Donavan glanced at Malone before he headed back to the change room. Minogue heard him break into song.
“ Are you right there Michael are you right?
“ Do you think that we’ll get home before the night?”
Minogue shook his head and turned to Malone.
“Check on anything coming in on the squad lines, if you please, Tommy.”
“You don’t need me in on the, the thing here?”
“Later maybe. See if we can start a paper trail on his credit cards. He’s hardly traveling without any, now. Find out what the interviews are looking like at the airport. I’m a bit worried that we’ll need to be getting a lot of staff in a hurry.”
“I’ll tell Sheehy.”
Minogue stared at the pattern of the floor tiles again, the marks from wheels. Fergal Sheehy would hardly be at the airport yet. The site van and four forensic technicians were working the car park. Swords and Finglas stations had coughed up eight staff between them to keep up with interviews.
He looked up at Malone.
“We’ll be there by dinnertime, tell him. One or so. Tell him to push Fogarty. The security log books, thefts and break-ins at the airport. Any gang related especially. Allegations even. Bang heads if he has to, tell him. All the way up to Tynan.”
“Okay,” said Malone. “But let me ask you something. This Fogarty fella, the security chief there. He was shaping up kind of cagey last night. What do you think?”
“He was edgy all right.”
“He knew the patrols were bollocky,” Malone said. Minogue nodded.
“That’s on the menu to be sure,” he said. “But what’s the story on video at the airport?”
“It’s a bit dodgy yet,” replied Malone. “There’s surveillance indoors but…”
“While you’re at it,” Minogue said. “Phone Eimear at the lab and see what they’ve turned up from the car that we’d need to move on right away.”
Malone had his notebook out but he hadn’t written anything. He nodded as Hanlon and the assistant moved around him and entered the change room.
“I’ll see you inside then,” said Minogue. “Later on. No hurry.”
A second pathology assistant was putting on a plastic smock next to Donavan. Minogue slipped off his jacket, introduced himself, eyed the headline on the sports page left on a chair. His nose began to tickle, but the sneeze didn’t arrive.
“Tipperary always pull one out of the bag,” Donavan said. “The whores.”
Minogue felt his nose block, blotting out the stale, sweet smell he’d had with him since he entered the lab. A mercy, the timing.
“Well the Clare crowd let us down badly this year, I’d have to allow, Pierce. Maybe we should stick to the football for a few years.”
Donavan rearranged X rays in a folder.
“How are yours,” he murmured “Is it different when they’re grown?”
Minogue shrugged.
“Did I tell you I’m going to be a grandfather?”
“You did indeed mention it. Ye’re all fired up and ready?”
“We’ll have to get the clautheens out of the attic, I told Kathleen.”
Donavan clipped the X rays on the panel.
“How well you kept them,” he said. “Up beside your Communion money?”
Donavan had eyebrows like a damned haystack, Minogue decided. Hirsute, that was the word. Donavan waved at the X rays and tugged at his beard for several moments. Then he tapped one with his knuckles.
“There,” he said. “There’s sure to be brain damage. The skull is fractured here. And here. You can see actual bone fragments there. Look.”
A male, Minogue thought. Rage, strength. He tugged the cuffs further down on his wrists. Was the elastic tighter on these new ones? The assistants wheeled in the body from the cooler room. Hanlon placed spools of film on the bottom shelf of a cabinet over the sink and closed the door. One of the wheels on the trolley squeaked. It caught and spun and squeaked again.
“I’ll be wanting to see how many separate impressions we can see in that area,” said Donavan. “How many times he was hit.”
Minogue’s nose felt ticklish again. He heard the assistant grunt as he lifted the top end of the bag. He retrieved the clipboard and tested his Biro again.
The trolley was being pushed to the wall now. The white plastic bag lay like a pupa on the table. The decay had been slowed by confinement in the car, but the heat had bloated the body. The seal on the zip still reminded Minogue of a tag at a sale. He looked around at the shelves and the cabinets, the clock. The second hand crawling, stopping almost if you looked at it directly. Christ. Half-eleven. The sharp click of instruments being laid on the table seemed very loud. The squeak of Donavan’s crepe soles on the terrazzo slowed.
“Good,” Donavan said.
Minogue moved back to let Hanlon prepare for a set of photos. Donavan wheeled over a cabinet with four drawers. On top lay a clipboard with a schematic diagram of the body. Donavan had written “Patrick Shaughnessy.” Another clipboard had a sheet of graph paper topmost. Donavan eyed at the clock and scribbled the time on the graph paper. He nodded at the assistant.
“Cut the seal, Kevin. And thank you.”
Minogue listened to the high-pitched wirps of the flash recharging. Hanlon took seven, eight photos of the back of Shaughnessy’s head. He took the ruler from beside the head and replaced it with the others on the table. Donavan stood to the far side of the table. His eyes remained fixed on Shaughnessy’s neck.
“Good,” said Hanlon.
The assistants rolled the body over. Minogue glanced over at the tagged bags of Shaughnessy’s clothes in the corner. The long-sleeved polo shirt might even be a wool blend. The green khaki-style trousers and the jacket were outdoorsy, were they not. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Was it himself, he wondered, or had the light gone dim a little. Radio Na Gaeltachta continued to play faintly from an aged transistor radio jammed between specimen jars over the sinks. A subdued conversation with odd episodes of forced humor between the interviewer and his guest, a poet now deceased, gave way to a spirited tune on a concertina. Minogue concentrated on the meandering notes. Why did a concertina always sound like it was about to fly out of control.
“‘The Pigeon on the Gate,’” Donavan said. “Noel Hill?”
“None other,” said Minogue. “You’ll get honorary citizenship to Clare yet.”
He looked back at Shaughnessy’s swollen face The lividity always reminded him of a bruised apple. He watched Donavan’s hands. The pathologist’s commentary continued in a monotone. A habit, Minogue knew, because Donavan rarely used a tape. The deceased bled profusely from open wounds… A lividity pattern indicates he had lain in a position head below horizontal after the injuries were sustained…
Donavan turned to the clipboard and wrote 5+ beside the head on the schematic. Blood had clotted and glued Shaughnessy’s hair to a plastic shopping bag. Three hours at most to stop that blood flow in the open air, but probably longer in the tight, airless boot of the Escort. Minogue’s eyes slid out of focus. Hitchhiker, Malone had been speculating The new Galway Road had you across the River Shannon in little more than an hour. You could be in Galway in less than three. With Shaughnessy dead, the blood draining into the wheel well -
The sneeze surprised even Minogue.
“God between us and all harm,” said Donavan. He lifted the arms one by one, turned them and then began a detailed examination of the hands.
Hanlon stood waiting. His thumb tapped softly, slowly on the back of his camera. Donavan let down each hand in turn and he walked to the X ray panel. He stared at the X ray of Shaughnessy’s hands.
“Nothing there yet to indicate resistance,” he said.
He returned to the table and examined the left hand again.
“Nothing,” he said again. He glanced over at Minogue.
“He wasn’t expecting it, Matt.”
Minogue realized that he had been holding his breath. He had been imagining a conversation: a lonely stretch of road, raining maybe. Shaughnessy feeling sorry for some unfortunate hiker with his thumb out. A girl, maybe? The boot lid open to pack in a rucksack or to take one out: From Boston? Really? How about that? Sure, let me put that in the boot — the trunk — … Or getting out, most likely: the hitchhiker could even have picked that spot You can let me off here, I’ve got a better chance on an empty bit of road. Shaughnessy’s opening the lid of the boot, he’s reaching in. What was he hit with?