“Do you know a Mrs. Mullen?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Sorry. My name is Minogue. I’m a Guard. Matt Minogue.”
“That so? Where’s your ID.”
She barely looked at the photocard. Her eyes narrowed.
“I’m here about Mary Mullen.” He fixed her with a glare. “She’s the daughter, you know.”
“You’re wasting your time then, aren’t you? She doesn’t live here.”
“This is her last known address. There was no phone number. We drove out to check.”
The sun was on his bald spot now.
“Well, now you know,” she said, and closed the door. He strolled back to the car and leaned against it. Two youths emerged from a house up the street. They took their time walking toward the two policemen. Malone watched them, scratching his forearm.
“She’s trying to put one by us,” he murmured.
The youths stopped by a wall in front of one of the houses, lit cigarettes and stared at the policemen. A motorbike cruised by, turned around and stopped. The driver kicked out the stand, switched off the engine and stood next to the two by the wall.
“I wonder if our timing mightn’t be a bit off,” said Minogue. “We could come back with a posse, I reckon.”
A Post van appeared at the top of the road. Minogue saw the curtains in the upper floor of the house stir. He waved the van down. The driver was a middle-aged man with heavy jowls and a cigarette burning close to his knuckles. Beads of sweat high up on the driver’s forehead competed with a face full of large scattered freckles for the Inspector’s attention. Minogue’s eyes kept wandering to the wiry tufts of ginger hair sticking out over the man’s ears. He held up his card to the open window.
“Howiya there now. I’m a Guard and I’m looking for someone.”
The driver returned his hand to the gear shift.
“Well, good for you, pal. I’m not.”
“No-wait, I mean. It’s not the way it sounds. There’s been a death in the family. I’m trying to locate next of kin for someone.”
The driver thumbed his chin. The cigarette stayed in place against his knuckles.
“Yeah?”
Minogue’s eye went from the sceptical Dubliner behind the wheel back to the three youths. The man had taken him for a Guard trying to pin a warrant on someone.
“I was looking for a Mullen, Irene Mullen. I don’t know about a Mister Mullen, just her. She was here four years ago.”
The driver stared down into the wheel-well by the passenger seat and then back at Minogue.
“One of her family?”
“I’m afraid so. Do you know her?”
The eyes darted to the house Minogue had just left and he nodded once.
“She said there was no one that name there.”
“Who was it?” His hand moved the gear shift slowly from side to side in neutral.
“I don’t know who she is or says she is-”
“I mean the person what’s dead.”
“Well now, we’d prefer to pass the news on to the next of kin first.”
The hand stopped abruptly and the driver’s face set into a hard expression.
“Get a bit of cop on, for Christ’s sake,” he said.
Minogue took a step back from the van.
“Don’t you get it? I’m taking a chance here just talking to you. I’m the only one that comes through here now, Chief. You won’t even get the Corpo repairmen or the gas and meter fellas without an escort. The people here know me, man. Do you get it? I just deliver letters here like I done this last twenty-three years. I know me onions.”
“What are you saying?”
He jerked the ignition off and opened the door.
“Don’t they speak English down in Cork?”
“Clare. And I’m here thirty years if you need to be asking.”
The driver was nearly a foot shorter than Minogue.
“Let me tell you something, Chief. One year here is longer than thirty of yours.”
He shoved his fingers of his left hand in his mouth and whistled. The sound, a skill Minogue assumed was specific only to Dublin corner-boys, was piercing.
“Oi!” the driver called out. “Crunchie! Oi!”
The motorcyclist stood away from his bike and lifted his helmet. His face was a rash of acne. He shook out his hair as he walked over. The Post driver spoke with him and then walked to the door of the house. Crunchie winked at Malone and sat back on his motorbike. Malone nodded once. Minogue joined him by the side of the car. A half-dozen youths, two of them girls, had materialized out of nowhere. Minogue saw faces at some windows, curtains being moved.
“I think we’re all right,” said Malone. The postman stepped into the house and closed the door behind him. Crunchie strolled over to the van.
“Oi,” he said to someone Minogue couldn’t see. “Get away from the bloody van there!” Two teenagers skipped away from behind the van. Crunchie walked around the van and looked at the two policemen.
