“About five minutes now,” he shouted.
Minogue folded the newspaper. He unfolded it again to look at the picture of Larry Smith on the third page. He wasn’t going to let it distract him. Why no pictures of all the addicts and the maimed people who’d run through Smith’s hands before someone shot him? Inner-city families knew that, at least. His ears popped. Was it raining below? The nerve of the Smiths: “demanding” a public inquiry into why the murderers hadn’t been caught.
The plane dipped, and droning louder, it rose sharply. Minogue’s stomach followed the tilt. Fields and hedges came into view below the wing now, far-off hills and mountains. The high peak of the shrine passed under them.
“Will we be stopping in for a dose of holy water?” Malone called out. Minogue glared at him: a pilgrimage to Knock wasn’t part of the plan. He wondered what Malone might say at the sight of barefoot pilgrims and penitents climbing Croagh Patrick: where do you get a hamburger around here?
The engines slowed. The hills to his left slid by and arranged themselves as the plane settled on an approach. Jumbos landed at Knock, didn’t they? There was talk of several planes booked from the States direct to Knock for a commemoration of something. Coffin ships from the Famine, was it…? He stared at the seat back ahead of him as the plane closed on the runway. The wings’ sudden tipping caused him to glance back. The wheels bounced back once, settled, and the nose of the plane eased down. He was surprised how little runway it needed to slow to a brisk walking pace. He spotted the squad car by the terminal as the plane turned.
Minogue slipped on the ladder but Malone shouldered him back onto the step.
“Watch the moves there,” he said “You wouldn’t try that back in Dublin.”
The tarmac was wet in patches. Farm, he smelled. Over the hedges rose the hills of East Mayo. He eyed the canopy fluttering feebly by the runway. A turboprop was parked near the terminal and, beyond it, two light planes and a minibus.
“A bit like Heathrow,” said Malone. “Except there’s no people. Or buildings.”
The squad car made its way at a leisurely speed from the terminal. Minogue took his bag from the pilot and squinted at the windscreen of the Vectra.
The driver was an affable, droopy-eyed Garda McGurk. He had the tonsured look of a monk and a bushy, Gallic mustache. The passenger was a Sergeant Ryan.
“Pat,” said Ryan, and shook hands. His eyebrows were black, as were the few hairs high up on his cheeks, but his hair was a well-maintained ash-gray thatch. Folds of loose skin swelled against his collar and lapped over when he nodded. Would they mind stopping in at the Ballina station to have a chat with Inspector Noonan before heading up? No bother, from Minogue.
Minogue sat in the back with Malone. McGurk took the Vectra across the Claremorris Road and settled onto a narrow lane. The windscreen was filthy at the margins. There was a pig farm nearby, Minogue knew. The smell comforted him.
“The back way up through Kiltimagh,” Ryan said.
Minogue looked out at the passing hedgerows.
“I thought ye’d go on to Castlebar,” Ryan tried again. “The airport there.”
“Ah we couldn’t pass up Knock,” Minogue had to say. “Pilgrims, we are. Or refugees, from Dublin. But does there be a high season for the shrine at all?”
“It’s steady enough,” replied Ryan “There was a plane in from England Monday. Irish, the most of ’em, but. It was part of a bus tour thing.”
Minogue shifted his knees against the back of the driver’s seat.
“Have we news yet?” he asked. “Up at Cahercarraig there. The car.”
Ryan scratched at the back of his head. Minogue tried yet again to gauge the territorial quotient. The Dublin Experts: right. Sure. The car wallowed and jerked as it hit a dip in the road. Ryan unhooked the transceiver, checked the volume.
“I’ll check for you now.”
Malone kept up his study of the countryside as they left Kiltimagh.
“Lots of rocks and things,” he said. McGurk glanced over his shoulder.
“How much would you pay for, say, a ticket to a concert up in the Big Smoke?” he asked Minogue.
“What type of concert, now?” Minogue asked, half-listening to the radio transmission. Ryan repeated that they were on their way to Ballina.
“Groups,” said McGurk. “Big name.”
“Traditional stuff, like?”
“God no. The big ones. What do you call the place, the Point.”
“A fair whack,” said Malone. “Depends, but.”
“Okay. The Works. Them, say. What would you pay?”
Minogue looked at McGurk’s bald crown.
“Twenty,” said Malone. “Just to get in. Fifty if you want to get a look at ’em.”
McGurk shook his head.
“Holy God,” he said. “I told herself. She wouldn’t believe me.”
McGurk couldn’t be far short of forty, Minogue decided. He studied the points of his mustache in profile. Was this corpulent Guard an off-duty rocker and general satyr? The rural Irishman at his simple, unfathomable best.
“They’re deadly though,” said McGurk. “You have to admit.”
“They’re all right,” Malone said.
“ ‘Bless the virgin, meek and mild; cruise the strip and save the child.’ ”
Minogue found himself trying to suppress a smile.
“Yeah,” said Malone.
“I don’t know what it means,” said McGurk. “But I keep thinking about it.”
“They have a way of throwing words together, I suppose.”
Trowen, Minogue thought. Dee english language trowen on the fukken shoals of a Dubbalin-man’s ideas, loike.
“You’re not mad about them, are you?”
“Since they went big, I don’t know. The edge is gone offa them. Washed up.”
“Do you think? Who’s on the edge then, now like?”
Malone studied a tractor as the squad car finally moved around it. He waved back at the driver.
“GOD. Now they’re the business.”
McGurk looked around at him.
“GOD? You’re joking me.”
“Why am I joking you?”
“They’re head cases, aren’t they? I heard two of them are lezzers, man.”
Malone cracked his knuckles.
“What’s the story on the drug scene these days?” asked Ryan. “Up in Dublin.”
“Bad,” said Minogue. “Been bad a long while now.”
“It’s all over now, of course,” Ryan said. “Isn’t it?”
So this was a territorial nark coming out. Minogue sensed that Malone had picked up the dig too. Drugs were an obvious plot by Dublin to defile rural Ireland. As well as Murder Squad luminaries landing on them here to tell Guards how to do their business. Being flown here, for the love of God, because they were so high and mighty. McGurk began to take a keener interest in negotiating the turns. They braked for a stop sign. Two articulated lorries swept by on the Castlebar Road.
“Another bit of a jog and we’ll come up near to Foxford,” said McGurk.
“They’ve brought up the drug squad to seven in Castlebar,” said Ryan.
All Dublin’s fault, Minogue was ready to agree.
“Terrible, isn’t it,” he murmured instead.
“Five years ago, there wasn’t one.”
Why was it taking so long to get a call back from Ballina?
“At this rate — ”
Ryan didn’t get the chance to finish. Malone too looked away from the window to listen better. They had floated the Nissan Micra off the rocks just a half an hour ago at high tide. A body had been recovered. Female,
