by John Brady
Minogue cast around for patient words. After several moments he felt the loosening of the anger in his throat. “I suppose you could say I’m not cool on the matter, Jimmy. Yes, you could say that, all right.”
Kilmartin’s brow lifted. He kicked off from the desk and rolled back to the wall before standing up and killing his cigarette. Glad to see me in a flap, Minogue wondered.
“I’ll see about the funeral arrangements,” said Kilmartin. “Now: about any people that Fine put away in jail.”
“We’ve been through the list of cases he’s heard,” said Hoey. “Twice, as a matter of fact. There’s nothing worth getting excited over.”
“What about Brian Kelly and Opus Dei?” Minogue led.
“I’ll give you what I have so far. We can’t say for certain that this Brian Kelly was actually a member of the outfit but…” said Hoey.
Kilmartin nodded. “Go on anyway, man, can’t you?”
“Right so. Opus Dei is the Latin for ‘God’s Work’. It was founded in 1928 by a Spanish priest, a Father J. E. De Balaguer. Hope I’m saying the name right. It was one of his books that Fine looked at on Saturday, if ye remember the dockets. It’s an apostolic movement. Here’s a quote on what they do: ‘… strive to sanctify their daily work and family life, to Christianize society’.”
“You mean that it was set up to counter the pagan materialistic twentieth century, especially after the Bolsheviks and what have you?” Minogue asked.
Hoey shrugged. “I’d have to know more to agree there. But it’s for lay people from any walk of life. Clergy can join up too. The basic idea is so as the church doesn’t get to be out of touch with modern society, that’s the way I read the aims. Now these Opus Dei people, they want to use whatever social positions they have to renew the faith. Make it more relevant, you see, on the factory floor… outside the chapel, like. Very sincere, holy people. There are ranks in Opus Dei. It’s organized like you’d see in any business or institution. The top dogs are called Numeraries. They’re about one-tenth of the whole outfit.”
“How big is this Opus Dei thing?” Kilmartin asked.
“They don’t give out lists of names or tell you the membership in any country. Estimates average about 70, 000 world-wide.”
“They’re not Masons or what have you, running around with funny clothes and doing unnatural things, are they?” Kilmartin pressed.
“I don’t know about that, sir. I believe that the church forbids Catholics to become Masons… Anyway, the top group are Numeraries. They stay celibate and they have to be highly educated and trained in things like philosophy and theology as well. They usually live in centres, one big house, like. There are at least three centres in Dublin but I’m having a divil of a time getting any facts on this. The next rank is Associate. They can be priests as well. They’re supposed to be celibates but they needn’t be university grads or professional types. Then there are Supernumeraries. They can marry and so on. The last rank are Co-operators and they’re basically sympathizers. I’ve been talking about the men’s branch of Opus Dei. The women’s branch has either Numerary Assistants-they’re basically skivvies who keep house for the higher-ups-or Numeraries like the men’s.”
“You mean ‘don’t like the men’ by the sound of things,” said Kilmartin.
“Oh, I get it,” said Hoey. “That’s a good one. You’re probably right there. The women Numeraries are celibates too. Matter of fact the women are encouraged to sleep on a plank until they’re forty years of age.”
“On a plank?” asked Kilmartin. “Are you in earnest? What the hell for?”
“On a plank. Wait’ll you hear this: the men and the women often wear bands with pins stuck on them, stuck into their thighs. So as to mortify themselves. That’s not the end of it either.”
“Go away out of that, you’re codding me,” said Kilmartin.
“They flog themselves too,” Hoey declared.
“They do not!” said Kilmartin.
Hoey repeated the notes slowly. Kilmartin looked to Minogue. Minogue shrugged. “We’re the Island of Saints and Scholars, Jimmy-penance and mortification. The monks did that class of caper too, you know. If that was our Golden Age, I’ll take me chances down by the docks after dark.”
“Ah, come on now.” Kilmartin the custodian of Irish virtues past rallied. “They can’t all be cracked like that.”
