A stone of the heart imm-1

by John Brady

Professor Griffiths was like a man out of the thirties. A gown over a tweedy suit, stiff collar and red brogues. A face like a horse, hair a bit long. He greeted Minogue by lifting his eyebrows and extending an awn in the direction of a door at the front of the dining hall.

  "Upstairs, Mr Minoooog."

  He wondered if he was putting on the Bertie Wooster stuff. Minogue ate an indifferent dinner at a well-laid table in company with the college Security Officer and Griffiths. Huge painted figures of dead bishops and scholars looked down at them. Cutlery clanked, food was prompt. Captain Loftus, the Security Officer so-called, kept his army rank in conversation as well as in other forms of intercourse, Minogue realised. Well, in verbal intercourse anyway.

  Loftus was a Corkman. He liked to dress well. He was one of the few men Minogue had met in the last few weeks of whom it could be said he looked very upright. Minogue had heard that he had done tours of duty with the UN or peacekeepers before springing into this cushy job in Trinity. A modest beeper poked from his pocket.

  By way of taking his attention from the metallic taste of the cabbage, Minogue spoke:

  "Well now, Captain Loftus. Has there been stuff like this before?"

  Loftus affected puzzlement.

  "This boy Walsh, done in," Minogue added. Loftus leaned forward and confided that there hadn't. Griffiths, no doubt daydreaming about Homer or "The Rape of Lucrece," looked to Loftus and then began stuffing a pipe.

  "Is there anything about politics here amongst the student body that'd go to this extent?"

  Loftus looked at him without answering. Griffiths, with a peculiar crack in his face which Minogue suddenly realised was a smile, murmured,

  "None other than the boy was a member of the Fine Gael association, Sergeant Minogue. Hardly just cause."

  "There was talk of drugs," Minogue said.

  "Mr Walsh was a conscientious student, Mr Minogue. His lecturers thought very highly of him," said Griffiths.

  The politesse and containment began to grate on Minogue. The fun was gone out of this place very quickly. The boy was dead. These two stuffed shirts were sitting on the fence.

  "An interest in journalism?" Minogue tried.

  "As much as any other student, Sergeant Minogue," replied Griffiths.

  "Captain Loftus. How often do patrols of security guards go by that area where the body was found? On average, at night…?"

  Loftus looked up to one of the paintings.

  "Em, say roughly once every three quarters of an hour after midnight."

  "Reliably?"

  "Yes. They log in to check-points, a keying system tied to a timer. The college gates were locked. Pretty well impossible to get in over the walls."

  "Say, the lowest would be fifteen foot?"

  Loftus looked to Griffiths before answering.

  "Well, we don't want it known but there are certain parts of the perimeter that can be scaled without assistance. They're in laneways."

  Minogue felt resistance. He had been prodding only. This wasn't the place for swipes. He knew well that someone could get over the wall. He had walked the perimeter the previous afternoon. Griffiths and Loftus were reluctant because they couldn't believe someone in Trinity would do this. Loftus didn't want his security and gadgetry to look bad. Griffiths obviously felt the Gardai were barking up the wrong tree. They presumed that some scofflaw from outside the hallowed walls had done it. Minogue looked away to find the eyes of an eighteenth-century judge staring haughtily at him from a painting overhead. The canvas shone dully. And up yours, too, Minogue thought. At least he had managed to resist an atavistic urge to prod these two. Master Walsh was done in in a hurry as he headed for the Nassau Street gate of the college to catch the 63 bus home. It didn't matter too much right now whether the killer attended Trinity or not: he or they knew enough t6 drag the body away to a safe place and make an escape.

  In the afternoon, Minogue used a college telephone to make appointments with four of the five lecturers Walsh had had. By half past four, Minogue had chatted with all but one, Professor Allen. No, they weren't being asked for statements, he explained. Perhaps recall the last time you saw him. Any unusual things, conversations, remarks.

  The late afternoon was quietly drawing Minogue's energy and interest away. He asked questions mechanically as the feeling grew that even with but one day gone by, he was getting nowhere. He had not realised quite how distant lecturers were from their students. He thought of Iseult and Daithi, how they lived in this kind of world. But, he consoled himself, they had friends. Minogue thanked the lecturer and asked him to direct him to where he might find a Professor Allen.

