by John Brady
A Dublin-born Daithi rolled his eyes at the vagaries of a bogman father.
"To hell with poverty, we'll kill a hen!" said Minogue.
The batteries on the tape-recorder died after twenty minutes.
"I thought that Offenbach sounded a bit off-colour," Minogue remarked indolently as he watched Kathleen walking up the garden toward them. She stopped by the rhubarb, toed something delicately in the clay, and continued her slow walk. My wife, I'm her husband, he thought. He had watched her at mass on Sundays for years, her head bowed after communion, eyes closed in prayer. A fine-looking woman.
The sun leaned into the garden now, lighting up the shrubs and branches from the side. Iseult was fidgeting.
Minogue poured more Marie Brizard. He could think of nothing to say. Kathleen was helloing a neighbour across the wall. Then she stood by the garden chair where Minogue was dishing out the anisette. Pat, formerly quiescent with the food and drink, led with a high card.
"You're County Clare, aren't you, Mr Minogue?"
"Absolutely," Minogue affirmed. He raised his glass. Iseult sniggered. Pat raised his glass the length of his arm. Had Iseult primed Pat?
"A hundred and one percent," Minogue added with feeling.
"I heard recently what a Clareman's idea of heaven was, you know," he continued.
"Tell us so," said Minogue.
"Cork beat, the hay saved and a girl in Lisdoonvarna."
Even Daithi laughed. Kathleen and Iseult poked each other, laughing both.
"You should be on the stage," Kathleen said to Pat. She was standing behind Iseult now, absent-mindedly patting the dark hair that fell on Iseult's shoulders. Iseult didn't notice. In Minogue's uncodified religion, Kathleen's gestures had the force of a transfiguration. For several seconds the garden and the orange wash of the sun, the smiles, the smell of clay, the birdsong fell away from him. It will be very hard on Kathleen if this Pat fella does win her, Minogue thought.
"The next stage leaves town at eight," Iseult said.
Minogue was thinking that the unconscious was too strong a force in life entirely when he heard Daithi calling from the kitchen window. He walked down the lawn and entered the kitchen. Daithi was doing the dishes and that gave Minogue pause to wonder. Perhaps the boy was washing his hands in advance of some divilment later on tonight. Neurotic. A girl?
"Phone, Da. It's from work," Daithi murmured.
It was Hoey.
"Sorry to disturb you at home, sir. Stepaside station phoned. Driscoll. They have a fella that maybe we'd be wanting to talk to. A fella that was snooping around Mr Combs' place, like."
"Yes, go on."
Minogue believed his anisette breath would surely stick to the phone like spray paint.
"It was by chance that someone saw him going up the lane. He went into a field and then came back up to the house and started looking in the windows. He tried to get in the door, too."
"Did he try to make off with anything? Use any force trying to get into the house?"
"No, sir."
"Who is he?"
"He's a tinker, sir. He calls himself Michael Joseph Joyce. He's living in a caravan down the back of Loughlinstown somewhere. He has a lot of drink on him and he's not inclined to be very direct with answers."
"Did he resist being brought to the station or that class of thing?"
"No, sir. He was spotted fiddling with a horse in a field belonging to Combs."
"Right, of course. That's it," Minogue said.
"That's what?"
"The horse. I knew there was something I was trying to remember. When I saw the horse, I was wondering who'd be feeding it now that Combs was gone. The horse was tethered up to the gate."
"That's what Joyce said he was about. The arresting Guard wasn't impressed with that one, I'm afraid."
"Hold on there a minute. You said 'arrest.'"
"The Guards here told him that he was under arrest for trespassing. Just to keep him in and question him, sir. They'll keep him overnight so we can see him in the morning. No harm will come of him staying over. You can go straight to Stepaside in the morning, sir. When Joyce is sober, you see."
Minogue noticed the tentative tone in Hoey's voice now.
"Look it, Shea. We can't be locking people up overnight, especially a traveller. It's a fright to God to travelling people to be confined. I don't want us to be giving testimony at an inquest as to why some poor divil woke up in the middle of the night and hung himself. To quote Jimmy Kilmartin, we're not a banana republic. Yet, anyway."
"I know what you're saying," Hoey answered slowly. '‹ "Here. I'll call Stepaside and I'll tell them myself."
