“Up in O’Loughlin’s. Miss Ireland’s on tonight.” The driver looked over into the shadows where his friend sat. “That’s as near as you’ll get, is it?”
Minogue left Hoey at Mrs McNamara’s door. The rain seemed to have eased off. The television glowed behind the curtains in the parlour. Mrs McNamara might well drag Hoey away to watch Miss Ireland while she poured tea into him. There she could pry at leisure and not be rushed into indiscreet questions.
The Inspector felt the weariness return to his shoulders. He fought free of a belch from deep in his diaphragm and grimaced at the greasy aftertaste. He let the Fiat coast lumpishly through the narrow streets before he drew it next to the curb by Crossan’s office. He honked once and saw the light being extinguished in Crossan’s office. The lawyer came down the steps two at a time.
“Such a night,” said Crossan with a hiss. “We’ll be drowned. Go out the Gort Road. I’ll give you the billy when we get near to the Howards.”
A mile outside town, Crossan jabbed a finger toward two stone piers. The gates had been drawn back. The house was out of sight of the road. Minogue turned onto the avenue and felt the Fiat sink slightly into the pebbled drive. The swish of the stones under the tires made him think of the steel-hooped broughams of the gentry cutting lines in gravel raked daily by servants. The headlights swept over old trees, rhododendrons and a white metal railing which led to the front of the house. Minogue parked by a white Audi and stepped out. The rain had let up but the gardens and grounds around the house seemed to be waiting for more. Sounds persisted: drips and pats, the gurgling of a gutter close by, the wet hiss of a car passing on the road below the house. The earth released smells of damp, decaying leaves.
The Howards’ residence was two storeys over a high cellar which could be entered through a door under the steps. Tall windows to both sides of the front steps formed oblongs of yellow on the face of the white house. Flower beds of turned sod with rose bushes recently cut back fronted the house. White wrought-iron chairs surrounded an elaborate table on a bed of cut stone to the side of the house. A lorry’s air brakes squealed on the road. Crossan slammed his door hard, a gesture whose intent Minogue was not sure of. His toes sank back into the pebbles as he trudged toward the steps, making him lean forward to gain some momentum.
“Grand spot,” he tried on Crossan.
“The White House,” grunted the lawyer.
Minogue gained the foot of the steps and looked back. The lights of Ennis twinkled between the trees.
“Don’t feel you need to doff your cap here and you in from the wilds of Rossaboe,” said Crossan skipping up the steps. Half-way up the flight he paused and scraped his sole on the edge of the step.
“Jesus,” he muttered.
Minogue strained his eyes. After a few seconds he could see the spots on the steps.
“Watch out,” said the lawyer, still scraping. “The slugs are out after the rain.”
Crossan reached the top of the steps and hit the bell with his fist. Minogue decided against voicing the gibe that came to his mind: a lawyer in a hurry to knock on a door could only mean someone’s misfortune. Minogue was half-way up the steps when Sheila Howard opened the door. She watched him ascend and Minogue felt as if he were floating up. He tried to keep his breathing regular by using his nose alone, but the breath came in whistles. He became acutely aware of the condition he was in. His hair and shoulders were still damp from stepping in and out of cars and houses and pubs. Hoey’s cigarettes, the smell of the Fiat. Have to get a new car, damn it. He wished he had bathed and shaved and done his hair and brought fancy clothes with him down from Dublin, changed his shoes at least…
“Aloysious,” he heard her say. “And…the Inspector.”
Crossan’s voice was a bark of forced humour.
“But, sure, let him in anyway, will you?”
Minogue’s impressions collided with the thoughts and feelings welling up inside. He stood in the doorway feeling like an unkempt supplicant. A scent of flowers wafted out from the interior. She stood aside near Crossan and waved Minogue in. He swallowed, glanced and nodded at Sheila Howard before walking into the hallway.
“I’ll take your coats here,” she said, and closed the door. Minogue wished she wouldn’t. A stairway curved up to a landing overhead. Polished wooden floors ran through the hallway and then disappeared under what the Inspector took to be a Persian carpet covering much of the floor of the front room to his left. Track lighting bathed the hall but the peach-coloured walls softened its glare.
“Miserable old day, isn’t it?” said Sheila Howard. Minogue pivoted around and stole a glance at her back. Her hair was tied up in a loose pony-tail and her jeans were faded. He guessed her pastel red polo-neck was lamb’s-wool. As she stretched into the cloakroom, Minogue looked down to see her bare heels stand out of her shoes. Crossan had made no reply to her. Minogue felt that he should fill the vacuum.
“Par for the course, I suppose,” he said.
“Are you a golfer?”
“Well, no, in actual fact.”
“Golf is for iijits, Sheila,” Crossan interrupted. “Hell is full to the brim of golf courses. Saving your husband and all that. I know he only bought his clubs to play with the tourists out in Lahinch.”
Steps sounded softly and Dan Howard appeared in a doorway to the right. He took off his glasses with a smile, folded the newspaper and plugged it under his arm.
“Come in, can’t ye,” he said. He reached out for Minogue’s hand.
The Inspector sat in a heavily upholstered chair by the fire and made a quick survey of the room. High ceilings and long windows gave him a sense of comfortable spaciousness. Elaborately flowered plasterwork radiated from the centre of the ceiling, over an unlit chandelier. The antique furniture, few of the pieces with a shiny finish, suggested elegance without appearing lavish. Minogue’s amateur but wary eye recognised one of the paintings as a Paul Henry. The only clear concession to ego, he thought, was a writing bureau with elaborate inlay placed strategically by the window. At least it was covered in papers. Howard sat forward on the edge of a high-backed sofa.
“Something to wet your whistles, men?”
“Glass of Paddy,” said Crossan. “Nothing tricky, now.”
“Any Irish,” Minogue said. “Jamesons if it’s easy to hand.”
“I’ll get it,” said Sheila Howard. She walked to a cabinet and turned a key. Minogue spotted a wide array of bottles. She took tumblers from behind another door and began pouring whiskey. Then she took a small, ornate pail and left the room. Ice, Minogue realised.
Howard spoke as though responding to a question which no one had asked. “The time of year, all right.”
He ran his fingers back through his hair once and yawned. Minogue found more comfort in the chair and his nervousness began to ease. He looked at the turf burning vigorously in the fireplace.
“Do you mean there’s an election coming?” asked Crossan. “Or with Captain Moonlight and his raiders out in the hills?”
Minogue decided that Crossan’s tone was a way of keeping an edge on conversation with people he knew. Howard fobbed off the sarcasm with a flick of his head.
“I meant the weather and the season that’s in it,” he said.
“Ye’re well in out of the weather here,” Crossan said. “A glass of whiskey, a turf fire and all, begob. Ye’re truly a man of the people, Dan Howard. Where’s your high hat and your shillelagh, but?”
Sheila Howard returned with the ice-pail and a jug of water. Minogue looked up at her in the doorway and felt his belly tighten again. She rubbed her hip against the door to close it.
“What’s that about an election?” she asked.
“Alo’s fishing,” Howard said. He winked at Minogue. “But the bait is old.”
“Alo” from Howard, “Aloysious” with its full burden of ironic grandeur from Sheila Howard. The fancier name to keep Howard at bay, Minogue reflected. She placed the ice and water on the cabinet while she plucked one of a nest of tables from next to the sofa. The phone rang in the hall. She held her hand up before her husband rose.