  "He's Psychology," replied the lecturer.

  "Yes," Minogue said. He eyed the lecturer's frown.

  "Is there something unusual in that?"

  "In psychology?" Both laughed lightly.

  "No Sergeant. It's not often that a lad enrolled in things like political science and economics would be doing a psychology course. Nothing wrong with it of course. But would his time allow that?"

  Minogue dithered.

  "You could phone Professor Allen," the lecturer murmured with a faint smile, waking Minogue from his lassitude.

  Minogue found Allen's name in the college telephone book. He counted five degrees after Allen's name. Maybe Allen suffered from an excess of modesty in keeping his other dozen degrees to himself?

  A secretary said that Allen was not in his office. Could he make an appointment?

  "Are you a student?"

  "I'm a Sergeant in the Gardai."

  Not impressed. Professor Allen made his own appointments personally, she intoned. Minogue should phone tomorrow. She would leave a message with him to say that Sergeant Malone called.

  "And tell him that Sergeant Minogue called too, like a good woman," Minogue said. She did not ask for an explanation. Sorry for asking, Minogue thought, are they all Caesars here?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The next morning, Minogue awoke before the clock radio. Amongst other things, he had dreamed of Agnes McGuire. She was the spitting image of Lady Lavery on the old paper money, sitting there looking out in such a melancholy way at the bearer of legal tender. Maybe she realised that the money was going to be exchanged for pints in a pub. Minogue lay still in the cream-lit morning bedroom. He had his fortnightly appointment with Herlighy, the psychiatrist, this morning. There were birds galore outside. The radio popped on and Kathleen elbowed up to look at him. Then she lay down and held her arm over her eyes.

  The news came on after the electronic fanfare. Two RUC men had been killed last night in Belfast. They were plain clothes officers in an unmarked car, apparently following a van. The van doors had been kicked open from inside and too late the two realised that they had been drawn into the figures, history, headlines. Nowhere to hide from an M60 machine gun. The van didn't even stop. It didn't need to. Death on the run, a couple of hundred shells fired off in a matter of seconds. Hardly need to aim it.

  Kathleen stirred. Belfast was just up the road really, thought Minogue, a million miles away. In Derry, a rocket-propelled grenade had blown in the w'tall of a garage which housed some city buses. "If it's not American, it's Russian," Minogue murmured. That was psychology, a message, an experiment to show they had got them and it could have been you. Kathleen blessed herself.

  "God look down on them and all belonging to them."

  And she means it, Minogue knew. At one time she had discounted the death of a British soldier in a gun battle. She had felt there was some fairness in that. He was part of an occupying army. That was back in the early seventies. Minogue agreed with her then, but with a lifetime's practice, had not said so aloud. What could be said now? Gardai had been shot and killed. Whoever had set the mine that day, whoever had tripped the switch had not been indifferent to Detective Sergeant Minogue's fate at all: there was intention there, but nothing personal. It was the Ambassador we were after.

  Minogue remembered coming home from the hospital. There were neighb
ours in, tea and cake and whisky. Everything had been taken care of. It was as if he had just been married, Daithi and Iseult were serious and solicitous. Things had changed. There was new china out on the table. There were new bedspreads and sheets and a bottle of Redbreast in the cabinet below. It was only then that Minogue had realised, quite neutrally as he sat in the deck-chair beside the rhubarb, that he had nearly died. He had prepared a list that day which ran to one hundred and eighty-three items:

  4. I will not hate my brother Mick for supporting the IRA.

  5. I will not cause Kathleen to worry, so I'll accept the transfer out.

  12. I will kiss Daithi and Iseult daily, at least once, even in public.

  25. I will accompany Kathleen down the pier as often as she requests.

  57. I will continue to be a republican in spite of this.

  59. I will visit the National Gallery at least once a week and I will see each painting afresh.

  114. I will not lean upon the church.

  136. I will live in Dublin as long as Kathleen wants to.

  147. I will not treat young people as upstarts

  160. I will learn to play Ravel's Pavane on the piano.

  Minogue lived again.

