Minogue introduced Hoey.
“Let’s go to the Garda Station first,” said Crossan.
“Have you heard more about Spillner?” Minogue asked.
“Well, I don’t know if he got bail yet.”
“I’d expect him to be held over for even having the gun,” said Minogue.
“Word is that Tom Russell, the Super in Clare, has asked Dublin for new commando-type outfits to patrol the place,” said Crossan. “The ones trained to eat their children and run through walls with their heads.”
Minogue crossed the bridge and turned down the cul-de-sac toward the Garda Station. He debated telling Crossan about his run-in with the Special Branch out at the farm but decided against it.
“So Russell and Co. haven’t phoned your mob for expertise,” Crossan went on. “Maybe he lost your number, do you think?”
Minogue parked behind a black Mercedes. Crossan squinted at the CD plate on the grille.
“Look at the shine off that car, will you,” he said. “Blind a beggar, so it would.”
A chauffeur stepped around one of the gateposts that formed the entry to the yard of the Station and began to study the dowdy Fiat and its passengers.
“A fiver says that’s down from the German Embassy in Dublin,” said Crossan. “Herr Spillner being the big-noise industrialist back in the fatherland.”
Minogue plucked the key out of the ignition and nodded at the chauffeur, a well turned out man in his thirties, thick-set without looking at all flabby.
“ Guten tag,” said Crossan. The chauffeur stood with his feet spread and nodded.
The lawyer strode down the short avenue and sprang, it seemed to Minogue, through the architraved door into the public office. A tall Guard with a bony nose and a flushed complexion looked up and greeted Crossan before allowing his eyes to search Hoey’s features. God, thought Minogue, Hoey probably looks like a suspect they were bringing to a lock-up. The Guard studied Minogue’s card for several seconds.
“Are ye expected, now?”
“We’re here to see Sergeant Ahearne,” said Crossan.
The Guard tugged at his tunic to straighten it under his belt.
“Hold on a minute, yes,” he said. “He’s on the premises, I believe.”
With a shy smile the Guard turned tail and went through a door behind the counter. Two Guards ambled in the door, laughing, from the yard.
“How’s Alo?” asked the older one. He had ginger hair and pale, tired eyes still full of humour after the joke he had been exchanging with his mate.
“I’ve been better,” said Crossan.
Ginger-hair smiled at Hoey.
“Did Alo do that to you?”
A Guard in the lighter blue tunic of a Superintendent came through the door into the public office. For several moments, Minogue could not grasp what was going on. The Superintendent’s eyes had been on Minogue’s from the moment he had appeared around the door. The two Guards in from patrol stopped abruptly, straightened and looked from the Superintendent to Sergeant Ahearne following. Behind Ahearne came the desk-officer who dared a look toward Minogue before looking away. Minogue’s thinking still lagged behind his awareness that he had walked into an ambush.
Superintendent Thomas Russell of the County Clare Division of the Garda Siochana was fifty-three years on earth. He retained a full head of crinkly hair which flowed back from a heavily lined forehead. The hair reminded Minogue of a child’s drawing of ocean waves. Two unfashionable patches of sideburn hair high on Russell’s cheeks hinted at an inflexibility. Vanity, Minogue guessed. Look at me, I am fierce. I can grow hair right up under my eyes. Thick eyebrows couldn’t deliver any softer, owlish aspects to this warrior’s face. Minogue wondered if Russell’s wide face with the thrusting tufts and the incongruously small features looked this impassive as a matter of course.
“Gentlemen,” said Russell. “Will you step into this room here?”
The trio were ushered in ahead of Ahearne and Russell. Ahearne, an athlete run to fat after resting on laurels probably twenty years old, but soft on his feet yet, pulled out chairs. Russell nodded as introductions were made. Then he opened with a weak facsimile of humour.
“Well. To find Jim Kilmartin’s boys here in Ennis. Who’d have imagined our good fortune?”
Minogue did not mistake the tone. He wondered what Russell being here had to do with the Mercedes bearing CD plates outside.
“I’m acting for the deceased,” said Crossan. “I met the Inspector socially and I called him for advice. He was acquainted with Bourke.”
Russell gave Crossan a blank look.
“Half the county was well acquainted with Jamesy Bourke, I believe,” said Russell.
Minogue looked into the flat face and the tiny eyes which hardly moved.
“This man Spillner shot him the once?” Minogue asked.
“The once, yes,” Ahearne replied. “But with two barrels.”
“And killed him outright?”
“Very much so,” said Ahearne. He shifted slightly in his chair, drawing a squeak from the vinyl as he issued a sympathetic nod.
“How far away from Bourke was he when he-”
Russell raised his hand.
“Inspector. You appear to be launching an investigation here. Sergeant Ahearne is, in point of fact, the investigating officer. He is already in possession of sufficient material to pursue the case to its conclusion.”
Minogue looked at Ahearne. The sergeant blinked and rubbed his hands together once.
“That’s great,” said Minogue.
“We’d like to talk to this Spillner man,” said Crossan.
“Ah, Mr Crossan,” Russell said with exaggerated civility. “In what capacity, now?”
“As counsel for Jamesy Bourke.”
“He retained you, did he?”
“As a friend, then.”
“A friend? With all due respect now, Mr Crossan,” said Russell, leaning in slightly, “this is a delicate enough matter. There’s a foreign national involved. There’s the possibility of hob-lawyers-no aspirations on your profession, now-trying to make something of this business. The issue of land, I mean. Now, I don’t see how you can help the investigation by interviewing Mr Spillner-”
“ Herr Spillner,” said Crossan.
Russell fixed a stare on the barrister before resuming.
“I don’t see how you can help us by interviewing this man. All the expertise and training, well, we have them at hand. The Inspector here can assure you of that, of the professionalism and training we have here on the Force.”
Russell paused to raise his eyebrows as he looked at Minogue.
“The County Coroner has provided us with a very clear picture of what happened, and what Mr Spillner has told us accords very closely with that report. It’s a tragic event. But the atmosphere in parts of the county, what with hooligans with guns and their heads full of slogans, well… I would tend to lay some of the blame at the feet of those people for helping to make things so strained.”
He turned to Minogue.
“Are you up on the tensions we are having here in Clare, Inspector? There are people now from fine families getting caught up in this nonsense.”
So Russell knew that he was related to Eoin, Minogue thought. He returned Russell’s look. The Superintendent continued with a poor pretence at being guileless.
“Now, I don’t know if it’s widely known in Dublin, but we might have a repeat of the Land War on our hands here. Whiteboys and Rapparees they’re not. These characters have machine guns, etcetera.”
“If he was so close to Bourke, why did he kill him?” Crossan demanded.
Russell jumped on the question.
“This Mr Spillner has a great command of English, am I right, Sean?”
Ahearne nodded.
“Very good indeed. Very precise account of everything, right down to the times. He was out to the house with us twice and we re-enacted the whole thing several times. It’s all consistent with what the PM shows.”