Garda, detective Garda from Dublin?”
Malone darted a glance at Minogue. Tynan’s blank stare went back to Minogue.
“I only heard of these calls after you two clattered King and company down at the hotel,” Tynan went on. “They’d come in on Freeman, and they were going to set you straight when you showed up for the meeting. That didn’t happen.”
“Set us straight how?”
Tynan gave no sign he’d heard Minogue.
“Oddly enough, Leyne seems to have formed some… ” he paused to consider his choice of words “… some attachment to yourself, Inspector. Seems to think you were all you were cracked up to be — and he checked, let me tell you, I found out. So he wanted to rely on you with this affidavit about the son phoning. But the lawyers beyond had their own ideas, and one of them was to notify the Department of Justice here that you were going to be given these papers. An insurance measure, you might say.”
Tynan looked down the street at the cordon.
“In my book, it’s that meddling made this come about. But now look: Freeman… There’ll be moves over this after the dust settles, let me tell you. Clean house, and sharpish. But this, this mess hangs on King and the others.”
He turned back to Minogue.
“You asked what King knew, and was going to let you in on?”
“Money, I’d be thinking,” said Minogue.
“Always a safe guess.”
Minogue gave him a hard look.
“Okay then: when do we get some real answers?”
Tynan looked around once, nodded at O’Leary.
“Right now, if that’s what you can handle. But not here.”
Minogue exchanged a look with Malone, who shrugged.
“Let’s go, then,” he said to Tynan.
“Fair enough, then,” Tynan said. Minogue didn’t mistake the new edge in his voice. “But, before we start, know this: you’re standing down from the case for now, the both of you. No arguing here about it either.”
O’Leary held up the cordon tape but it was Dolan steering them to Tynan’s Grenada, brushing off a man holding out a walkman. He insisted on shaking hands with Minogue and Malone as they sat in. Minogue’s knee gave him a stab as he pulled in his leg. He looked over at Malone. His colleague looked like he’d just been pulled out of a carwash.
Someone shouted Tynan’s name from the small crowd around his car. Tynan paused to answer a question. O’Leary shifted in his seat.
“A right mess,” he murmured. “Are you okay?”
“Not so great, Tony. Thanks. A mess is right.”
“You should have heard the boss,” O’Leary said, “when he found out what they’d done. Declan King and them. Never heard the like of it before. Ructions.”
Outside, Tynan broke away away from two reporters. O’Leary started the engine. Tynan sat in and pulled the door hard behind him. Minogue winced when the flash went off by the window. Tynan half-turned.
“The both of you could be going off for a bit of observation, you know,” he said. He looked at Minogue. “Especially you. Haven’t you blood pressure or something?”
“I’ll be all right. For now.”
“Have you phoned Kathleen yet?”
“No. I will in a little while.”
Tynan took out a notebook.
“Really, now,” he muttered and he crossed something out. “Do you think a small Jameson would help the proceedings here?”
“Only if there was a pint to go with it,” said Minogue.
Tynan closed the book with a snap
“Go to Quinn’s,” he said. “They have a snug there.”
CHAPTER 24
Tynan put down the envelope. He laid the sheets on top of it.
“So that’s it,” he said. “There’s nothing here about Leyne’s response to the son’s phone call.”
Minogue studied the countertop by his glass. The light coming through the whiskey fanned golden on the wood. He eyed Tynan.
“Leyne collects things, doesn’t he?”
“What do you mean?”
Minogue had to wrench his eyes off the play of the light.
“What I mean is that the son was here to get this damned stone and smuggle it back to Leyne, John. To get back in his good books. To get his name in the will.”
Tynan poured water into his empty glass. Further down the bar two old men had engaged the barman in a discussion about farmers. It was a poor enough pretense at not eavesdropping, Minogue decided.
“That’s a fair take,” said Tynan. “The son mentions that this stone had been verified by an expert.”
“This ‘expert’ being Aoife Hartnett,” Minogue said.
Minogue became distracted again by Malone’s hands. He hadn’t let up rubbing them, squeezing them until it seemed the knuckles would burst through the skin. O’Leary’s phone went off. He listened, nodded, and ended the call.
“No sign of those fellas yet,” he said to Tynan.
“Not even the car?”
O’Leary shook his head. Tynan turned back to Minogue.
“Well I don’t see the son telling him over the phone that he’s killed someone,” he said. “There’s no point. It’d poison things for him entirely. Yes?”
Minogue shivered. The whiskey was working against him now.
“I just don’t know,” he managed. “Panicking?”
“Does it sound like panic to you?” Tynan asked. “Not to me. The gist of the conversation is the son telling him this stone is a genuine find, this Carra stone. That no one knows it’s been turned up, so no one’s going to miss it. And on he goes into the some story about it.”
Tynan waited for Minogue to look his way.
“It’s also clear to me from this flimsy statement that Leyne has doubts about the whole thing anyway,” he said. “It’s what he doesn’t put in the affidavit is what’s got me wondering.”
Minogue thought about Eileen Brogan crying. Garland biting his lip as he tried to explain the leave of absence he’d pushed Aoife Hartnett into. He saw Dermot Higgins pointing and clicking, heard his distracted murmurs, the pictures dissolving and sliding off the screen. He rubbed his eyes. It didn’t help: his thoughts were slipping away.
“Okay,” he tried “The call is made ‘just outside Dublin.’ The son is in a hurry. Has he a means of getting this stone out of the country at this point, a plan? Contacts? We don’t know ”
Tynan shifted on his stool. Wanted to get going, Minogue registered.
“You read up on this Carra place, didn’t you?” Tynan asked. “What about this stone anyway? Is there such an item?”
“Legend says there is. Or there was.”
“It’s never been found though?”
Minogue missed with his glass as he was returning it to the table. It tipped, rolled, and fell on the floor, intact. Tynan lifted his feet to place them away from the spilled whiskey. Minogue reached down and brought up the glass. He fixed Tynan with a glance.
