Islandbridge (43 page)

“Come here,” he said and reached in over the keyboard to grasp a mouse.

Minogue took his time ambling over. The screen came to life slowly. He saw windows being opened. He noted Kilmartin's shirt tail out, how he took a measured, savage gulp of his own whiskey.

“I'm going to show you something. You ready?”

Minogue knew enough to recognize an email program. Kilmartin scrolled down from a line of poorly edited text, something about “fresh off the presses.”

The pictures that came up began with night shots of a car. Someone in the driver's seat was leaning forward over the wheel.

“See that?”

“Jim.”

The next one inched up and it showed a profile. There were streaks of blood down the cheeks and nose, a diffuse gloss to the front of the head that was almost purple.

“Okay? Wait.”

The third one showed the swollen face, with the top of the forehead distended. The exit wound the size of a tennis ball. The man's eyes were half-open.

Minogue stepped back. Kilmartin turned from the screen, the light washing over his face.

“Jim. Listen to me–”

“–This is your man,” said Kilmartin. “Isn't it?”

Minogue kept his eye on how Kilmartin's eyes seemed to be vibrating.

“Isn't it? The fella thumped Malone? Turned up there in the Temple Bar this afternoon?”

Minogue nodded. Kilmartin seemed satisfied. He grasped his glass, looked down into it and then threw the last of its contents into the back of his throat.

“How,” Minogue began. “I mean when . . .”

Kilmartin gave him a hard look.

“Why?” said Minogue.

“Why? You think I just happened across this? Oh right. You probably heard I keep in touch with the Bureau mob. Right. No, this isn't because of that.”

He leaned around Minogue to pick the bottle from the table.

“No,” Kilmartin said. “Sometimes they ask me to have a gawk at some of the Scenes photos. You know, me being the old hand. Your name doesn't be on the list for that extracurricular, I'm sure.”

“Are you involved in this thing?”

“Involved is it? Well now Matt, me oul stock . . .”

Kilmartin spun on his heel a little, and looked up to a corner of the ceiling for a few moments.

“God, how far do we go back? Ah donkey's years. Ah yes.”

Kilmartin's eyes went to window out. Over the hedge there Minogue could see some lights all the way over beyond Shankill, the hills behind part of the dark.

“I'm going to make a cup of tea. Come on.”

“Don't. Just sit down and we'll talk.”

Minogue pulled open the door and headed for the kitchen. His foot caught on something and dragged it along the run. He stopped and looked down and then stooped down. A piece of pottery?

“Forget the damn tea, will you!”

Minogue pushed open the door of the kitchen. The light was off but he could still see pieces of things against the tiles. He forgot for a moment where the light switch was. Kilmartin was next to him now.

“Leave it,” he said. “I told you. Don't mind here. Come back in and we'll talk.”

Minogue shook the hand off his shoulder.

“Where's Maura?”

“Maura's grand. Don't worry about Maura. Okay, come on back now.”

When Minogue resisted again, Kilmartin stood at the wall, his back to the light switch. Minogue didn't want to cross the floor to find another light on the cooker.

“Look Matt, we had words. All right? I'm ashamed to say. Now come on out. I don't want to be reminded. Really.”

“Is she all right, Jim?”

“She's fine. You know she gets, well, emotional sometimes.

Seldom enough now.”

“Liam?”

“What about Liam?”

“Is he okay?”

“He is. Now stop, will you, and come back inside. I'll fix this later.”

Minogue couldn't see Kilmartin's face.

“Maura's a great worker, Jim. We all know that. Is she maybe ready for a break?”

Kilmartin said nothing.

“Maybe yourself and herself would consider taking off and heading over to see Liam? Sure he'd be delighted, and Maura–”

“Will you for the love of Christ stop talking? And about Liam? Will you?”

Minogue looked at the column of dim light in the doorway as it opened again.

“Come out of here,” Kilmartin said. “I don't want to be reminded. Okay?”

The catch in Kilmartin's voice changed everything for him. He went by Kilmartin and heard the kitchen door close behind him. Kilmartin's voice was almost a whisper now.

“Jim, if there's anything I can do . . .”

