“Is our one up yet?” he demanded softly. “She’s from Corofin, you know. Dwyers. Bofey Dwyers, the funeral director in Corofin. I have money put aside with Bofey for when the time comes. So as I won’t be a burden.”
“God, you were always the careful man, Florrie,” said Mrs Considine. “That’s very thoughtful of you, to be sure.”
Florrie took the compliment in his stride and continued looking solemnly at the television.
“You know not the day nor the hour,” he said. Mrs Considine sighed as she drew a new pint of stout for him.
“You’re right, Florrie, you’re right. But you don’t look that close to the wood to me.”
The camera sprang on a bikini-clad Miss Cork.
“Suffering Jesus that died on the cross,” Quinn marvelled.
The compere asked Miss Cork if she liked farming. She giggled and said she loved the outdoors.
“I’m not so keen on the farming myself,” muttered Florrie.
Two young men entered the pub. One had reddened eyes and a smirk. Minogue, haggard, nodded at them and wondered if everyone looked familiar to him in County Clare. Both men ordered lager, and they took up watching Miss Cork giggling and shifting about on her high heels. Minogue wondered if Iseult had already stormed into RTE to throttle the producers of this sexist tripe. The patrons of Mrs Considine’s select bar warmed to the sparkling personality, poise and deportment of Miss Cork. Minogue noted that her collarbones were very prominent and that, despite her very large breasts, she looked underfed.
Bourke had thus been left very high and very far from dry, on the street after midnight, free to indulge his own bitterness. Abandoned, left to his fate? Minogue tried to imagine it: drunk-swaying, by all accounts-and alone on the street. What was Bourke feeling as he saw the car drive away, the streets empty? Despair? Fury? Dan Howard was being driven home while James Bourke was left kicking his heels there on the side of the street, pockets empty, drunk. Did Bourke feel used, bought off? Howard could always call on money or help or comfort. Bourke had had nowhere to turn. Naughton, Minogue thought, the first Garda reported on the scene. Perhaps he could help Minogue see where he was drifting, help him to a mooring at which he could tie up the impressions and facts he was still unable to link. How drunk was Howard? How drunk was Bourke? Too drunk to walk?
“Which one is she?” asked one of the newly arrived. His fogged eyes suggested to the Inspector that he had visited other pubs tonight.
“Can’t you tell she’s Cork the way she rolls her R’s?” said the sage and observant Florrie.
“Arra, man, that’s only the high heels what does that,” scoffed another.
Miss Donegal followed, arriving to accolades. She began talking effusively of her interest in travel. Minogue turned to Crossan and wondered if he himself looked half as washed out as the barrister did.
“Tell me something,” he said in a low voice to the barrister. “Is there a part of you that likes to see the Howards haunted?”
“Haunted? What are you on about?”
“Bourke. The fire, the trial. Howard’s the big banana here now.”
Crossan kept his gaze on the television.
“What difference would it make to the facts of what we’re about?”
Minogue wasted no time on delicacy.
“So you are.”
“I must say,” Crossan enunciated with care, “that there is a part of me that’s turned off by the pair of them.”
“We shall so agree then.”
“You don’t understand. I don’t envy Dan Howard or Sheila Howard. I just think that Dan Howard inherited his due with Jamesy Bourke. And I did poorly by Jamesy when he was alive. There’s cause and effect at work somewhere in the back of it all, even if I can’t shine a light on it for you. Do you know what I mean?”
Crossan leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees, all the while keeping his eyes on the screen.
“Let me hazard a guess now. You think you’re listening to a sour fart elbowing up to forty, with life passing me by, no family or kin, is it? A misplaced sense of responsibility or something? Crank, maybe, huh? No, maybe it’s more like you’re seeing someone who wants to buy off his conscience.”
“You’re giving me a lot of choices, I’d have to say.”
“Let me try a few more on you. Maybe I was starstruck by Sheila Hanratty? Hah. I was never so. But you’re right in one suspicion which you haven’t mentioned. I don’t vote in Dan Howard’s direction.”
“Probably one of your best kept secrets, counsellor. But there’s something you’re holding back.”
“Tell me, so.”
“If I could, I would.”
“About me personally or about the Bourke thing?”
“Why separate them?”
Crossan guffawed loud enough for all eyes to turn from Miss Donegal’s spotted bikini.
“As true as God, Minogue, you’re a ticket. I think you’re trying to see how far you can push me. Is it that you want to see me rear up at you?”
“I’m going along with you still because I will find out what happened to Jane Clark and Jamesy Bourke with or without your help. I want you to know that. I also want you to know that I’m doing it for my own reasons. I want you to know that if you’ve kept stuff back from me I’ll crease you.”
Crossan’s smile lingered, diminished.
“A very genteel way of issuing threats… What’s turned you so sour on me?”
Miss Donegal said that she’d like to say hello to her family in Gortahork, her sister in Glenties who was due to have a baby any day now and all her friends in the Department of Finance in Dublin Castle. Lovely teeth, Minogue observed. The compere, his thinning hair expertly and sharply scalloped, blown and sprayed toward his forehead like an unstable Roman emperor, invited her to go ahead.
“Well?” Crossan prodded.
“Well, indeed,” Minogue grunted. “I’m trained to be suspicious. Don’t take it personally.”
Crossan’s smile had dropped off his face and a look of resentment took its place. Minogue shivered and finished his whiskey. He realised that his body was aching. Images of the shooting, the curtains dancing, came to him and his stomach tightened. Miss Donegal waved. High heels and a winning manner, he thought.
“Nine tomorrow,” he said. “See what we can salvage.”
He wished Miss Donegal a silent goodnight-she was leaving the stage-and he stepped out into the night. Muddle-headed, shivering occasionally, Minogue took deep breaths. He wondered when the real effects of the episode at the Howards tonight would take hold of him and frighten him as it should. Crossan’s face stayed with him. Weariness flowed over him in waves and the images came to him quicker: Sheila Howard’s face, the light from the hallway radiating through the dust from the shattered plaster as it eddied out of the doorway. A moment of panic stopped Minogue as he thought of the bullets streaming in the window, ricocheting, tearing into his body. He knew, now that he was alone, he could not avert his thoughts about it. His knees felt watery and the cold air found his neck. He clasped his collar shut against his neck and his body gave one long shudder. A car passed the mouth of the street. Better get somewhere warm, get into bed, he realised.
The door to Considine’s pub opened and Minogue watched one of the late arrivals look up and down the street. The man paused and raised a hand to his hair. He glanced at Minogue and their eyes met momentarily. Then he crossed to the other footpath and searched both ends of the street. Minogue stepped out, walking briskly and woodenly toward Mrs McNamara’s Bed and Breakfast.
Mrs Mac related that Hoey had gone to bed an hour ago. She had almost finished one sock and was still as keen and bright-eyed knitting as she had been nearly four hours earlier.
“God, you look perished,” she said. “Are you coming down with a cold, is it? I have powder and aspirin inside if you want.”
“Thank you, no. Was Shea looking for me or anything like that?” Minogue asked.
“No, he wasn’t. I thought he wanted to go out awhile, on account he looked a bit restless…” She paused to gather a stitch, smiled and went on. “He had a cup of tea and a read of the paper. He said he wasn’t really up to being himself lately.”