Chapter 65
The small café down the street from the Garda station was not an ideal place for a confrontation. But the coffee smelled good and the confectionery looked delicious. Mooney watched McKeown place his order and then move to sit at the rear of the narrow room, where he began to scroll on his phone.
Mooney ordered a cappuccino and a scone with a side of cream and jam. He waited at the counter until McKeown had his order placed on the table in front of him before he wandered over.
‘Mind if I sit here?’
‘Knock yourself out,’ McKeown said. ‘There’s extra seating upstairs if you’d rather that.’
‘This is fine. Knees are a bit wonky,’ Mooney lied, but then again, his knees had seen better days. He’d even had to give up his Wednesday-night five-a-side soccer.
McKeown lowered his head to his phone, ignoring Mooney’s struggle to pull out the chair from under the table. The legs had stuck. Eventually he got it released and sat with an audible sigh.
‘You from the station up the road?’ he asked.
‘How would you know that?’ McKeown raised an eyebrow, head to the side.
‘You have the look of a detective about you.’
‘So do you, but that doesn’t make you one, does it?’
‘In fact I am.’ Mooney held out his hand. ‘Matt Mooney.’
‘Sam McKeown.’ He kept both hands on his phone. Rude bastard, Mooney thought. The silence rode between them before curiosity won out and McKeown asked, ‘Where are you based?’
‘Galway.’
Now Mooney felt the full glare of McKeown’s beady eyes. ‘What brings you to Ragmullin?’
‘As a matter of fact, you do.’
‘Me? I don’t know you, nor do I know anyone in Galway.’
‘This is nothing to do with Galway. I’m here in a personal capacity.’
‘That so?’ McKeown put down his phone and lifted his cup. He blew on it before taking a long, loud slurp. He said no more. Mooney was going to have to spell it out for him.
‘You know Chloe Parker?’
‘Yes. And I work with her mother.’ McKeown was wary now; his voice had dropped an octave.
‘I met Lottie during the summer,’ Mooney said.
‘Oh, so you’re that detective.’ He said it in the tone of a slur, and Mooney squirmed. At the same time, he wanted to punch the other man’s eyes out.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Lottie had a great laugh about you. A bungling idiot, she called you.’
Though Mooney suspected this was untrue, he still felt slighted. ‘Bungling or not, here I am.’
‘Here you are.’ McKeown had a sly smirk plastered to his face, but his eyes were serious dark dots in a flushed face.
Mooney was about to speak again when his coffee and scone arrived. He thanked the girl before returning his attention to the detective.
‘I know what you did and I want you to never contact Chloe Parker again.’
‘Mm.’ McKeown sipped more coffee, and when he put the cup down, it clattered on the saucer. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘If you don’t do as I ask, Chloe is taking it further, and you really don’t want that, do you?’
‘You’re delusional.’
‘No, you’re the delusional one if you think you’re getting away with this. Contact her again and it won’t be me you’re dealing with, it will be Inspector Parker.’
McKeown glared, showing his teeth in a smarmy sneer. ‘I did nothing that little whore wasn’t asking for. Now fuck off back to whatever stone wall you crawled out from under and leave me alone.’
Mooney had an irrational urge to throw his frothy cappuccino into the other man’s face. His hand trembled on the cup, and before he could stop himself, he’d pushed it across the table with force. It landed on McKeown’s lap.
McKeown jumped up, crockery hitting the floor, his crotch stained. ‘You fucking bastard. That’s assault.’ He wiped furiously at his trousers, the paper napkin disintegrating in his hand, leaving white flecks embedded in the navy material.
‘No, Detective, what you did to Chloe was assault.’
With that rejoinder, Mooney stood, wrapped his scone in a napkin and left McKeown there with his trousers wet and his mouth open.
Chloe saw Detective Mooney’s name flash on her phone. She answered immediately.
‘Hi, Matt. Any news? Did you talk to Mam?’ She was breathless for his answer and at the same time didn’t want to hear it, because if he’d spoken to Lottie, then she could no longer pretend this had happened to someone else.
But then she remembered that she’d already been on the phone with Lottie earlier.
She realised Mooney had said nothing to her mother.
‘I met her at your home out in the sticks. And I thought Connemara was bleak. Anyhow, Mark Boyd was there, so I didn’t think it was right to impinge on their happy family charade.’
‘They broke up. He doesn’t actually live there.’
‘Something about his flat being flooded, yeah, but the atmosphere was chilly, so I kept my mouth shut.’
Disappointment weighed down her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry for annoying you and dragging you all the way to Ragmullin, but thanks. I appreciate it.’
‘Hold on a minute, not so fast.’
He sounded like he was eating and talking at the same time, and this made Chloe smile.
‘Finish your food and ring me back.’
‘No, it’s fine. I’m sitting in my car outside Ragmullin Garda station eating a dry scone.’
‘What’s going on? Why are you still there?’ She was genuinely puzzled. ‘I thought you were back in Galway.’
‘I stayed the night in a lovely hotel. James Joyce or something. And I’ve just spoken with that prick.’
‘James Joyce?’ She couldn’t help the amusement in her tone.
‘Huh? No, McKeown.’
‘You didn’t, did you?’ Shit, shit, shit. Chloe didn’t know whether to hang up or thump the wall.
‘I sure did. He’s fucking full of himself, the prick. The sort of shithead who gives us guards a bad name. I’ve a mind to lodge the complaint myself.’
‘What complaint?’ She felt the blood in her veins clog as if dry ice was pumping in. What had Mooney done?
‘What he did to you, it needs to be reported, Chloe. You have to make it formal.’
She heard him take a bite out of his scone and wondered how he could eat it without even a spread of butter. It almost turned her stomach.
‘I… I can’t. Honestly, it will ruin my career before it even starts.’
‘He’s dangerous.’
‘Really?’
‘Chloe, he’ll be gunning for you. I know his sort. I’ve met them across an interview table. Think they’re untouchable. Convince themselves they’ve done no wrong and that it’s everyone else’s fault. You need to talk to your mother and you have to make a formal complaint about him.’
‘Mam will kill me.’
‘No she won’t.’
‘Well if she doesn’t kill me, she’ll kill him.’
‘No loss there.’
‘Be serious.’ She felt tears flood her eyes.
She wiped them with her free hand before they could fall down her cheeks.
No way was she about to waste her time shedding more tears over McKeown.
‘Thanks for your help, Matt. I’ll talk to her.
I honestly appreciate you taking the time to do this for me. ’
‘Hold on a minute.’ Paper rustled. He must have finished his dry scone, she thought. ‘My chat with him will have rattled his cage. I’m going to hang around today.’
‘No, Matt, leave it. I’ll decide what to do.’
There was a prolonged silence before he spoke again. ‘I’ll get back to you.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Chloe asked, as he hung up.
She wondered if she had made a huge mistake getting Mooney involved. No going back, though. What was done was done.