Kilmartin's eyes had a weariness in them now when he stared across at Minogue.

“Do . . .? I think you already have, Matt. Yes.”

“I don't know what that means.”

Kilmartin sat back and let his arm rest on the dresser. He looked up at the dresser then, seemed to take in the quality of the trim, the glass doors, and then down to the brass handles on the drawers below. He let out a big sigh.

“What do you know about that man, in those pictures? Jim?”

A weak smile came to Kilmartin's features but left quickly and the bleakness set in deeper.

“Oh Christ,” he said. “Me and my foolish ways. Digital this, and digital that. Do you know I have a damn phone, a mobile I mean, that even takes videos? But, no. These ones I asked for. It took me an hour but there's the beauty of the gadgets – I was able to reach Jack still at the site. You remember Jack Mooney?”

“Scenes? Photo man?”

“Who else. Jack is as mad as I am for this stuff. So I get his mobile and he says he'll download a few. Do you know what that means?”

Minogue nodded.

“Well, there's progress. Maybe soon you'll graduate to finding the power switch on your phone.”

Minogue waited for a smile, even the hint of one.

“I've a confession, Jim,” he said finally. Kilmartin, stopped stroking his nose.

“I know what I'm doing, acting the gobshite. I leave it off on purpose.”

Kilmartin's face eased but then his eyes lost their focus again.

“As if I didn't know.”

A minute passed. All Minogue heard was Kilmartin's fingertips moving over bristles on his chin.

“What did you phone for, Jim?”

“I can't tell you.”

Again Minogue waited.

“I can't.”

And then Kilmartin's head went down. His shoulders heaved and he drew in his arms to bring his hands over his face. Minogue heard huge tearing sobs. His own mind went wild. He felt his own limbs had seized up, a gaping tear open in his guts.

“I can't,” Kilmartin sobbed. “I can't.”

“I can help,” was all Minogue could think to say.

“Where's Maura? I just want to see her, Jim.”

Kilmartin wiped his nose with his hand and gradually sat up. He took a box of paper hankies from the drawer and blew his nose. The minutes passed.

“Sorry,” he said then. “I'm sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for, Jim. Nothing. It's good you phoned. I am.”

“Is it? Is it really?”

Kilmartin's hand ran up and down the handles of the drawer behind him.

“Do they know who he is? This man in the car?”

Kilmartin's hand stopped stroking the drawer handles.

“Well, do you know who it is?” he said to Minogue.

“Tommy and I met him over in a big drinking barn on the Naas Road. He's the fella knocked Tommy's head off.”

“But who is he?”

“I don't know. Maybe you can tell me, now. A foreign accent; calls himself George.”

Kilmartin's fingers began to move again, tracing the outlines of the embossed brass, dropping the handles one by one as he went to each.

“George,” he said. “You caught up with him again there down the Temple Bar?”

“Jim.”

Kilmartin didn't react.

“Jim?”

The face that turned to Minogue had lost its hardness, that set of folds and lines that Minogue had bundled forever with James Kilmartin.

“How long again, Matt? Twenty what . . . ?”

“Over twenty years,” said Minogue. “That's as high as I can count.”

“You were in rag order when I took you on, do you remember. Very shaky.”

“I was that.”

“But I knew,” Kilmartin went on. “I knew who and what I was getting on board, didn't I? And we done all right, the Squad, didn't we?”

“We did.”

“But too good. There's something in human nature wants to tear things down. There is, you know. Everything always goes back to that.”

Minogue couldn't make sense of this. He eyed the almost empty glass. He wondered how would he convince Kilmartin not to have any more, to call it a night.

“Matt, tell me something. And don't try to get around this one, okay?”

Minogue nodded. The Jameson's had his mind drifting a bit now.

“Serious now?”

“Serious.”

“Is there a hell? Come on now – you said you'd be serious. Stop looking at me like that. Tell me – look, I know you're one of them deep thinker types. Really. So tell me, will you?”

Minogue shook his head.

“But you can't get it out of your head, can you? Remember, the priests, and the sermons before Good Friday – all the fires? And the worms and that? Forever . . .?”

