Islandbridge (46 page)

“Jim, it's Matt. Phone me. I swear I'll have it switched on.”

Just as he readied to End it, he stopped, and lifted it again.

“Jim, you have to believe me. I never for a minute thought . . .”

He lost track of what he should say then. He closed the phone slowly, in the hope that he'd remember what he should be saying before the connection went. Jacky was staring at him. When he looked back, the tail wagged.

“You'd talk if only you could, wouldn't you? Same as myself.”

Minogue leaned over, his eyes still on the view over the stone fields that led off to Black Head, and took out the bottle.

“Don't let on you saw this. We have enough misery.”

It scalded a bit. His stomach was empty; it didn't matter. He felt for the letter, and confirmed with his thumb under the flap that he had sealed it. A stamp too, he felt. Dear Sir/Madam, This letter is to inform you of my decision to . . .

His eyes glazed over. They were then drawn to a distant movement, barely visible through the drizzle. It was a bus, a tourist bus, no doubt, and it was making slow progress, winding its way toward far-off Corkscrew Hill. Minogue had seen no walkers here since he'd come up across Corcabawn earlier, the long way that wound around the unmarked graveyard and the ruins of Cathirmore. The grey from the limestone had long closed in on the leaking sky, and only the fissures in the rocks kept them apart in places. It'd be dark in a couple of hours.

“And so what,” he murmured. The dog's ears quivered.

Soon Minogue's eyes slid out of focus again. The dog had closed his eyes, he noticed.

He closed his eyes, but his thoughts wouldn't stop churning. The whiskey wasn't helping. Still things swirled and paused, and they came back worse, before moving on around again. As though burned on his eyelids, he saw Maura Kilmartin's desolate face out on the driveway again that night, and the bruises on her face worse than the closing eye. He had heard Kilmartin wail once in the house, and then something being hammered a few times. Two squad cars showed up very damn fast after the gun went off. The sergeant who came tearing in from Dalkey Station started out very belligerent. He soon backed off. Still, Minogue had felt like hitting him, hard.

Blake had shown up within the hour. He got nowhere with Kilmartin, who was still drunk. He had taken to long silences which he'd interrupt with a curse at whoever was asking him something. They had charged Kilmartin the same night all the same, with the firearms charge. There was no bail set. They'd put him on paid leave, pending.

Kathleen heard that Maura had gone down the country to her sister's, and that Jim might be with her. They were worried about Maura. Nobody had said they were worried about Superintendent James Kilmartin. And what were they going to charge her with, she'd asked Minogue several times, until he'd snapped at her. He didn't know, and he didn't want to know. He had even told Tadhg Sullivan he'd wipe that grin off his face if he thought he could say anything about Jim Kilmartin and his doings. Power, his head of section, had met him the first day in, and said why didn't he take a few days' leave, and he wasn't asking. Great idea, Minogue had told him, as though to let him know he wouldn't be back anyway.

His mind slowed, or rather went sideways, and the breeze against the stones and whistling low in the roof took over. In his dreams, if they were dreams at all and not some delirium, he saw the African man. He was picking up all the wreaths and cards from the footpath, and giving them to Iseult, who dropped them into something and then hammered a piece of metal to another, and said something that sounded like Moravia. Then there was a gavel, and Sister Imelda, smoking, in front of a collie who guarded some red stains on a roadway, and Maura Kilmartin saying something. She said it again, and she turned and ran into a river, or was it a lake. Then the dog was back, baring its teeth and growling low in its throat.

Minogue opened his eyes. He was blind! No: it was dark. It was Jacky growling. The growl began to rise, and just before it tore into barking, Minogue heard a voice, something scuffing against stones outside.

“Turn off the dog, will you?”

Jacky wouldn't go beyond the doorway. Minogue called to him, and tried to get up. The stiffness had almost locked his joints. The bottle was by his hand. He got the neck of it, and tried to hear the words between the barking.

“Boss, the dog? Can you switch it off?”

