The Going Rate Read Free Page B

records. He had made two brief calls to his mother, seven to the hostel where he was staying, four to restaurants. Two restaurant managers deposed that Klos’ English was spotty. One thought he “had issues.” Meaning? “Wouldn’t look me in the eye… shifty impression…”
    Minogue had already read the copies of statements from people in the hostel several times, in full. One mentioned the Internet café where Klos had visited, and a reference to Skype, an MSN account, Hotmail. No-one knew Klos’ passwords. A search of the routine online jungle – MySpace, Bebo and FaceBook – came up dry. Googling Klos’ name returned four hits, all relating to Polish sites and sources, but only one relating to him, or rather his email address.
    This was Minogue’s fourth re-read of the files on Klos. In spite of their efforts, the team was getting nowhere. His gaze slid from the pages and over the dashboard to the passenger seat. The bit of sun yesterday had really awakened the new-car smell again. Kathleen had told him that the new-car smell was very toxic. She didn’t mean to take the good out of it, she reminded him.
    Peter Igoe, the Chief Super for Minogue’s department, had floated into the office yesterday afternoon with this file under his arm, and a tight smile that Minogue knew right away meant trouble.
    Igoe wasn’t above flattery. While going over what was needed of Minogue in this afternoon’s meeting concerning Klos, he made much of Minogue’s past expertise in the Murder Squad. The Poles needed to leave that meeting knowing that the Gardai were putting everything they had into the investigation.
    Naturally, Minogue wouldn’t be called upon to give any detailed answers specific to the case. The case detectives would do that, with the Technical Bureau to back them up. The optics needed to be sharp, Igoe had said. Telephone calls had been made between governments. Minogue already knew that the newspapers in Poland had fairly leaped on the matter.
    PR, in other words, Minogue muttered that evening when Kathleen asked why he seemed so cross-grained. He should be flattered to be invited, was her retort; another feather in his cap et cetera.
    Minogue had to let that go by. Since his posting to the International Liaison Unit at HQ in the Phoenix Park, his wife’s proud conviction had been unshakeable: her husband finally had a proper nine-to-five. He should be delighted to be out of the pressure-cooker that had been Jim Kilmartin’s fabled Murder Squad, now decorously disbanded two years ago.
    So now with the guidance of the Aspergian Sergeant Áine Collins in the Europol National Unit, Minogue was learning how to process Analytic Work Files. He worked with coppers from London and Spain, and another from Austria, a gateway for Eastern European crime. The dubious excitement of a month on the Offshore Financial Centres section awaited. He had taken to making up his own acronyms from those initials for the OFC.
    So far on his way through the unit, Minogue’s training had taken in matters that Kathleen believed were very exciting. There were counterfeit designer goods coming in from China to figure out. A Croatian immigrant making good money as a window-washer had three passports. The case of three Nigerian brothers who preyed on West African refugees with a mixture of witchcraft, intimidation, and extortion was still dragging through the system. The twenty-first century…?
    Minogue powered down the window, pausing and reversing it twice to test it. It was quicker than he liked, but there was no slack. He looked down to the files again. He might as well practise pronouncing names. Klos, like close. Tad-eh-oosh.
    Another name he had to know was that of the middling bigwig from the Polish Embassy, an attaché named Juraksaitis, who would be accompanying Mrs. Klos. Juraksaitis was to be pronounced like You’re Excited.
    A diesel clanking