  "They put me on a case. It's a murder investigation."

  Herlighy, the psychiatrist, didn't say anything. Minogue resisted saying more. He let the silence last for a minute.

  "To see if I'm serviceable, I suppose. To see if I'm the full round of the clock again. I'm to start this afternoon," Minogue added.

  "Can you do it, do you feel?" Herlighy asked.

  "Yes. I'm not that leery about it really. They've given me a free hand so far as I can make out," Minogue replied.

  It was toward the end of the session. Time had passed quickly for Minogue. He was aware of the hidden expectation that he should talk. That went against his habits and it irritated him frequently. Nonetheless he saw the use of being here.

  "And the sleep?" Herlighy asked.

  "Oh great. The odd time I wake up early but sure that's normal. If I can use that word. I understand it's not in vogue."

  Herlighy smiled briefly.

  "You deserve a lot of credit for that, Matt, that you're doing so much," Herlighy said slowly.

  Minogue laughed to hide his embarrassment and pleasure.

  "Ah sure, time and tide, you know."

  "Well, I'm sure you know how much resistance there is to getting proper advice as you have done."

  "The wife's idea," Minogue rejoined quickly. "She knows what the score is. She had it herself years ago. I used to think that I should have gone to the sessions with her, you know. I think I was too mad though, and I didn't know it. I shouldn't say mad, I suppose. More like I was raging. Wouldn't listen to anyone. Not much help to Kathleen, I expect, no. But… that's done with."

  "The first child?" Herlighy said.

  "Yes," Minogue said softly.

  Minogue and Herlighy were walking slowly around Merrion Square. They had stepped out from the psychiatrist's office at Minogue's request. They kept to the outer route where the paths were closest to the railings. The railings were quite buried by the shrubs and trees. Merrion Square held its Georgian grace to all four sides. As the two men walked slowly along the path, views of the eighteenth-century houses emerged between the trees. Here a row of windows, ivy cossetting railings which formed balconies on some, there a door at once simple and refined.

  As usual, Minogue did the leading. He was walking slower today, Herlighy noticed. Minogue had not hesitated to ask for an 'out' day today. On his first visit to Herlighy's office, Minogue had gazed out the long windows onto the square. He had been surprised when Herlighy had simply asked him at the next session:

  "Do you want to go out there? There's no need for us to be in here at all."

  Minogue had been amused too, but not suspicious.

  "You mean it's all right to be out there? I thought you had to be in a room, like going to confession."

  "Interesting idea. No. I find it helps," Herlighy had replied.

  Herlighy was still puzzled. On the one hand, Minogue seemed bound up, complete and self-assured all these months. Then he was speculative and yearning, even playful sometimes. Must play hell with him, having to work as a cop: 'unsuited' written all over him.

  Minogue seemed to be thriving, despite the trauma after the explosion. Had he been faking it? Why did he seek out these sessions then? What did he want to tell? Herlighy still believed in Minogue's need to confess. Guilt was the motor for this, survivor guilt. There was some other story coming through, like a descant, but still faint however. Some old story in Minogue was starting to talk again.

  Herlighy often felt nervous with Minogue. He felt that Minogue was ready to confront something soon. Oddly, he also found himself looking forward to their sessions. He had begun hypnosis with Minogue five sessions back. For a cop, Minogue was neither suspicious nor hostile.

  "How's your list coming along?" Herlighy asked.

  "Great, so it is. Once you get over the first ten or so, you can't stop. I think I could go on to a thousand," Minogue replied.

  "Good," Herlighy said.

  "I'm working on a few of them actually, bit by bit. Funny, I have the craving for a smoke again," Minogue added.

  They walked on in silence.

  "Some of them are hard, but I'm doing all right," Minogue murmured.

  Herlighy's eyebrows went up, and he slowed the pace so Minogue would notice.

  "With the children, like. I'm more… more: I shouldn't say 'physical.' More direct, like. I always wanted to be. You were definitely right about that, I can tell you," Minogue said.

  Herlighy noted Minogue's embarrassment. They resumed their walk, under the trees.

