Unholy Ground imm-2

by John Brady

  "Mr Combs had the two accounts, all right. One was for savings and the other was a current account. One of the girls remembers him. He used to wait for her so she'd do his business for him. There. Aren't we quick off the mark in this bank, Matt?"

  "I'm blinded by your efficiency, so I am," Minogue said. "Listen, was Combs a big depositor?"

  Minogue knew that his request was beyond the pale. Hogan could well ask for the official request in writing, in between apologizing for the formalities of course.

  "Let's say he was comfortable, Matt. More comfortable than you or I."

  "Any large transactions in the last while?" Minogue tried gingerly.

  "No. He never left more than three figures in the savings. The current account was just to receive remittances from banks in England. Credit memos. Now, don't you want to ask me where these remittances came from?"

  "Well. I suppose I do… yes, I do," Minogue said, taken by surprise. Had he such currency with Hogan, a man who had grown up as a townie in Ennis while Minogue was mooching around in the sodden fields with clay under his nails?

  "National Westminster Bank. NatWest. A branch in London. Every month, a credit memo at the beginning of the month and then another one at the end of the month."

  "A pension, Bill?"

  "Arra, I dunno. If either one was a pension, then it's in England the pair of us should be living and not here. One of the memos had the name of another bank as source. Sampson Coutts. Sounds very 'nobby, doesn't it?"

  "Like they supply snuff to the Queen."

  "Well. That's as much as we know here. Oh, he had nothing in the safe with us here."

  "Aren't you great, though," Minogue declared. "There wouldn't be more later?"

  "Nothing of any import."

  Minogue had to sit through a crude joke where only Hogan laughed. Then he returned to the itemized list of Combs' effects.

  There was no sign of a will. There was a box which seemed to have contained the receipts that had been scattered about the kitchen. Receipts for the electricity, receipts from a garage for a new clutch in the car, bills for water. Combs owned the house freehold. There was no safe or cubby-hole in the house. No money had been found. Combs' wallet, if he had had one, was missing. Minogue read through Hoey's report for mention of an address book, a diary, any notes for appointments. There was none. There was, however, a photocopy of a list of telephone numbers which had been taped to the wall beside the telephone. Hoey or somebody had tried the numbers, because red felt pen marks were next to all of the numbers. A doctor in Stepaside, the housekeeper's number, numbers for two bookies (ah, a racing man), the B amp;I ferry office, Aer Lingus, British Airways. One number had the name "Ball" next to it. "British Embassy" had been written in red on the photocopy.

  Minogue leaned back in the chair. He almost toppled back onto the floor. Recovering his poise, he leaned his elbows on the desk. It was gone three o'clock. Eilis was burrowing in a filing cabinet. There was a smell of tea lurking somewhere, not yet suffocated by her Gitanes. It was a toss-up whether he should visit Bewley's in Georges Street (in which backwater you were liable to fall asleep) or go for the real Bewley's in Grafton Street or Westmoreland Street. Minogue took stock of what he needed. Meeting at four to put the nuts and bolts together. Combs didn't seem to have any solicitor in Ireland. Did the bank deal with this kind of thing, seeing as Combs had been a customer? Eilis to phone Bill Hogan back. Listen to his jokes, too?

  But this was all a bit too routine, Minogue sensed, when he stood up from the offending chair. Beyond the sketches there was little enough personal in Combs' place. Did no one write him letters? No grandniece to send him a postcard about her holiday in Brighton? No shoebox of snapshots and cards? Mrs Hartigan's mention of Combs' corresponding with others… but no sign of him hoarding any letters he had received in reply. Minogue's house held mountains of knick-knacks, all sacraments sufficient to his own faith. He didn't know how a person could live comfortably without such a glut of signs. He looked at the copy of the passport pages again. Went on holidays to Spain on his own…

  Minogue was almost by Eilis when her phone rang. She beckoned to him before he could reach the door. The call was from the British Embassy. Minogue listened to an English accent announcing that she was Miss Simpson, that Mr Combs was unmarried and that Mr Combs did not have any family extant. Extant?

  "Mr Combs' sister, Janet Combs, died in Bristol in 1979. We know of no relatives."

  Just like that, Minogue thought. The way Miss Simpson had said it added a weight to the feeling he had held aside so far. Silly maybe: he had almost said "poor devil."

