A Carra King (48 page)

“If what we're thinking is not there, then they'll never bring it if they know we're onto it.”

“Who, though? Are you trying to tell me there's bent staff here?”

“I don't know who,” said Minogue. “But if there's cargo going out — ”

“Freight. Cargo's for boats.”

“Freight. If there's something going out with a certain shipment — is shipment the right word?”

“I like payload: but shipment's okay for runners-in.”

“Well then, it might not have been brought out here yet.”

“What thing are yous talking about?”

“A rock.”

“A rock? A rock band?”

“A stone,” said Minogue. “It'd be like a kind of a statue.”

“What, an antique, like?”

“Something like that, yes. Can I tell you what we'd need?”

“You can try, but I have to kick this upstairs. Someone has to know about it.”

“No, Paddy. Sorry. No. That can't be done.”

“Says who?”

“Let me explain it, then.”

Paddy Mac listened, watching Malone fiddle with the keys, then the wipers, then the keys again.

“Okay,” said Paddy Mac. “But maybe you weren't listening to a whole lot of things I told you earlier on. Number one, anything to do with the likes of the Works would be clean as a whistle. They wouldn't be stupid enough to smuggle anything.”

“Intentionally, you mean.”

“Any shagging way, that's what I mean. That's why they have managers and everything. Their stuff is under lock-up here so's it doesn't get interfered with.”

“It's not checked going out is it though.”

“What, that mountain of gear? No. How big a thing are yous looking for?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, I can tell we're going to have a grand time of it so.”

“But I do know it could arrive here as long as no one thinks we're onto them.”

Paddy Mac took a step back. Minogue glanced down at the feet. Tiny, ninety degrees, like birds. The barrel chest.

“Well how do you propose to keep it all quiet here?”

“Number one is that you undertake not to say a word to anyone.”

“What, including me boss?”

“Including your boss, your wife and kids, anybody. Then you get us in there, as employees maybe. A set of uniforms maybe? Overalls?”

“Four of yous?”

“Two of us, say.”

Paddy Mac looked from face to face. Minogue wondered if the humour would win out.

“Let me have a gander at this warrant then.”

Minogue handed it over. Malone met his eyes in the mirror.

“Never seen one before tell you the truth,” said Paddy Mac. “Except on the telly. Ha ha. Looks real enough, but.”

He folded the papers and handed them back.

“So,” said Malone. “What's it going to be, Love Me Tender?”

The Dublinman's glazed and faraway stare gave way to a smirk.

“Well it won't be Heartbreak Hotel,” he said. “This time, like.”

T
WENTY
-S
EVEN

M
inogue's overalls were too short in the crotch. He pulled at them, shoved his hands down hard in the pockets, but they still caught him. Malone looked a model. He leaned against the wall and watched Minogue try to stretch the overalls again. Paddy Mac arrived in from the hall.

“Jases, you look like you're choking in that.”

“Have you nothing else?”

“No. Here's the list for that load of stuff.”

Minogue gave up on tailoring and joined Malone looking over the printout.

“What's FEI?” Malone asked.

“Freight Express Ireland. They're just the delivery agent. The number there is the day. The month comes first. It's American software.”

Minogue looked down the dates. He tried to put dates to Shaughnessy. His brain wouldn't work. He searched for a Biro.

“The dates,” he muttered.

“Dates for what?” Paddy Mac asked.

“Ah, I'm trying to match events to this stuff, this storage.”

Minogue opened his notebook and tore out a sheet. He began with the last day of Shaughnessy's stay in Jury's Hotel. He half-listened to Paddy Mac quizzing Malone about murders.

“The American fella,” said Paddy Mac. “You're not telling me anything about that end.”

“Call out the dates to me Tommy, like a good man.”

Malone stopped when Minogue raised his hand. The Inspector looked back in his notebook.

“What?” said Paddy Mac.

Malone stepped over to Minogue. The Inspector tapped on dates he'd put down after the PM.

“The last two there,” Malone whispered. “That'd be after he was killed, right?”

Minogue looked at the boxes again.

“Is this all there is for them?” he asked Paddy Mac.

“You mean is there more? I don't know.”

“What's the count there again?”

“Twenty . . . seven.”

“And the latest stuff in?”

“Four days back.”

Minogue stepped around Paddy Mac and pulled at the catch on one of the boxes. Bose — he'd heard of that. There were five pop-up latches. The third one wouldn't budge. Paddy Mac took out a tool from his belt and held it out to Minogue. The Inspector didn't know which way to hold it. He looked at the screwdriver head, the jemmy edge next to it, the small hammer head.

“Here,” said Paddy Mac. “Let me do it. You'd only break it.”

Minogue helped him lift the lid. Coiled electrical wires as thick as his finger; knobs, a grille, sockets to plug in leads.

“Amplifying stuff,” said Paddy Mac. “I don't know.”

There was a hiss and a whirr outside the cage, a whistle. Minogue looked around Paddy Mac at the forklift operator. Paddy Mac stepped out. Minogue turned back to the boxes. He listened to Paddy Mac's drollery with the driver. A dry run for the new spot checks, Minogue heard: customs, an EU effort, no warning, such a fuckin' crowd, yeah? The forklift squealed away. Malone wedged himself in-between boxes. He used his knees to lever two stacks apart. The squeak as they moved cut right through Minogue's ears.

“The most recent ones here at the front, Paddy?” Minogue asked.

“That's the general idea. Yeah. Hey, how are yous going to get into them without a lift?”

Malone looked up at the top of the stack. Paddy Mac sighed.

“One a them'll fall on you and I'll wind up in the dock for it, or something.”

“Jailhouse rock,” said Malone.

