“There are kids in the States, you know.”
“Oh, a commune?”
“Come on. It’d be good for her. Remember we always wanted to keep going, not just turn into ‘the parents.’”
She pulled over another paper.
“Christ,” she said quietly. “Monastric. He actually wrote that. Monks doing tricks? Gastric, monastic. Spastic. Hello? Spell check, anyone?”
She pushed it away, looked up at him, and smiled.
“I got an email from Lizzie. Things are heating up.”
Lizzie, he thought. The downer sister-in-law, the one without an ounce of talent, doggedly spending years trying to “break into acting.” Her latest diversion was dating a director who had showed promise with a surreal cartoon about Dublin night-life.
“Well good for her. Is she up to it?”
“More to the point, is he? He’s fiftysomething.”
“I saw his name in credits going back to St. Patrick: “Director — Joe Rattigan.”
“Well he’s still a biggish wheel.”
“All those wankers. ‘I could pass your name on to Colm Breen, Colm and I go back a long way.’”
“Age hasn’t dimmed your kind regard, I see.”
“I’m talking about when I was a kid, even. Well, a teenager.”
“Lizzie says the separation from his wife made a teenager out of him. Spare me the details, I told her.”
He knew there were bottles of Heineken left from the weekend, but they were in the cupboard. Still, he’d drink one.
“She says he’s not the way people think. ‘Joseph’ he likes to be called.”
Fanning walked slowly to the doorway and leaned against it. Brid sighed and sat up and opened the paper again.
“Why are you telling me this,” he said.
She seemed surprised.
“Lizzie happens to be my sister. Anyway. It’s just talk.”
“Networking, are we?”
“Maybe. What of it?”
“Leave me out of it.”
“Did I say you were in it? In what, anyway?”
“You know. ‘Putting in a good word for good old Dermot Fanning.’”
“Is that what you’re thinking? Really?”
“Some of it, yes. It’s not like, well, you know.”
“‘It’s like it’s all about me’?”
“Give me a break, Brid. Christ’s sake.”
“I will if you let me take you out for a pint with Lizzie and him.”
“A pint,” he said, “with Joe Rattigan. I’d sooner kick myself in the head.”
“Well there you go. True to form, anyway.”
“That was a setup.”
“You mean self-sabotage. That’s what I’m hearing. Again.”
“Don’t we have a deal, that we never use crap words like that? Like the shite you have every day in school? Empowerment, facilitate — all that bullshit?”
Brid stared at him.
“Why are you raising your voice?”
“Because, because I’m annoyed. Is that still allowed?”
She blinked several times and then abruptly returned to her marking. He watched her but she did not look over. Soon she was absorbed in what she was reading. He took two bottles from the cupboard.
“I’ll do an hour or two,” he said, “at the desk.”
The desk was a family heirloom passed on from his great-grandaunt, a teacher all her life in Waterford. The desk had become his magic carpet, his portal. He’d even drilled a hole to bring the laptop’s cable into the drawer.
He slowed as he passed her. She dropped her pen and reached out around his waist.
“Just let me do it,” she murmured, “Joe knows your work. Lizzie already asked him about you.”
It was almost more than he could muster to wait with her and to caress her hair. He knew early on there’d be no chance tonight anyway. The desire had left him quite suddenly, and in its place was the familiar, dense unease.
Things used to be different, was all he could think.
Chapter 20
The site photos had been arranged on two notice boards, with more slotted into a binder. A third notice board — the back of a mobile whiteboard, actually — contained the timeline for Tadeusz Krystof Klos’ last hours. The last entry of 22:30/23:00 was followed by three question marks. Minogue saw an entry for a shop, with “Marlboro” written next to the entry; an Internet kiosk, again with notes that Klos had been there before. “Slovenian” was written after a name, Peter somebody.
On the far wall was a large-scale Ordinance Survey of Dublin, with dates written on the coloured disks spotted about the map. Textbook setup, Minogue saw: effective, accessible, clear. He did not see a key to those colours yet. Wait — of course: green for reliable placing/witness. How could he have forgotten?
“The black ones are…?”
“Street-crime with violence. There’s only five years on the map. The black you can guess.”
“Three murders in five years?”
“Surprising, maybe.”
“I remember only one,” Minogue said. “It was one of the last we dealt with directly. On the Squad, I mean. The nurse?”
“It is. Another one was a brawl from a pub. But there was an execution one there from two years ago. That one on the right, the body in the car one, was the fella missing from Newry. Paramilitary thing. Both of them are open. I have the files up on them if you want them.
Minogue turned to him.
“Nothing to take to the bank yet on our Polish man, is there Kevin?”
“That’s about the size of it,” said Wall after a moment. “So far, we see him as an ordinary punter wandering in there. Is he trying to score something, is he lost, expecting to meet someone, has some arrangement…?”
“Well,” said Minogue, and took off his coat. “That’s what we’re paid for, I suppose.”
He flipped open the file and glanced at the copies of the statements. On top was one Marion Mullen, employee of a cleaning company. Ms. Mullen had been coming off shift in the financial centre.
“Before you get dug in now,” said Wall. “It looks like we might have some give. Coming in just now. Mossie is working on something.”
“Linked to the case?”
Wall nodded.
“From a phone-in earlier on this afternoon. It’s not printed out yet but I know it’s entered on the database.”
Minogue watched Wall hanging his jacket on a wooden hanger, flicking at the lapels and shoulders to make sure it sat straight. His shirt had been carefully ironed. Minogue wondered why he had not noticed the long unfashionable tweed tie already.
“Apparently a woman, the mother of a girl over in Whitehall, was eyeing what the young one was doing on the computer.”
“A chat thing.”
“Yep. Twittering, or MSNing or something. Her young one was over and back to someone, a pal. The mother got a bit suspicious. She doesn’t like the other young one. ‘Bad influence.’”
“Always the other one,” said Minogue.
“Well. The daughter was in this to-and-fro. Very secretive. Got into a set-to with the mother. A row ensued, and the mother got her dander up. The last straw, etc. Daughter ends up in tears. The mother says the girls were talking about doing an anonymous call or something.”
“Anonymous, like to the tip line?”
“Didn’t say. ‘Whatever else you can say about that daughter of mine,’ says the mother, ‘at least she has a conscience.’”
Wall examined his tie then, as though consulting notes.
“Yep,” he said and he looked up. “There was talk of some prank that she pulled on someone. ‘Some foreigner,’ says the mother. Gave him wrong directions.”
“How old are the girls?”
“Fourteen. The friend is thirteen.”
Minogue knew that Wall was waiting for a reaction. He turned a page that had a thick bookmark.
“Where’s it at now?”
“Mossie went out about half an hour ago. The mother is picking up the kid from school, taking her back home to talk to Mossie. He’ll be phoning me — us — here.”
Minogue looked down the page at a mobile phone number.
“The mother found it in the girl’s room.”
“Recent calls?”
“They’re working on it,” said Wall. “There were no calls to Ireland anyhow.”