“Well, I didn’t,” Minogue said, “to tell you the God’s honest truth.”
“But listen now, it’ll have to wait until the morning. Get fellas down the cliff or a boat in.”
“The cliff is…?”
“It’s like the side of a wall, sure,” Noonan said. “There’s a bit of a ledge there near the top. The lights can make out the wheels, they think.”
“And it’s on its roof.”
“Upside down. That’s how it looks.”
Minogue ran his finger along the dotted lines to the cliff
“So the car was driven up this track and over the top? Can’t you get a squad car up there?”
“I might be able to get one up,” said Noonan, “but I wouldn’t be sure of getting it down again. Bucketing down here, the rain.”
“How far is it from the site?”
“A quarter mile or so. I won’t be risking anything or anybody here tonight.”
Loud and clear, Minogue almost said. Couldn’t blame him.
“What are the tides doing to it?”
“Well it’s low tide now, so it’s half submerged. There’s rocks there below.”
Minogue didn’t want to ask Noonan again.
“So it’ll be tough enough getting down there in the daylight,” Noonan went on, “to see if there’s anyone inside the car.”
“Work well done. I’m obliged to you.”
“We’ll seal up the place for you now, will we?”
“If you please. And a Guard at the site. I’m a bit anxious now about evidence. If we can make sure to preserve any tire tracks and the like — shoe prints too if the car was pushed, now.”
“Good luck to you there — it’s muck entirely. Have ye rain up in Dublin?”
“Oh enough, but intermittent now.”
“Bucketing all the long day here, yes.”
Minogue waited.
“So will this be from Dublin?” Noonan asked. “Whoever’s taking this over?”
Minogue didn’t much mind the acidy aftertaste of the tea bags. Malone tapped his finger down on the dotted lines that led to the cliffs.
“The spiky bits are the cliffs, right?”
Minogue nodded and traced another path in from Cahercarraig Road.
“Boreens,” Malone declared
“You’re coming on great with the languages since you started here.”
“Bogs. Boreens. Bogmen. Sheep. More bogs. Sheep that look like bog-men. Bogmen that look like sheep.”
He squinted at Minogue
“Answer me this: how in the name of Jases did you figure on looking there?”
“Police science,” Minogue said.
“No how?”
“Ah, Tommy, I don’t know. It’s, ah…”
Malone shook his head and turned to the map again.
“So there’s the places they were digging.”
“About a quarter of a mile, yes.”
“Bog roads. Turf and that, right?”
“Correct.”
“Culchie priests and nuns they sell / Nightmares, fear and holy Hell.”
“Is that Public Works?”
“No it isn’t,” Malone scoffed, “it’s GOD. Culchie is from Kiltimagh, right? That’s Mayo.”
Minogue nodded. He studied the faint vapor rising above the rim of his cup. He wondered but didn’t much care if the tea would keep him awake. If they had to go to Mayo tomorrow, it’d be five hours sitting in a car, thank you very much.
“See what turns up in the morning,” he said. “There’s trained site staff in Galway can go up and work it.”
Malone swilled the remains of his tea in his cup. He belched behind his fist.
“Say she’s in it then,” he said.
Minogue sat down on the edge of the desk.
“Do you see him doing it?” he asked Malone.
“His oul lad would, I’ll bet. If we asked him, straight up.”
“Maybe his mother knows him better.”
Malone placed his cup on the desk, and looked at the pins on the map.
“Or, the same crowd who did her, went after him too. Caught up with him here or there and — boom.”
Minogue yawned. He thought of the pictures soaking in on Dermot Higgins’s computer screen. Point and click. Malone was counting on his fingers.
“One: he’s killed her,” he said. “Two: a double — whoever killed her killed him too. But what’s he doing in Dublin Airport in the boot of a car?”
Malone held on to his index finger and began gently waving his arms.
“Try again a double murder. He wasn’t topped at the same time as she was. Okay, say he doesn’t know she’s been thrown off a cliff. That’s why he’s not running to the Guards. They catch up to him and he’s gone. But where? Here in Dublin?”
Minogue had had enough. He got up to go.
“You’re a veteran now,” he said to Malone as he passed him. “Last thing you think about before you go to sleep, first thing you think about when you wake up.”
“Listen,” Malone said. “Here’s what I can’t get me head around still.”
Minogue gave him a knowing glance.
“If he killed her, is it?”
“Yeah. If it wasn’t people robbing, or some half-arsed effort at extortion or kidnapping your man, even: who folleyed him somewhere? Who made it quits?”
“You should have seen them,” Kathleen said. “Or maybe not.”
Minogue tied his other shoelace. The morning had started with a bit of sun at last. He felt groggy from the blocked nose, but not as shaky as he had predicted when he fell into bed last night.
“The Smiths, love?”
“Glaring right into the camera,” she said. “God, like animals. ‘The Guards murdered my brother’ — the exact words. Can’t he be taken to court for that?”
“An interesting suggestion.”
“‘An interesting suggestion.’ Aren’t you even the slightest bit concerned that you might be one of those Guards he’d be referring to?”
Minogue looked up from his laces.
“No, love. I’m not. The Smiths are chancers, and liars, and thieves. They’ll try anything.”
“Well, did a Guard kill him?” Kathleen asked “I can’t deny the idea has some appeal, God forgive me, when I hear about the things Larry Smith did.”
Minogue let his gaze drift out the window. It wasn’t the subject or even the timing. It was something about Kathleen’s tone that was getting to him. He thought of Damian Little, Trigger Little. Why had Little’s wife walked out on him?
“We can thank Gemma O’Loughlin for stirring things up,” Kathleen said.
“Well she’s playing into the hands of the likes of the Smiths.”
“Gave me the creeps, I tell you,” she said. “The hate in his eyes, and the finger out, pointing. I thought he