“Right, sir. Those details sort of jumped out at me though, I must say,” said Hoey. “I should tell you the more important stuff-”
“Sleeping on a plank until you’re forty sounds pretty important to me,” Minogue muttered darkly.
“Like I was saying, I couldn’t find out how many Opus Dei there are in Ireland. They’re conservative and they consider themselves the knights of the Church. As for people saying they’re a secret society, they say they’re not. The members take vows in front of a superior but Opus Dei says these vows are not necessarily holy vows. The Pope changed the status of Opus Dei a few years ago and they’re now a personal prelature. I’m not sure what the ins and outs of that are but I think it means they are allowed to work more on their own and not have to be telling their local bishop what they’re at as much as they used to. They have residences here in Dublin, a few of them near to the university. They have a constitution.”
“A constitution?” repeated Minogue. “Sounds like a country. Organized, anyway.”
“They have titles like ‘President’ and divisions like ‘Region’, so it doesn’t sound very religious, does it?” agreed Hoey. “They don’t allow their constitution to be translated out of Latin except with the permission of their brass,” he added. “Their current President, they called him ‘Father’, is another Spaniard. His name is del Portillo. And the constitution is not to be made public at all. That’s why people say that Opus Dei is shady.”
“No more than shady, though,” said Kilmartin.
“Right. Some people say that Opus Dei interferes in politics and what have you. There was a stink a few years ago in Spain because that oul? dictator fella, Franco, liked Opus Dei and some of his Ministers were Opus Dei members. And I seem to remember reading the name Opus Dei in the paper several years ago to do with Chile and Paraguay.”
“Well at least we don’t fit into that class of act, do we, men?” said Kilmartin. “It’s my opinion that climate has a lot to do with the fanatical temperaments of the races and peoples who make their homes in southern climes. The Equator and all that. Latin peoples are very unstable; very tricky with the knife and the gun and full of talk about honour. Sure the men are like bloody cockerels strutting around the place.”
“If they only had our brains and our way of life, they’d be sensible enough to lay aside the gun and the knife.” Minogue couldn’t resist goading his colleague. “Then they could take up the rocket-launchers, I suppose. Do the thing right.”
“I could rely on you to come up with something like that,” said Kilmartin in the tone of betrayed loyalty. “I know you’re only poking fun at me. I was just voicing an opinion. Look at the papers any day of the week and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”
Look at the papers, Minogue echoed hollowly within. He resisted throwing his eyes to heaven.
“Anyway,” Kilmartin continued. “This is very interesting. How did you get your hands on this so fast?”
Hoey looked embarrassed. “Well actually, Darling-Doyle, I mean, went to the National Library first thing this morning to get the dockets from that fella. He had a look at one of the books and he stuck it in his pocket. He’ll take it back, of course. I had a dekko through it this morning for an hour.”
“Darling Doyle?” asked Kilmartin.
“Doyle used to be on the whore squad, sir, up outside the Burlington. The girls got to know him rather well.”
“The same Doyle is hardly tripping over his mickey in a hurry to join this Opus Dei, I’d say, after some of his work assignments,” Kilmartin chuckled. “Maybe we should ask him what he know about planks in that li
ne of business. Now, no more of this blasphemy: what about our Mr. Kelly? Where does he fit in this order of things?”
“So far it’s not clear, sir. He didn’t live in an Opus Dei house so it’s doubtful he was one of their Numeraries. He was university educated. An economist.”
“Bejases, he must have seen the state of the nation’s finances and realized that prayer was our only hope,” said Kilmartin weakly.
“Never married. There was some class of oratory in the house but hardly a stick of furniture. House was his own, bought two years ago and half-way paid already. Kelly had steady advancement in the Civil Service since he joined up eight years ago. He used to go to Brussels quite a lot on EC business. He was an expert in banking.”
“But we haven’t actually fitted Kelly in with Opus Dei, have we?” Minogue said.
“Bit of a lemoner there, you’re right. Doyle is still on the phone trying to get a name so we can try to plug Kelly in somewhere along the line and see if he has any connections or associates in this group. I’ll go out and see if he’s having any luck.”
