“Damn.”
“What?”
“I dropped me card.”
“You â where? The gearstick, where?”
“Let me see.”
His fingers ran over the end of the handbrake and dropped to the carpet. Nothing. Little leaned against the door to watch.
“It's alright, just leave it,” he said. “Give him mine! Stop it! Just leave it there, for Christ's sake. Come on, here he is.”
The Guard had stepped out in the road. He stared in at the two. Minogue's fingernails slid along the carpet. Tiny pebbles, he registered, grit, a cigarette butt.
The Guard eyed the tax disc as he came around. Minogue's fingers stubbed the seat rails. The pistol must be right up at the front. Little elbowed him.
“Take mine,” he said. “Quick!”
The Guard had a wispy moustache. The collar on his fluorescent jacket was high up alongside his cheek. He let the flashlight run across the interior.
“Are you aware you're driving with only one light there?”
“We had a bit of a ding not long ago,” said Little. The Guard took the photocard. He looked in at Little.
“I thought the car had the look of one.”
“We're active at the moment,” said Little. “I'm CO.”
“Right so, right,” the Guard murmured. Minogue let his hand down the handbrake again.
“Take care, lads. Er, Superintendent. No comment on the belt situation, there.”
“What?” Little said. “Oh right. Thanks.”
The Guard nodded. He nodded toward the back seat.
“You have something the matter with your seat back there.”
Minogue stared at him. The Guard bobbed to look into the back seat again.
“Is there something loose maybe,” he added. “See? The back there, look.”
“What,” said Minogue.
“Let's go,” said Little. “Sure it's falling apart, this heap. Come on. Thanks.”
The Guard took a step back. His eyes finally met with Minogue's. The Inspector let the eyes flicker toward Little.
“Let's go,” said Little again.
“Damian â ”
“Shut up! Not a fucking word!”
Minogue let in the clutch slowly. The Guard had backed off a few steps. He was speaking into his collar mike. The Guard by the Fiat looked over. Sergeant's stripes, forties; a wide, ruddy face, a hard stare. He cocked his ear and stepped out onto the roadway.
“Go around him,” said Little. “Move!”
The Sergeant's stare began to dull. His arm came up, his fingers spread out.
“Go!”
Minogue eased his foot off the clutch. The Guard held up a flashlight, waved the beam toward the footpath. Minogue turned the wheel more. The Guard said something. Minogue waited until they drew level, and stamped on the brake.
The Opel shuddered and bucked twice before the engine stopped, and they rocked to a standstill. Minogue lunged with his left hand and clamped it on the muzzle. The seat belt rumbled out of its drum and ran up to his neck as he followed up with his right hand. He shouldered Little against the door.
He felt Little's sinews strain under his grip, water oozing from the leather sleeve. He pushed the gun harder into Little's leg. Little's right arm squirmed behind Minogue's shoulder and slowly rose to his shoulder blades. The car began to shake. Minogue kept shouting for Malone. Little's right arm broke free over his shoulder. The first blow, more knuckle than fist, hit him in the neck. Something gave way in the car then and hit the back of his seat. He heard shoes scraping.
Little was suddenly gone. The light dazzled Minogue. A cold breeze brushed across his face as he came up, stabbing at the belt release. The chimes were slow and squeaky. Malone's face appeared between the seats. Someone was on the road just outside the door. Little was shouting. Malone was scrambling out the back door. He heard Little shouting for someone to get away.
The roadway was greasy under the drizzle. Minogue slammed the door but the light stayed on. Someone else was shouting now. A car door slammed.
“Where is he?” from Malone crouched behind him. Little was shouting at someone to get in the car.
“Damian,” he shouted. “It's over! It's no use!”
Something hit the bonnet of the car.
“He's going to do it,” said Malone.
“Leave it, Damian! It's finished, there's â ”
The pop was followed by a small shower of glass on the roadway. Malone grabbed his arm.
“Shut up, will you, boss! He's going to kill someone!”
Minogue's eyes began a giddy slide. He got back on his hunkers. He held his eyes closed tight for a moment. Malone's white face, his contorted forehead stayed with him.
