Kaddish in Dublin imm-3

by John Brady

“ ‘They’, though,” said Minogue. “The ‘they’ that’s trying to do this is an Opus Dei faction. It’s not necessarily an Army coup or the likes of that.”

  “Right,” said Kilmartin, recovering with one of his favourite sayings at hand. “This isn’t a banana republic, you know, Tommy. We’re a democratic country with troubles, that’s all.”

  “All right,” said Farrell quickly. “I’ve been on the phone to Army Intelligence half the day. I know that O’Tuaime had started a search of Army personnel files for yous, but it was pretty half-hearted. As of half-ten this morning he was relieved of that piddling assignment, and Army Intelligence has launched a real search now that they have two names to start with. Cunningham seems square enough, a follower. This Gibney’s a very popular officer all up and down the ranks.”

  “Like Gorman… all things to all men,” muttered Kilmartin. Minogue thought of the friendly, open faces of Heher and Drumm.

  “They think he might twig to the surveillance. Lookit, if they’re jittery, I’m hopping about like a bloody Mexican jumping-bean. The security of the State and its citizens can’t be waiting around for any of us to be playing with bits of files and phone lines to gather bullet-proof evidence.”

  Which is probably exactly what he told the Minister and the Commissioner earlier, thought Minogue.

  “So if yous think that your Squad has first dibs on this, you’d be wrong,” said Farrell bluntly. He nodded to Gallagher, who restarted the tape.

  Farrell looked at his watch after five minutes.

  “There you are now. We’d be waiting for ten years before we’d get any mention of the word ‘murder’ out of them.”

  “No mention of Paul Fine or Kelly yet. We need to point a finger at a killer, or killers,” said Minogue.

  “Killers, did I hear you say?” Farrell frowned.

  “Murder in the first degree can be charged to more than the actual killer,” said Minogue. “If there was a concerted, coherent plan, assistance rendered, weapons secured for-”

  “All right, all right,” Farrell interrupted. Minogue gave Farrell a level stare across the table.

  “Listen,” he murmured in the stillness which followed, “we’re investigating two murders.” He paused and returned Farrell’s gaze of impatient scrutiny. “That’s where all this stuff flows from, plain and simple. These two victims-and I had better spell it out, that we suspect these two murders are connected-are, or were, individuals. I’m sure we’re all entitled to be alarmed by this group, this conspiracy, but I’m in there, and my colleagues are in there, to nail a killer or killers.”

  Minogue glanced to Kilmartin, who was searching the ceiling, and then to Hoey who nodded once, but kept his eyes on his shoes.

  “I hear you, Matty,” said Farrell in a tone soft enough for Kilmartin to look at him in some surprise. “Who do you see as the killers here? I mean the ones that actually did the dirty work?”

  Minogue exchanged looks with Hoey.

  “Out of this list…” he took a deep breath, “my hunch is Gibney.” Hoey nodded briefly, and Kilmartin kept his eyes on Minogue. “I see it like this: Brian Kelly hears or overhears chat about this scheme to push Gorman to the top and install a government that leans hard to the right. You heard the tape yourselves: it’d be nothing for people to make a pretext for getting troops out on the streets these days. You even hear upright citizens who should know better,” Minogue paused briefly to savour Kilmartin’s discomfort, “pushing for easy answers. ‘Crack the whip’ kind of attitudes. We’re always looking for the leader, the man on horseback, the hero, in this country. Anyway. Brian Kelly finds out about these plans. He may even have tried to talk people out of it, appealed to them. This kind of talk could have been floating around for years and then it got serious suddenly, so Kelly gets alarmed. He’s caught, because he has a loyalty to his pals in Opus Dei too, but it seems that the organization shuns him. So he’s torn about the whole thing, he needs to talk to someone. Maybe he tries again with this group, maybe even talks to Gorman. We may never know if he threatens to reveal what he knows, but I can see him doing that, if he’s upset. Think about it. Here’s a man who has invested so much in this organization. He’s sincere, he’s responsible, he’s devout…”

  “He’s dead,” Kilmartin muttered.

