The Going Rate (27 page)

Minogue was a little surprised. He had to make an effort not to parse Wall's words or tone any further into stereotypes.

“As my mother, God rest her, would say, ‘Man proposes, God disposes.'”

The awkward silence lasted several seconds. It ended with Wall clapping his palms on his knees.

“Well I wonder how Mossie's getting on with the other one,” he said

“Sit in on it, why don't you,” said Minogue. “I'll call you, if and when we get our interview with Twomey proper. After he consults with his esteemed counsel.”

Wall closed the door behind him. Alone now, Minogue felt weary. He should be preparing a Charge Sheet to take to the Circuit Court in the morning. He should not care then that Cormac Mahon had tagged him as an overbearing cop, a tough nut trying to browbeat a suspect. He wondered what advice the same Cormac Mahon was giving his new client now. Start preparing alibis? Get off his high horse and realize that the Guards could hang a drug charge on him if that's what it took to keep him? Ask him straight out if he'd had sex with this kid Tara?

Minogue put his feet up on the table and slid back in the chair until his neck met the top. Against his own grudging efforts, he now let caution to the wind, and fell to imagining that this might be done in a few hours. It'd be up and down the hall between the rooms, playing Matthews off against the Twomey fellow. Then one would run out of nerve. Again he considered putting this Tara kid on the spot. Bring her in this very evening, see if she'd spill the beans now that she'd had a bit of time to see her situation.

But did kids – adolescents – actually feel guilt? The furthest she'd gone was admitting she'd taken Klos' money. By the time she had conceded this, she'd been almost hyperventilating, beyond hysterics. He'd heard that plaintive wail before, from his own Iseult, at that age. The martyrdom routine: “It's true, I swear! Why doesn't anyone believe me?”

Well, then.

All these dramatics had wearied him. The floods of tears and the wrenching sobs had gotten her what she wanted more or less: back into the custody of her parents, and home. He closed his eyes and listened to the faint background hum of the heating. He thought of Kilmartin looking furtively through the Self-Help or New Age shite in the bookshops, fighting off the gloom, waiting for a verdict. Waiting – something that James Aloysious Kilmartin had never been good at.

He shifted, tugged his jacket down, and closed his eyes again. He let himself wander again, and his mind took him straight to Graz and its lanes, where he had strolled with an Austrian copper and a French expert in counterfeit documents at a conference last year. Cobblestones, smells of ground coffee and sausage, violins on the street, trams and pedestrians in fine harmony, his own bewilderment that anything bad could have ever happened in such a beautiful city–

Footsteps outside the door: the door opened, cautiously; a shaved head, a moustache, huge frog eyes.

“Ah, Matt?”

Minogue sat back again. He hoped it didn't show on his face that he believed this detective looked more like a pirate than a Guard.

“I was listening to Twomey lying in fifty-two different ways, and I realized, Jesus, I hadn't introduced myself.”

“Good man.”

“A complete pain in the hole, I'm telling you.”

“Twomey, you mean, I take it.”

Duggan had a manic smile. A bit of the Mr. Bean about him, thought Minogue, but with longer arms and a looser way of moving about.

“Hughsie is on the mend, I hear,” Minogue said.

“Worse luck, the fecker,” said Duggan. “A slave driver.”

“Really?”

“Ah no. I'm only slagging.”

Minogue returned the smile.

“Me and Hughsie go back these years. A fierce hard goer, Hughsie. But he forgot to take care of himself, I told him.”

Minogue watched Duggan untwine his arms and begin to rotate his head and neck. He seemed so loosely put together that an extremity might fall off.

“This Twomey is cut from the same cloth as the Matthews lad. A bollocks, a complete fu–”

Minogue watched a mischievous expression come over Duggan's face.

“Stoney wouldn't appreciate that language,” Duggan said then. “You know?”

“‘Stoney'?”

“Stone wall…? He has a way of sticking to his guns, like. But not in a bollicky way now. Very, how would I say, very decent.”

“Good-living, you're saying.”

“Doesn't wear it on his sleeve now,” said Duggan. “No Holy Joe stuff.”

“Good. I like that in a man.”

“Don't get me wrong. It's just that you don't meet many, er. These days.”

“Actual Catholics?”

“Oh more than that. Real believers, I mean, I suppose. No offence now. Are you, er, yourself, er..?”

Minogue shook his head.

“Oh, Church of Ireland?”

“No, Mossie. Pagan. Merely pagan.”

Minogue felt sorry for Duggan's sudden awkwardness.

“But I'm well disposed,” he said. “In general, like.”

Duggan's face eased again.

Minogue let it go with a non-committal shrug.

“So,” said Duggan. He looked at his watch. “No let up, no release?”

“And no bail,” said Minogue. He decided to try a Kilmartinism. “We hang tough, I say.”

“Fine by me. But Twomey's counsel is digging in his heels. That's why I left for a while – get away from it.”

“That's the way I'd play it. Let him sit and think, argue with his counsel.”

“Saves me going ape on him, I suppose. Giving him a clout.”

“You'd be tempted,” Minogue allowed. “Wouldn't you.”

Duggan stopped unwinding himself, and sagged into his chair, his arms now resting on his lap. His knuckles almost reached his knees.

“Well, your timing was spot-on,” he said to Minogue. “We were wondering, you know, but then comes that phone call. The girl's mother.”

“The way of the world,” said Minogue.

