A stone of the heart imm-1

by John Brady

  "Actually, Captain, they'd be good for my investigation. When did you have them taken down?"^v

  "Last week, sometime," Loftus replied.

  "Friday, then?"

  "It might have been that late, yes."

  "Who gave the order?"

  "The requisition…? I did."

  "So there'd be a record of the date."

  Loftus stopped fiddling. He stood to his full height.

  "Sergeant Minogue. I'm beginning to wonder if you're not overworking yourself here."

  "Let me enlighten you then, Captain, because I think you're not enlightening me much. Now I didn't get out of bed on the wrong side this morning, but that doesn't mean that I'm interested in getting the run-around. I'm paid to look into all the bits and pieces."

  "An empty, damaged locker, Sergeant?" Loftus said slowly to heighten the effect.

  Minogue didn't reply. He didn't want to tell Loftus that he'd wanted to look for signs of what might have been in the locker. He wondered if Allen had misread the questions that Jarlath Walsh had put to him. Minogue was beginning to believe that this was the case. Minogue guessed that the boy wanted the information for something more prosaic, like a debate. He caught a little of this Jarlath Walsh and it wasn't encouraging. A boy, not a man, tipsy on book-learning, his trust in the power of reason, boyscout's honour. Knowledge is power for good: Walsh was a dupe for the university. No. He was a trier. Minogue was dried up with cynicism. Maybe. Walsh didn't have the edges smoothed out by experience yet. He noticed that Loftus was eying him. Why not give him a swipe?

  "It may look odd to you, Captain. Let me be candid. This student wasn't killed by some random act. All the signs are against it. He had something, he did something or he knew something. He probably didn't know that he did any of these things. At least not powerful enough to warrant his murder. I'm no Agatha Christie, and I don't have a computer to calculate odds. The thoughts I'm having are what they call hunches in the thrillers. The word'drugs' keeps popping into my head. I hear it a lot. Dublin isn't what it used to be. Nor, might I add is Trinity College or its students. What do you think?"

  Loftus' nostrils had been sucked in. Minogue recognised signs of breath held in. Loftus was staring intently at him, struggling with a decision. Then, abruptly, he turned away. He took off his coat with an air of resignation and he walked around to the other side of his desk. He fumbled with his keys and unlocked the desk. Without a search, Loftus drew out a large envelope. He handed it to Minogue. Minogue saw defiance in the place of the smugness he had read on the face before.

  Minogue removed the note and read it. It had been typed, poorly.

  JARLATH WALSH MAKES A MOCKERY OF THIS COLLEGE. WHO WILL ACT? WALSH TRAFFICS IN DRUGS. DRUGS POISON PEOPLE. DON'T BE DECEIVED. ACT. WALSH'S FRUIT IMPORTS LOOKS AS INNOCENT AS WALSH.

  Minogue read over the note again. Loftus sat down.

  "Get many hoaxes, Captain? Your students here have a reputation for high jinks."

  "My thoughts exactly, Sergeant." Was there a hint of vengeance in his voice?

  "I made a decision quite a while ago. Forbidden fruit is a lot less tasty when there's no talk about it."

  "I don't follow your analogy, Captain."

  "My chief concern here is not whether this note was written in a serious vein or not. I'm sure there are people capable of trying to ruin someone's good name for spite. I'm sure there are self-appointed people whose paranoia leads them to make serious accusations without any reasonable evidence too."

  "So…?" Minogue probed.

  "On balance, I think this is just a malicious slur," Loftus said slowly.

  "Hmm," from Minogue.

  "The way we see it here, Sergeant, the more talk of drugs the students hear, the more glamorous the stuff appears. You know how it is at that age. It's the same thing with the bank robberies and the shooting: glamour. We deal with so-called drug problems in the college in a very low-key way. We're not entirely naive in here about the ways of the world out there. We go through the Drug Squad when we need to. Check that out and you'll find how good our liaison is with the Gardai."

  Minogue wasn't listening. He was thinking of the way Loftus was saying "we."

  "A person of lesser sophistication might call this sweeping things under the table, Captain," Minogue offered.

  "The college doesn't employ such persons, Sergeant," replied Loftus.