“That's my gun he has,” said Malone. “Where's yours?”
“I slid it under the seat there earlier â ”
“Did he get that one too?”
“I don't think so.”
Malone pulled open the door and slithered in on the floor. A car door slammed. Minogue looked over the edge of the door. Through the glass he saw the older Guard, the Sergeant, standing by the squad car with his hands out. Malone scrambled out onto his knees.
“I got it! Where's he gone?”
“He's taking the squad car. He has one of the spot-check fellas behind the wheel.”
An engine revved and tires howled on the roadway. Malone edged around the back bumper. He shouted something and stood to a crouch. Minogue saw the tail lights run across the rain-flecked glass of the Opel. Malone had broken into a sprint. The flashes from Malone's gun came quickly. He counted four. Someone began shouting again. He heard the change into second just before the Orion began to slide. The driver hesitated as the back of the car wobbled and began to bump. Malone's sprint slowed. The passenger door on the squad car opened. Headlights coming in from Howth dipped. The car, a well-polished Nissan, came to a sliding stop fifty feet from the squad car.
Little slammed the door behind him and darted toward the Nissan. The driver's door was opening. Little ran across the headlights to the seawall. Minogue shouted Little's name. Malone was up again, advancing on the Nissan in a crouch. Flashes came steadily from his gun now. Minogue stood and moved around the back of the Opel. Malone was crouched by the front of the Nissan, waving someone away. There was a flash from the far side of the Nissan. Malone dropped to the roadway and reached around the front wheel with the gun. Minogue saw his hand twitch, the flashes against the seawall.
Neither rain nor drizzle, but that clammy, oily combination of the worst of both, began to settle on Minogue's face. The leftovers of the smoke stung in his nose as he lurched toward Malone. He held his ribs and huffed to ease the jabs from his side. He caught a glimpse of something on the path as he slid down by the door. Malone was breathing hard.
The driver of the Nissan was moving about.
“Stay down!” Malone shouted. “We're Guards. And turn off the engine!”
A siren in the distance was joined by a second.
“He's down,” said Malone. “I think I heard the gun falling onto the road.”
Minogue leaned against the Nissan. The driver was saying something.
“Shut up, will you!”
Malone's head was almost on the roadway by the tire.
“I see him,” he said to Minogue.
“And I can see the gun. My one.”
Malone scampered to the driver's door of the Nissan. He yanked it open, pulled at the driver, shoved him across the road.
“Over there â go on, the back of the Garda car!”
Minogue watched Malone stand, the pistol at arm's length, the slow zigzag walk he had seen parodied too often for it to be funny. Malone called out as he advanced. Minogue stood. The pain in his knee was a slicing ache now. His eyes wavered still. He rested his hand on the bonnet of the Nissan until the dizziness passed. He wondered if his colleague had noted the thick lines creeping away from the shadows under Damian Little.
O
rla McKeon's father looked younger than last year when Minogue had bumped into him on O'Connell Bridge. Orla had come back from six months in Italy. She and Iseult were going to get a studio together at that stage.
The hair was his own, that Minogue was sure of, but was it tinted or dyed? Why so long at fifty-something anyway. Transplants, maybe. Iseult had said that Orla found out her father was having an affair. He had moved from insurance some years ago and had done well in pet food for some reason.
“Great day for being out,” said Tom McKeon.
Minogue took a step toward him. His knee was just as stiff today, but the pain had gone down to an ache, which he sometimes was able to ignore. The boat breasted the wake of a smaller craft making for Dun Laoghaire Harbour. Minogue had quickly learned to keep his knees bent. His hair whipped back again. He narrowed his eyes.
“Pardon?”
“Great day,” said McKeon. “Evening, I should say.”
Minogue nodded. He looked back at the churning water behind the engine. A hundred and fifty horsepower? Half as much again as his Citroen? The water seemed to stand still by the railing, drawn up in a jagged crest that cast off drops and streams at the edges. Spume, that was the word. The engine turned slightly and Minogue looked back. Tom McKeon had the bow directly on the rocks by Dalkey Island ahead. There were lights on by Bulloch Harbour, but Minogue was drawn again to the pink and mustard sky behind the Three Rock Mountain. He felt a cold cylinder against his knuckles.
