Islandbridge Read online

  Praise for John Brady’s

  MATT MINOGUE series:

  A Stone of the Heart

  “Towers above the mystery category as AN ELOQUENT, COMPELLING NOVEL . . . a tragic drama involving many characters, each so skillfully realized that one virtually sees and hears them in this extraordinary novel . . .” – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

  “A MASTERFULLY CRAFTED WORK of plot, atmosphere and especially characterization . . . Minogue, thoughtful, clear-eyed and perhaps too sensitive . . . is a full-blooded character built for the long haul of a series . . .” – MACLEAN’S

  Unholy Ground

  “RIVETING . . . The suspense builds to barely bearable intensity . . . crackles with pungent Irish idiom and its vignettes of the country’s everyday life.” – TORONTO STAR

  “Excellent Sergeant Matt Minogue . . . MARVELLOUS DIALOGUE, as nearly surreal as a Magritte postcard the sergeant likes, and a twisting treacherous tale.” – SUNDAY TIMES

  Kaddish in Dublin

  “MATT MINOGUE, THE MAGNETIC CENTRE OF THIS SUPERB SERIES . . . and Brady’s tone of battered lyricism are the music which keep drawing us back to this haunting series.” – NEW YORK TIMES

  “Culchie Colombo with a liberal and urbane heart . . . like all the best detective stories it casts its net widely over its setting . . . [Minogue is] a character who should run and run.” – IRISH TIMES

  All Souls

  “As lyrical and elegantly styled as the last three . . . A FIRST-RATE STORY WITH MARVELLOUS CHARACTERS . . . Another masterful tale from a superior author.” – GLOBE AND MAIL

  “Nothing gets in the way of pace, narrative thrust or intricate story-telling.” – IRISH TIMES

  “A KNOCKOUT.” – KIRKUS REVIEWS

  A Carra King GLOBE AND MAIL TOP 100

  “DENSE AND MULTILAYERED . . . a treasure of a crime novel.”

  – TORONTO STAR

  “Brady has a great eye for the telling detail . . . and a lovely slow pace of storytelling. There’s much talk and thought events and you can’t read this book at warp speed. Instead, save it to savour”

  – GLOBE AND MAIL

  Wonderland GLOBE AND MAIL TOP 100

  “IF THERE ARE AUTHORS BETTER THAN JOHN BRADY at chronicling the events of modern Ireland, I HAVEN’T YET READ THEM . . . Brady’s best so far.” – GLOBE AND MAIL

  “ANOTHER SUPERB NOVEL BY A WRITER OF INTERNATIONAL STATURE.” – TORONTO STAR

  “BRADY’S BEST: informed, subtle and intelligent, with Minogue revealing a hitherto unseen depth of soul, humour and emotion.”

  – THE TIMES UK

  Islandbridge

  A MATT MINOGUE MYSTERY

  JOHN

  BRADY

  Islandbridge

  A MATT MINOGUE MYSTERY

  McArthur & Company

  Toronto

  First published in Canada in 2005 by

  McArthur & Company

  322 King Street West, Suite 402

  Toronto, ON M5V 1J2

  www.mcarthur-co.com

  Copyright © 2005 John Brady

  All rights reserved.

  The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise stored in a retrieval system, without the expressed written consent of the publisher, is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Brady, John, 1955-

  Islandbridge : a Matt Minogue mystery / John Brady.

  ISBN 1-55278-520-3

  I. Title.

  PS8553.R245I84 2005 C813’.54 C2005-903711-3

  eISBN 978-1-77087-096-3

  Cover, Image & Composition by Mad Dog Design

  The publisher would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) and the Canada Council for our publishing activities. The publisher further wishes to acknowledge the financial support of the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

  For Hanna, with love

  What thou lovest well remains

  The rest is dross

  What thou lovest well shall not be reft from thee

  What thou lovest best is thy true heritage.

  — EZRA POUND, Canto 81

  Contents

  A Legend About Islandbridge

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  A Legend About Islandbridge

  Islandbridge is an area in inner-city Dublin with a long past, perhaps even being where the Vikings first settled in the 800s.

  WHEN THE VIKINGS SETTLED DUBLIN, they were being continually harried by chieftains from the nearby hills, and even from north of the settlement in the rich lands of Meath. The native Irish regarded them as barbarians. A Viking who wanted to settle in Dublin decided that marriage would be the solution. He set about finding himself an Irish wife from amongst the families and chieftains that were hostile to the Viking’s growing presence. When he found one, he spoke with her father, a man who was reputed to be both wise and unrelenting in battle.

  “I will build her the finest home on the whole island of Ireland,” he told the chieftain. “It will be safe from raiders and brigands, because it will be an island itself, in the River Liffey.”

  “My daughter is not an island woman,” the chieftain said. “She will find it confining more than reassuring.”

  The wooer had foreseen this objection.

  “But it will have a bridge to the shore,” said

  “Well, if there is a bridge,” the chieftain said, “it can hardly be an island, can it?”