  Minogue realised all of a sudden that a few years ago he might have gotten on his own high horse with this sparrowfart.

  "Uh," Minogue said, trying to appear thoughtful.

  "So whether I believe this rubbish or not has little to do with the matter at hand for me. Of course I cannot stop you believing what you will. We're all responsible for the good name of the college in here. It's not so much security as reputation. That is a commodity, once traded, impossible to buy back. This is the college of Edmund Burke and Oliver Goldsmith. Samuel Beckett too, if that's your fancy. Our graduates and our students as well as our staff are our stock of good will."

  Minogue was tiring of this speech. He wondered if Loftus had practised this one orfcad used it before. Minogue also wondered if he should be standing here barefoot and illiterate as his ancestors had been, while this haven of scholarship buttered up the gentry whose daddies had sent the bailiff to batter down peasant houses. Careful, Minogue, your inferiority complexes are showing.

  "We see this current fetish with drugs as part of history, you might say," Loftus was saying. "It's a small part of our first four hundred years and we'll ride it out."

  A picture of Mary Brosnahan, the cleaning-woman who had tripped across the body, came into Minogue's mind. Her statement read like an apology for nearly having dirtied the college with her discovery. Why this loyalty, and she paid little enough, and her knees probably gone these years? And Walsh, trusting in reasonable propositions, boyscout's honour. Loyalty to those notions on this island?

  "I take your point, Captain. I'll be dispensing with pleasantries as such while I effect economical answers to present concerns. Doubtless you'll see to the reputation of the place in your own good time. Now: why did you remove the locker in its entirety only on Friday? When did you get this note? Before answering, be assured that this is a very serious matter and I'm well able to step on toes."

  Loftus' answer immediately gave Minogue the impression that Loftus had prepared for this eventuality.

  "I take it you've not been in the army, Sergeant. I'd know it if you had been. You don't need to look beyond a man's bearing and general attitude to know one of our own. Finbar Walsh, the boy's father, and I had the privilege of serving together. It was for a short time only and it was quite a number of years ago. Mr Walsh was a senior officer to me and the army lost a valuable man when Mr Walsh left. I was happy for him that he managed to be so successful in business. I don't give a god's curse basically if there's one iota of truth in this note or not. If indeed there is some substance to it, you can be certain that my loyalties are to the college and this man's reputation. Particularly so because the boy is now deceased. Don't mistake me. I want to see the culprit caught too."

  Great speech, thought Minogue. He nodded resignedly.

  "And something else too. I hope you don't mistake my concerns for obstruction. I suspect that you haven't been adequately briefed by your superiors on this matter. As for myself, I'm not a desk jockey with no backing," Loftus said with a tight smile.

  "There are things that matter more than incidents," he added with a tone of finality.

  Minogue was sure now that he loathed this twit. Loftus had stopped little short of a criminal offence. The thing was that there was no point in throwing the book at the likes of Loftus. He'd probably been given the lead from someone else anyway.

  Loftus wouldn't have said what he did without some umbrella, some nod from a handler. Probably your man with the tweed brain, Griffiths. All sweet eminent reason, of course. What was more, the note might well be rubbish, a bad joke, and nothing would come of tests
on the bloody locker anyway. Notebooks and a bag. Far too like James Bond.

  Minogue looked at the sliver of sunlight which the late afternoon had carried into the office. It held playing motes of dust and it showed up the grain on the edges of the desk. History rolls on like the afternoon. Time and tide. Jarlath Walsh would be buried tomorrow. The parents would be in no condition to talk tomorrow. Connors would draw a big duck egg there too. Well, Minogue decided, with a finality quite alien to the dreamy light around him, might as well leave this twit hanging.

  "Be so kind as to give me that note and an envelope to hold it. It will be returned to you when we have gone over it. Good day to you, Captain Loftus. We'll be meeting again perhaps. You have a way to get in touch with me?"

  Loftus nodded once.

  Minogue smelled wax and confidence in this building as he walked down the stairs. Immovable, assured.

  Minogue awoke to the sounds of rain. It had been raining for some time because the heavy, slow pat-pat of the drops oozing from under the gutter was a steady pattern of sound. Minogue swore silently. He could see the rain washing away the traces of a murder. He saw the water swirling toward a drain, a face grinning. It was Loftus' face.