Hoey left his notes on Kilmartin’s desk and he walked back out to the squadroom.
“Has a head on his shoulders, Hoey,” said Kilmartin. “ That Doyle is handy too, isn’t he?”
Minogue nodded. He looked at his watch. “What’s Keating doing that he hasn’t phoned in? This young lad out in Killiney…”
“Time enough, Matt. He’d phone if there was something we had to jump on right off the bat. You should know how tricky it is getting stuff from kids. Keating might end up having to reconstruct this interview in evidence, so he’s probably taking his time and getting it right. Sooner done right than done hasty, man.”
Minogue held off a snappy rejoinder.
“You know how the current is taking us, don’t you, Matt?”
“Matter of fact, I don’t really. I still can’t see Paul Fine’s killer in my mind. He or she or it or they… no profile really. And I don’t even want to think about motives, for fear if I look at one I’ll see it can’t hold water.”
“Jases, man,” said Kilmartin. “It’s being so cheerful is what keeps us going. Come on now, we’re on the road here with this at last, I can feel it in me water. Aren’t we, damn it?”
“All roads lead to Rome,” Minogue murmured.
“Don’t be acting the maggot. We seem to have a bridge from Kelly back to the Fine boy. Leave aside the fire-bomb thing now for a minute. Maybe we had better start thinking out loud so as we know we’re on the same track.”
“Fair enough,” said Minogue, stretching. “We’d like to believe that there’s a connection between a reporter and a Civil Servant. A reporter’s job is to get information and to present it to his public. To his boss first, to see if it makes sense.”
“But Fitzgerald didn’t know anything about any interest Fine had in Opus Dei.”
“Let’s be bold and say that Brian Kelly got in touch with Paul Fine. Recently, very recently. Thursday, Friday even.”
“It couldn’t be the other way around, all right,” Kilmartin said. “What has Fine got to offer Kelly?”
“Right. Before we start to wonder what it is that Kelly wanted to say to Fine, let’s ask why Kelly would want to get in touch with Fine specifically. Assuming he has something to impart.”
“Why Fine? Well, everyone knows everyone in Dublin, Matt. He might have heard Fine’s name in conversation or met him socially over a gargle. He might have heard Fine’s name on the programme. We can find that out sooner or later, I’m sure.”
“But why not get in touch with Mickey Fitz if the same Brian Kelly wanted to air a complaint? Fitzgerald is a tough piece of work. People’d listen to him.”
“You have me there, all right.” Kilmartin rubbed his hands together as if to summon a genie. “Maybe he, wanted to remain anonymous and decided that going through Fine would help him stay that way?”
“All right. Now we bump back into the big question as to what it was that Kelly may have wanted to air.”
“A gripe about something going on in the Civil Service?”
“Then Paul Fine would have been cramming on the Civil Service. He appears to have been trying to digest what he could about Opus Dei.”
“Can’t get around it, Matt, you’re right. Give me a minute and I’ll try and come up with a better one.”
After a pause, Kilmartin gave in. “Has to be something about Opus Dei. I can’t see around it.”
“Fitzgerald has his staff rotating through the scandal department, or whatever name he likes to call muck-raking. Paul Fine’s turn came, are you with me?”
“I am. But how would Kelly know that Fine was the man who’d like a bit of dirt on Opus Dei?”
“Who’s to say that he needed to know? Perhaps all he wanted was someone in the media.”
“But Jases, why pick Fine? He wasn’t any tiger, you know, no disrespect intended. And when all is said and done, I can’t see what scandal this crowd of Holy Joes in Opus Dei would worry about to the extent of killing someone over. We have to admit that they’re motivated by religious principles and all that goes with that. This isn’t a dog-eat-dog business, like in Chile or whatever, with the Communists on one side and the Fascist lads waving crucifixes and guns on the other side.”
“Umm,” said Minogue. “I get the feeling you’re a bit shy yet. Are you going to give me the three Fs?”
