A Carra King (20 page)

“Any word from Aoife there, Dermot?” Garland asked.

Higgins shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Haven't heard since she went, er . . .?”

“It's okay,” Garland said. “They know she's on a holiday.” He turned to the two detectives.

“Bet you don't know what this is, on the screen.”

Malone leaned in to study the screen.

“The Carra Fields,” said Minogue.

“Well, full marks to you, Insp — Matt.”

Higgins clicked a mouse on one of the small pictures glowing in Mayo.

“You click on the site,” said Higgins. “And — wait a minute. I'll get the sound up properly.”

He tugged a set of headphones from a socket by a set of speakers, and flicked buttons on what looked to Minogue to be a small stereo. The crack and rumble from the sound system startled him.

A bódhrán drummed vigorously, like a tattoo for battle before an orchestral background flooded in. Synthesizer, Minogue wondered. The screen dissolved and reformed as a picture of an ancient village. Sounds of hammering and sharpening, birdsong and distant voices began to take over. Work and daily life — that must be the idea. The picture faded and was replaced by another, this one of what looked like a family in an old house, gathered around a fire.

The voice-over, a woman, spoke in the present tense. Greece is a collection of warring tribes yet, she began. In Mesopotamia, the Sumerians are beginning to use uniform language. The pharaohs' tombs will not be built for two millennia yet. There are clan fights and bloodletting across Europe. In these Carra Fields live four thousand people, farmers and herders. They have a peaceful culture. They worship gods of crop and sun and water and air. They are highly organized, cooperative people. They are on average four inches taller than adults in Europe.

The pictures fading into one another mesmerized Minogue. He managed to glance at the others. Even Higgins looked lost in his gaze at the screen. The changed tone in the narration brought him back to the screen now.

“They will continue to live here for another fifteen centuries,” the voice announced, “living in peace and then becoming a forgotten people at around the same time as Babylon falls. The Valley of the Kings will be abandoned to the desert and the Romans will dominate half the known world. Greek civilization will flourish and then fade, as will Rome's. The middle ages will dawn and then fade. The first planes will pass over the west coast of Ireland before the world will know the Carra Fields again.”

Images began to fade and arrive faster now. Long, walled fields, loose-stone dwellings, kilted and breeched ancients labouring happily among crops, sounds of cattle lowing. Who are these forgotten people, the narrator asks. An intricate pattern of stones made into a wall formed the rest of a burial chamber. A fire burning in an open field at night. The narration gave way to music again.

Higgins hit some keys and the screen returned to a map of Ireland. He rolled away again and folded his arms. Minogue looked around the room. A half-dozen computers, several high-tech mystery boxes, lots of wires, cluttered desks, shelves overflowing.

“Deadlines,” said Garland. “History doesn't wait for anyone now.”

“Is this part of Ms. Hartnett's project?”

“She's the coordinator,” said Higgins. “She set up the project and sorts out who and when and what.”

Garland turned to Minogue. He nodded at the screen.

“Dermot is bringing us into the modern age. We're set to launch a CD-ROM in, when is it?”

“Five weeks,” said Higgins. “That is the plan.”

“This'll be a first,” said Garland. “You can put any language to it.”

“Great,” said Minogue. Garland shifted his weight.

“Sure there's no word from Aoife, Dermot?” he asked. “A card, maybe?”

“Well, I haven't seen one yet. Sure she's only gone awhile. Ask the others, but I'm pretty sure.”

“Does Aoife know the ins-and-outs of this stuff here?”

Higgins looked up at Minogue and scratched at the stubble on his cheeks.

“Well, not the technical end really. The putting together of it. She knows how to run it, the software, I mean. She's in on the testing and all. It's a team thing, you see, it's not just computers. We have a graphic artist and a programmer too.”

“Do you get a lot of visitors here?” Minogue asked.

“With Aoife, like?”

“With or without.”

Higgins looked over at Garland before he spoke.

“There'd be people coming by fairly regularly though, I suppose. Sponsors, computing people. I don't be here in the mornings, so I don't know.”

“Dermot's in Trinity College,” said Garland. “The multimedia centre there. The greenhouse-looking place by the train station. The Oh Really, they call it.”

Minogue said, “You mentioned sponsors.”

“Oh, yes indeed,” said Garland. “One of the banks, Bórd Fáilte, Apple. There's the European heritage money too, of course.”

Minogue watched the screen return to a map of Ireland with glowing buttons.

“It's really something,” said Garland. “Isn't it? No matter where you are in the world you can travel through Irish history — without leaving your chair.”

Minogue looked at his watch.

“Tommy, will you follow along with Mr. Garland there? I'll be along in a few moments. Let me just look at this stuff a minute.”

Higgins opened a can of Pepsi and rolled back into the computer. There was a stack of empty lemonade cans built on a ledge by the door. Minogue watched the mouse cursor flick about the screen, pages and pictures and boxes, folders opening and closing.

“A lot of pressure on deadlines, is there?”

Higgins didn't answer for a moment.

“As much as you'd want,” he said.

“Part of the job, is it?”

“Yeah. No big deal though.”

Higgins sipped Pepsi and looked back at the screen.

“It's an appliance,” he said. He began clicking again. “That's all. Think of a telly. A car. A cooker. A stereo. You know?”

Minogue watched the erupting pages of words and colours, the dancing icons.

“What's the end result going to be again?”

“A CD-ROM.”

A small window with an image of a sunset picture over a Celtic cross sprang into the screen. The blurriness was intentional, Minogue realized. Higgins clicked a button under the cross. Minogue shifted his lean to his other foot. A film, by God.

