“Tell the man, Ali,” said her father.
The mother glared at him.
“Was it Aidan’s idea?” Minogue asked.
She shook her head.
“Justin’s?”
Again she shook her head.
“Yours? Tara’s?”
This time she made no movement but stayed hunched in her chair.
“Come on love,” said her mother.
The girl’s voice was a little hoarse.
“I said, already.”
“You said nothing,” said the father. His jacket creaked as he re-crossed his legs.
Garda Dwyer gave Minogue a glance. For a moment he wondered if Women’s Aid training courses for the likes of Garda Dwyer had included how she should be taking down very large, irate Dublin men like Rogers.
“Ali,” said Minogue. “Can you see where we’re coming from? A man was beaten up, and now he’s dead. Why would he be beaten up and all his valuables just left there, the way you’re trying to tell us?”
“He was,” she said.
Her lips were almost sticking together now with a line of dried saliva.
“He was…? He was dead, are you saying?”
“I suppose, I don’t know.”
“Why did you think he was dead?”
“He wasn’t moving,” she whispered.
“Was he breathing?”
“I don’t know. There was blood.”
She nodded and she opened up her hand to let out a balled-up tissue.
“Because Aidan-”
“No! Stop saying that!”
The father leaned in suddenly with an ominous creak of leather.
“Didn’t I tell you? Stop trying to protect those two fu-”
Minogue raised his hand. The girl’s father stopped and looked down at his wife’s hand with an expression of disgust.
“Leave her, Paddy. Just leave her.”
“I’m not going to sit here and watch her digging her own grave, am I!”
“She’s not,” said the mother, with her effort at patience clear in how she was holding her breath. “Just leave her. We’re here to do what’s right.”
“This is only helping those bastards!”
Minogue wasn’t sure who he had meant. He kept his eyes on the girl. Her eyes moved from side to side but her face remained slack. The red streak and the highlights in her hair kept reminding Minogue of some exotic bird.
“This is a farce,” the father snapped. “A farce entirely.”
“Would you shut up,” said the mother. “Excuse me, but would you just for once? What good are you doing with the carry on of yours?”
“I know what I’d like to do,” he retorted. “That’s one thing I do know. And by Jesus, if it comes to that, no better man.”
The mother rolled her eyes. Minogue saw her chin quiver.
“Mr. Rogers.”
Narrowed eyes turned to Minogue.
“This can’t work if you carry on like that.”
“Carry on? The pot calling the kettle black here, I’d say. I’m not the one dragged a little girl into a police station near midnight, to question her. Am I?”
Minogue saw that Garda Dwyer had taken a step closer to Rogers.
“Yous are the ones screwing things up,” said Rogers. “I know what I’d do with those two, those two… scumbags. They’d be telling me what I needed to know. Right quick they would too, oh yes.”
“We’re obliged to protect everyone’s rights in this, Mr. Rogers.”
Rogers opened his eyes wide, sat back, and gathered the ends of his jacket on his lap. Minogue had no difficulty recognizing the Dublinman’s sign of contempt.
“Rights?” said Rogers. “Now there’s a good one. A funny thing, those ‘rights’ of yours. You ever notice that the only time you hear that word is for other people? It’s never for ordinary people like us. Always for the what-do- you-call-ems, the asylum types, and the refugees and all, always for foreigners. Oh yes — it’s all about their rights, the Muslim crowd and their school, or getting a house for someone from fecking I-don’t-know-where in Africa…”
“This has nothing to do with why we’re here,” said Minogue.
“Like hell it hasn’t. What’s he doing here, that fella who got us all into this mess? Have you thought about that, have you?”
Minogue tried to absorb what he had heard. He saw a pained look spread across Rogers’ face, a man at the outer limits of reasoning, already sensing that he could not ever convince the people around him.
“I mean to say,” he said, almost in a whisper, “what’s a fella from Poland doing down those streets that time of night?”
Mrs. Rogers’ gaze had settled on the tabletop, but her chest was heaving. Minogue knew her peripheral vision was scanning the situation. He looked back at her daughter. Shoulders turned in, ragged parting in her hair revealing a white scalp. Fourteen; a hormone hurricane; cub of the Celtic Tiger.
“Mr. Rogers,” he said. “I’m going to ask you to leave the room.”
“No.”
“I’ll be leaving too,” said Minogue.
“Do what you like. I’m her father.”
Minogue gave it a few moments until he felt the tension was sufficient.
“Her mother will stay, as will Garda Dwyer here. Garda Dwyer is-”
“-the law is the law.”
“Garda Dwyer is trained in working with youth, and women.”
Rogers’ jacket made a squeak as he shot forward from the chair.
“What? What’s this? What are you getting at?”
“I’ll explain to you outside.”
“You won’t.”
“All right. I won’t.”
“If it’s what I think it is, that’s why I’m here. I’m her father, I told yous.”
“I do get it,” said Minogue.
“This is my daughter we’re talking about! My daughter!”
Minogue eyed the jabbing finger, the reddening face, and then he looked over to Rogers’ wife. She hadn’t budged. He took his cue from her and took his own turn examining the tabletop. He’d give it a count of five. While he waited, he replayed Rogers’ angry outburst. Daw-thar, muy, daw-thar. There was a sure sign of alarm, and panic, in Rogers’ outburst.
The count was up. Minogue sat back and put his hands on the chair rest. He looked directly at Rogers.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” said Rogers.
“I’m trying to get you to have a cup of tea is what I’m trying to do.”
“I’ll kill him,” said Rogers. “Them, predators they are.”
The signals from Garda Dwyer were steady now. For a moment, he imagined her flooring Rogers with some super-specialized karate kick. Unlikely. “You’re under a lot of stress, Mr. Rogers,” he said. “But that remark you made is on tape.”
“I don’t care. I don’t.”