"Ah no. It's all right, I'll phone them back myself," Hoey said.
Minogue delayed by the telephone, distracted by the sweet burn of the anisette at the back of his throat. A traveller, tinker. Combs and drinking. A homosexual? Couldn't ignore it. But so squalid an end? Daithi opened the kitchen door.
"I'll be in early," he said.
Daithi seemed relieved. Perhaps it was because he didn't have to face Kathleen who would have pressed questions on him.
"Oh," Minogue shook himself out of his thoughts. Daithi turned quickly as though expecting a rebuke.
"Did I leave a tenner for you under the toothbrushes? Go up and take a look, would you? Maybe I left it under the clock in the kitchen, though. That's old age for you, the first signs. Try upstairs like a good man, would you?"
Daithi's face lifted. He sprang at the first few steps. Too proud to ask for a few bob. As stubborn as an ass. Must have got that from his mother's side. Minogue found a ten-pound note in his pocket and left it under the clock. He stepped down into the garden then, finding that the planet's tilt had raised the sunlight to the tree-tops. The edges of the sky were already primrose. A breeze stirred the poplars next door. Their leaves' soft clacking sounded like the sea. He heard Iseult laugh. He'd have to tell Kathleen about the extra pocket money, he knew, and why he had given it to Daithi if he thought there was a chance he'd be buying pints with it. We're only human, he'd tell her. Would she believe him?
He went outside again. He listened for a while to Pat explaining conditioning in the higher animals. Primates. Weren't cardinals called primates? Even Iseult kept a respectful silence. Then he walked arm-in-arm with Kathleen through the darkening garden. She stopped by the kitchen door. He yanked on her arm.
"If they wanted to smooch and carry on, they can do it anytime," he said. "It's not like we never did it."
"You were all right in that department," Kathleen murmured, not willing yet to release the smile. Minogue, a pagan, kissed his Christian wife.
"And I didn't have to get you all excited talking about monkeys and electrodes, did I?" he said, grasping her tighter.
CHAPTER 7
By eight o'clock, Kenyon had settled on an officer from the Sci and Support Services branch. The man's name was Moore, an Irish name. He phoned Moore's acting section head, cited his authorisation and asked him to hunt down his quarry. The night-duty man was back in ten minutes. Moore had been in his flat. He'd be in Century House within a half hour.
Bowers had given him seven names. Moore was the only one who had articled at law. At first Kenyon could not understand why a barrister would drop a practice and join MI5 unless he had been groomed as an undergraduate.
He noted that Edward Martin Moore had been recruited by the Service six years ago and had climbed four grades since entering. Although he was given field training during his probation period, Moore had been posted to Sci and Support section. He had used his legal training only occasionally since joining. Moore came from landed money, a farm in the home counties. Evidently he didn't need a barrister's income. He may not have wanted to do law in the first place. His forte at the moment was protective security measures in British university laboratories where Defence work had been farmed out.
Moore was unmarried. Both his parents were alive. Moore had toured Australia and the Far East before joining
the Service. No Army or Territorial service. Probably not a boy scout either, Kenyon mused. An able administrator, lots of liaison with intelligence services in Europe, some with the Yanks. No tricky stuff with arms or poisoned pens. Moore spoke French and "had a conversational facility" in German.
An administrator? So what? All Kenyon wanted was an astute, observant man to get close to the investigation in Ireland while he settled Combs' affairs. Then, if and when the police found a written record of Combs' rambling, Moore could be on the spot. With good timing, he could well get his hands on it before the police did. If the police found anything first, Moore could push hard with a legal approach and lay claim to papers as effects of the estate. If the Irish police balked at that, what then?
Kenyon's stomach, rising slightly in reaction to the question, signalled something which didn't need to be otherwise articulated. Throw more legal pepper around, bafflegab? Make a diplomatic kerfuffle about getting the papers back intact, unread? Fat chance… There'd be leaks from any Irish copper who'd read that stuff. But at least there'd be nothing in their possession to substantiate rumours. QED?
Kenyon shifted in his seat at the thought of going blind into that dark room which constituted "Anglo-Irish co-operation." It was a phrase as unlikely as anything he had come across. The blunt facts had to admitted: Combs' solecisms could easily become a stick to beat the Brits with, if indeed the Irish read them and took them as fact. All it would take was a nationalist-minded copper there to turn them over to a journalist. The timing couldn't be much worse with negotiations in the balance. Had Combs known that…?