  “I wonder what way his mind works. Does he seek out a person from the media? Does he want someone like Paul Fine to do a surface story on Opus Dei, as a way of letting this outfit know that they’re now in the public light so they’d better rethink their plans? Does he tell all he knows to Paul Fine? It doesn’t seem like that to us, judging by what Fine had dug up. But did Gorman, or whoever, think their whole enterprise was threatened? Did Brian Kelly purposely seek out a journalist who was also a Jew, by way of a symbolic act?”

  “Fine and well to be speculating,” said Farrell. “But the way you brought it up, you want specifics. Can you link these murders at all, as yet?”

  Hoey sat up and intervened.

  “The killer may have wanted to make Paul Fine simply disappear,” he said quickly. “That would be a stiff warning to Brian Kelly. I doubt that the killer ever planned to kill the two people. It was more a case of ‘let’s get the more immediately dangerous character out of the way’… the journalist, that is… and then maybe try to persuade or bully Brian Kelly into keeping his trap shut. Then, when Kelly didn’t buckle under, or when it looked like he’d do anything because he was in a panic after hearing about Fine being murdered…”

  “Killed him,” said Farrell and looked around at the faces of the policemen. “All right, I see how your mind is working on it. But lookit, now,” Farrell narrowed his glance when it came to rest on Minogue, “you’ve had your say. You’ve stated your priorities. I’m just telling you that it is my duty to bag all these characters as soon as possible. You’ll get your man, but you may have to do your digging and burrowing after I have these people in custody. I’m not saying this’ll make your job any easier, but that’s the story, and that’s how it’ll have to be.”

  Before Minogue could say anything, Kilmartin deflected him.

  “Do you think Gorman knows about Fine and Kelly?” Kilmartin asked Farrell.

  The head of the Special Branch held his palms up.

  “I’m no psychologist, Jimmy. He may suspect it; he may know it; he may have been told but turned a deaf ear; he may pretend to himself that he doesn’t know it. Christ, there could be any number of things going on. If you ask me, I think Gorman is being led by the nose. By his own bloody ambition. He ran out of patience waiting for the Chief to step down, and now he wants the cake all to himself.”

  “Well, it appears that the people we’ve been listening to are not aware of us,” said Gallagher quietly. “Not yet, anyhow.” The soft, earnest Donegal hiss seemed to soothe the tension.

  “And whoever spilled the beans in confession has not alerted this group,” added Minogue. That’s what Tynan would have argued, he knew.

  “That could change at any minute,” said Farrell. “If we only knew the source, we could sit on him and make sure he kept quiet until we had all these lunatics in.”

  Gallagher’s finger tapped lightly on the tape spool as he waited for Farrell’s instruction.

  “So, this evening,” said Kilmartin at last,

  “Yep,” said Farrell decisively. “We just can’t wait any longer. Now the, er, Commissioner suggested that we include some representation from your Squad, er, Jimmy-being as you have some business in this line of work.”

  There was Kilmartin’s ten pounds safe, Minogue knew. It was plain that Farrell didn’t like offering.

  “Not exactly a joint task force, or anything now. No need to be formal after all, is there? We all know one another here,” said Farrell.

  “Right, Tommy. Good point, that,” said Kilmartin with a grave expression on his face.

  “Just that, er, you’ve had valuable input and naturally you’d want to interview persons we pick up tonight. We have the m
anpower and everything, you understand,” Farrell continued in a restrained manner. “And if yous were to talk to a suspect directly upon arrest, you could have him at his most talkative.”

  “Absolutely,” said Kilmartin. “That’s decent of you, Tommy.”

  Minogue was seeing a Kilmartin he knew only too well at work on Farrell. There was no love lost between the two senior policemen. Kilmartin’s nose told him that Farrell was under orders to consult the Murder Squad, probably to the extent of having Squad officers present at arrests. A suspect surprised is often glad to talk. Now, Minogue bet an imaginary ten-pound note with his gargoyle, Kilmartin’s frown of concern and concentration was the practised foil for what he would come out with the minute they were away from Farrell: The bollocks, Farrell letting on he was doing us a favour, after Tynan laying down the law with him and telling him to co-operate with us. Oh we showed him, didn’t we!

  “Would there be one suspect, say, that yous’d like to question in particular?” Farrell asked in a strained voice which could not carry the casual flavour he wanted.