Duggan asked him about the Murder Squad, and how long he had worked to solve a case. Minogue answered with calculated vagueness. Duggan got the hint. Soon desultory, the talk wandered briefly through the credit crisis, and somehow to free-range eggs, before it eventually lapsed. Minogue wondered if he'd find a second wind soon. Matthews and Twomey could go on as long as they liked being bastards. It'd likely be those two girls who'd be the key in the lock eventually. What lay behind the door was another matter.

He had a minute of mind wandering before Wall showed up. There was a fragment of food in the corner of his mouth.

“On the last lap, lads?” he said. “Think we'll have charges tonight?”

Minogue shrugged.

“Twomey's doing his shut-up routine,” said Duggan.

“Asking about his mate down the hall yet?”

“Not yet,” said Duggan. “He knows he's in a mind game with us. Left him simmering there a few minutes ago. As per plan.”

Minogue, who didn't work by plan, didn't take the remark as a dig. He watched Wall looking for something in a drawer. Duggan unravelled his arms yet again and began pulling back the cuticles on his nails. He held his arm out every now and then, hands bent at the wrist, his head moving from side to side like a painter checking his canvas.

A Guard tapped at the door and entered.

“The solicitor in room fourteen says they're ready.”

Wall was up out of his chair first.

“Come on with us,” Minogue said to Duggan. “Give yourself something to raise the temperature on Twomey.”

Mahon met them in the hallway. He was holding a package of Major, tapping it softly. A smoker? Minogue was stunned

“Has to be outside with the smokes,” he said to Mahon. “Sorry.”

Mahon pocketed the cigarettes. He looked at his watch.

“Do we have something to work with now?” Minogue asked.

Mahon looked from Wall to Duggan.

“Do you plan on laying charges tonight?” he asked.

“Undecided as of this moment,” Minogue said, “We badly need your client's help to sort things out.”

“Help?” Mahon said with a smile.

“He should clear his conscience. If he has any sense at all he knows we're almost there.”

Mahon eyed Minogue.

“You'll be offering considerations,” he said.

“Cooperation is always welcome. He knows we have Matthews down the hall here.”

Mahon's jaw set. His gaze had turned into a steady stare.

“‘The prisoner's dilemma.'”

“Did you explain to your client that even sexual exploitation of a minor is a five-year sentence? And drug dealing on top of that? There'll be no concurrent.”

“We're having a very odd conversation,” said Mahon.

“Only you know how bad a spot your client is in.”

A flicker of irritation now crossed Mahon's face. He looked down at his shoes again and moved his toes.

“Are you one of those Guards,” he said to his toes before raising his gaze, “who says that – hypothetically – a person passing a joint to another person is a dealer?”

“We go by the law as it is interpreted for us.”

“He'll give a statement and expects to be released,” said Mahon, evenly.

“Your client will be held over until noon tomorrow for District Court.”

“The charges again?”

“We'll start with the cannabis, and move to sexual exploitation.”

“You're fishing. The judge will know right away.”

“Well would it help if we could get proper testimony from these two children – sorry, young ladies – to go right to a murder charge?”

Mahon took a breath and dug his hands deep into his pockets. Someone was cracking their knuckles. Minogue looked over at Duggan. The noise stopped.

“A word with you in private,” Mahon said.

“I'll be telling my colleagues one way or another,” said Minogue. Mahon waited. Minogue was aware that Duggan had folded his spider arms and was staring at Mahon.

It was Wall who intervened finally.

“Go out for a smoke, why don't ye,” he said.

Minogue led the way. He was a little taken aback yet from realizing that Wall had pegged him as a smoker without ever having seen him actually smoke. They went out the door by the evidence room to the yard. A squad car was just pulling out. Mahon held out his package of cigarettes.

Minogue took one. He had matches ready.

“Pretty irregular this,” said Mahon after a long exhalation of smoke. “A big no-no, I'm sure.”

“Well I'm fairly sure I can quit again,” said Minogue.

“Not the cigarettes. I meant us talking like this.”

“Well you're a bit of a non-conformist.” Minogue queried, “What does non-conformist mean to you then?”

“You keep on poking,” said Mahon. “Who do you have it in for the most, the accused, or his counsel?”

Minogue was momentarily spinny from the first drag of the cigarette. He looked at the tip. His second drag on the cigarette was more satisfying.

“A bit harsh there, aren't you,” he said.

Tires squealed somewhere in the streets around the station.

“We're not doing so well,” said Mahon. “Are we?”

Minogue shifted his feet. It was chillier than he'd expected.

“It'll work out,” he said.

“You're trained to expect murder. That's a factor here.”

“Who told you that?”

“Word gets around.”

“Tell me what you want to tell me,” said Minogue.

“Okay. Show me your ‘reasonable grounds.' I'll work from there. My client may wish to cooperate then.”

“It's indecently early for pleas. Let's finish our smokes, head back inside, and not be wasting our time here.”

Mahon sighed.

“Fix this in your mind though,” said Minogue, “about your new client and his mate. We believe that they know who took that man's life, plain and simple. When this man was most lost, and most vulnerable, he was lured. And then, he was murdered.”

“So that's the scenario playing in your mind.”

“Your client should come up with the truth and get in early, as they say. The bus will be leaving on time.”

“I can tell you don't have evidence. Not even testimony, the way you're pumping it.”

Minogue flicked the cigarette against the wall just to see the sparks.

Chapter 27

B
RÍD PUT ON HER TRACKPANTS
after Aisling finally knocked off.