“You're a scream. Here — I'm going to get a lift.”

Minogue watched Paddy Mac's walk, the toes outward. The divinity that shapes our ends, he thought, and people became like their —

“Any of the lads come by,” Paddy Mac called out over his shoulder, “give them the Customs and Excise spot-check line. We're only starting them next year to fall in with the EU regulations. Dry run, tell them.”

Minogue leaned around a box to look for a label. He stooped and looked through a gap toward the boxes in the middle of the stack. Malone climbed on one and began trying to slip the cables on another. Minogue heard Paddy Mac's voice echo, the words of his call lost somewhere at the other end of the warehouse. Someone laughed. A door slid open, squeaked and opened faster until it hit the end of its line.

“Wires,” said Malone. “Big, fat leads. Speakers. Woofers. Tweeters. More wires.”

Minogue squinted in at the cases. Malone closed the lid and clipped the catches. Minogue stood up when he heard the scratching as Malone shoved a box. He heard the forklift rattle and hum as it approached.

“Wait there Tommy, will you.”

Paddy Mac behind the wheel was a man possessed. Minogue stood outside with Malone watching. He wondered what Paddy Mac was saying to himself as he reversed and shot forward, swept in tight circles with inches to spare, dropped the boxes almost to the floor before braking and then lowering the loads soundlessly to the floor. Minogue waved to him. Paddy Mac reversed over and stopped. Minogue pointed to the boxes that had been uncovered. Paddy Mac leaned his forearms on the rim of the steering wheel and watched as the two detectives edged their way through the cases toward the back of the set of boxes.

Minogue lifted the catches on a long box. Smells of rubber and dust rose around him. Lights? He lifted the edge of one and saw cables and filters. He remembered watching the goings on at a film shoot in Kilmainham last year. The miles of cable, lights, everything up on stalks. He shoved the cable aside and examined the clamps and holders. One of them would be the bees knees entirely for holding joints to be glued on that bloody antique table Kathleen wanted.

“Here, boss. Come here.”

Minogue laid the clamp down and closed the lid.

“Come up here and have a look.”

Minogue worked his way around the lid. Malone had pulled out a console covered with sliding buttons. Minogue eyed it for an instant as he manoeuvred around the cables. He heard Malone breathing hard in his nostrils from the exertion. He looked down. He felt no surprise. He wondered why: was he in some weird state, drifting along after the shooting, disconnected somehow. And when he woke up?

It looked so familiar. Maybe it was because he was so used to seeing pictures of things like this over the years. The outlines of the face were shadowed but he'd seen eyes like that before. It had struck him before that children drew eyes the same way as those forgotten and unknown carvers in ancient Ireland. And modern art, whatever that was, did the same. He followed the lines until they met. Whose hands had worked this so long ago, what efforts had gone into it, with their tools and their faith.

He crouched and pulled the cloth back further, tucked it down between the edge of the stone and the side of the box. He ran his hands across the lines. A collar, he guessed, a necklace maybe. Royalty? Malone was muttering something.

He glanced up at him.

“You're magic, boss,” he whispered. “Fucking magic.”

Minogue looked down again. There were sharp edges in places on the granite. He dropped to one knee and let his hand down the length of the stone. Something which could be excitement, or awe, or even some kind of fear began to leak into his mind.

“What in the name of Jases is that?”

He hadn't heard Paddy Mac walking over. His knee was locked now, but the ache from the graze was gone. He watched his own shadow stir on the stone as he laboured to get up. Paddy Mac was scratching hard with his nails in his sideburns.

“A prop or something?” he asked. “All that stuff they haul up on stage, the oul plaster casts and the bits of cars?”

“No,” said Malone. Paddy Mac turned to him.

“What's it, then?”

Minogue didn't know whether Malone had been waiting to get in the dig.

“That,” Malone said. “That is the king.”

Minogue had been dozing. The chimes and flight announcements had lulled him. Airports, waiting, dentists, hospital — they all made him drowsy.

“Here they are,” said Malone again. “Hey. Boss?”

He opened his eyes slowly. There were three dozen people or so by the arrivals gate, four Guards in uniform. He was locked up tight, from his shoulders down his back to his legs: stiff as a board. Malone watched him lever himself upright.

“Give Fergal the word then,” he said to Malone.

He'd have to take the next bit handy, the getting to his feet. He ran his hand down to the rip in the knee of his trousers: wasn't that big, really. He had been dreaming of pigeons. It was a Magritte painting too, he was sure, the one with the bird-cage in place of the man's chest, under a cloak. He should look for it in Hanna's bookshop. As well as getting some scientific answer for how pigeons, and other birds for that matter, found their way from so far off.

He stood slowly, made his way over to the railing. There were three girls arguing with a Sergeant. One of them shrieked. The Sergeant eyed her. She covered her mouth in embarrassment. He made a space for four photographers. Others pressed forward. A cheer started at the far end of the railing. The Guards walked to the glass doors. Minogue wondered how could anybody see anything. People began to drift over from the pub, glasses in hand. Malone pocketed the phone. Two of the girls were hopping now. The doors slid open.

First out were two APFs. Cortina Byrne came next, smoking and laughing. He threw his arm around a woman with a blond stubble on her head. She was somebody famous, Minogue realized. He couldn't place her. She wore one of those plastic shiny jackets, the ones that looked like they were made in a doll factory in 1962. The flashes began to go off.

Then Daly looked warily up and down the passageway the Guards had cleared. The shoulder bag was the size of a suitcase. Soft leather, and one of those purses —

“Jee-zuzz,
Jimmy
!”

Minogue recoiled at the scream and glared at the girl. The screamer had a white face and a lot of metal around her face.