hold for two minutes.
“It’s all right, Tony. I don’t need to bother him if that’s the case ”
“Are you in town?”
Minogue slapped Malone’s arm. He’d kept jerking the stalk to get more windscreen fluid on the glass. The wipers squeaked. Minogue flicked them off.
“Nassau Street, Tony. I’m on a cell phone.”
“He’d like you to come by then. Soon as you can.”
“I’ve nothing, Tony. We’re still clearing a path here.”
“He’s in a meeting. He wants you in on it. So: will I tell him you’re on the way, Matt?”
Brusque for O’Leary. Minogue studied the raindrops on the bonnet. O’Leary said, “Concerns your case, says to tell you.”
“What can I tell him that I didn’t tell him two hours ago, Tony?”
“It’s different. There’s people pushing info here. The father, Leyne, is here. There’s a meeting, in the commissioner’s office.”
Malone drove along Andrew Street. He barely stopped at the junction of Wicklow Street.
“Is this a regular gig or what,” he said to Minogue.
The inspector had been thinking of a hot whiskey.
“What gig,” he said.
Malone accelerated hard up South William Street.
“Well I don’t recall any get-togethers between Tynan and the Killer, do I.”
“Really.”
“Well, fella might think, you know.”
“A fella might think what?”
Malone raced through a red light by York Street flats.
“That you have the inside track here with the Iceman. Mr. Excitement.”
Minogue looked at the parked cars. An Irish coffee would do it. For the taste, not for the bite from the whiskey.
“A fella might get a puck in the snot,” he murmured. “For insinuating.”