Minogue was referring to what some detectives liked to call the Three Eff-offs. It was something which any astute officer invoked when speculation was getting in the way of police work. The injunction was meant to propel would-be clairvoyants back into the world of facts, forensic information and files. A killer was to be found in one of these three worlds, not in metaphysical police minds.
“Tell you what,” said Kilmartin. “By all means we’ll go as far as logic takes us with this Opus Dei thing, but I’ll have to rethink splitting the team tomorrow. You with the Fine case of course; Gallagher and his big-shots thrown in. What we have of the whole task force will work through what your interviews can point to as well.”
“I need Shea Hoey.”
“OK,” said Kilmartin, less than enthusiastically. “Me, I’ll be wanting Keating and Murtagh then, for a start, to take on Kelly. Lookit, sure, you may have something under your hat this very minute and you not knowing it. That Boy Scout lad-his mother phoned in. There, see?”
Minogue’s mind began to wander. Why would Kelly get in touch with Fine? Fine’s turn at the dirt pile had come around, but he had kept his own project on Arab-IRA links on the side. The help-line number and Minogue’s name beside it on the pad…
“Kelly phoning here looking for me the other night,” Minogue murmured. “What can we do with that…?”
“I can tell you-that one easy enough,” Kilmartin said slowly, rubbing the filter end of an unlit cigarette around his lips as an aid to concentration. He slid further into the chair. “You know I have a copy of that call on the day’s tape. I’m carrying that copy around with me-here, right inside in me pocket-so as the minute we can latch on to any pal of Kelly that hums and haws about anything, I’ll fire the tape at him. We’ll get better confirmation it was Kelly’s voice, as well as leverage, I’m thinking. There’s life in the old dog yet, isn’t there?”
“There seems to be,” Minogue had to concede.
“Are you sure you don’t want a bottle of holy water with you, your honour?” Eilis asked. Minogue made a face at her. He looked back to Kilmartin’s office to see Kilmartin half into the jacket of his suit, like a bear struggling to get a bee out of its armpit.
“Did you see that film The Exorcist years ago, did you?” Eilis persisted. “A young one possessed by the divil, spewing up a big spout of pea soup any time the priest came near her. And then she had an unholy leaping fit when the priest took out the holy water. Cursing and swearing galore.”
“I’m not sure it’ll be the same effort with us today, Eilis. This is a Christian country. Pagans have t
heir own way to defend themselves against priests anyway.”
“Well, beir bua. That tape with that call on it, it’s a fright to listen to it.”
“I hope it is,” said Kilmartin. “We’re off to bell the cat. I’m taking the radio car. Patch anything important to the car, would you, especially anything from Keating out talking to the Boy Scout and his mammy in Dun Laoghaire.”
Kilmartin had used rank where Doyle could not and thus Kilmartin had two names, two men to meet in a house on Churchtown Road. Drumm, Finbar Drumm, was a member of the Opus Dei residence; Father Heher, of order unknown, was from the seminary at Cloncliffe College. Kilmartin had had his name from the secretary to the Archbishop of Dublin, as one who had contact with Opus Dei members in the city.
“As for the explanation that the Archbishop’s office was not directly responsible for the work of Opus Dei, that didn’t thrill the shoes off me, I can tell you,” Kilmartin was saying. “Felt like I was getting the brush-off.”
“As I understand Church politics, bishops and archbishops want to know about every sparrow that falls in their dioceses,” said Minogue.
“Every sparrow… what do you mean?”
“The idea is that God know about and cares about every bird that falls, no matter how tiny. He also keeps track of every molecule and every blade of grass that grows, I understand.”
Kilmartin looked across the roof of the car at Minogue, grimacing against the glare. “I hope you’re not going to be contrary out here with this priest and the other fella and give me heartburn, for the love of Jases, are you?”
“Of course I am, Jimmy. Isn’t that why you’re dragging me along? Before you got these two names you were content to let me get on with the Fine investigation.”
“Don’t be exercising yourself, man dear. The deal was that we hold off splitting the case-work until after we see these Holy Joes. Later on today we’ll know better if there’s anything real to be working on as regards the two deaths.”