“What are you looking at,” he said to Malone. The detective returned his stare.
“Not much, by the look of things.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Minogue nudged Malone. The door opened. Minogue took in the fright on the woman’s face. She came slowly down to the wall and folded her arms.
“I’d as soon not discuss anything out here now,” Minogue said to her. The van driver came down the step and worked his way around her.
“Thanks, Joe,” she said. She turned back to Minogue.
“You’re not coming into my house. No way. That was a promise I made to myself. Yous weren’t there when yous were wanted, years ago.”
“Mrs. Mullen?”
“My name isn’t Mullen. I have me own name back now. What do you want?”
What Minogue wanted was a phone to check the PM time with Eilis. If this woman was the mother, she’d have to identify the body.
“It’s Mary, isn’t it,” she said, and bit her lip.
“Your daughter?”
She nodded and her jaw quivered.
“Something’s happened to her, hasn’t it?”
Her voice seemed to be trapped in her throat.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?”
“I’m very sorry but…”
She grasped at her face and turned away. The Inspector stepped forward.
“Oh, my God,” he heard her gasp. “Oh, my Jesus. Oh, my sweet Jesus.”
“Have you people in the house?” Minogue asked. “I think we should maybe go in and sit down for a minute.”
“Kevin,” she yelled. Her voice was ragged now. “Kevin!” One of the group walked over.
“Get your mother, Kevin. And hurry up with you!”
Malone parked behind an ambulance. Minogue rolled out of his seat and opened the back passenger door. Irene Lawlor made no move to get out. She sat there with the door open, staring down at her hands. Malone looked across the roof at Minogue. Irene Lawlor had said little in the car on the trip over. She had rebuffed most of Minogue’s queries with a stare fixed on the roadway by her window. Her companion, a Mrs. Molloy, had big eyes and what looked like goitre. She’d chainsmoked and murmured to Irene Lawlor all the way into the city centre. Whatever she’d said had had no noticeable effect. Irene Lawlor’s glassy stare remained.
Mrs. Molloy walked around the back of the car and leaned in. Minogue saw the red lines of the car seat impressed on the back of her thighs where her miniskirt had been creased. He stepped back and Mrs. Molloy pulled Irene Lawlor out. She walked in a crouch as if trying to recover from a punch to the stomach. She entered the hospital, with her arms wrapped around her waist.
Murtagh met them inside the front door. He fell into step beside Minogue.
“Any word, John? Bag? Witness?”
Murtagh shook his head.
“They wanted to start the PM in half an hour. Which one’s the mother?”
Minogue glanced back at the two women.
“On the left. Can’t read her much yet.”
Minogue had pieced together some things from the few words Irene Lawlor had let slip, often mere monosyllables which she seemed to wish to, but couldn’t summon the will, to prevent the garrulous Mrs. Molloy from detailing. Where did Mary live? Inishowen Gardens, off the South Circular Road. Shared a flat with another girl. When had she last seen Mary? April sometime. Didn’t get on so great the last while. Phoned the odd time though. Recently? Couple of weeks back; forgot which day. Had she seemed worried? No. Money troubles maybe? Didn’t mention any. Boyfriend? Didn’t know. Mary worked in the city centre. Some hairdresser’s, as far as she knew. As far as she knew: the phrase kept cropping up. Had Mary any contact with her estranged father? Didn’t want to have any. He’d gone on the dry a couple of years back. Where was he? Didn’t know. Somewhere in Ballybough, she’d heard. Did he contact her? He’d come by the house a half a dozen times before he finally took the hint. Asking to see Mary. Did he say what for? Wanted to make up with her, she supposed. Mary didn’t want anything to do with him. He’d gotten Jesus or something because it helped him dry out. Mary had told her a while back, last year maybe, that her father had tried to talk to her a few times on the street. He’d seen her and him driving by in his taxi. She told him to get lost. To drop dead. She hated him. Irene Lawlor hated him too. Did she know or had she maybe heard anything about Mary lately, anything that suggested things were not going well? It was the only time Minogue remembered Irene Lawlor taking her eyes from the passing roadway and looking at him. Mrs. Molloy with her big mouth broke that one up. What sort of trouble, she’d asked, and Irene Lawlor turned back toward the open window.