  Just after eleven o clock, Agnes McGuire arrived unannounced at the door of Minoifue's office. She stood in the threshold. "I'm Agnes McGuire. You were looking for me." Minogue was taken aback. He stood quickly, his mind alive with details. Her accent carried up the ends of words and phrases and it added what southerners mistook for earnestness. A soft hiss on the s, a changing of vowels.

  Agnes McGuire had dark red hair and a pale face. Her eyes had red edges to them. The centres were gentian. Thin hands joined in front of a handknit cardigan. In a sense which shocked him, Minogue abruptly decided that Agnes McGuire was somehow used to grieving.

  "Will you sit down please, Miss McGuire?"

  "Agnes will do," she said.

  "And you can call me Matt if you wish. Agnes, I'll be asking you questions which you may find very trying. I don't need to tell you that we want to get to the bottom of this thing as quickly as possible and although part will be painful to you, I trust you believe that it'll be worth something in the end. Every little thing counts."

  "Well, do you think it was a madman who did this, Mr Minogue?" said Agnes.

  "Because, to be quite frank, I don't think it was at all. That is what bothers me the most, you know," she continued.

  Minogue decided to level with her.

  "I can tell you that we don't have much to go on right now. It's not one of those things that results in an arrest within a matter of hours. Do you know how much of this kind of thing is done by another member of the family, a relative, a falling out among friends? This young man's background suggests none of that at all. Unfortunately Jarlath's parents are too distraught to recall a thing with any clarity, but, to be honest, I expect they will have little to offer to help find a resolution. If you follow my reasoning, or should I say, my speculation, I'm thinking of what happened as an event in this area, not just geographically, but in this part of Jarlath's life. College, his life here. Does that sound a bit cracked to you, Agnes?"

  Agnes didn't reply immediately. She toyed with her long fingers and then looked to the window.

  "I follow you. I didn't want to think like that. Jarlath was not what you might call an extremist." Was she smiling faintly?

  "You're saying that Jarlath would not have been inv
olved with radical student politics, whatever they might be?"

  "Far from it. Jarlath was always talking about the Enlightenment. That sounds daft, doesn't it? Well, he thought that Irish people had to become more rational, more enterprising about politics."

  Minogue said nothing. He waited.

  "I suppose it was like a debating club with him really. But it's no sin to be naive. Or is it? Sure, he was laughed at by some of the students here. You know, the 'bourgeois apologist,' the 'light weight' tags here. I think they were jealous of him, do you know that? He had an optimism that they hadn't. I remember one of the sociology crowd telling him that he needed to visit the North once in a while to get to reality, that he needed to get out of his cosy middle class ghetto in Foxrock. It's like the Malone Road, I suppose. You know what was so silly about that? These radicals came from the same backgrounds. They felt they had to be full of thunder and opinions because they felt guilty about being well-to-do."

  Minogue believed in wisdom at twenty for he had felt it stirring in himself at that age.

  "Jarlath comes across as a gentle type of lad the way you talk," he said quietly.

  Had to do it, damn and blast it, thought Minogue. Of course she began to cry and wasn't that the idea, you cruel bastard? When Agnes stopped crying, Minogue asked her:

  "Agnes, can you tell me if Jarlath had any notion of drugs?"

  "No. He had nothing to do with them. You can be sure of that."

  Although Minogue had read the preliminary statements taken from Agnes that Friday, he needed to go back and flesh out the details. Agnes made no protest. She spoke as if reciting. They had both studied in'the library-the 1937 Reading Room-until a bit after eight. They skipped tea-time. Then they went to her rooms where she prepared a meal. Linguini? Strips of pasta. A bit of meat made into a sauce. They had a couple of glasses of wine. They talked a bit, then he left. About half past ten. Did they arrange to meet? Anything out of the ordinary they talked about? No, a plan for a cycling holiday in France. Oh, Jarlath wanted to visit Belfast. Curious? No, she smiled. He had never been there, said he wanted to. Were they thinking of going steady, getting engaged? Pause. No. Did he leave any belongings in her rooms? No, he took everything in his bag. The bag was falling apart, she said. Hmm.