“You know, Matt, I actually don’t mind,” said Wall. “I sort of let on.”
Minogue turned to him again.
“Which now, Ciaran?”
“Well I’m not going to repeat it.”
Minogue was beyond confused now. Wall’s sympathetic smile returned.
“What you said there. Whatever you read there, it must have gotten your goat something wicked, is all I can say to that.”
Had he been cursing out loud? He was more tired than he knew then.
“It’s a sign, I suppose,” he said to Wall. “Hit the hay.”
Wall folded his arms.
“So we’ll see what a night in custody does to their recall that night,” he said. “And a search of their effects at home?”
“Exactly,” said Minogue.
“And track any extra money they have, or had. No doubt it’d be spent already anyway.”
Minogue nodded. He was finding the drawer for the folders ornery. Wall shuffled over.
“There’s a trick to it,” he said, and jiggled it. “A Hail Mary does it.”
This only speeded up Minogue’s departure. He had been thinking of the tin of Gosser beer in the fridge at home.
Wall was on the stairs behind him.
“I had been meaning to ask you about something,” he said. “But of course, it’d probably be, you know. Off limits?”
“Give it a go anyway.”
“Concerning a friend of yours, a colleague.”
Minogue stopped on the landing.
“Jim Kilmartin,” said Wall.
“Friend,” said Minogue. “Both.”
“Am I stepping on…?”
For a reason that made no sense, Minogue shook his head.
“Good. We’ve been putting out feelers to him. Now you’d hardly know that. But we have.”
“Who has?”
“NightWatch. Have you heard of us?”
A small hint flared but disappeared into the pit of Minogue’s tired brain.
“Started up there a couple of years ago. We decided to go formal. Out of the closet as they say.”
“You’re saying Jim is gay?”
Wall made a teacher’s laugh.
“Oh no, no, no. That’s a good one. I must remember that one.”
Minogue’s anger was rising.
“Ciaran, I have no clue what you’re talking about here now. But you have me jittery. What gives?”
Wall turned serious. He gave Minogue a searching look.
“Jim’s predicament,” he said. “What happened that night.”
Minogue gave him a hard look. Did every damned Guard in Ireland consider it his business to comment on Kilmartin’s folly?
“NightWatch,” he grunted. “Is that like Road Watch, the traffic reports and all?”
“In a sense, Matt, in a sense. It is to guide a traveller home safely.”
“What roads would they be, I wonder.”
Wall hesitated, but Minogue knew he was committed to his message.
“Heaven, basically. Same place we all want to end up.”
Minogue examined Wall’s face.
“The name is from Holy Week,” said Wall. “Kind of good timing I suppose, there with Good Friday just behind us.”
Minogue’s thoughts went to Rachel Tynan. Had she waited until after Good Friday, to leave at Easter instead, a wish for her husband’s future that he might bear her death better? But she was never a “religious” person, was she? He remembered the paintings around the church at Calary, the happy racket from the birds throughout the ceremony, the highland bogs and the skies. The right type of holiness, damn it all, the only type worth having.
“Remember Gethsemane?” Wall asked gently. “The apostles falling asleep, not one of them to keep watch with Him? That’s what started it. Only Guards know what Guards go through, Matt. That’s a given. Don’t you think?”
Kilmartin and his Half Three Divils that kept him awake, haunting him with what could have been, should have been. The nights in the hospital, the long awkward frame of James Kilmartin asleep on cushions by his wife’s bed.
“The dark night of the soul,” Minogue muttered.
Wall’s eyes lit up, and his smile returned.
“Exactly. I knew you’d be the sort of a man that’d get it.”
Minogue watched a sleepy Garda pass them in the hall on the way to the toilet. He looked at Wall.
“We might have a word about it tomorrow then?” Wall whispered.
“It’s tomorrow already, Ciaran,” was all he could come up with.
Chapter 43
It had been some time since he had seen Brid crying. He could not remember her crying from pain, ever, even when Aisling was born. He watched her head moving slowly from side to side, her fingers spread through her hair while she rested her elbows on her knees.
“Brid,” he tried again. Her arm shot out, the hand upraised, and then slowly returned to the side of her head. A coldness was coming through him.
“I’ll fix it,” he said. “I will.”
This time she said nothing. The wheezes he had heard from her drawing her breath began to grow softer.
“It’s finished,” he said. “That’s a promise. It’s just…”
“Just what,” she said, but did not raise her head. “It’s always ‘just this’ and ‘just that.’”
“You’ll see it happen. You will.”
She sniffed and rubbed at her nose, and threw her head back, pushing her hair out of her face. Her face was so different, he thought.
“It’s too much,” she whispered. “I can’t do it. I can’t.”
“You know I wouldn’t do anything to let you down, or Aisling down.”
“Dermot,” she said, gathering herself, and dabbing at her nostrils while she looked at the floor. “Dermot. It’s three o’clock in the morning. It can’t possibly make sense, this thing.”
“You head back to bed,” he said. “I’ll kip here. That way I won’t disturb you.”
He shivered, and then grabbed his knee tight to guard against his hand trembling. Brid seemed to be hypnotized by whatever she was staring at.
“A bit of daylight isn’t going to fix this,” she murmured.
“Everything looks weird at night,” he said. “Come on, I’ll get you to bed.”
She shook her head.
“I can feel it, you know,” she said. “What you don’t tell me. It’s like a big thing here now. Like a big shadow.”
“Brid. I have no secrets from you.”
She nodded now, as though she agreed. In the seconds that passed, he began to sense she did not.
“You might believe that yourself,” she said, quietly. “That’s what I have to think.”
She glanced up at him.
“Otherwise, where are we?”
He grasped his knee tighter.
“I have enough,” he said. “Enough research, I mean. It’s finished. No more. Tonight was the last of it.”
She was very still, but he could hear her raspy breathing. She began to get up. The ringing shattered the quiet. He put his hand over the mobile.
Brid frowned and sat back on her heels. He pushed at the power and held, but one more ring escaped.
“You’re shaking,” he heard her say.
“I didn’t know I left it on. Sorry.”
“Look at you, Dermot. What’s going on?”
“It woke me up, gave me a fright, love. That’s all, I wasn’t expecting it.”
She stepped back, and stared at him. A teacher move, he knew, and anger joined his panic.
“What,” he said. “Will you stop with the, the nanny treatment here? Jesus, this isn’t Abu Ghraib or somewhere, is it?”
“Something’s wrong, I know it.”
“I’m half-asleep, for Christ’s sake, Brid. Give me a bit of space here, will you?”
“This weekend, Dermot. This weekend, we have to talk.”
“What does that mean? We talk every day. We’re talking now.”
“Tell me what’s gone wrong.”
“Nothing! Nothing has gone wrong. Okay?”
She waited. He took in the silent reproach.
“Let’s go somewhere,” she said, “just the pair of us. I’ll get Ma to take Aisling for the day.”
From tears to cool practicality, Fanning thought, all in a matter of a minute.
“We’ll go down to Dwyer’s Cottage,” she added. “The long way, over Sally Gap. Rain or shine.”
She was waiting for him to answer.