A Carra King (26 page)

“But listen now, it'll have to wait until the morning. Get fellas down the cliff or a boat in.”

“The cliff is . . .?”

“It's like the side of a wall, sure,” Noonan said. “There's a bit of a ledge there near the top. The lights can make out the wheels, they think.”

“And it's on its roof.”

“Upside down. That's how it looks.”

Minogue ran his finger along the dotted lines to the cliff.

“So the car was driven up this track and over the top? Can't you get a squad car up there?”

“I might be able to get one up,” said Noonan, “but I wouldn't be sure of getting it down again. Bucketing down here, the rain.”

“How far is it from the site?”

“A quarter mile or so. I won't be risking anything or anybody here tonight.”

Loud and clear Minogue almost said. Couldn't blame him.

“What are the tides doing to it?”

“Well it's low tide now, so it's half-submerged. There's rocks there below.”

Minogue didn't want to ask Noonan again.

“So it'll be tough enough getting down there in the daylight,” Noonan went on, “to see if there's anyone inside the car.”

“Work well done. I'm obliged to you.”

“We'll seal up the place for you now, will we?”

“If you please. And a Guard at the site. I'm a bit anxious now about evidence. If we can make sure to preserve any tire tracks and the like — shoe prints too if the car was pushed, now.”

“Good luck to you there — it's muck entirely. Have ye rain up in Dublin?”

“Oh enough, but intermittent now.”

“Bucketing all the long day here, yes.”

Minogue waited.

“So will this be from Dublin?” Noonan asked. “Whoever's taking this over?”

Minogue didn't much mind the acidy aftertaste of the teabags. Malone tapped his finger down on the dotted lines that led to the cliffs.

“The spiky bits are the cliffs, right?”

Minogue nodded and traced another path in from the Cahercarraig Road.

“Boreens,” Malone declared.

“You're coming on great with the languages since you started here.”

“Bogs. Boreens. Bogmen. Sheep. More bogs. Sheep that look like bogmen. Bogmen that look like sheep.”

He squinted at Minogue.

“Answer me this: how in the name of Jases did you figure on looking there?”

“Police science,” Minogue said.

“No: how?”

“Ah, Tommy, I don't know. It's, ah . . .”

Malone shook his head and turned to the map again.

“So there's the places they were digging.”

“About a quarter of a mile, yes.”

“Bog roads. Turf and that, right?”

“Correct.”

“
Culchie priests and nuns they sell
Nightmares, fear and holy Hell
.”

“Is that Public Works?”

“No it isn't,” Malone scoffed, “it's GOD. Culchie is from Kiltimagh, right? That's Mayo.”

Minogue nodded. He studied the faint vapour rising above the rim of his cup. He wondered but didn't much care if the tea would keep him awake. If they had to go to Mayo tomorrow, it'd be five hours sitting in a car, thank you very much.

“See what turns up in the morning,” he said. “There's trained site staff in Galway can go up and work it.”

Malone swilled the remains of his tea in his cup. He belched behind his fist.

“Say she's in it then,” he said.

Minogue sat down on the edge of the desk.

“Do you see him doing it?” he asked Malone.

“His oul lad would, I'll bet. If we asked him, straight up.”

“Maybe his mother knows him better.”

Malone placed his cup on the desk, and looked at the pins on the map.

“Or, the same crowd who did her, went after him, too. Caught up with him here or there and — boom.”

Minogue yawned. He thought of the pictures soaking in on Dermot Higgins's computer screen. Point and click. Malone was counting on his fingers.

“One: he's killed her,” he said. “Two: a double — whoever killed her killed him, too. But what's he doing in Dublin Airport in the boot of a car?”

Malone held on to his index finger and began gently waving his arms.

“Try again: a double murder. He wasn't topped at the same time as she was. Okay, say he doesn't know she's been thrown off a cliff. That's why he's not running to the Guards. They catch up to him and he's gone. But where? Here in Dublin?”

Minogue had had enough. He got up to go.

“You're a veteran now,” he said to Malone as he passed him. “Last thing you think about before you go to sleep, first thing you think about when you wake up.”

“Listen,” Malone said. “Here's what I can't get me head around still.”

Minogue gave him a knowing glance.

“If he killed her, is it?”

“Yeah. If it wasn't people robbing, or some half-arsed effort at extortion or kidnapping your man, even: who folleyed him somewhere? Who made it quits?”

“You should have seen them,” Kathleen said. “Or maybe not.”

Minogue tied his other shoelace. The morning had started with a bit of sun at last. He felt groggy from the blocked nose, but not as shaky as he had predicted when he fell into bed last night.

“The Smiths, love?”

“Glaring right into the camera,” she said. “God, like animals. ‘The Guards murdered my brother' — the exact words. Can't he be taken to court for that?”