  "Oh, I see. Now can you tell me where Mr Combs used to live in England? In Great Britain, I mean. Did he have a house there himself, like."

  "Mr Combs last lived in London."

  She gave Minogue an address which meant nothing to him. Some place called Wood Green. It sounded nice, but wasn't London very crowded? He scribbled while she spoke. A delphic Eilis sat behind a slim thread of smoke watching him. He tried not to be distracted by the way Miss Simpson was ending her words so precisely.

  Mr Combs had retired from his job as a Customs Inspector at the Port of London. He had sold his house over two years ago and moved to Ireland. He had established contact with the embassy in Ireland as a matter of course. The address she gave him was the same house in Kilternan.

  "I see, Miss Simpson." Minogue said.

  "Would there be an Irish background here at all, his parents perhaps?"

  Miss Simpson didn't know and she said so.

  "Is there no one we can tell he's dead? Relatives, I mean, of course."

  "I expect that his will may tell you something."

  "Yes, indeed," said Minogue, adrift again. "But we have none. Will, that is. Solicitors I suppose. If there are any."

  "Your Department of Foreign Affairs usually looks after the return of remains," she said lightly.

  Minogue realised that she was trying to be helpful.

  "Yes, Miss Simpson. Thanks very much now. And 1 hope we find someone for Mr Combs. His relatives I mean, as well as the perpetrator. However distant the relatives. Oh, before I forget, is there a Mr Ball working at the embassy?"

  "There is. He's a Second Secretary… Did you want to…?"

  "Not at the moment, no thanks. It's just that we found a telephone number in Mr Combs' house for your Mr Ball."

  "One of Mr Ball's duties is to see to inquiries and communications with citizens of the UK resident in Ireland. As I mentioned, Mr Combs registered with us here."

  "That's a lot of work, though, isn't it?" asked Minogue. "All those Britons who come here to live, even for a while, like."

  "Not everybody would do so, Sergeant. Some like to do it, but Ireland, the Republic, is not a foreign destination for Britons really, is it?"

  A sense of humour maybe?

  "True for you. I hope to have better news for you if I'm in touch again, Miss Simpson."

  Miss Simpson said that would be nice and rang off with a "cheerio," something Minogue had heard only in films. Eilis was lighting a cigarette from the butt of her last one when Minogue put down the phone.

  "Poor Combs has no one to come and get him, it seems."

  Eilis drew on her cosmopolitan, continental cigarette.

  "London. That's a very big place now, The Big Smoke. You'll be wanting to speak with someone in the Met there, will you?"

  "I suppose I'd better. Will you find me a name and a number, please? Is there a fella we've dealt with before maybe?"

  "There are several, so there are," Eilis replied drily. "The Inspector had need to be communicating with the authorities beyond in The Big Smoke and he keeps in touch with several. 'It's good to have them when you need them,' says the Inspector. Especially when there's wigs on the green over a political thing, I suppose. Extradition and the like. The inspector does be very nervous when that word is mentioned."

  "That's a word that'll bring the walls of Jericho down, all right," Minogue
agreed.

  "I'd suggest that the Inspector could pop a name at you that'd ease your way if you'd like me to phone the hospital for you." Eilis concluded her poor rendition of an imaginary Mata Hari.

  "Or I could just pull a name off the card index…" spacebarthing

  Kenyon's croissant had given him indigestion. He wanted to summon up a belch so that he might dislodge what felt like a piece of the croissant jammed in his sternum. He would have done so in his own office. Here, however, he could not be sure of concealing the belch under his palm should it erupt now.

  Hugh Robertson, the Director of the Protective Security Branch, was reading Kenyon's summary. Although Robertson was Kenyon's immediate boss, Kenyon's liking for him supervened over rank and duties. Robertson had been a Colonel when Kenyon first met him. It was in Malaya, two years after Kenyon had joined the Service. As the Empire had contracted, so had the overseas doings of MI5 become more limited. Robertson was one of the leading brains behind the successful counter-insurgency campaign against the communists in Malaya. He had shunned jockeying a desk in favour of field operations.