It dawned on Kenyon that this possible outcome was why he had had such ready access to C. It was a good bet that C had realised how much could hinge on this if his, Kenyon's, evaluation was true. No wonder Robertson had worn that stoical face at the meeting, probably hiding an anxiety which he didn't want to rub off on Kenyon.
Bowers distracted him from his gloom.
"Found reference to your chap in Dublin, sir. That copper. Minogue, as in rogue, I believe. I found him in an Army Intelligence Report from four years back. There's more to him than that, actually. Seems he was on the spot when our Ambassador was killed. Minogue was part of the police guard in a convoy, following the Ambassador back to his residence. Do you remember?"
Kenyon did.
"Minogue was almost killed in the bombing. The Irish police took him back after a spell in hospital, and he showed up again when he was seconded to their Murder Squad. I don't know why. Minogue almost got himself peppered rather severely by our army unit at the border. Apparently he tried to intervene in a tip-off situation, a set-up with a car suspected of carrying IRA weapons. The Irish police gave us a hands-off, and they trailed the car from their side until it got to the border. A young woman, a student, was killed in the car when the driver tried to run the Army check-point."
Bowers stood by Kenyon's desk, one hand pocketed, the other holding a notepad which he referred to occasionally. His brow wrinkled as though he were reporting something regrettable. Kenyon sighed as he launched himself up from his chair. All he could conclude was that the policeman investigating Combs' death was not an off-the-shelf copper. He looked out the window. It was one of the rarest of summer evenings. The sky had been cloudless all day and now only the tops of the taller buildings remained in the sunlight. Bowers was still standing by the desk when Kenyon turned from the window.
"Come with me when we go to see Moore. Keep notes and type them up before you leave this evening. I'll be briefing him later in the meeting, but you needn't stay for that part. He'll be coming here tomorrow morning after we run up a background for him. A good, staunch firm of barristers and solicitors will be dispatching our Moore to Dublin within twenty-four hours… to recover our dirty linen." spacebarthing
A half hour into the meeting, Kenyon, Bowers and Moore were served weak tea and ham and cheese sandwiches. Kenyon had found himself looking into Moore's eyes whenever Moore was talking. He was trying to figure the man out. Save for under his eyes, Moore had a pallid complexion. There were dark saucers there, signs, Kenyon guessed, of a heavy reader whose habits taxed his capillaries. Moore looked anywhere between thirty-five and forty-five. Kenyon remembered seeing him somewhere before, probably in a pub crowd around Christmas or a retirement do. He read Moore for an academic despite the worldly and even raffish hints which Moore's file had suggested to him. Moore didn't smile much. He carried signs of the self-contained, which many would interpret as arrogance or being wilfully remote to affect some superiority. It was as though there were a slight draft off Moore, cool and with the prospect of a chill if circumstances drew him to disapproval. Moore fitted, all right. Kenyon was searching for a sign that would tell him that Moore was wily as well, behind the facade of being distant.
"Absolutely," Moore said without enthusiasm. "It's quite routine, here in Britain anyway. For all intents and purposes, Mr Combs has died intestate. If he has left a will with someone and it shows up later, while I'm there, even, I'm still intact. I'm acting for the estate, appointed by the bank."
"Right. That was how I saw it," said Kenyon.
"But the business about looking over police shoulders in Dublin?" Moore probed.
"You'll have to be versatile," Kenyon said. "Get your feet moving under you when you land in Dublin. Play it by ear. Get close to the chief investigating copper."
"I'll have to tell the police there that I'll be approaching people who are involved."
Kenyon nodded. They fell silent for a moment.
"Remember," Kenyon said as he reached for the teapot, "we're looking for something he concealed. Papers, a tape cassette even. Concentrate on finding a person that Combs trusted. Will this person come forward now because Combs so instructed him? We don't know. There may be a time lag where Combs posted something, to himself even. It's very unlikely he posted it abroad."
"No friend, no one he trusted?"
"No. That's part of the problem. His link was a Second Secretary, Ball, in the embassy. Ball would be the last person on the planet that he'd leave anything with."