  Kilmartin put on a face of intense deliberation. Even Hoey knew that Kilmartin was dragging the time across Farrell’s patience like nails across a blackboard. Minogue spoiled the fun.

  “Gibney. I’d like to have him the minute you lift him.”

  “Good, so,” said Farrell, relieved.

  “And I want to be in on the arrest too,” said Minogue.

  “All right so, Matty. Do yous want to listen to any more of this? Ah, you probably don’t,” Farrell said busily. “Top secret, this tape. Gorman’ll ride to hell on this little thing yet. Yous heard the best of it, the worst of it. There’s work to be done, though.”

  Gallagher was already rewinding the reel.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The stars twinkled and the moon rose. A faint breeze that had come in across Dublin Bay exercised itself in blotches of light which wavered on the footpath. Branches stirred slowly beneath the street-lamps. There was nothing left in the western sky, not the slightest brightness. Minogue thought about the planet turning, shadows creeping over land and water.

  He could smell Kilmartin’s stale breath. Kilmartin was smoking constantly. Minogue was very nervous. Kilmartin had listened in disbelief when Gallagher had phoned earlier to say Gibney had left his flat on Morehampton Road and driven to Gorman’s house in Sandymount. Oblivious of the two teams assigned to watch him, Gibney had gone into Gorman’s house almost an hour earlier.

  “That’s Gorman’s home, so it is,” Kilmartin said. “What about his missus and kids in there? Why didn’t they take Gibney when he left his place?”

  Minogue didn’t understand it either. Gallagher’s explanation was that neither pair of Special Branch detectives knew what to do. They had been awaiting the arrest team proper. The swoop had been set for nine minutes after nine, but at a quarter to nine Gibney had simply walked to his car and driven to Gorman’s home in Sandymount.

  “It must have been a regular appointment with them, and that’s why they didn’t mention it on the phone. That’s the only charitable excuse I can think of for those fellas to banjax this up,” said Kilmartin. “Walked out the front door and they didn’t know what to do. Farrell’ll eat those boyos… if I don’t first.”

  It was now three minutes short of ten o’clock. Kilmartin held the cigarette in his cupped hand by the arm-rest and blew the smoke out of the window in measured puffs. Hoey had the volume on the car radio almost completely down. He was whistling softly, a sign of his nerves, too, Minogue remembered, tongue against his upper teeth. Occasionally Hoey rubbed a hand over his chin. Minogue could hear the stubble rasp.

  “So Burke wonders if the people in this clique are quite capable of murdering someone,” said Kilmartin.

  “They may have done it twice already,” answered Hoey. “They could do the same and worse, I suppose.”

  “No wonder Farrell is hopping about the place,” Kilmartin added with some satisfaction.

  The three policemen fell silent again. Their car was parked nearly eight doors down from Gorman’s house. It was a quiet street in the better end of Sandymount, within a quarter mile of Sandymount strand. On bright days, the strand was an enormous mirror for the sky when the tide drew away from this side of Dublin Bay. Horses galloped and trotted down the sands at low tide every day of the year. Some hardy souls still swam there despite the general belief that Dublin Bay was too polluted to be safe. The southbound trains of the Dublin Area Rapid Transit system, the DART, shot out from between the hedges of the inner suburbs on to the water’s edge at Merrion Gates, almost gratefully leaping out to the open sea and sky all the way to Dun Laoghaire and beyond. James Joyce had walked Sandymount strand and been visited by beauty there… had Gorman walked the same watery emptiness, alone or with these cronies of his, concocting a salvation for Ireland?

  Claustrophobia added to Minogue’s tension. All but one of the Special Branch cars had been parked in the next street over. One car was parked by Gorman’s gate. It would not arouse suspicion, since two armed policemen customarily formed a guard outside the homes of Government Ministers. The two on shift tonight were to help net Gibney as he left the house. Three detectives sat in a Toyota van directly across the street from Gorman’s. The van advertised chimney-sweeping services and the bodywork was battered and grimy. Minogue had been told that those in the van were monitoring a relayed tap off Gorman’s home telephone: Farrell was worried that news of the swoop might reach Gorman by phone from a member of the clique who had evaded detection so far.