  “She can go forth and come back and go as she pleases, amongst her own. It is not my intention that she should be separated from her family and people.”

  “You are granting her a freedom that she has by birthright,” said the chieftain. “Who are you to say whether she may come and go?”

  At this, the Viking knew he was in a tight spot. Although he had learned many of the customs of the native Irish, he had not reckoned on how the Irish chieftains did not distinguish between the worth of a son and a daughter in their rights.

  “She will have the riches of trade,” he said. “Jewels and stones from the East. She will be the envy of all.”

  “She, like I, cares nothing for wealth,” said the chieftain. “That is only for display amongst the vulgar classes who would wish to conceal their low character with their baubles.”

  The Viking was now in dire straits.

  “I know your faith in God,” he said to the chieftain. “I have given you my oath that I will become a Christian like your people.”

  “That goes without saying. She will not marry a pagan, or a barbarian.”

  Almost at the end of his rope, and seeing the chieftain’s brow descending, the Viking came upon an idea. He had heard that, while Christians, the native Irish retained many of the old ways.

  “The island I speak of is more than merely a place to live,” he said. “I hav
e been told the secret of the place and how to use it, by a holy man.”

  “And what is that?”

  “That on the island, time is yours to do as you please. You can go back in time to youth, and the past, or forward in time to foretell what will happen. Of course those who do not live on the island, and who do not know the secret, will never know this and will live their lives as others, and the days and years will tax them with age and death.”

  “Are you saying that this island in the river is Tír na nÓg?”

  “The holy man told me that it is an entry to that land of the young that your poets speak of, but it has never been known outside a few who guard its secret.”

  The chieftain thought for a long time before he looked to the wooer of his daughter again.

  “Well,” he said at last. “If what you say is true, then she could cross that bridge one day, and return to the past to undo a mistake, could she not?”

  “She could.”

  “Such as her marriage vows?”

  The Viking realized that he was caught, but he remembered that the Irish valued those who never stinted in their efforts, be it in horsemanship, battle, or argument.

  “It is true,” he said, looking boldly into the chieftain’s eyes. “But she will never regret those vows for one moment of her life, I promise you.”

  The chieftain stared at him for several minutes.

  “I think you have made your case,” he said finally. “Whether this island can hold time as you say it can, we shall see. But one thing is certain: she will not be bored for lack of storytelling.”

  He leaned in over the table that divided the two men. The Viking did not know if a knife would suddenly spring into the chieftain’s hand and he would be dispatched for his impertinence and casuistry.

  “In telling the story itself, you yourself have held back time,” said the chieftain.

  “Your wisdom is beyond me, sir,” said the Viking.

  “What I am telling you is this,” said the chieftain, standing up as a signal that his visitor should depart. “In your desire, you have already made this island with its bridge, an island that is not an island at all – Islandbridge we shall call it – true.”

  The Viking left, not knowing what the chieftain thought, or would decide.

  Prologue

  July 9, 1983

  IT WAS COMING UP to midnight and the club was going strong. There was an hour to go yet on Declan Kelly’s shift, but the tiredness had left him. That no longer surprised him. It usually did toward the end of the night. He figured it happened like this because there was less of a serious performance needed from him now. But it wasn’t good to get too relaxed. He still had to be wide awake and to look deadly serious when they’d be emptying the club at closing time.

  Kelly had plenty of ways to while the time away until the end of his shift, and tonight for some reason, making up names of books and films had come to him. The Life of a Bouncer by Declan Kelly. The Famous Garda Declan Kelly, that would be, Off-duty Garda Declan Kelly. Saving Up For The Big Day Declan Kelly. How about: Never Going To Do A Crappy Job As A Bouncer In This Dump Again, Declan Kelly? “You’ve read the book, now see the film.” Who would he get to star in it, though? Clint Eastwood, with an Irish accent. That’d be something all right.

  He watched a taxi approach in the dazzle of lights that flooded up from the oily, patched surface of Capel Street. It passed, and the street was empty again. There was the Liffey stink hanging in the air around here. It crept like poison gas all over the centre of Dublin, when the tide was out. There was always the smell of the Markets too, day and night. Somehow, the stray fragments and squashed pads of vegetables that lined the laneways here brought a quiet dismay to Garda Kelly. A farmer’s son, they reminded him of the sure and certain fate of nature and its bounty, here in this city where he had once wished to be posted, but now was beginning to hate.

  The thumping from the new speakers they’d put into the club last month gave way to tinnier noise and voices. He looked over and returned a wave from Mick, the inside man. Mick held the door open with his foot and raised his arm. He tapped on his watch face and gave Kelly the thumbs-up. He thought he saw Mick roll his eyes. The door closed slowly, swallowing back some of the noise.

  Kelly had no idea how many were still in the club. It had been slow enough all evening and, after all, Wednesdays were not much better than Mondays here. He stared at the heavy galvanized plates that covered the door, and stifled a yawn. The doors were actually vibrating with the music: he was sure of it.