Minogue rolled slowly to his knees, and ran his hand down the dog's back to the collar.

“I brought a big stick, I don't want to use it on him. Boss?

Are you there at all?”

“Give me a minute, Tommy.”

He stayed on his hunkers and got through the doorway. Malone's silhouette against the last of the sky to the west showed a sizeable blackthorn stick. The dog lunged, almost pulling Minogue over.

He held it for a while, whispering to it.

“Put away that stick, so he knows you're not worth a bite,” he said to Malone. “Let him smell you awhile.”

“I have a torch. I'm turning it on, okay?”

Jacky started growling again. The light went from Malone's shoe across the stones and back. “To find our way back.”

“I don't need it. Turn it off.”

“I brought this, here.”

Minogue felt the bottle, and grasped it.

“You certainly took the wrong turn somewhere. How'd you get here?”

“From Dublin? Easy. I just asked someone where a head case would hide.”

“But up here.”

A voice came over to Minogue then, and Jacky's tail went off.

“I showed him, Uncle Matt.”

“Is that Sean?”

“It is. Da sent the little something. No fags though. He has orders not to.”

Minogue let the dog go. Malone stepped over.

“I'm here for a reason, Tommy. So I'd be obliged if you'd leave me to it.”

Malone didn't say anything. Minogue tried to see Jacky's antics with his nephew. Sean was the baby of the family, too shy by far. He loved animals. It looked like he'd get the farm now.

“Well, I'll leave you to it,” Sean said. “Ye're all right for the way down, are ye?”

Minogue let his eye go from light to light below the headland, and settled on the yard light for his brother's farm. He listened to Sean's footsteps over the stones, the dog's paws as he bounded from stone to stone ahead of him.

“Nice here,” said Malone. “Except for the fact it's frigging wet and cold and dark, and we're in the middle of frigging nowhere.”

Malone shifted a little where he sat when Minogue made no response.

“Nothing personal, okay? I don't mean that in a bad way.”

He heard Malone's breath, as though about to say something but deciding not to.

“I was going to phone you, but I decided not to.”

“How'd you know I have a phone? Or that it's even on?”

“Kathleen told me.”

Something insinuated itself into Minogue's mind then, and he grew suddenly alert. He thought of how Sean had spoken, how there was something quieter than usual in it. And how quickly Sean had left. It wasn't like the boy at all.

“You were in the house below?”

“Yeah.”

There were no slags from Malone either, none of the comments about country people and cows he had prepared for without even knowing it.

“You came all the way down here today, from Dublin?”

“Yeah. Sonia's idea.”

“Sonia? She's here?”

“She is. She's in the kitchen below.”

Alarm welled up in Minogue now.

“Something's happened,” he said.

“I didn't want to be the one, boss. I really didn't. Tynan phoned, the bastard.”

“Tell me.”

Malone's breath came out in small gasps, like he'd been winded.

“Don't,” Minogue said then, and he pointed at Malone.

“Don't!”

He brushed by Malone, almost tripping on a ledge. He could make out the darker shadows where the stones gave way to patches of grass. He heard Malone saying something, and he shouted back at him to shut up. He stumbled once and his knee hit off the side of a stone, sending a flash of pain that made him close his eyes.

Up again, he walked through the pain, and even picked up speed. He was cursing now, he knew, and he had already made up his mind that he'd make it over the side of the hill and down into Gortaboher, a small scatter of houses in a valley where even the tourists didn't linger much. There was still a green road from there that would lead him back into the village three miles or so away. What he would do there, he hadn't thought about. He knew he had some money somewhere.

He heard Malone's shout again, farther away.

“Find your own way down!” he yelled back.

He stopped to massage the knee. It didn't help. There was still a dim, manila sliver of sky over the darker line that marked the sea's horizon. But if he fell up here, he thought. He swore again, and he pressed on.

His phone was tearing apart the quiet now. He slowed and took it out, and opened it. Kathleen was crying. She got his name out just before he threw it in a long, slow arc into the rocks.