A Carra King (33 page)

He pulled out the key and waited for the Citroen to settle. The edges of his keys felt like teeth against his thumb. Vegan, that was it. Iseult was a vegan, according to Kathleen. Iseult mightn't be getting some vital vitamin or something. Unhinged her, couldn't think logically. How could he check? He stepped out onto the driveway but he turned instead and walked back to the gate.

The pillar had never been straight. The gate had always scraped even in the days when he'd made a point of closing it. Iseult, wouldn't you know it, had found a way to unlatch it soon after she had learned to walk. Meat is murder, wasn't that one of the slogans? Drisheen, eggs, sausages: the Holy Family, though? Low.

The lamplight from the road showed patches of wet on the driveway. The faint bass thumping came on the breeze from the neighbours. Gearóid, Una Costigan's youngest, the one giving her the willies, no doubt. Still at it in the middle of the night. Shaved head, history graduate, unemployed. Nice lad; bone lazy. Or just unwilling to head off out on a plane somewhere? Gearóid thought he'd had a break at Christmas with a concert in the community centre but it didn't come off. Gearóid wore sunglasses, the insect-eye models, nearly all the time now.

What was Aoife Hartnett trying to do for God's sake? Did she and Shaughnessy have a thing going? There were no stars that he could see. The breezes barely stirred the hedge. Park the damn car in Cabinteely tomorrow evening no matter what, by God, and walk up by Tully, sit awhile, down Bride's Glen and . . . Inveigle Iseult out, too. Try and get her to drink milk at least. Was that music getting louder?

The hedge should really be cut back. Why hadn't he? Only the hall light on. He and Kathleen had a house to themselves. Stuff forgotten about was turning up: Iseult's carving behind the lawnmower. Yes, Iseult called home her dacha. It had been months since she'd stayed overnight with them. The sudden ache reminded him of a paper cut.

Maybe that's why Gearóid Costigan's comings and goings had set his teeth on edge. It wasn't the smell of dope drifting in over the hedge last summer. It was the fact that Gearóid was at home. He'd never actually left. His own son Daithi was on the American express, going wherever his training and job took him. There were twenty-two years of his son's life upstairs in boxes and drawers. Lately he had found Kathleen's mantras of when Daithi comes home again unbearable. At least he wasn't the prodigal son.

Had Mrs. Shaughnessy written off her son? Johnny Leyne greasing the wheels and paying off predators to keep his one-and-only out of jail. Minogue ran his hand along the top railing of the gate, flicked off the drops of water. Remorse, that's what had them there. They knew they'd messed up. What could he do, sit Mrs. Shaughnessy down in back at an interview room at the squad and work on her to give him the True Story? Would they try to offer money to Aoife Hartnett's family if it turned out that way, her mother, her sister, her nieces, her nephews . . .?

He stared at the area carved out by the light over the hall door. He followed the sharp lines between the light and shadow by the garage door, the weakening ambit of the light as it lost out to the darkness by the hedge. When Daithi comes marching home again. The sharp stab over the heart stopped his thoughts. Football games, swimming down at Seapoint and Killiney, meeting him for a pint after he started college. He'd loved going up in the woods at Katty Gallagher before it had been turned into a managed park. But that was when he was eleven or twelve. His friends still phoned: Barney, Lorcan, Sarah who'd finally given up on trying to hook Daithi but wanted to stay a friend. The bent for mathematics, the indifference and even exasperation with English. At least he'd stopped smoking. Caty had put him right. She'd look after him.

Minogue squeezed his thumb harder on the key and stared at the hall door. Maybe that's what Iseult had been doing those times he'd found her standing out on the bloody road staring at the house, sizing it up. No place like home. No place. Is that what the
Holy Family
came out of?

Before him was the step up, the mat underfoot, the key sliding into the lock. The Burren print on the wall then, the hello from Kathleen. Home. He'd been hearing that there was no place like home all bloody day, it seemed — Kilmartin knew something. The thought froze him there. No, he thought; it was pub talk, spoofing. Close ranks though — the Old Guard. He swore and pushed the hall door.

He closed the door and headed for the kitchen with the folder under his arm. The light over the counter was on. Kathleen had left a copy of the newspaper there. He could make out the photo of the
Holy Family
from across the room. He wondered if Kathleen had tried to get in touch with Iseult.

The cupboard door creaked. He reached in before it opened enough, felt the neck of the bottle, drew it out. He ran the tap slowly, took down a glass and filled it. He downed three-quarters of the water, then he sized up the remainder and poured in as much Bushmills. The edge of the countertop bit into his hip but he didn't shift. He took another mouthful and eyed Mairéad O'Reilly's folder again.

It looked odd with the yellow stickies skew-ways sticking out of it. He lifted a chair out from under the table and sat. What was the name of that outfit in Africa . . . in Kenya? Tall, very tall — he just couldn't pin it. Tall, very tall — no, not the Bushmen. They measured wealth in cows, too. A cow people. No wonder the Carra Fields had turned to bog. He opened at the sticky he'd scrawled “legends” on.

“What's messy?”

Sleepy-voiced, Kathleen pushed open the door. He'd said it aloud?

“Masai, I meant to say. Did I wake you?”

“I thought you heard me,” she said. “What Masai?”

“I was thinking.”

She nodded at the bottle. He gave her the eye.

“Thinking, I said, love. I'm only in the door.”

“Give us a sup, will you,” she murmured.

He stared at her. She stared back at him.

“What are you looking at?”

“Well, I'm not sure,” he said. “You want a sup of this?”

“Why not?”

“This is whiskey, Kathleen.”

“Well, my oh my. All these years and I didn't know that.”

“But I'm going to hell and damnation with it, amn't I?”

“I never said that.”