  The dawn light came into the bedroom like smoke. Minogue crept out of the bed and went downstairs. He made tea and turned on the radio low. Then he switched on a bar of the electric heater and leaned closer to the radio. He craved a smoke. Not even the stay in hospital had given him the urge as strongly as this.

  It was too early for Radio Eireann. Minogue turned to the BBC just in time to catch the tail end of a sentence.

  "… at his front door in Limavady about seven o'clock last night. A spokesman for the RUC confirmed that Mr Elgie had received death threats in the past. Mr Elgie was active in the Peace Now movement in Northern Ireland. He is the forty seventh civilian to die of violence in Northern Ireland this year. Security forces are reportedly stepping up searches and surveillance in the area in the wake of several shootings in this area within the last fortnight. A spokesman for the Army did not deny that all the shootings appear to be part of a pattern as similar weapons have been used in recent incidents. Concern was voiced during question period in the House of Commons that more weapons appear to be entering Northern Ireland. Rocket-propelled grenades and heavy calibre machine-guns have been used in ambushes in South Armagh. Police believe that Mr Elgie was killed with a Russian-made semi-automatic rifle. So far, no organisation has claimed responsibility for the murder. Conservative MP Mr Stanley Robinson accused the government of the Irish Republic of being lax in border security. Mr Robinson said that the IRA is indiscriminate in its use of weapons and sources of supply and this indicates how bankrupt their politics are. The Prime Minister today visited…"

  Minogue felt awake enough to want to go back to bed. Words like'terrorist' and 'security forces' rolled off the announcer's tongue just like that. Indiscriminate, lax. It was all loaded of course, we can expect no less, Minogue thought. His wakening mind rambled on to an image of Allen and the work he was doing. Seemed so calm, so rational, even confident. Did he really believe that his lectures could change people?

  In many ways, Allen was a man to be admired. He didn't hide in the academic cloister. Instead, he went out and gave ideas their acid test, to see if they could make change happen. A composed man, a bit cautious, but with assurance. He didn't miss much.

  Imagine an Englishman knowing so much about Ireland. Well it just went to prove that the Irish and the English were not inevitable enemies due to some chemistry or geography.

  Agnes McGuire had composure and pride too. She seemed to be able to take it all in and to transcend it, but a sadness lingered. It actually shone out of her. Maybe Allen, as her tutor, had been able to help her make sense of things. But hadn't Allen said that she didn't need him to sort things out for herself? She had begun to soften and shape poor Walsh even, the son of parents and a country who didn't want to know about the North but wanted to be left alone with their lawns and their holidays.

  Minogue abruptly realised that he hadn't touched on the relationship between her and Jarlath. Reserve, politeness? A cloud of doubt passed over the prospect of the day's work ahead. He could spin it out in the college for another day or two and that would be that, unless Connors had something from the parents or prints showed on the note.

  Kathleen shouldered the door open gently.

  "Matt. You're up."

  "Good morning madam," Minogue replied, the advantage of tea resting him on the high ground of talk. "I awoke early. I may be entering my dotage."

  "Is it the job?" Kathleen asked.

  "No, lovey. The rain woke me, so it did."

  Later, when Daithi and Iseult appeared at the table, Minogue couldn't keep his eyes off them. It occurred to him that he might indeed be going dotty to be scrutinising them like this. Daithi looked up from his cornflakes several times. Finally he raised his hands.

  "Honest to God, I didn't do it," he said.

  "What?" Minogue said.

  "Whatever it is, I didn't do it. If you're looking at me bloodshot eyes, it's the library to blame."

  As they left Minogue's car outside the university, Minogue managed to kiss both of his children. Iseult blushed and drew away a little, her eyelashes down. Daithi was more than bashful and he tried to ease his father's caprice as well as his own irritation.

  "We can't go on meeting like this, darling."

  There might be something in that remark, Minogue thought as he drove off.

  Kilmartin was sitting behind a copy of the Irish Independent. It crumpled down as he began his effusive greeting. Greeks bearing gifts, Minogue figured.

