Quigley paused before continuing. He looked from face to face and worried lest the men see his own fear.
"Have you some kind of duffle bags to carry? Something casual…?"
"What about the other lads, sir?" Gibbons said.
"Too much. We can't take that chance. Moloney: tell'em to scatter around the dock and maintain radio silence. We'll be wired up, but we can't use an earpiece. We'll only use it if we have to. Just be ready to get on board in a hurry if you hear anything on your set."
O'Rourke was looking down at the gauges on the dashboard. He's not happy, thought Quigley, but he won't say anything. This was the worst kind of operation. A not-so-hot description, a boat half full of people, a million cubby-holes to get lost in. They hadn't even got a plan of the decks. The suspect wouldn't hesitate to use a gun. In a small space the jacket wouldn't mean much. He could even go for a head shot. There'd be ricochets.
Quigley hunkered into the back of the van and slipped off his anorak. He undid the strap and elbowed out of the harness. Where the leather had warmed, now felt exposed. He banged his head off the panel as he got into the Kevlar vest. Before he put on his anorak, he undipped the Browning and checked the magazine. He remembered O'Rourke looking at it one day.
"They let you have one of those things? That's a very all-or-nothing yoke if it's the one I'm thinking of, sir. Bit of a whack to it for a nine millimetre."
Quigley hadn't had to use the standard automatic off the firing range, but the double action had never jammed yet. He took a deep breath. He zippered his anorak right to the neck to cover the vest beneath.
He closed the van door behind him. Men were getting out of the parked cars. Two he recognised, Lacey and Doyle, strolled over to take over the van when Gibbons and O'Rourke left. As O'Rourke stepped lightly onto the tarmacadam, Quigley noticed the sergeant was blowing air around his tightly closed lips, running bulges around his gums. Nervous. Quigley touched O'Rourke on the shoulder.
"All right Donal, give me a half minute. No radio contact until we need to, all right?"
O'Rourke nodded. He shifted from foot to foot as if winding up for a race. Quigley felt a slippery warmth like pins and needles at his knees as he descended the glistening steps toward Marine Road. As he got under the trees, more of the ferry came into view. Its gaping maw, beak upturned, seemed to draw the cars into its yellowed belly. He looked up at the decks and railings but could see no one there. The floodlights floated above triangles of light, misted by the drizzle.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Minogue's eyes roved around the room. The worn green and white lino tiles stretched to a wall painted yellow. The wall gleamed dully with the oil paint. The room contained two chairs and a desk. Innumerable hieroglyphics were etched onto the desktop. They had been done with some care though, Minogue realised. Probably the work of a civil servant, one of many who had occupied the desk. Funny the things you do and you don't notice, like dancing around the place when you're talking on the phone. Minogue glanced at Loftus. Loftus was looking straight ahead, but Minogue knew that he was alert.
Minogue thought of Iseult on the phone at home, twirling the wire, poking at a picture on the wall, pulling on strands of her hair. Sometimes she scribbled things on the phone book, strange signs left behind after a conversation. Nerves? Daithi fiddling with something when he was talking to him: irritation, concealment? As if Minogue had something terribly important to say and that he should sit up and listen? But it wasn't that, ever. It was merely a furious desire to see these strangers' faces, grown people. Genes my arse, Minogue thought. He was different from the children. A whisper would have woken him in the night and Kathleen awake beside him too; to tiptoe as best as a size ten countryman's feet can, to the little room over the stairs. An ammoniacal smell of piss, but even stronger was the curious baby breath warm air; a struggle to turn over, a frown; lips licked, maybe a grunt. He'd wait to hear the rhythm of breathing start up again. 'All right?' Kathleen would whisper, neither awake or asleep herself. 'Yes,' and back into the bed: will I sleep now? It's hormones is what it is, Minogue thought, time of life to be lusting after girls. Five minutes gone now, he realised. He was wrong about Loftus. Maybe Loftus didn't have a blind side.
"It's a matter of time really, Loftus. We know you're not going to open your heart to us. Don't forget Allen. He'll testify and you won't be able to get at him. Know a fella by the name of McCarthy, one of our playwrights?"
Loftus seemed to smile faintly at the mention of the name.
"Can't stop that man from yapping, I can tell you. I'll bet you a fiver he'll stick another needle into you. Ah, if only they were all as perfect as yourself, Captain Loftus," Minogue said. "But you can't deny me. They'll trip you yet. You know I was going to begin our interview here by getting right down to brass tacks, straight from the word go. I was going to ask you directly, 'Captain Loftus, did you murder Jarlath Walsh?' And I expected you to give me an honest answer, just like in one of those melodramas on the telly. You know, a burst of violins after it, the case solved. But I'm not going to a^k you that at all, because I know you didn't do it. All I will ask you is who you gave the key to."
"What key?" Loftus asked.
"Whoever did it had to get out of the college at night after the gates were locked. Only higher-ups have keys to the sidegates. Whoever did in young Walsh could slip in and out when he wanted," Minogue replied. Loftus laughed.
"You know, Captain, I have this picture in my head of the fella we want. We've started calling him the mystery man, but we know what he looks like. You met him or at least you've talked to him on the phone. He is a Yank, we think. The fella who killed the guard in St. Stephen's Green. In a sense I think he's like you. Went to the States, didn't you, and fell in love with the efficiency thing? They call everything 'problem solving' over there, don't they? Still I bet you came back a convert. Am I right? But what I don't get is when it all turned bad for you here, when you decided to get into this from the other side. What was it?"
Loftus' gaze rested on the wall behind Minogue. Thinking about it later, Minogue believed that Loftus was about to speak when Kilmartin stuck his head in the door and motioned Minogue out.
The four of them sat at a plastic-topped table bolted to the floor facing the bar. Underfoot he could feel the hum of the ship's engine. The three were anxious for the screen to come up from the counter.
"And what do they drink in Canada now?" the older navvy asked.
"Oh, beer and lager. I'm not much on them myself-"
"— No more than myself," the smaller navvy added.
"— but I can toss a few back in the summer," the tanned man continued.
"'Toss a few.' Hah, that's a good one. We say'sink a few' so we do. Same thing only different. All goes the same way, amn't I right? I hear the pubs do be open until all hours in America, I mean Canada."
"Longer than they should, people say," the tanned man parried. He ached for some sign that the ship was preparing to go. A blast of the siren, a rumble below, maybe. He looked around at the passengers who had come straight to the lounge. Altogether about twenty-five people. Sitting opposite one another over a table by a window too big to be called a porthole, a young couple was the only exception to the general air of brooding tiredness which the men in the lounge had brought with them. Some sat on their own, watching the steward, yawning. The train from Holyhead would get the passengers into Euston Station in London by seven the next morning. A sense of loneliness gathered itself at the edges of his thoughts, surprising him. That Irish people have to do this, that the country is so bathed in this habit, he thought.