“Well, why is the bottle hidden under the sink all these years?”

“It's not hidden if you know where it's kept, is it. Pour it, can't you?”

She sipped at it, grimaced. He studied her expression.

“When's the last time you took a drop of whiskey?”

“I phoned, you know. Éilis told me.”

“Told you what?”

She held the glass out, turned it and watched as it swilled.

“We had a grand long chat. I didn't know she was so clued-in like.”

“Éilis is away with the fairies sometimes now, Kathleen.”

“No wonder she's a match for you. Tell me again it's the job that does it.”

“It's the job that does it.”

He looked from the glass to the bottle to Kathleen's face.

“Did you have a chat about Iseult? The thing in the paper?”

“I saw you outside, you know,” Kathleen said. “I heard the car. You standing there staring at the place. That's what Iseult used to do. Una Costigan saw her late some nights, or Gearóid did. A half an hour, she said. Staring at the house.”

Minogue slid the glass back to the folder.

“What's the folder? Work, is it?”

“To do with it, yes. What did Éilis have to say?”

“Nothing. The way girls talk, women talk. You wouldn't understand.”

“Is this going to be a men-are-toxic thing?”

“You expected me to hit the roof, I'll bet you. The
Holy
Family
thing.”

Minogue stopped pouring.

“You're right. Did you?”

“No.”

“Will you? In the near future?”

“I don't know,” she said. “I don't know what came over me. I think it was talking to Éilis. She said to go with it. That Iseult needed me, needed us. And always would. She said that Iseult's stuff was part of a conversation with us. That she couldn't do what she had to do without us.”

Minogue let more into the glass. Kathleen stared at his hand on the bottle.

“I don't get it,” Kathleen murmured. “Do you?”

“No.”

“I already had the article, you know. From the paper. I got it this afternoon when you were jet-setting it out in Mayo or wherever.”

“God, if only you knew.”

Kathleen rubbed at her upper lip.

“But Iseult makes some things sound really terrible, Matt. Going to Mass, for God's sake. Fifteen year olds trying to make themselves miscarry. Hemorrhaging to death. The body and blood — I had to tell her to stop. It wasn't the hint of blasphemy either. Then there's your job, with killers. People'll begin to wonder.”

Minogue took a measured gulp of Bushmills.

“People don't really wonder much, so far as I can see, Kathleen.”

“I think it's the pregnancy. But I'm not going to admit that.”

“She's always been heading in this direction. She's coming into her own.”

Her eyes darted from the bottle to his face.

“Are you getting slagged over her at work?”

“No,” he said. “Not that I noticed anyhow.”

“Oh, right, Jim's off in the States. I nearly forgot. Good timing.”

“How'd you mean?”

She shivered.

“Larry Smith and his crowd,” she said. “Don't be talking to me about them. I saw the news. That family . . . God they give me the creeps. Do you know what one of them said? ‘This isn't over yet, not by a long shot.' Isn't that a threat?”

“They'll hide behind something, I don't know.”

“They shot up that squad car out on Griffith Avenue last month, didn't they?”

“Prove it,” he said. “Anyway. We're going to have Internal Inquiries to look over how we've handled Smith.”

“But what if they're serious, Matt? That they really will follow up on it, with the squad? You're in the hot seat now.”

Minogue looked around the kitchen. He lingered on the shadows, the dull reflection of the light on the kettle, the dark corners. Would she know that Tynan wanted them to carry pistols now? She was staring at the calendar.

“People'll think she had a terrible childhood or something,” she murmured. “You know how the jokes go around.”

“Ah, it doesn't matter, love. I'll laugh it off.”

Her frown returned.

“You think you can?”

He looked over at the window.

“It's either that,” he said, “or I'll knock them down in the street. She's my daughter, isn't she? Ours. She's telling the truth. As she sees it. And that's that.”

Kathleen sat back and folded her arms.

“So: how is our daughter then, after your chat?”

“Thrilled,” Kathleen murmured. “Says she knew we'd understand.”

Minogue sighed and shook his head. Kathleen let out a sigh.

“She says she won't preach about us still eating meat though.”

“Good of her. Tell her I'd compromise on the black pudding. But the rashers stay. Did she give you the lecture on carnivores and violence . . .”

Kathleen searched his face. He kept staring at the sink.

“Are you all right, Matt?”

Meat and milk had made those Masai tall, strong.

“I am,” he managed. “Yes.”

“You must be tired after the gallivanting.”

“I was just — Anyway. There were a few odd things lying around at the back of my mind. I think I just fell over them.”

Dowsing, that's what Mairéad O'Reilly's father had done to find the buried walls. And it worked, didn't it? In the right hands, it was said. Maybe his own job wasn't far different. He put down the anniversary Sheaffer and rubbed at his eyes. A quarter after two, for the love of God. Fire with fire: he poured more Bushmills.

Next to his glass the photo of Peadar O'Reilly, done badly on an old photocopier, holding his forked stick, with the bog-cut below. The copy was good enough to see O'Reilly's pride in the direct stare, his staged grasp on the divining stick. The long poles he could understand. There had been hundreds used to plumb the bog. The excavations had laid bare thick walls under eight feet of bog.

He turned to the beginning of the folder again, looked down at the drawing of the Carra King. It had been done by a talented amateur with plenty of the heroic. It reminded him of a comic book of years gone by. It was probably one of O'Reilly's pupils. The Carra King? The Richly Imagined Carra King, it should be. The embellishments were as obvious in O'Reilly's version as they were in the drawing. The artist had slapped in a heavenward look on the dying king, as well as elaborate Celtic patterns on the hero's outfits. O'Reilly had dropped in gems like “weighing as much as the king's finest bull,” “sacred hazel groves.” Hardly science: a storyteller.