Hoey opened the paper again. It was still there.
“Are you down from Dublin?”
Hoey was reading today’s copy of the Irish Independent. On page four, the features page, was a full-page article on Irish people working for charity organisations in Africa. Aine, her arms around two black kids smiling shyly, was herself grinning back into the camera. “Aine Healey, a teacher on leave from her job in Dublin, has made fast friends with these two youngsters in rural Zimbabwe.”
Hoey looked up from the paper. “How much is the Indo?”
Mr Hogan looked over the rim of his glasses at Hoey.
“Same price as in Dublin. Have you it all read?”
“It was the one page I was looking over again,” said Hoey. He laid a pound coin next to Hogan’s cup of tea. “See her? I know her.”
Hogan squinted at the picture. “Africa, begob. She’s helping them out in Africa. That’s great.” He looked up to Hoey and smiled.
“That’s the Irish for you. Where there’s trouble and famine, that’s where we go. We had it so bad ourselves with the Great Hunger, we’d never walk away from people in need. It’s in the genes, man. It’s the way we are-that’s what I say.”
Hoey took his change and stumbled back out into the shrouded town of Ennis. He stopped in a doorway and read it again. “They need us and they’re terrific kids. They really want to be in school… Yes, it took time to adjust but I fell in love with the people. They really need us… They have taught me so much… Oh, sure, I miss Ireland but not as much as I…”
Hoey’s eyes began to sting. He stuffed the paper under his arm and searched his pocket for hankies. His chest began to heave and he couldn’t stop it. He had no hankies but he wouldn’t go back into the shop in this state. Were the pubs open? Fuck! His shoulder scraped the wall as he fingered his eyes. He began to look at the shop-fronts, hoping to see a pub. He stepped out into the street to see better. The car grew out of the fog behind him. Hoey heard the squeak of brakes and looked around. The antennae were still waving as it started up again. Hoey looked down into the car. The face was familiar. Cuddy rolled down the window.
“Howarya, there,” he said. “Minogue’s pal, aren’t you? Wouldn’t mistake you for anyone else with the eyes there.”
Hoey registered the attempt at humour with a nod.
“Are you lost?” Cuddy asked. The squad car began to move off slowly.
“No,” said Hoey. “No, I’m not really.”
“Tell Minogue I was asking for him,” said Cuddy.
“All right, now,” came Ciaran’s voice from the open door. Minogue elbowed up and squinted against the light in the doorway. Though overcast now, the light seemed intense. The fog had retired further. He put up a hand to shield his eyes. Pain swept up to a knot behind his eyes.
“Out you come,” said Ciaran. The doorway framed Ciaran and Sheila Howard. Behind them in the fog loomed scraggy evergreens. Like so many cottages in west Clare, it was secreted in a sheltering grove of trees and bushes. Overgrown grasses lay in dense, saturated clumps by the door. Minogue looked from the gun to Ciaran’s face.
“Hurry up!”
Minogue stood dizzily on an overgrown laneway. Another surge reached the back of his head and he wondered if he might fall over. Sheila Howard had walked around to the front of the van and she stood there looking away. He took a step forward and felt the world tilting. Builder’s rubble, loose stones and disassembled scaffolding lay in heaps next to the house. Ciaran grabbed Minogue’s collar and pushed him forward. Minogue fought off the urge to turn or run. He hadn’t a clue where they were. He guessed afternoon but he could not make out where the sun was. His eyes hurt. Run for it? He faked a stumble and fell to the ground. Ciaran stood over him, pointing the pistol.
“No funny moves,” he said. He took a step back and motioned Minogue to get up. Minogue’s mind tried to work on his location again: up the Coast Road, near Lisdoon? Above Fanore?
“Get up!”
The driver came around the side of the van, straining with the weight of a box he was carrying. Seeing Minogue half up, he stopped and stared. The box slipped from his grasp and clattered onto the laneway. The driver swore and hopped about, his hands on one knee. Ciaran turned his head.
“Just leave it!” he shouted. “Leave it until we’re ready.” He turned to Minogue who was on one knee now. “And you, get up!”
A new slate roof had been put on the house and an extension had been added to the side. The stone walls had been carefully mortared and fitted to meet with the older building. Ciaran shoved Minogue toward the door.
“In the door there.”
Dread paralysed Minogue. The doorway was a black hole. The horror of being entombed rooted him to the spot. Ciaran grasped his collar again and pushed. Minogue raised his hand to prevent himself from falling. His hand slapped onto the door before he braced himself against the jamb.
“Get in the fucking door,” Ciaran growled, and pushed again. Better to fight, to run. Ciaran jabbed the gun hard under Minogue’s ribs, driving him headlong into the dim interior.
Was it four o’clock? Five? The darkness was unnerving him more and more. The boards covering the small window had been secured with crosspieces jammed and nailed into the old frames. He had heard some kind of cloth being thrown down on the outside of the door. Once he almost cried out, when the image of the house being set on fire wouldn’t go away. He strained for minutes on end to smell any smoke. He had tried to persuade himself-and it had mostly worked-that the cloth was to keep any light from coming in under the door. Still, he could not banish the image which flickered in his mind and detonated the panic in his chest without warning: flames raging through the house, swallowing it, him trapped here as the burning roof came down. Stop imagining. Think. Would Hoey have alerted Kilmartin?
His body seemed to be soaking up cold from the cement floor. He felt it taking over his limbs, working at the flesh around his waist. He had tried to get out to pee but nothing had come of it. Pee in the corner, he had been told through the door. There had been coming and going, he knew, because he had heard the scrape of a piece of wood which had slipped under the front door when he had entered the house. He shivered again and the spasm ran right up to his chin, making his teeth chatter. His nostrils had become inured to the damp odour of the cement and dust. He was not hungry but he wanted something-a cigarette, even. He drew up his knees again. Something about Ciaran especially chilled him. Along with the anger there was some weariness or resignation that showed in his eyes. Did Ciaran believe that he couldn’t let him walk? Ciaran and whatever-his-name-Finbarr. Were they IRA or some splinter group? And how did Sheila Howard get herself mixed up with these two? Her legs, he thought, her empty eyes on his. The same woman he had seen and watched in the dining-room of the Old Ground, in her home. Crossan? Minogue stared into the darkness and whispered the name aloud.
Hoey wheeled around and glared at Crossan. The two men stood at the foot of the steps leading up to the front door of the Howards’. Hoey had been down to Minogue’s car. No keys, locked. No clue as to where Minogue might be. At least there were no bloodstains. He and Crossan had been through the yard, into the coach-house and sheds, out into the fields. Sheila Howard’s car was in the garage. Nothing else. He glared at the lawyer.
“This window,” said Hoey. “Come on, give me a leg up.”