  Minogue stretched his arms out straight and yawned.

  “Didn’t I tell you that Tynan is the cute one?” said Kilmartin, breaking off from an interior conversation to let the two detectives know how astute he had been.

  Minogue remembered Tynan’s expression as he had knocked back the glass of whiskey last night: regret, and some contentment too, Tynan staring down into the cubes rattling in his empty glass. It had been like a farewell toast to the memory of someone whose funeral he and Minogue had attended.

  “You did,” said Minogue.

  “Ah, but what a waste when all is said and done,” Kilmartin dropped into a tone of melancholy. “All that talent. All well-educated, and with the best of intentions.”

  Minogue’s anger burst loose. He struggled to get out of the car. “Jesus Christ, Jimmy. I don’t want to hear any more about the best of intentions. The damned island is full to the brim with the best of intentions. Loads of genius and no talent. Full of imagination and too damn scarce on ideas that might be in danger of working. The priest who married the Ryans below in Tipperary had the best of intentions, as did the Ryans themselves. Heher has the best of intentions, but he makes my skin crawl. Archbishop bloody Burke has the best of intentions.”

  “Calm yourself, would you,” said Kilmartin.

  “What matters is what and who’s left after the best of intentions have done their work. Gorman had the best of-”

  “That’ll do it, Matt,” said Kilmartin. The tone was now one of rank, Minogue realized. Kilmartin was sitting still, blinking. What could be excused in private could not be let go in front of Hoey.

  Minogue kicked the door open and stepped on to the footpath. The relief was immediate. Kilmartin got out of his side and walked reluctantly around to Minogue. Like fence-wire that grows into the bark of a tree, Minogue was thinking: Jimmy Kilmartin and Matt Minogue. Tied together by a quarter-century of knowing one another as cops.

  “Ah, I know how you feel, Matt. You’re very involved. When you’re in this line of business as long as me, you’ll be able to be more objective, you know.”

  Kilmartin cut short his advice when he saw the unmarked car coming down the street ahead of them. There were three men in it. Minogue saw the short antenna quivering as the car drifted slowly by. A face turned to them from the back seat, Gallagher’s. He pointed ahead of the car, beckoning them.

  “Come on so, and we’ll have a pow-wow,” said
a cheered Kilmartin. “The brass is here. That was Farrell in the car too, wasn’t it?”

  Minogue and Kilmartin walked the 200 yards to where the car had stopped. They passed a man standing by a bus stop. He was wearing a three-quarter length coat, sometimes called a car-coat or a bum-freezer. Minogue recognized it immediately as the trademark of a detective who was carrying a firearm. Kilmartin nodded at the detective in passing, and whispered: “Soon enough.”

  Minogue wondered if Gorman or his wife or one of their children might look out into the garden and spot one of the half-dozen detectives in position around the house. A shadow by the neighbour’s garage, a slight movement by the hedge… Daddy, there’s someone in the back garden, I saw a… Minogue forced the groaning door of his imagination shut. Can’t think like that now, waiting and worrying. Everyone’s doing the best he can…

  Minogue joined Kilmartin on his hunkers by the back window on Farrell’s side of the car. Gallagher was handling the radio traffic from the back seat, the coiled lead from the dashboard stretched almost taut, a handset in his other hand.

  “That’s the last one brought in just now,” growled Farrell. “Except for this Gibney.”

  “You have the other Army fella, Cunningham?” asked Kilmartin.

  “Meek as a lamb, but he’s saying nothing.”

  “Turn up a gun or anything in his place?” Kilmartin persisted.

  “No,” Gallagher answered. “We found street maps and some kind of an itinerary marked out though, with times written in on the maps. It looks like a tail on someone who travelled by car over that route. Could have been a planned hit.”

  “Not a minute too soon,” said Farrell sharply. “Tell Johnny Tynan that the next time you see him, Matty.”

  Minogue said nothing.

  “How many in the bag now, so?” said Kilmartin.

  “Ten of the eleven on your list… twenty-three all told,” said Gallagher. “Sorry, it’s twenty-four.”

  “Jases,” whispered Kilmartin. “Are there any more Army and Gardai?”