“So…?”
“You don’t get it. That’s bad for business. If you use it, it’s dirty. I don’t mean dirt, I mean it’s tainted.”
“Traceable?”
“Right. So if you’re asking for something with your ‘silencer’ thrown in…”
“I get it,” said Fanning.
He listened to the ticks of the engine cooling. Staring into the darkness he could soon distinguish gaps of less dark sky. Cully released his belt and let it slide quietly into place. He yawned and pulled back the sleeve of his jacket to see his watch. He made no move to get out of the car.
“Are we going to…?”
“Soon.”
“What are we waiting for?”
Cully rubbed at his eyes pinching the bridge of his nose and then stretched.
“We are waiting,” he said slowly in a stagy voice, “we are waiting, for the right time. That’s what we are waiting for.”
Chapter 35
Minogue stretched again. A familiar sournes came to his nostrils — the stale smell of late hours in the same shirt and jacket, of early morning hours spent sitting in interview rooms, or slouched in cars.
Duggan had moved his chair back to the wall so he could lean his head and shoulders against it. Wall looked as fresh as ever somehow. Minogue wondered how, but then decided that Wall’s strong faith probably had an inner glow of freshness and cleanliness, signs of everlasting life conferred on the chosen, perhaps. Like the clean-cut Mormons.
Minogue eyed the pictures again. He settled on the one of Tadeusz Klos’ bloodied face, his teeth bloodied and broken, the swollen lips, the terrible sneer of death.
Duggan opened his eyes slowly.
“I had this brilliant dream,” he murmured.
“It was perfect,” he added, swallowing dryly.
“That Amy Winehouse one again?” Wall asked.
The unexpected humour heartened Minogue. Maybe Wall wasn’t all piety. Maybe he actually had a bit of give in him.
Duggan shook his head.
“Long gone,” he said. “That tramp deserted me, so she did.”
“Is it too late to start a support group?” Minogue asked.
“Ah, no — but thanks anyway. I’ll suffer in silence. Wait, no: I’ll blog it.”
“That’s Monaghan men for you,” Minogue said. “‘Stony grey hills…’”
The puzzled expression that was Duggan’s response brought a little dismay to Minogue. Did nobody read Patrick Kavanagh’s poetry anymore?
“Well, in anyway,” said Duggan, gathering himself. “This one was about tonight, or this morning, whatever you want to call it. Set right here in this room.”
Minogue looked over.
“Yeah,” said Duggan. “All the yo-yos in there walked in the door here, along with their counsel, and confessed.”
“Wild out entirely,” said Minogue.
“It was brilliant,” said Duggan. He rubbed at his ginger stubble.
“‘Sorry to have kept you up so late,’ said one of them, what’s his face, the long stringy fellow, Twomey.”
“Come on now,” Wall said. “Hardly Twomey. He’s a complete idiot. The way he’s talking and posing? I swear he thinks he starred in some video or something. Did you hear what he said to his counsel after she showed up?”
“I know, I know,” said Duggan and yawned.
“‘Get out of here,’ says he. ‘You’re working for The Man!’”
“Well it was grand while it lasted, that dream.”
“Is that all?”
Duggan took his hands down from wiping his eyes.
“Actually, it wasn’t. I think we all shook hands. And off we went.”
“Off where?”
“We went to a pub to celebrate. Now did you ever hear anything like it?”
“I never did,” said Wall. “But I’ll bet you they hear it all the time up in Portrane.”
It took a moment for Minogue’s tired mind to place the jibe: Portrane was for the criminally insane, right. A lull followed. The clock’s hands had only moved five minutes since last time. Wall turned another page.
Duggan’s yawn ended in a long groan.
“God almighty,” he said and he levered himself robotically out of the chair. “Something’s got to give here now, or there’ll be no bed for anyone.”
Minogue checked the time on his watch.
“Isn’t it kind of sexist,” said Duggan, “to be trying to get the girls out, and not the two head-cases?”
“No,” said Wall, “it’s about adults and children. The girls are supposed to be the children. Those two fellas are supposed to be the adults.”
“As the law sees it, at least,” Duggan grunted.
“Are her parents still in there?” he asked Minogue.
Minogue nodded.