A box of words appeared beside the film window. Lines rolled by themselves.

“Memory's cheap now,” Higgins murmured.

“Memory?”

Higgins glanced up.

“To run the thing, sorry.”

“RAM, is it?”

“Are you into computing?”

“No.”

“Use them at work?”

“My colleagues do. I know how to run a search, a database.”

“Ever see your photofit crowd in action?” Higgins asked. “The composites?”

“A few times.”

“Impressed?”

“I certainly was,” said Minogue.

The window disappeared, the mouse tugged at another, widening it.

“You can never have too much memory. To run the software, like.”

“A lot of this can go on the website,” Higgins went on. “Ovation.”

A type of chocolate, Minogue thought. There was that subdued, almost dismissive tone to Higgins's voice now, a mixture of ardour and indifference that was familiar to Minogue. He had heard it off Murtagh, the voice trailing off as he lost himself in some tricky bit of computing.

“Ovation?” he tried.

“Online Visitor Information. Doesn't really fit, but.”

“Did you make it?”

“No. I put things together behind the scenes. Are you a Superintendent?”

“Inspector.”

A window opened on the screen. Something called Director flashed on.

“What's Aoife done?”

“Nothing that I know of. Do you know different?”

“I work with her. Aoife's the real thing. We'd be nowhere without her.”

“Nowhere?”

“With this. That's her voice I used in the commentary, you know.”

The screen went dark. The bódhráns began, and the screen began to fade into a map of Europe. A plaintive tin whistle. God, not another one, Minogue thought: when could we drop the sorrow and moaning, the suffering history stuff?

He watched the slide show move from Vikings to Medieval Dublin, sounds of battle gave way to the marketplace. There'd be plenty more of the battle soundtrack, he reflected.

Higgins clicked the mouse and the screen froze. He took the can of Pepsi and squeezed it with his fingers in and out.

“It's a new paradigm,” he said. “Do you have paradigms in the Guards?”

“We have a specially trained squad alright, but it's very hush-hush. How did you get to hear about it?”

Higgins continued to flick the mouse around in short precise moves.

“With digital technology and telecommunications, we broadcast. We send out, like. People can download the information. Words, pictures, sounds, short movies even. We don't wait for people to come to us anymore. No need to wait for planeloads from Cleveland to hit Shannon for this.”

“Tourism you mean. Or entertainment?”

Higgins spread his hands. Why that gesture — indifference, resignation, indecision — reminded him of a priest's gestures at mass, Minogue didn't know.

“Heritage, isn't it?”

Minogue stared at Higgins but he had turned back to the computer.

“All working out is it?”

“Everything's on target, yes. We're looking good.”

Malone was walking through the doorway, Garland fussing behind him.

“Do you have a number I can reach you at, Dermot?”

“The Museum number. There's voice mail now.”

“I mean outside of the place.”

Higgins turned back to Minogue. Garland was saying something to Malone about a meeting date next Monday that Aoife would be chairing.

“Why,” Higgins said. “What for?”

“Just a chat maybe. Talk about virtual reality or the like?”

Higgins eyebrows arched.

“It's neither,” he said. “I'm just a programmer.”

Minogue laid his card on the table next to the mouse. Higgins picked it up. He scrutinized it and looked up at the Inspector.

“Minogue? Is that you? I thought I heard Muldoon or something. Wait a minute. I know you. You were in the paper the other day.”

“I don't think so.”

“Not you, wait. It said you were with the Murder Squad. A sister of yours? Some family connection? Something to do with the arts.”

“Iseult, I've a daughter,” said Minogue.

Higgins rapped at the table with a knuckle.

“That's what it was. She's the one with the
Holy Family
?”

“Quite the yapper,” said Malone, “is what he is. Cagey too, but wouldn't let on.”

“Drawers weren't locked?”

“No. I just walked in and started on her desk. While you were playing video games out there with Super Mario.”

Malone edged the Nissan up on the footpath by a cordoned-off hole in the street near Dawson Street.

“Heard of Ovation, Tommy?”

“Like a standing ovation?”

“Same word, yes.”

“A new brand of johnnies. Condoms, like?”

“Try again.”

“Chocolates.”

“Jimmy's right about you. A right barbarian. All right, try ‘online'?”

“Methadone clinic?”

“‘Interactive'?”

“This one's easy: all the way on your first date.”

“Try ‘telecommunication,' then.”

“Another easy one. Phoning the 'mot to see if she'll take me out for a few jars. Come on, will you. Give me a tough one.”

“‘Download.'”

“Same thing. You drink a feed of beer, like, you
download
them.”

“Haven't you picked up anything from John Murtagh?”

He'd try Murtagh then. The same Murtagh remained a computing enthusiast. He complained about bugs and crashes but he enjoyed fixing them. Minogue couldn't understand it. He recalled Éilis taunting Murtagh about something called Flight Simulator.

“You want a Big Mac?”

Minogue sighed. It was Murtagh who had gotten him onto McDonald's. His embarrassment hadn't abated over the years.

“I could get you a sambo but they're lying around all day.”

“Nothing with cheese anyway, Tommy. Thanks.”

He dialed the site van at the airport.

Fergal Sheehy answered. He asked Minogue to wait a minute while he double-checked. Two detectives were interviewing one of the security staff about a row earlier in the day. It was about the Public Works fans getting overexcited the other day. There had been four arrests and charges of assault on three of them.

“How many tickets are still outstanding from the car park?”