The Death of an Irish Politician Read Online Free

certain things in motion first.”
    “Your backside and what else?”
    McGarr stood. Sleep was still upon him and his limbs were stiff. “Well, first this number.”
    “Give it here.”
    He took his pen from his shirt pocket and wrote on a corner of the newspaper the phone number they had found on the key float. “And then I’ve got to send McKeon down to the yacht club to take statements from Martin and Hubbard. And then—it’s too damn early and too damn nice to be arsing around with police work.”
    The phone was only a few feet away and already Noreen was dialing the department. “Hello,” she said, “this is Chief Inspector of Detectives Peter McGarr’s secretary.”
    Even from the parlor McGarr could hear the howl.
    “Listen, Bernie, this is Noreen. Peter wants you…”
    McGarr coerced his legs up the stairs to the bedroom. Among the Irish, McGarr thought, it wasn’t unusual to marry a younger woman. At that moment, however, the custom seemed to him just another atavism that harked back to an even more barbarous age.
    While he was dressing the phone rang. It was Ward, who told Noreen he had located a lock that accepted the key they had found on Ovens.
    In his shorts, McGarr took the steps downstairs two at a time. Noreen handed him the receiver. “This soon? What have you got?” McGarr’s knees were stubby and pink.
    “You know the girl I was with last night at the Khyber? Her father keeps a boat on the breakwater in Dun Laoghaire. That key is to the shower facilities at the boatyard nearby. She recognized it right away.”
    “Was that Ovens’ official port of entry?”
    “Don’t think so, but Virelay was hauled here and the engine removed.”
    “Where are you now?”
    “At the boatyard. I thought you might liketo talk to the yard boss. He tells a whopper about Ovens. I’ve taken him to the Dolphin, since he knocks off at eleven of a Saturday. Do you know the place? I’ll stand him a round or two, if the department will cover my losses.”
    “You do a lot of thinking for an under-assistant, a lot of talking, and far too much round-standing whenever there’s a hint the expense might be justified. How many are there in your party?”
    “Forty-seven. I’ll get a receipt.”
    McGarr hung up. His interest was now thoroughly aroused. Noreen had gotten no answer from the telephone number on the key float.
     
    All Ireland, it seemed, was marketing in Dublin today. The streets were jammed, sidewalk vendors hawking produce at bargain prices. The crops were definitely bumper; all summer the weather had been glorious.
    Noreen couldn’t find even a taxi stand that a vehicle with a police pass might occupy and finally got caught in a snarl opposite Moore Street. McGarr hopped out and jogged through the milling crowds until, near the corner of O’Connell Street, he was able to nip in a side door of the General Post Office.
    Out on the street, McGarr had been an object of great interest to the passersby, even the shabbiest of whom was dressed, Dublin fashion, in conservative attire, but in the GPO he became an excuse for the civil servants thereto stop work and strike up a conversation that would surely last ten minutes. His heavy white sweater was slightly large for him and tended to ride over his buttocks. His Bermuda shorts emphasized the girth of his shanks. Finally, without a hat, his bald and nearly pink head, curly red temples, and plain face were unrecognizable to Fran Wilder, who, when he saw this oddity in white approaching him, pretended to busy himself in one of the many thick phone directories that surrounded him. Wilder had the communications registries of the world at his fingertips.
    “Francie, may I speak with you a moment?” said McGarr. They had grown up together in Inchicore.
    Wilder didn’t stir from a squinting perusal of the thick books.
    “Francie, it’s Peter McGarr.”
    Wilder looked up. He had a narrow face with a long, bony nose. Close-cropped sideburns and a veritable