“An interesting suggestion.”

“‘An interesting suggestion.' Aren't you even the slightest bit concerned that you might be one of those Guards he'd be referring to?”

Minogue looked up from his laces.

“No, love. I'm not. The Smiths are chancers, and liars, and thieves. They'll try anything.”

“Well, did a Guard kill him?” Kathleen asked. “I can't deny the idea has some appeal, God forgive me, when I hear about the things Larry Smith did.”

Minogue let his gaze drift to the window. It wasn't the subject or even the timing. It was something about Kathleen's tone that was getting to him. He thought of Damian Little, Trigger Little. Why had Little's wife walked out on him?

“We can thank Gemma O'Loughlin for stirring things up,”

Kathleen said.

“Well, she's playing into the hands of the likes of the Smiths.”

“Gave me the creeps, I tell you,” she said. “The hate in his eyes, and the finger out, pointing. I thought he was pointing right through the telly at me. Ugh. ‘They'll pay for this, the Guards,' says he,
snarling
— I mean to say, are people allowed to talk like that?”

Minogue shook the paper open. Kathleen sat back.

“All right,” she muttered. “All right.”

Minogue closed the paper again.

“Iseult phoned last night, you said.”

“She did,” Kathleen said. “You'd think it was me going to have the baby.”

“Worrying, are you?”

“Course I am. Aren't you?”

Kathleen did not need to hear of their daughter stalking his dreams. Water, daughter . . . fought her. Iseult and her imprinting. A Mozart composing right there as he was delivered.

“I am and I amn't,” he said.

“‘It's just her personality,' is that what you're going to say.”

“It's just her personality, Kathleen.”

“You . . .!”

She put the lid on the margarine. He studied the tendons by her knuckles.

“I just wonder,” she whispered, “if it's triggered something, like.”

He turned back to the paper again.

“She's going to have a baby, love. A fine, big, healthy, good-looking and decent child from day one. Like its grandfather.”

Kathleen waited until he looked up.

“Well, now,” she said. “You remember your Uncle Miko, don't you?”

“What? Give me a chance. I'm only after getting — ”

“Schizophrenia, Matt. Let's not mince words here now.”

“Miko? Miko Minogue?”

“Your Uncle Miko Minogue. And what about the aunt you never met: Mary, the one in America, who died in the looney bin?”

“Ah, Miko was quare. He never married. So maybe he was gay.”

Kathleen gave a breathy chortle.

“Denial.”

“Heard that before. And very recently, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh, did you now. Well at least you know what you're good at.”

“Kathleen, it's, it's exuberance. Temporary state of being off her rocker. Come on now. You were dotty enough when you were expecting. You should hear Jim Kilmartin on the topic, let me tell you. He got stuff heaved at him.”

“You're not listening. You don't understand.”

“‘Men.'”

“Yes it is! She's seven months, Matt. The ups and downs with the hormones should be gone now.”

“Oh, just steady fear now, is that it?”

“No! More, more . . . serene or something.”

“Iseult? Serene? Love —”

“Genes, Matt, genes! Stop trying to cod me here! I know you think about her morning, noon and night. That's how you are. Don't be elbowing
me
because
I
worry! I read up on it at the library last night.”

“What.”

“Schizophrenia strikes young adults — ”

“She's twenty-three —”

“— but is frequent statistically in the twenties. Freud called it the Irish Disease, did you know that?”

“Freud? The same Freud who declared that the Irish were the only crowd who couldn't be helped by psychoanalysis?”

“Did he? If you say so. I didn't know that, isn't that interesting.” “Freud's a gobshite.”

Kathleen stared at him. He let out a breath and sat back.

“I beg your pardon. Barrack room talk. Slipped out. I'm sorry.”

Her voice was softer now.

“Look,” she said, “your Uncle Miko ‘went quare' when he was in his twenties. He was in and out of the mental hospital then all his life. Mary was hospitalized for years at a time there in Philadelphia. As I recall, she went that way after she had her first. Her first and only.”

Minogue stared at the want ads. They seemed stupid now. Why did he read them every morning anyway?

“I don't know anything about it, Kathleen. Sorry. Maybe I think it's
mí adh
to be talking about it. So there. I am primitive.”

She touched his knuckles. He unclenched his fist. She fenced with her fingers before twining his in hers. Miko, the uncle singing in the fields, talking to himself at night, wandering the roads. They'd found him in his garden curled up like he was asleep by his beloved rhubarb, a smile on his face.

“We have to face it, Matt,” she whispered. “It's nobody's fault. Genes.”

“I'm not a nutcase, Kathleen. God knows I could be, easy enough. The job.”

“We carry things though. Transmit them.”

“Look at Daithi, then? We're opposites, aren't we?”