"Good morrow, men," said the doctor.
The two policemen eyed Donavan. He was a well-known eccentric. He wore a greying beard under owlish eyebrows with a red face bursting out from behind the hair. Donavan was crammed into a three-piece tweed suit tailored in the manner of suits of Minogue's father's day.
The office was a morass of paper and knicknacks. Connors observed bottles containing yellowy lumps of something, immersed in clear liquids. It dawned on him that these polypy lumps might well be pieces of flesh, preserved to be viewed and pondered over. A faint odour like a chemist's shop came to Connors as his eyes slipped out of focus and he swallowed, trying to rid himself of an unpleasant sweetness near his tonsils.
Minogue studied Donavan as the pathologist took off his jacket. A rugby player of old, exactly the kind of man who could fall down the stairs sober and not hurt himself, Minogue thought.
"Matt Minogue, Doctor. And my colleague, Detective Connors."
"And how is the bold Inspector Kilmartin back at the ranch, men?"
"Oh, pulling the divil by the tail, Doctor."
Donavan sat heavily into his seat. He pulled a file from under a brimming ashtray.
"Do ye want the pictures, lads?"
"No thanks, Doctor. We'll defer to your description."
"The mob in Pearse Street handed this over to you as a matter of course? The deceased was a young man in good health. I suspect that he had been killed on Thursday night at about 9 P.M. Well he was dead between eight and twelve hours. There. Isn't pathology wonderful?"
"To be sure, Doctor," said Minogue.
"Well. To cut a long story short. There's no doubt this young man was killed by whoever set about it. There was no trick acting and playing kiss-my-arse-and-kiss-my-elbow with this. This wasn't a brawl that got out of hand. I found a moderately severe contusion on the left side of the head. My feeling is that this was a blow rendered by some object such as an iron bar, perhaps a good quality bicycle pump or the like of that. It would have been enough to put him out. It certainly wouldn't have killed him at all, at all. What did in this unfortunate lad was the stone or whatever was used on his head. It appears to have been applied several times. The person wielding it would of necessity have to have given good swings at it… maybe from the height of a man's shoulders. Now, I'm speculating here. However, he was given a coup de grace, if you like, with a lot of force applied toward the end of the episode."
"With the same object?" Minogue interrupted.
"To be exact and evasive at the same time, with an object of the same material, surface area and weight. Perhaps another stone."
Connors looked up from his notes, his mouth a little open.
"Scrapings under the nails, nothing."
No struggle? wrote Connors.
"This young man had had a glass or two of wine and some class of Italian food."
Donavan looked directly at Connors.
"Perhaps the Garda would require to see details…?"
Connors looked up abruptly from the notes and swallowed. Minogue glanced at him.
"Leave it in the file for the moment if you please, Doctor," said Minogue.
"Could have used a bit of exercise. But couldn't we all? Non-smoker. A bit fond of his rashers and eggs. No signs of sexual activity, if you follow me. Teeth all his own. Isn't the National Health great?"
"One blow, then others?" queried Minogue.
"Exactly. The thing is that the head would have to have been lying on a surface with no give in it when these stones or the stone were dropped. That alone would account for the particular shattering effect at the back too, you see. A simple principle really, no great shakes. Think of nutcrackers. One side couldn't be make of rubber or the like."
Donavan arched back in his chair and filled a pipe. The file lay open on the desk. They listened to Connors' diligent pencil scratching. The window was full of green, like a big sponge, waving slowly. Nothing like a willow tree to show the time passing, thought Minogue.
"Bad cess to the fecking thing," Donavan said mildly. He threw the lighter across the desk. "I don't doubt that Nora paid twenty pound for this bloody gas lighter with the flame thrower thing for the pipe. And you think it works because it cost an arm and a leg? Not a bit of it," he muttered.
Minogue carried a box of matches to remind himself that he was a free man. If he chose to smoke, he would. Minogue offered his box of matches.
As he did so, he caught sight of Connors' glassy stare. That's what it was, the 'arm and the leg' bit. Minogue tried hard not to laugh.
"Detective, would you check with headquarters on the radio to see if there are further matters requiring our consideration, if you please? I'll be down presently."
Connors made no delay in leaving.
Donavan, wreathed in Amphora smoke, laughed gently.
"Is your man just after his dinner?"
"He's new to the department, Doctor. He is a very quick and able officer-in-the-making, I believe."
"Gob, he's quick at getting through doors. Ah, Nora says I have a warped sense of humour. God knows, maybe she's right. Do you know, there's nothing to this really. I mean, I put the radio on. There'd be the news, a bit of music, an interview or the like. I'd be pinning back skin or using the saw or dissecting one thing or another. I work on my own you know, me and the tape recorder with Radio Eireann in the background. I don't like working with an assistant. It seems rude, somehow. I'm trying to help the poor divil there in the room with me, but sure he's dead. Still trying to explain things even after the person is dead. But it helps. It's preventive medicine in a sense. Your pal will get used to it. It's not personal. You're in the presence of some final truth."
Minogue thought for an instant of the stories about Donavan. Maybe it was by default that he seemed to enjoy the living so much. Donavan was no fool. He was a philosopher who knew enough to be able to laugh. Good man at a wake. Maybe invite him to mine.
"Anything worth hanging onto, Doctor?"
"Well, this is the preliminary, you understand. It'll be all typed up and a few more tests will be in but that won't make much difference. You have the gist of it."
Both men were silent for a minute. Donavan turned his gaze from the window to Minogue.
"As an aside, er-"
"— Matt-"
"Yes, er, Matt… I have the feeling of some kind of intention behind this thing. Some kind of deliberation. Maybe it's the shows on the telly. Still, I think there's something to this one. Don't quote me now. That stuff is not my job at all. I'd expect anything."
Minogue was to remember this remark; not the words themselves, but the speculation on Donavan's face. Have to do some Sherlocking on this one.
Connors was leaning on the boot of the car outside trying to make his attempt at nonchalance outdo his sheepishness.
"Come on now and we'll go back to the Castle. Jimmy Kilmartin says he has a desk for me and odds and ends from the other lads in the Squad who were at it over the weekend."
"To be sure," Connors said spiritedly. He was grateful that Minogue had passed up on that very Irish liking to send a jibe his way.
CHAPTER THREE
On Tuesday morning, Minogue found himself at his new desk in Dublin Castle, HQ of the Garda Murder Squad. 'Found myself were the words that came to him as he settled into the chair, and those were the words he'd report his day to Kathleen with: 'Well, I found myself at this desk, you see.'
He tried the phone. Glory be to God, it worked. Would he have to start taking seriously the Minister for Post and Telegraph's threat to make the phone system work? He took another sip of tea. Jarlath Brendan Walsh, k/a Jarlath Walsh. He must have had a lot on his plate with a name like that. Saint Jarlath was a Galway saint. Minogue had known but one person before in his life by that name and the fellow had wisely called himself Jer.