  Robertson had astonished Kenyon and many others with his bluntness. At a boozy farewell dinner in 1955 for a large contingent of MI5's field force-to hold the party itself was tantamount to mutiny-which was preparing to leave Malaya, Robertson had spoken his mind. He voiced his opinion about the shrinking Empire by saying good riddance to the damn colonies. He had looked around the room and said that now Britain would have to find something else for its second-rate sons and daughters to lord it over. It was only when the audience guffawed that Kenyon had realised Robertson had been speaking to the converted.

  "Now, James. Who killed Cock Robin here?"

  "I don't know."

  "Did the IRA kill him?"

  "Very, very doubtful," Kenyon replied. "They'd be sure to tell, loud and clear. That's their propaganda bread-and-butter."

  "Burglary?" murmured Robertson.

  "The police press release says they're pursuing it as robbery with violence."

  Robertson gave Kenyon a stage frown.

  "Did we kill him?"

  "No."

  "That's a relief, I suppose. But what do you want from me?"

  "I need your approval. Then I'd be asking for staff to go surveillance on Combs' contacts. We have to get someone into Dublin, too, and pick up the bits. I want the Second Sec at our Dublin embassy for a few sessions. The chap who ran Combs. Name of Ball. That'd be a start."

  "Contacts?" Robertson asked.

  "These people on the list. The asterisk means that the party is dead. There are eight left. Combs may have sent something to any one of them. We have to find out, that's what I'm saying."

  "'Something,' James?"

  "I'm taking Combs' threats seriously. He may have prepared some record of his grievances."

  "Several years back, wasn't it? I thought that the new man Murray had put in knew his onions, claimed to have this Combs toeing the line. You're discounting the reports sourced through Murray and company."

  "I am," Kenyon answered, with enough emphasis to cause Robertson to look up at him.

  "Bit of a twerp, is he, James?"

  "More than that. He's covering his arse. I don't like the way he's treating Combs' murder. He couldn't or wouldn't say what deals were struck to bring Combs to Ireland in the first place. It's a crucial matter if I'm to make sense of things."

  "He doesn't have to, James," Robertson rounded on him politely. "You asked a lot of him, seems to me. We don't give out our more clandestine endeavours, you know."

  "I'm not a reporter from the Mirror. We're supposed to be on the same side. I won't be happy until we've had a thorough search through Combs' stuff ourselves," Kenyon retorted.

  "Threat, you said," Robertson diverted. "A threat to go to the IRA or someone and tell him that he was doing odd jobs for a British intelligence service?"

  "Hardly, Hugh. He had no time for them, I'm sure."

  "Or a threat to give out with his war stories, shall we call them? He could have sold that stuff for a tidy bundle here. He was a commie, was he not?"

  "He passed some stuff to a Soviet ring in Berlin, yes. That's what we rapped his knuckles for. The real trouble started when he turned us down on staying in East Germany after the Liberation. Never trusted after that."

  Robertson cleared his throat.

  "Mr Combs didn't say at any time what exactly he had in mind, did he?"

  "No," Kenyon conceded. "Murray puts it down to alcoholic raving. I still think that if Combs was threatening anybody with anything, it'd be what we did with him during the war and after. I don't see him betraying any of us to a bunch of thugs like the IRA."

  "So… some documents on that, perhaps… notes he might have made?"

  "Yes."

  Robertson looked up from the papers.

  "I see no mention of a joint op with the Secret Service in your brief. Or the Foreign Office itself. Don't trust our friends, do you, James?"

  "Ask me after a few drinks at the next Christmas party," Kenyon joked morosely. "But first I need to confirm Murray and this Second Sec at the embassy."

  "As to what they do?" Robertson half-smiled.

  "For whom do they do what they do?"

  "Why they work for our gallant Secret Service, James, our MI marvellous six."

  "Just Foreign Office cover?"

  Robertson nodded.

  "So what is Six doing about this?" Kenyon asked.

  "They're doing bugger-all at the moment, James. Naturally they'd like to know who killed Mr Combs and why. Howandever, the Home Secretary 'advised' that we carry it from here. Six will get around to their own investigation, but it won't be fast enough for the PMO. We have finally gotten the Irish to the table on border security. The PMO is more than keen not to have any, let's say, fans invade the pitch… so the game is called off."

  "Speed, as well as jurisdiction?"