“The father will turn Turk if she’s held over,” said Duggan.
“Well we’ll deal with that,” said Minogue.
“Begob, but it’s raining. Drizzle. I-”
The knock on the door was a split second before the Guard off the midnight shift opened it.
“There’s a solicitor wants to see ye, one of ye.”
Mahon now reminded Minogue of a Goya painting. His cheeks flattened and even sunken in a way he hadn’t expected, the dark rings around his eyes.
“A request,” he said to Minogue.
“I’ll be happy to oblige. If I can, of course. What’s on offer now?”
Mahon shook his head.
“My client is very frightened,” Mahon said.
“Is this the same Mr. Twomey we spoke with earlier on?”
“He’s beginning to understand the position he might be in here.”
“Okay. That’s good for all of us.”
“He’s very apprehensive at the thought of, you know.”
“Staying in a cell overnight?”
“Well, yes.”
“Well if he’d stop holding out on us…”
“He’s not.”
“You say, that he says, that he’s not.”
“I didn’t come down in the last shower.”
“Fair enough. But I’m here since The Flood, and I don’t buy that.”
Mahon drew a long breath.
“Your grounds for wanting him remanded are not clear.”
“Have I not shown you the site pictures? That is to say the photos from this scene, of Mr. Klos? Savage treatment. Brutal, sadistic, unrelenting. Now that’s unacceptable.”
“Grandstanding isn’t allowed in court either, I think you know.”
“Mr. Klos choked on his own blood.”
“My client admits to taking items off the body — with the others.”
“A body, or a live man? Unconscious and dying, and needing help?”
“Am I being cross-examined now?”
“One phone call from any of this foursome could’ve saved the man’s life.”
“He’ll be no use if he can’t get a night’s sleep.”
“Mr. Mahon. I’m not the one getting in the way of Twomey’s shut-eye. You’re the one made the request to keep this long consultation going so long. I mean, I admire your staying power tonight. Any other solicitor would be gone hours ago.”
“Your mind is made up?”
“It is.”
“Let me phrase it a different way. What is it exactly you are expecting from him tonight?”
“That he tells us what really happened. I’m more than content to wait until tomorrow and argue the same thing in the Circuit Court.”
Mahon rubbed at his eyebrows, and then looked over Minogue’s shoulder at the open door.
“You’re here because this is a high-profile case. A lot of pressure too?”
“That’s immaterial and irreverent,” Minogue replied with a shrug.
“I know you have the girls here too. And you’re playing everyone off against the other.”
“The world isn’t flat, Mr. Mahon. It hasn’t been flat for quite a long time.”
“Questionable process there. Juveniles, questioning at this hour of the night?”
“Phone a judge,” said Minogue. “Have a go. No hard feelings, whatever happens. Or doesn’t happen.”
“Kids that age will say anything.”
Minogue gave him the eye.
“Your client already said so. Several times, if I remember. No one is saying either one of these two girls is sugar and spice.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that.”
“Which always means the opposite, in my experience. You’re driving at…”
“That people have blind spots. All people.”
“Specifically?”
To his credit, Mahon wasn’t flinching.
“That girls wouldn’t be capable of doing it. That maybe the men here — boys really, or at least my client, I regard him as a boy really — have a misguided loyalty.”
Minogue raised an eyebrow. Mahon raised one back.
“Mr. Mahon, let me tell you something. I’d want you on my side, I really would. To be sure, people do the right thing for the wrong reason, and all the rest of it. I don’t for a minute doubt what young ones — girls — can do, what they come up with.”
Minogue took a step back toward the doorway.
“So, on account of my admiration for what you’re doing here tonight — and I am not joking one bit, now — here’s what had been going through my mind. The two young ones set Mr. Klos up and then they told the two lads when they showed up. All part of a plan. Who’s to say the two girls didn’t even lend a hand? Or a boot, should I say. But that doesn’t diminish what your client did. What I allege he did. Why I oppose bail.”
“You have forensic evidence to back all of this.”
It was unworthy of Mahon, Minogue believed, but he was tired and frustrated too, no doubt.
Mahon cast a glance again at the doorway.
“We’ll have to leave it at that,” Minogue said.