language out of him! And then, pulling a knife on him? Anyone with a brain would have high-tailed it out of there of course: called the Guards right away. But that was cocaine, he supposed, the belief that you could do pretty well anything. The guy was probably stoned already. How else would he have had the nerve to walk up to a parked car and ask for dope?
Fanning skipped across the road and gained the footpath on the far side. Another taxi drifted by. He thought to the hours ahead, and the dawn that would slink in so unspectacularly under all this cloud. There was nothing much heroic about this, was there. He thought of the narrow road with the hedges that met the main road, the nearest the bus would get to the farm. Aisling thought the sheep were pets they kept forever there, just like the farm cats.
He almost missed the short ping of a message. The strange compulsion that he mocked in others exerted its hold on Fanning too however, and he quickly found his way to the short, misspelled message: outisde ur place call me NOW.
Chapter 45
Minogue’s dream about a phone ringing interrupted by Kathleen. In a sleepy voice that gave way to alarm, she said: “That’s our phone.”
He was wide awake in a moment, up on his elbow. Ash-grey morning light. It was just gone six. He saw the fright on Kathleen’s face, and he began to calculate what time it was with Daithi Minogue, resident of California, USA. Ten o’clock, was that a dangerous time over there?
He did not consider clothes, but made his way hurriedly to the stairs, steeling himself. Freeways full of impatient people, short-tempered people with guns, drugs, earthquakes, serial killers and drifters, and people going postal, and wildfires.
The answering machine had taken over, but had just started the announcement.
“Ignore that thing,” he said into the receiver. “It’ll be over in a few seconds. Stay on the line. I’m listening.”
The other person hadn’t hung up.
“Daithi? Cathy? Just wait for it to finish. I’m here.”
“Jaysus,” came the voice in a low, exasperated growl after the tone. “Bad enough I have to listen to you, but two of you — and at the same time? Too much. Too much, I’m telling you.”
“Tommy. What the hell is this? It’s six o’clock in the morning. I hit the sack at three. I’m far from happy about this.”
“Have you heard of mobile phones?”
“They keep you at work twenty-four hours a day. Those things?”
“I was going to leave a message.”
“Make it a good one, will you. I have a message ready for you here. But I’ll wait until I hear yours.”
“Take a powder there, boss,” said Malone. “You had three hours that I didn’t have. Here’s what I do have: Murph, you know about. If it’s Murph, that is. The bit of toast they found in the boot of his car up in the Pine Forest. So you won’t be talking to Murph.”
“Got that. Move on.”
“Listen to you. I’m doing your work for you here. I expect a cut of that paycheque of yours, you know.”
“Settle for a wedding present — but only if you lift the ban, and let me go to the wedding.”
“That’s another matter. Here’s the goods then: I got this message from a woman the name of Brid O Connor. It was waiting on me when I checked in the office late. Trying to get in touch with me yesterday, but had a bit of an issue tracking me down.”
“I don’t know the name.”
“Wife of one Dermot Fanning. Now you know her?”
“Your ticket to stardom, okay. But what’s this about?”
“Listen, I’m telling you. You know the routine in our place, about routing calls and that. If we’re out on a job, stuff just has to wait its turn. No interruptions. There’s a gatekeeper, Alec Dowling, a Sergeant. He handles stuff, decides if we get a contact. Anyway. That’s why I only picked this up late, I should say early this morning. She’s in a state. Husband did a bunk, and she can’t get ahold of him.”
“Okay. Look, Tommy, I haven’t done a jigsaw puzzle since I was a child.”
“Did they have them then?”
“Proceed. I’ll save my bad words for when I meet you in person.”
“She and the hubby had a big row the other night. Out he walks, and she hasn’t seen him since.”
“Unusual?”
“Yep. According to her. Oh sure, the artsy-fartsy lifestyle and all, but she’s a teacher. Says she to me, ‘We’re a very normal couple, I want you to know.’”
“The point, Tommy, the point. I’m on a low battery here, man.”
“Point is he’s missing, and she says he had been doing some odd things before he, um, took his leave of her.”
“Odd. Isn’t that what filmy, artisty people do?”
“She says he came home with a cut on his leg, and he was manky, and out of it.”
“Like I said about that crowd?”
“Will you stop hopping the ball on me for a minute there? Fanning was doing research on gangs here in Dublin. Hanging out with them.”
“Got fond of it maybe?”
“She says she thinks he was stoned the other night. That that’s the only way she can account for him losing his rag with her. Mild-mannered, wouldn’t hurt a fly, says she.”
Minogue broke his gaze on the rings of the new cooker.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m getting it, sorry. It’s Murph he was hanging out with.”
“Good. You saved me shouting at you there. Now I haven’t got to the real story here. She left a message, said that Fanning had tried to call her that night — that morning actually. But she didn’t answer the phone. She knew it was him, she said, and she was mad at him. He leaves a message on their machine, but it gets cut off. She doesn’t know why, but she remembers him talking about getting a new mobile, or something about a battery. So she thinks the phone died on him.”
“Okay. But why am I here?”
Malone went on undeterred.
“What she tells me in this message is that he, Fanning that is to say, mentioned something about a thing that happened down the quays. That he wants to talk to her about it, but he has to think it over some more.”
“The quays. That’s all?”
“‘The back of the Custom House Quay’ she says. ‘Something happened,’ says he. ‘Something I’m not proud of.’”
“Did she save the message?”
“I don’t know, do I. But by Jesus, I am sitting here outside her house — I know from her phone call that they have a little one, and she was crying — and I’m going to knock on her door right now and find out.”
“Where is this?”
“According to my GPS,” said Malone, grandly, “5.3 kilometres from your place. Off Bird Avenue.”
Chapter 46
The car was a newish Honda Civic, with a Dublin registration. It was a sensible, reliable safe car, Fanning thought wistfully, a real teacher’s car. Cully had been watching him in the mirror from the time he had turned the corner. There was no sign of his sidekick. There were no lights on at the house, and the Golf hadn’t moved. Fanning
