“Monday’s a long way away, Tommy. Can’t you do better?”
Malone didn’t answer.
“Hughes has done fantastic work here,” Minogue said. “More in two days than we’d have done in a week, I have to say.”
“Good for him.”
“But he’s run ragged, Tommy, spinning his wheels.”
“Happens to the best of us.”
“The mother, come on — you can imagine, hardly a word of English. An only child.”
“Everyone has a mother,” Malone was saying. “You never knew that?”
“You’re a hard man, Tommy. A real desperado, these days, I tell you.”
“Ah don’t start that crap.”
“Just give Hughes a start.”
“What do I have?”
“One of your touts.”
“I don’t believe you actually said that. I don’t.”
“Just someone who’s not in this big war thing you’re in the middle of.”
“I can’t believe you’d ask me for the loan of a source. Jesus.”
“Anybody. This Klos man is showing up with cocaine in his system.”
“Who doesn’t, these days? Any club now, you see people snorting.”
“Be that as it may. Give the mother something to hope for, and she taking him home.”
“You are frigging piling it on, so you are.”
“You know I’ll be above board with whoever you give me.”
“What do I tell him? What’s in it for him?”
Minogue thought about it for a moment.
“‘Assisting the Guards.’”
“Don’t be an iijit.”
“Is he coming to trial, sentencing maybe? Paste it into a plea for him?”
“Uh-uh. Anyone worth anything isn’t going to be in any position.”
“What, then?”
“M-O-N-E-Y. That works nicely.”
“You pay them?”
“Damned right we do. It gets results.”
“Really. Okay then. What’s the going rate?”
Chapter 16
Minogue ate at his desk. He was glad of the Pepsi to push the taste of the so-called brioche with its cargo of dry ham and chalky cheese, and its too-sharp crust that gouged his gums. There was nothing left worth reading in the newspaper. Still he searched. Someone had spray-painted the wall of the Muslim school in Clonskeagh. A road rage thing that led to fines of over a thousand Euro. An Aran islander who spoke no English had just died at the age of 105. The forecast said changeable, but to be on the lookout for showers coming in from the West. He almost missed the ping from his mobile. Don’t screw up, Malone had texted. The name he offered was for
someone Murph. He was to wait until Malone had gotten in touch with this Murph character. No address of course. In caps then the following: NOPRESSUREONHIM.
The low-hanging slabs of clouds that had formed the sky over the funeral this morning had now given way to masses of torn and running clouds. They lost their shapes quickly, but they occasionally revealed patches of blue. Minogue composed a rare text reply of six letters and one space: TA ASAP.
Eilis was trying to get a printer to work.
“What’s up?”
“It looks like the damned thing is broken. Do you know anything about…?”
“I’d do more harm than good, Eilis.”
“Well, horseman, pass by, so.”
He heard her cursing quietly in his wake. He wondered if every Irish speaker knew so many curse words.
On his way back from the bathroom, there were two messages in his box, proof of the mysterious dispensation of fate that timed phone calls for when he entered a bathroom.
Eilis was shoving the paper tray hard into the bottom of the printer. She spoke without looking up.
“Peter Igoe,” she said. “Wants to talk to you.”
Odd, Minogue thought, and unwelcome. His head of section loathed meetings, preferring to network at a distance.
“A matter of some urgency,” she murmured.
“Concerning?”
Eilis grunted as she pushed the tray home yet again.
“Didn’t say.”
Igoe asked Minogue to wait a moment so he could step out of the meeting to take the call. Minogue heard a door closing.
“Thanks, Matt. You got to that meeting there, the Polish matter.”
“I did.”
“Fair play to you. A good send-off for Mrs. Tynan this morning?”
“It’s how she wanted it, I believe.”
“Sad. Now listen, before I pass on the news to you, remind me what you’re at. Current casework, I mean.”
“The papers from the raid on the building sites in Cork and Waterford.”
“Right, right. How goes it there?”
“I sent off scans of them to The Hague yesterday. I’m going through the lists of contractors now for more.”
“Good, good. Listen to me, now, and brace yourself, I suppose.”
“Is it going to involve brown trousers, Peter?”
“Ah, no. Okay. I just got off the phone from the Deputy Comm. You were with a Garda Hughes? Kevin Hughes, case lead on the murder?”
“This very day — is he all right?”
“As a matter of fact he’s not. But he will be. He has appendicitis. Apparently he had to go to hospital.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Nice fella, a workhorse entirely, by God.”
Her arms folded, Eilis was standing by the printer now. There was a faraway look in her eyes and her bottom lip was working its way slowly over her upper teeth. No one in the section had yet dared ask her if she was still off the cigarettes.
“Howandever. Now. I’ve been requested to free you up, so you can stand in for Hughes.”
“Requested, Peter.”
“You know the score, now.”
“I have the impression there are a lot of people expecting CSI here, all wrapped up in forth-five minutes before bedtime?”
“Hard to argue with you there,” Igoe agreed. “A lot of publicity, over in Poland and here. Yes.”
Minogue knew Igoe long enough to recognize what his tone meant.
“But the point is,” Igoe said, “this case has moved right up the ramp. So you have the whip hand, as they say. Ask for anything, and it’s yours. You have only to ask.”
Minogue kicked back the slurs forming in his thoughts.
“Up the ramp,” he heard himself say.
“That’s right, Matt. Right to number one.”
This time when he phoned, Malone was somewhere quieter.
“Didn’t we just talk about this?” Malone said. “Alzheimer’s now?”
“Ancient history now, Tommy. The whole thing just got a kick, a big kick from on high. Here’s the short version: I’m on the job, the Polish man’s murder.”
“April Fool’s.”
“I’m not joking. The case lead detective is in hospital.”
“Well whatever you said to him, or did to him…”
“Acute appendicitis. So it’s me now.”
Several moments passed.
“Well best of luck to you,” said Malone. “Let me know how it goes.”
“Full steam ahead, is how it’s going. I was given the keys to the kingdom.”
“Everybody says that. Then they sober up.”
“Seriously, Tommy. I hit a bump in the road, I pick up a phone: it’s fixed.”
Malone had nothing to say.
“So let me get to this Murph, Tommy. If you please.”
“I told you,” said Malone. “I haven’t been able to get ahold of him.”
“Sooner the better, and phone right away? It’d be much appreciated.”
“Are you pushing rank my way?”
“Would that help if I did?”
“Like a hole in the head. I told you I have enough to do. Look, there’s not much I can do until I get hold of this guy.”
“How about I send you an email with lots of smileys? Would that do you?”
“You can shove your smileys. And since when do you use email?”
“Where are you?”
“I am in a car.”
“Where?”
“In the back seat.”
“So you’re operational.”
“I’m trying to be. But everyone’s hiding under their beds.”
“Your clients.”
“Yeah, my ‘clients.’ Forget the global warming stuff. I’m already dealing with an endangered species here.”