“Go on,” said McKeon.
Budweiser. Would he get sick on it with the boat hopping on the waves?
“Thanks.”
He sat down next to McKeon.
“Cold are you?”
“Ah, I'm all right.”
“You look cold. Take that there.”
Minogue picked up a nylon jacket with a woolly inside. There was neon green somewhere in the middle of the back, a fancy logo with a little wave in the middle. Drown in style. McKeon held his can while Minogue got into the jacket. He missed threading the zip several times. He steadied himself against the railing.
Iseult arrived on deck in an enormous T-shirt and a pair of football shorts. The breeze took wisps of her hair away from the hair band. Orla closed the door behind her.
“Your towel,” he said. She had goose bumps already. There was an odd light in her eyes.
“What?”
“Your towel. You'll catch your death of cold.”
“I'm going in the water, Da.”
Tom McKeon was looking up at him with a mischievous look. Minogue wanted to drag him out of his captain's chair and pitch him into the sea.
“Here,” said McKeon. “Go on.”
Minogue didn't open the can. He stepped down to where Orla and Iseult huddled.
“Where's your life jacket then?”
“Do you want one?” Orla asked.
“Of course she does,” Minogue said. “She'll go to the bottom like a stone. The size of her.”
“Ah, Da! If I thought you were going to start this, I could have brought Ma.”
“Here, Matt,” came McKeon's voice above. “Come on up and take the helm.”
He didn't want to take any bloody helm. Jack Tar, climb the rigging; pirates ahoy.
“Come on up! We're headed through Dalkey Sound out into the bay.”
McKeon showed him the throttle, how to get to neutral, how not to mash the gears to porridge.
“Good man, yes, sit there. I have a few things to get.”
“What, martinis?”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Minogue slowed the boat. It was all too easy, wasn't it? The moving shore, the sky cast up again from the water out in the bay took over his thoughts. How often he had walked there in the woods and now he was out here looking back to shore for signs of life.
“Aim to that side of him, Matt.”
There was grey in the woods under Dalkey Hill already. The bay opened before him, silver and brown. He felt his chest easing, the glow, and then the rush of gladness. Fool I've been he thought, never to have had a boat. Should have been a pet-food tycoon like Tom McKeon. He glanced over. McKeon smiled.
“Go on,” he said. “Open it. It'll taste a lot better.”
It did. He drank half the can in one go. He could have finished it, too. McKeon pointed to Bray Head.
“Aim for there.”
Not a bad fella at all, McKeon. So what if he was trickacting with someone, but â Iseult's laugh had a hollow sound to it. Orla whispered something to her. Iseult nodded. Minogue eyed her.
“Suits you, Da,” she called out.
“Been to the States, er, Matt?” McKeon asked.
“No.”
“Your lad is there, isn't he?”
“He is.”
McKeon was about to say something but he frowned, and then smiled and waved his arm.
“Where else in the world would you have this,” he said. “Isn't it only gorgeous?”
Minogue nodded. McKeon finished his can. He studied it carefully before tossing it below. He covered a belch with the back of his hand and then pulled hard on the rail. A plane was coming in over the Irish Sea.
“But you can be in touch anywhere,” said McKeon. Minogue frowned. McKeon nodded toward a cell phone on the seat below.
“A fella in that plane there could phone me. Did you know that?”
Minogue nodded.
“Yous all have them now, don't you?”
“We've come to rely on them.”
McKeon winked.
“All digital and all. So's ye won't be listened in on. It was in the paper the other day.”
He looked over at the Inspector.
“Along with the whole ball of wax with O'Riordan and them. The manager, the whole Larry Smith thing. Well, Jases, talk about scandal. You're a celebrity now, ha ha, along with herself.”
McKeon winked.
“The
Holy Family
. Ha ha. Catchy though, isn't it?”
“No.”
“Oh. Well, tell me something â if you don't mind me asking. Did the Guards know about this Little, the one who â well, you know what I'm saying.”