Again, Minogue shook his head.

“I have it in my head since then too,” he said. “I just can't get it out.”

“And you the pagan too,” Kilmartin murmured.

Minogue understood that something had been closed now. Maybe now that Kilmartin was calmer, something would come out.

“Things always look better in the morning,” he said. Kilmartin didn't let on he'd heard him.

“All that philosophizing,” said Kilmartin in the same slow monotone. “Christ. ‘There's no going back.' Isn't that what they all say? Why am I always hearing that these days? Are you hearing that a lot these days, are you?”

“Well, I don't believe the ‘they' mob half the time.”

Kilmartin gave him a look that Minogue at first took to be annoyance, but ended in a something between a grimace and a bleaker smile.

“I'm always blathering, amn't I. And now look at me.”

“Is Maura upstairs, Jim?”

A glint of anger came to Kilmartin's eyes, and his face changed.

“You have me worried,” said Minogue. “What happened here? It was hardly those fellas redoing your kitchen are after throwing the crockery around.”

Kilmartin didn't take up any of the effort at humour.

“Worried, are you,” he said, his voice regaining some strength.

Minogue held back from saying any more for the moment. Kilmartin rubbed hard at his eyes.

“Everything going great,” he muttered. “Deep down you always know there's something else, though. But you ignore it. You forget about it.”

He stopped rubbing, and looked at Minogue.

“Do you know how much I hate what I do every day? My job?”

“I thought you liked it.”

“God, I tried and I tried. The golden parachute out of the Squad, the new office and the perks. Everyone telling me how lucky I was – I began to believe them. I wanted to. All this guff about electronics and databases and – and everything. You know what? I couldn't give a tinker's curse. And I bet you're the same, with your Mister Eurocop gig there. I'm right, amn't I?”

Maybe Kilmartin and his wife had had a row about money. It had been a sore point years ago, he vaguely remembered. But why? Maura's business was going great. She could well afford to pay for any decorating and building whims herself. Maybe Kilmartin had had a few jars too many, and something was said, and then it popped. Maybe the pressure had built up too much.

“Here,” said Kilmartin. “No way, no
way
are you not having a proper drink. No way – and not on the worst night of my life. Wait and I'll get you a glass. Wait there!”

Minogue heard Kilmartin's leather soles crunch more stuff on the floor going into the hall. Kilmartin was muttering to himself, but Minogue could not make out the words. He took out his phone, and wondered where, or whom, to start calling.

Chapter 28

K
ILMARTIN WAS BACK QUICKER
than Minogue h “What's with the phone? Who are you phoning?” Minogue waited until Kilmartin stood still and looked at him.

“The truth is, Jim, nobody. I don't know who I should phone. But you're in bad shape. What's Maura's mobile?”

“Forget Maura's mobile, will you!”

Minogue stared at him.

“Come on, damn it all now,” said Kilmartin. “Let's not have a falling-out, for Christ's sake! What were we talking about anyway? Here, take this.”

Minogue held the glass but didn't drink from it.

“Right,” said Kilmartin, letting himself down with a sigh. “Right – you and Malone, the pair of you. You're like, I don't know, magnets or something, yes, magnets for trouble. I mean to say, one day the pair of you saunter into a church, to listen to some scut, what's his name . . .”

“Lawless?”

“Right! Jesus, how could I forget a name like that. Anyway, next day he's dead. Then, for God's sake, you find some big lug of a fella you think is connected to someone in the Condon case, and that one turns up dead in a car – this is four hours after he has a run-in with you two, with bullets flying in broad daylight right in the middle of Dublin today! Now how does that happen? Answer me that one if you can.”

Minogue watched him reach for the whiskey bottle. Halfway to it, Kilmartin stopped and looked across at him again.

“I know,” he said. “It's Tynan. He knows; he's copped on. Oh but he's a cold, calculating bastard – and I don't care if his missus is at death's door with cancer, or whatever. I don't. I just wish he'd have come to me, and put it straight out. Christ, that would have been bad enough – but not this! He used you, Matt. Tell me the truth now, come on. How did he brief you? What did he tell you?”