  Mid-stretch, he thought about his fiancée. Eimear would be sound asleep in her flat over on South Circular Road. It was two weekends since her flatmate Breda had gone home to her folks in Longford, and left them to themselves. He wondered if one or the other of them had planned it like this. It seemed the most natural thing in the world when Eimear came out from her bath naked and then eased into bed beside him. Just like that, he’d said to himself over and over again for days afterwards. She had told him she’d heard his heart beating halfway across the room.

  Breda had to have been in on it, he decided again. The same Breda was arranging most of the reception. “No backing out now, Declan,” she had said before she’d headed down for the train, “The hotel is booked.”

  Well ha ha ha, Breda. Actually Breda was all right, most of the time. Lately he wondered if maybe, just maybe, she was a bit jealous.

  The door to the club swung open again. Mick held it open for two girls to step out. They stumbled out arm in arm, and even above the music Kelly heard the clickety click of their heels. A cigarette from the one nearest the door caught in something and cascaded glowing pieces at their feet. These were right Dublin scrubbers, the pair of them. In his time in Dublin Declan Kelly had come to the conclusion early enough that there was and always would be an endless supply of these sneering, brassy, foulmouthed young ones.

  One stopped just outside the door. She yanked her friend back, and said something to Mick. Kelly wondered why the doors had stayed open. Then he saw that Mick was still there holding the door for a fella – wait, two fellas – to leave. The second one was wavering a lot. When he made for the footpath outside with sideways, lurching steps and abrupt halts, Kelly eyed him trying to flick back his long hair from time to time, almost falling back in the effort. He began to sway now too as he headed down the footpath, something that reminded Declan Kelly of a sailor on board ship in a storm. The glimpse of face Kelly saw said nineteen maybe twenty, but with that stunned, slack expression of someone well into a stupor.

  They hadn’t noticed him, and that was just fine by him. One of the girls yanked the other around as she turned to shout something, but Mick had the door pulled closed already. The first man was trying to light a cigarette now. Kelly couldn’t help but smile at the effort. Even standing with his legs braced against his rolling world, every match the fella lit was going out, or dropping, or breaking. Then he turned his head, but it fell back, and he took several sudden, tottering steps to regain some footing. No sooner had he done that than the swaying started again. Then he seemed to get suddenly very interested in the night sky. God knows what he saw up there above these wet Dublin streets of this July night – morning – year of Our Lord 1983. This thick was more than just drunk, Kelly decided, more than stoned, even.

  The girls seemed to be arguing with one another now. One of them laughed, with a cackle that ended in a smoker’s cough. They lurched on, half pushing and half tugging at one another. One of the girls’ heels clipped something on the footpath, and she skittered a few steps with a yelp and fell then against a car. The fella with the unlit cigarette called out to her, while the other girl buckled with laughter. The girl against the car started to laugh herself. She stayed leaning against the back door and looked up and down the street. She had seen him now, Kelly believed. She took out a cigarette, trying to watch him all the while. The flare of her lighter jolted her. She batted at her hair a few times. The other girl, beside her now, e
rupted into laughter again.

  Kelly looked away from them now. As Clune used to tell him when they started foot patrol first, you don’t have to stare to notice things. The trick was to look away down the road, while at the same time you keep an eye on people. It was a bit like a dog you couldn’t trust, according to Clune. If you make eye contact, it sends a signal.

  The two men had caught up to the girls now. The wobbly stargazer with the long hair was like a hospital patient taking his first steps after an operation.

  “Sure who’d ever want to be in that dump?”

  It was the girl on the car who had made the half-hearted yell. Her accent was that lazy, mocking whine Kelly had come to despise.

  She seemed happy enough against the car now, settling onto it, wet or not from the showers earlier.

  He kept his gaze on the lights by Capel Street Bridge. She drew on the cigarette again, coughed, and pushed her hair back. Then she looked at her friend rummaging in her handbag.

  Kelly thought of the money he was making tonight, mentally rearranging it into pound notes and fivers. Then he did division on how many pints of stout that’d buy, or how many gallons of petrol for his new Toyota Starlet. Mostly, he fought off the urge to look over.

  There was no sign of them pushing off yet. Jesus, he muttered under his breath. He felt a twinge of remorse at taking the Holy Name. There was something about people who were drunk, he’d come to believe, something that gave them some weird power of knowing what you were thinking, or what you wanted. He turned his mind to mental calculations again. There were three more of these jobs before the end of the month. That was three hundred quid. Furniture for the new house, or extra for the honeymoon?

  He caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. He had been right: drunk people were mind readers. She was headed his way. The bitch, he murmured.

  Her sugary breath preceded her and wafted across to Kelly. It was soon joined by a stink of stale smoke and worn-out perfume that had baked into her clothes in the club.

  “You like being a bouncer, do you?” she said. “Isn’t it fierce boring, like?”