“Well, whether or which,” said Russell. “We’ll look into a few nests to see if some birds were home tonight. Each and every one of them. Cuckoos included.” Minogue believed Russell meant Eoin Minogue.
“How’s your German coming along?”
He was pleased to have his effect displayed immediately.
“How do you mean?”
“Someone is going to need fluent German for-”
“I get it, I get it,” Russell snapped. “Don’t you be fretting over that matter.”
The Superintendent made to head over toward a huddle of plainclothes Gardai gathering around a van, but he stopped suddenly and glared at Minogue.
“Here,” said Russell, “a word in your ear. I know more about you than you may think. Kilmartin wouldn’t have you on board if you weren’t good either. But you’re too long out of County Clare to be up to the likes of Alo Crossan. I hope for your sake that you don’t find yourself up the Suwahnee River with shite all over you, and then trying to tell me that Crossan told you this and Crossan told you that. ’Cause Crossan may take you out for a long walk and that could easy bring you down the far side of the street from me. Alo Crossan could buy and sell the best brains in the country for shrewdness. If he makes an iijit of you, that makes an iijit of me and my men here-being as we’re on the same side.”
The Superintendent nodded once, suggesting to the Inspector that he was taking his own advice very seriously. Then he pointed a finger at Minogue.
“Play by the rules here, Minogue.” Minogue watched him walk away and then sat in the car.
“I think it might be a wise move to sort out alternative sleeping quarters for the next little while,” he said.
Sheila Howard nodded.
“If we can get a lift we’ll go into town and stay at the Old Ground,” said Howard.
“You’ll have a lift, all right. You’ll have two armed detectives with ye,” Minogue murmured. “Better get used to them. You’ll have them awhile.”
The Inspector stepped out of the car again and went looking for a Guard to drive them into Ennis. The Guard, a prematurely bald smoker who rubbed at his nose a lot, was surly and tense. He grunted at Crossan as the barrister sat into the Nissan. The drizzle haloed lights over the town as the two cars negotiated the roundabout coming into Ennis proper.
“Sun tomorrow but colder, I hear,” said Minogue.
“Unk,” said the detective. Minogue gave up. He realised that this Guard was probably anticipating a sleepless night by the Howards’ door tonight. Hoey or not, car or no car, delayed shock awaiting or not, Minogue decided that he was going to stop at a pub, walk back to the B amp; B and get a bath out of Mrs McNamara’s plumbing. He would not tell Hoey about this until the morning.
“Let me off at a good pub, can’t you,” he said to the detective.
“Good move,” said Crossan.
“Ennis is full of pubs,” said the detective.
“Well, don’t trouble yourself on my account,” Crossan said sharply. “Let me out at the Old Ground and I’ll fend for myself.”
The car stopped. Minogue watched the Howards getting out of the other squad car. Sheila Howard still looked blank as the detectives shepherded her in the door but her husband seemed to be coming through the dazed state. He waved shyly toward Minogue.
The drizzle seemed to be gone, but Minogue held out his hands to be certain. Beside him the O’Connell monument rose into the night. He walked alongside Crossan to Considine’s pub. Chance cars moved sluggishly in the narrow street, whispering by the two men. “I’ll have the one with you,” Crossan said.
The lawyer pushed the narrow door open. They took two stools at the bar where a half-dozen patrons idled. Considine’s was one of the few pubs left in Ennis which still purveyed all manner of goods, from Wellington boots to tea, fly-paper to rashers, custard-powder to sardines, as well as selling drink. A coal fire glowed in the grate, a colour television glowed on the counter. When Miss Monaghan walked confidently onto the Miss Ireland stage in Dublin, Minogue almost expected her to walk out onto the counter.
An elderly woman with very thick lenses and a face like a kitten emerged from a door to the kitchen.
“Mr Crossan,” she murmured, and gave Minogue a nod. “A little inclement tonight.”
“The prospect of better, ma’am,” replied Crossan.
“That’s the style,” said Mrs Considine. She pushed back her glasses and grinned. Her brown teeth were all her own, Minogue saw, but they were small and feral.
“And how are ye all tonight anyhow?” she said as she sought out whiskey glasses.
Her greeting had that gentle, heartfelt tone which Minogue associated with talk at wakes, or when mentioning someone on whom great misfortune had fallen.
“Not bad,” replied Crossan. “Considering.”
“Paddy, the same as his honour here?” said Mrs Considine to Minogue.
“Jamesons, instead, please.”
Minogue watched Mrs Considine’s arthritic fingers manipulate the glasses and he wondered how Hoey was. He and Hoey had adjoining rooms at Mrs McNamara’s. Would Hoey be prowling about in the night? Would Tynan or Kilmartin have heard about the episode yet? God, he thought, if they put his name in the paper reporting the shooting, Kathleen’d be down dragging him out of Ennis by the neck. What could a man do?
They retired to a bench by the fire. Crossan nodded at the customers and they returned to their contemplative drinking, pretending to carry on with their conversation while watching Miss Monaghan and eavesdropping on what Mr Crossan might have to say to his companion.
“There’ll be no other mischief, I hope,” said Crossan. “With the cars, I mean.”
Mischief, Minogue thought. Flicking a gun to automatic and holding the trigger. He had a fleeting image of the boot-lid of his benighted Fiat popping up with the force of the small charge he expected the bomb squad would employ. Would the insurance pay for it? “Act of God”? “Civil unrest”?
“I’d as soon they find out for sure come the morning,” Minogue murmured. The Jamesons scorched his throat.
“Be the laugh of the year if the Guards find whoever did this and I end up being hired to defend ’em.”
“So thinks Tom Russell too,” said Minogue.
“Tom Russell can shag off,” said Crossan. “He’ll eat humble pie soon enough. I’m not about to be put off now, no matter what. What about yourself?”
“Well. I sort of thought we could sort things out a bit over a breakfast tomorrow morning. You and me. Shea. Maybe it’s a good time to call in on Naughton in Limerick. If I have a car at all, that is.”
Crossan’s eyelids drooped slightly over the eyeballs but this did little to relieve the intensity of his gaze at the television.
“The Howards with their bodyguards. By God, it’s like Sicily or somewhere. Latin America…”
Minogue too looked over at the television.
“Turn it up, Mrs C,” said one of the customers, an old man with his hat resting on the back of his head, his thumbs in his braces where they were buttoned to his trousers. “And we’ll listen to the girls.”
“An occasion of sin, Tom Quinn,” murmured Mrs Considine. “Young ones walking around with hardly a stitch on them. They’ll catch pneumonia, the half of them. Sure there’s not a pick of fat on any of them, the poor things.”
“Yerra, ’tis not fat we want, missus,” said Quinn, unencumbered by the dentures he had made a habit of taking out and placing in his pocket each evening as he entered the pub. “The doctors are always tellin’ us that fat is bad for us and that’s no lie, now.”
Mrs Considine turned up the sound. The audience in Dublin clapped; the camera swung away and up to reveal platforms of flickering lights and starbursts of spotlights. Another camera rushed in on Miss Monaghan’s mother and father who were being emotional in the audience. A ruddy-faced man still in his overcoat placed his empty pint glass on the counter with a crisp tap.