  "Matt, me old ball and socket," Kilmartin said. "How is she cutting?"

  "Fair to middling. Nothing to write home about."

  Both sat. This is not like him, Minogue registered. For his part, Kilmartin felt a companion gas pain. Its occurrence marked awkward moments in his life, a constant sentinel these days. He hoped he wouldn't have to fart here in this office. Better hurry it up, Minogue knows there's something in the wind.

  "I took the liberty of bringing along Connors' notes of the interview with the Walsh boy's parents. A very sad business to be sure, to be sure. The missus is under sedation. She might have to go into hospital. Do you know, her memory is gone almost completely. She remembers the boy as a youngster and little else.

  "An interview? Yesterday?" Minogue said.

  "Well, a few words to be exact. Connors just kept his ears open."

  "The Da?" Minogue led.

  "Oh he's a very busy man, you might say. Very busy, yes," Kilmartin said with reluctance.

  "Not saying he wasn't a good father at all, don't get me wrong. Let's say he let the wife look after domestic things. And the family sort of fell under that heading. At the moment, Connors said he doesn't know whether he's coming or going really. That's the gist of it," Kilmartin concluded.

  "Thanks. I'll go through it myself later."

  "And the bloody rain has put the kybosh on searching for the murder-site. Isn't that the divil?" Kilmartin said.

  "It is," Minogue allowed.

  "And I have to sit in on these meetings to do with the latest stuff in the North. Would you credit it but we're all involved? There's to be some of that crowd from A division up in the North-you know, the joint RUC and Special Branch thing they have up there. They'll be sitting in too. They have the wind up, so they do. I don't mind telling you, Matt, that that particular crowd has hooligans in it, what with the way they treat people in Castlerea…"

  And what about our own Heavy Gang here in the South, Minogue mused inwardly. Banana republic. Kilmartin lit a cigarette and inhaled. Minogue glanced over the transcriptions of Connors' notes.

  "Not so hot, is it?" Kilmartin offered.

  "Best he could do, I suppose," Minogue replied.

  "You're managing O.K. though," Kilmartin said tentatively. "Overall, like?"

  Minogue studied the desktop. So t
hat was it. Kilmartin wanted to be reassured.

  "Fine, thanks. I'm always quiet like this when I'm Sherlocking cases."

  "Right you be, Matt, right you be. Sure didn't I know that when I had you put on the case?"

  Kilmartin smiled, affecting contentment. His belly rumbled and the pain burned him again.

  "The Commissioner was inquiring after you. Asked to be remembered to you. 'Glad to hear Matt is on this one,' says he. 'The man is out on his own, so he is,' he says. 'And don't I know that myself?' says I. Isn't that the trick, Matt, picking the right people and then getting a pat on the back for the results, hah?"

  It was Minogue's turn to smile. Out on his own is right. Did he mean outstanding or remote?

  "Oh and he says to tell you that Wexford will wallop Clare when their turn comes," Kilmartin said with some satisfaction.

  Minogue had to hand it to Jimmy Kilmartin. He was making the best of it, trusting Minogue to fill in the lines. Letting Minogue know in a low-key way. A bit of chat about what the patricians were hatching, keep in touch. He liked Kilmartin. He didn't envy Kilmartin's go-betweens, his rank, his obligations. They had known each other for twenty years. Still, Minogue was growing frustrated at waiting for the rest of it.

  "So Loftus put a flea in someone's ear?" Minogue asked.

  Kilmartin didn't balk.

  "Yep. He was on the blower. Nothing direct, you see. Polite enquiry and exchanging pleasantries."

  "And…" Minogue waited.

  "Wondering if maybe you were concentrating too much on something. You gave him a bit of heat about a locker the other day?"

  "Lucky I didn't run him in for destroying evidence. There might be a drug angle to this so-"

  "— and you're the man on the spot, Matt. Tell you the truth, I haven't the time of day for the likes of your man, Loftus. Just to let you know. Now if you need staff to work on this part with you, say the word. We're stretched but, you know."

  "Thanks."

  "Loftus was peeved. The Commissioner got the impression that you might have felt under pressure to produce results and that you were pushing a matter of little consequence."