"I expect I'll have to effect entry to the premises," Moore said, dryly mimicking his former profession. "Legally, I mean. The embassy. Do they-will they-know me there? Do I need a contact there?"
Kenyon sat up slightly in his chair.
"Yes. I'd prefer otherwise. We'll give you a link to a staffer in the embassy. He's not your control, remember. He's last-choice support if you need it."
Kenyon glanced from Moore to Bowers and back to Moore.
"Before you go, I want you to be aware of what our situation is," Kenyon continued. "What your overall guidance should be, who you're working for and why. We in this section are finally responsible for keeping our civil servants, our senior civil servants, out of the way of whatever may compromise them while they pursue their duties. If it smells really badly, then they have to go, but at the right time, with minimum fuss, with the best timing. There'll be time enough for drinks in the pub with our, er, friends in the F.O. After we settle the matter. Let's soothe any ruffles then, but for the moment this is our show. The Home Secretary knows what we're trying to do. We know for certain that some staff in our Dublin embassy are under surveillance from Irish police intelligence. That doesn't matter. If nothing else, it'll help prevent the IRA taking potshots at our staff. Just be aware of the context if you have to go to the embassy for some reason. Remember: our show."
Moore nodded and looked off into the middle distance as if considering the aftertaste of the tea. Kenyon looked at his watch.
"Travel under your own name. You'll have no problems. You'll be working for the bank's law firm. You'll have your cards, stationery and credentials. If the Irish police check on you here, all inquiries will be handled by the firm. I expect you know from your own work that several of the principals were in the Service and that they have done work for us before. The firm helped to set up Combs as an entity, so he and his affairs will not be unfamiliar to them. Hav
e no concerns about that, you'll be well covered from this end."
Moore shrugged. His hand strayed lightly over the sandy hair. For a moment, doubts wormed deep in Kenyon. He searched the face opposite him. Moore, parachuted into an operational role, this time as a lawyer; whatever field instincts he may have had rusted by now. But the assignment didn't require James Bond; just someone who was observant, methodical. Was that enough? Moore interrupted his drift.
"I'll need a letter of authorisation, an introduction, as well as proof of accreditation here."
"You'll have them by the morning. Draw what you need to get settled into a hotel there. We'll book you on a Dublin flight tomorrow, mid-day. You'll have your letters and background paperwork waiting for you here. Briefing at seven-thirty. Any difficulties with this schedule?"
Kenyon thought he saw a smile start on Moore's features, but he couldn't be sure. Moore shook his head once.
"We'll get you to Heathrow. Run yourself up a three-piece pin-stripe or something. Don't bring a bowler hat to Dublin, though. Only the Orangemen wear them there."
At least Bowers smiled. Kenyon gestured for him to leave. Moore sat gazing at the tea-tray. He didn't acknowledge Bowers' leaving.
"Now, I know it's short notice and all that," Kenyon began in a conciliatory tone. Moore looked at him as though to agree, but with a heavily ironic emphasis.
"I expect you want to know more about Arthur Combs and why we're falling over our arses trying to get at him now that he's dead." spacebarthing
Minogue's mouth was chalky, cloyed from the anisette. Iseult and Pat were in the kitchen now, as was Kathleen. They were drinking mugs of tea and attacking the leftovers of the Bewley's cake.
Minogue poured himself more tea. It turned out to be the bottom of the pot. He filled the kettle from the tap. While he waited for the kettle to fill, he tried to look through the blued reflections of the kitchen which came back to him from the window. He could make out the bushes and the grass where the kitchen light reached. His own blurry shadow, fattened, lay in the distorted rectangle of yellow light. The shrubs beyond the light were faint but dense masses, as if the night had clumped them there, giving them a protective bulk. Was there no moon? He didn't see one, but he did notice a slight fan of blue behind the tree at the end of the garden. Would that be the beginnings of the moon he wanted? Combs, coming home in the darkness to a lonely house. A bit unsteady on the legs after a few drinks? Didn't notice anything amiss. Was there someone with him, a boyfriend? The anise had stilled Minogue, making his movements laborious. He knew it was a fake sleepiness. He wondered what the night-time was like at Tully, the whorls on the stones now faded into the shadow, the ruins no longer standing out against the sky.