  "How politic of you, James. Yes, yes," Robertson said quietly. He put the sheets back in order and laid the folder on the table between them. "You base your proposal on what you have assembled from Combs' file?"

  "Yes. I talked to Murray this morning, too," Kenyon replied.

  "You're saying that the risks are too high not to assume some dossier, some notes?"

  "Right. Whether Combs was talking in the bottle or not, I'm assuming he made some note or notes. Even scattered notes, something to organise his thoughts. There's the two sides to the knife, though. One is how peeved we were-or SOE was-when we found out he was feeding some material to the Soviets back in '44 and '45. The people running the show back then include a former Minister and a D.G. of the Security Service. Anyway, Combs fouled his nest finally when he refused to go into the East and do low-level stuff. Turned us down point-blank. Wouldn't shop the Soviets, he said. Our allies in a common cause… When we told Combs to get lost then, he knew we were serious, that we wouldn't tolerate any public disclosures. And I must say, the climate was tough enough then with the blockade on Berlin and Stalin throwing his weight about with a well-equipped army sitting half-way across Europe. Still, Combs knew some nasty trade secrets. He knew, for example, that we shopped a fella called Vogel to the Nazis because we found out

  Vogel was reporting to the Soviets, too. Of course, Vogel was played to set up something better. Combs was particularly bitter about that."

  "And he knew the same could be easily done with him?"

  "Yes. But all that is wrapped under Official Secrets. It was renewed for another twenty-five years with the national security clause last year. At any rate, SOE made him an offer he couldn't refuse then. The feeling was that what he had done for us outbalanced what he had been passing to the Soviet networks… and he had done good work."

  "So he sailed off into the sunset. The cattle ranch in Canada or the outback?"

  "Neither, actually," Kenyon answered. "Left in a huff for Spain. Now, the other side of the coin is what he was up to in Dublin. I asked myself: What if he ha
s prepared some account of what he was doing in Ireland?"

  "Christ," Robertson sighed. "Every nonentity seems to want to write a bloody memoir these days. The Irish could skewer us at the conference with that."

  "They could threaten to release it, or even leak it to any of their hardliners. Combs did very low-level eyes-and-ears stuff, but there'd be an uproar. Hardliners in Ireland carry enough votes to get any government to walk away from the table. They'd put us to the wall on it."

  "I expect they would," Robertson agreed. "As we would them, I believe."

  "And, for once, we need the Irish more than they need us on this. The South is still holiday-land for IRA on the run. It was tough enough for us to get them to the table at all. There's an election due within two years, and there are some marginal seats with

  Sinn Fein slavering in the wings. It could add up to a lot of fall-out."

  "Indeed. If the assumptions are strong." Robertson's brows knitted and then raised abruptly. "I'm very familiar with Combs' file too, James. Were you aware of that?"

  Kenyon tried not to appeared startled.

  "Yes. I read it when I got this job. I have a diarised memo to read the file twice a year. Tell me you're not surprised, James."

  Kenyon managed a wan smile. So Robertson had not simply been passing on a routine inquiry about Combs.

  "I'm less surprised because of the timing," replied Kenyon. "The Irish delegation feels it has conceded too much de facto on their constitutional claim to Northern Ireland by discussing the problem at all. The logic is that by negotiating border security, the government in the South implicitly accepts the fact of a border."

  "Nicely packaged, James. Sure you wouldn't like to chuck what you're doing and go into the negotiating business?"

  "And get an allowance to dress like Murray?"

  Robertson fixed a look both bemused and distasteful on a point somewhere over Kenyon's shoulder.

  "Let's not fret over whether Murray and his cohorts should be in the business of gathering any intelligence in Ireland at all, James. It's at our door now. I happen to know, because I don't ignore comments from the people I dine with, that the Foreign Office was rather red-faced some years ago as far as Ireland is concerned. There was flare-up in assassinations of police and troops in the cities in the North. We knew of IRA redoubts near Dublin. The Foreign Office suddenly discovered that, lo and behold, they had no one at ground level in Southern Ireland. The PM gave one of her grim-reaper looks during a meeting, and Murray and company fell over themselves trying to get anyone they could at short notice. Hence Combs. Fact is, and I'm sure you'll agree, Combs dead or alive could be messy."