Rather than tread on the gravel, he backtracked slowly onto the grass. He stopped to observe a lighted window again. The faint sounds were voices from the television, he realised. He listened intently for a full minute and heard nothing more than the changing tones, the jingles and the futile enthusiasm of ads. He moved sideways along the doors of the BMW, raised his stick to hold back the forsythia and stooped to get around to the front of the car. Cute fucker, he thought with the anger catching fire in his chest again, trying to hide the damage by shoving the car in the bushes.
A branch escaped along his stick and flicked onto the bonnet. He hunkered down and leaned against the shrubs to see the front of the car proper. While he paused to get his eyes used to the darkness there, he thought about what he should do when he was finally sure that this was the car that had left his dog mangled in the road. Were there other cars in the village or the area with D stickers on them? Maybe Crossan’d give him one of those sympathetic looks and try to fob him off. To hell with Crossan and to hell with these tourists and to hell with Tidy Howard and to hell with Sheila Hanratty and to hell with Minogue.
His fingers found the grille and traced the broken plastic mouldings. Cheap hoors, he thought with satisfaction, a fancy car made of plastic. One of the headlights was broken. His fingertips sought out any traces of hair. Branches slid off his stick and lashed his face, but he didn’t feel their sting.
He stood, leaned into the bush again and raised his stick to fend off more of the shrubs. The click he heard then was very different from the scratching which the branches had traced on the bodywork of the car. He looked over the car and froze. He stayed that way for less than one second, for less time than his brain needed to confirm what his eyes sought out so desperately in the shadows, for less time than he could utter a word, for less time than he could will his body to move. An unbearably bright and thunderous flash lit up the side wall of the cottage. Jamesy Bourke catapulted through the forsythia and flopped like a sack full of rubbish on the rocks behind.
The Minogues reached Dublin at half-nine. Kathleen looked up at the bus crammed next to the Fiat while they waited for the traffic light near Portobello Bridge. Minogue fell to staring at the rills of canal water cascading over the lock.
“So that’s the story of Jamesy Bourke,” he murmured.
He had been surprised at Kathleen asking him about it. Perhaps she felt badly about her part in pushing Crossan at him.
“How was I to know Crossan was going to ask you to get involved in something like that now?”
“How indeed,” Minogue grunted. He led the Fiat away from the green light. “Well, he can’t be all bad. Trying to ease his conscience is no offence in my book. But Bourke sounds like a real head-case. Still and all, if I ever get the time sometime-maybe-I’ll see what’s in our files about him.”
“I don’t want you caught up in any conniving,” Kathleen said. “That crowd in Clare are tricky.”
Minogue gave her a one-eyed scrutiny. She elbowed him back to attention in time for him to dodge a taxi. The conversation died until they reached Elm Park hospital fifteen minutes later.
“I’d prefer to go up on my own, if you don’t-”
“I knew you would. Go on up with you. I’ll wait in the foyer and read the magazines or something. Tell Shea I was asking for him.”
Minogue tried several times to decipher his wife’s mood as he negotiated his way through the wards. Was she still annoyed that he hadn’t persuaded Mick and Eoin about something? Hoey was in a private room. The Inspector held his breath, tried out a smile and knocked.
He believed that Hoey had lost weight. He studied the bruise that extended from the eyebrows up to his hairline.
“Does the Killer know?” Hoey asked.
“I don’t think so. Not yet.”
Hoey’s eyes remained fixed. His cracked lips were colourless and dried saliva clung to the corners of his mouth. Minogue sat back in the chair and stared at a purple and green weal which lay smack in the middle of Hoey’s forehead. The day had caught up to the Inspector. He felt something welling up slowly in his chest. Hoey glanced back into his scrutiny but Minogue ignored the hint. He tried to clear his throat but lapsed into coughing. Minogue looked away.
Hoey’s cough subsided. “Won’t do much for the looks,” he whispered.
“Look, Shea. You were never much of a talker. Isn’t it time for a bit of a change?”
Hoey squinted out from his good eye. “What do you think the Killer will make of it?”
“You weren’t breathalysed or sampled after they pulled you out of it, so there’s nothing formal to trip over. Yet.”
“Won’t stop Kilmartin.”
“You could have talked, Shea. Should have.”
“About what?”
“Whatever the hell is bothering you. Here you go, obviously pissed, behind the wheel of a car, and you wreck-”
“It’s my business.”
Minogue’s anger began to uncoil behind his ribs.
“I came up from Clare after I heard from Eilis to see-”
“Ah, fuck it, man! I’m out!”
Hoey sat up, rolled slowly off the bed and began walking stiffly around the room. Except for his shoes he was fully dressed. Minogue noted the streaks of dried blood on his shirt. The compound smells of the hospital began to add to his claustrophobia. He counted to five.
“What do you mean ‘out’?”
“Look. The Killer won’t have me back anyway. A head-case. I can just see him. I’m sick of the whole bloody caper anyway.”
Hoey whirled around to face the Inspector, his hands out.
“How the hell did I ever wind up here? That’s what I’d like to know.”
Minogue sat forward. His joints had turned mushy on him.
“You went on a tear and you ran your bloody car into a wall. It’s not the end of the world.”
“Not that,” Hoey snapped. “The job! How the hell did I end up dealing with the likes of that fucking yob the other night? I mean, it suddenly struck me…”
“Nolan?”
“So he’s been on your mind too. See? Here I am thinking, will Nolan get bail? Will Nolan do something like this again? Will someone nail him in prison? God Almighty!”
“Forget Nolan. I’m hardly in a mood to be sympathetic now with the crooked humour you’re in. You’re damn lucky you weren’t badly hurt. Or worse: you could’ve taken someone with you.”
Hoey turned away. His hands were fists by his sides. He seemed to be staring out the window into the yellow street-lit haze over the southern suburbs of Dublin.
“Lucky?” he said.
The word came back clearly from the glass to the Inspector. Hoey’s fists found their way to the window-sill. His body canted stiffly forward until his head touched the glass.
“I knew what I was doing. Or I thought I did. Sure I turned the wheel myself.”
Minogue let himself fall back in the chair. He closed his eyes.
CHAPTER FIVE
Look, Shea. It’s half-ten. Kathleen’s downstairs. I’d better go down and let her know what’s happening.”
Hoey gave the Inspector a bleak look. His coat had a dark stain across the lapel.
“Sign yourself out, will you,” Minogue went on. He still felt numbed. “I’ll meet you downstairs. Have you any more tests?”
Hoey shook his head and returned to combing his hair in front of the mirror.
“X-rays or anything? You weren’t concussed, were you?”
“No.”
“Pills you need?”
Hoey shrugged. Minogue watched him appraising his own battered face in the mirror. Hoey worked on a stray lick of hair over his ear. Minogue saw his colleague lose a battle to keep his hand from trembling as it remained poised over his head for several moments.