“Wait a minute, Pat,” said Minogue. “Sooner or later we have to consider the possibility of a some quid pro quo thing, a favour done by our local gunmen in return for arms or money.”
“It could well be a Provo loaning out a gun or two,” added Gallagher. “They’re still at the rent-a-gun for bank jobs, I grant you. But,” he paused, “why not take the line of a paid-up contract murder? A professional killer or terrorist, in and out from the Continent or someplace.”
“All right so,” said Minogue, still scrabbling for some hold. “You’ve brought the meeting to that contentious point, Pat. We’re trying to profile a killer. Trying to see him clearly. I’ve given the matter some thought, the possibility of a professional killer being responsible, for whatever motive. I think we can’t be distracted by thinking about some international hit-man or hit-men: that would be discouraging. Let’s plug away with the lines we have. Stay flexible. Even if we are chasing a pro, we need to find the locals who set it up. A pro doesn’t just walk in and pick anyone. What we can try to focus on is some small cell, one fella even, who’s a cross-over between IRA or Left-wing and other groups with strong interests in the Middle Eastern business. Not just in Palestinian matters but militant Muslim groups.”
Gallagher nodded and continued stroking his moustache as if trying to drain something out of it, looking toward the ceiling as he listened.
“But like I said,” Gallagher murmured finally,“if it’s a pro or semi-pro floated in for this, paid for the job and gone already…”
“Shite,” said Kilmartin. “The hell kind of a chance do we have if the killer got a gun and a passport and a fistful of money out of a diplomatic bag and he’s back in Paris or Beirut or whatever?”
Gallagher shrugged. “Then we have our work cut out for us,” he said. He continued mulling over the question and then shook his head slowly.
“We can usually pick names out of our heads for certain jobs. If you said: ‘We’re looking for someone who knocks off post-offices using assault rifles and works with two others and steals four cars for one job, ’ I could reel off three or four names. But right now we can’t point to anyone in or out of the groups we monitor who is fired up enough and savage enough to do this murder. Three shots in the head suggests expertise to me, that’s all I can say. Our militants are a fairly tight family bunch, to tell you the truth. The home-grown real hit-men don’t care a damn for anything outside the IRA-Brit side of things. They wouldn’t do freelance stuff like killing Fine for an Arab cause. Very, very unlikely.”
“Humph,” grunted Kilmartin, shifting himself in his seat. “Don’t forget the call to the newspaper was an Irish accent. Let’s say some foreigner, some fella from the Middle East, did it but had an Irish mate to do the phoning. They’re cut-throats out there in the Middle East, you only have to watch the news to know that.”
“You may have something there,” Gallagher allowed cautiously. “It’d also make it look like there was an organization here, some support for their cause.”
No one spoke for several moments.
Gallagher’s quizzical glance toward Minogue brought him out of his thoughts and he suppressed a yawn. “Yes, Pat. Sorry. Yes. Will you carry on with the student thing now, if you please? Middle Eastern students and groups and what-have-you here in Ireland?”
Chair legs scraped and policemen rearranged themselves while Gallagher prepared his notes again. Minogue lapsed into his chair, retreating within.
He had been lucky, if luck was the word. After the nightmare of carrying the body through the bushes and briars in the early hours of Monday morning, the panic and fear and sweat like a fever gripping him, he had hefted and dragged, rested with then wrestled with the corpse for an hour, getting him down off the damn hill. His body remembered the dank night air off the sea enveloping him like a clammy cloak.
He had seen dead bodies before, plenty of them. Those villagers shredded in the Bekaa Valley, the dust of their pulverized homes still settling on their faces where the flies fed. Never so close, though: close enough to see the head jerk, hair part suddenly as the shot spread shock through the skull, the body drop like a stone, as though thrown to the ground. Had to make certain then, and not think: shoot and hold and shoot again, quickly before you scream yourself. Must watch, too, as the head hopped and the legs twitched.
He shuddered as he changed gear for the first traffic lights on the outskirts of Bray. His armpits prickled. He couldn’t remember getting this far, just following the rush-hour traffic south on the Bray Rd. His face felt swollen with the sweat. He crunched third gear, missing the gate. The car felt strange to him still. Could the drivers next to him imagine what he had been going through, what he was still going through? He had found the shell casings, scrabbling in the grass and briars; he had rolled the body into the bushes. A dog barking somewhere, rustling in the foliage. People used this park, of course they did. Not of his choosing at all. Panic had burst like a flare in his chest, leaving every part of his body aching. Dog barking again, breaking the tremendous weight of silence of a warm autumn afternoon. Dull echoes of the thumps as he had fired still pulsed in his mind. Then looking up and seeing the child watching him. Luck? Paralysed, beyond any thought or action. Couldn’t touch the child. A boy dressed up in his Boy Scout uniform, stick in hand: there had to be more of these youngsters nearby. He remembered trying to smile at the boy but something was shouting inside his head, knowing he couldn’t control his facial muscles. The boy had moved off. Luck?
He accelerated with the green light and turned down toward the wasteland of rubble which girdled this corner of the town. He passed a metal foundry, long abandoned, where teenagers drank and pelted bottles against the few remaining walls, where bonfires scarred and blackened the stones, where rats scurried in the dock-weeds and scattered bricks and rubbish. It was tea-time, the lanes were deserted. Rusting hulks of cars stood in the nettles, by mounds of rubble. He eased the car over bricks and burst plastic bags full of refuse and steered toward a roofless building. Small shapes moved around the debris. The tyres spun as he worked the car over a concrete parapet where steel rails were still embedded. More car wrecks, many burned too.
Seize the chance, just go through with it. That’s how war is. War? He swore at the burn of confusion and anger which erupted around his heart. Struggling with a dead man down a hill in the hopes he’d never be found; nauseous with loathing and disgust and weariness, embracing the stubborn body of a man he had killed as though it were a penance. Cursing and praying, nearly in tears, stumbling with his load while everyone slept. Dark night of the soul, he had wondered later. The life of one man for the greater cause. One man-it was as though another voice had said that aloud next to him in the car. Panic and rage made a tremor race up his back. He cast a glance toward the covered body. Now it was two.
He stopped the car and switched off the engine. When he tried to move he found that he couldn’t. He bowed his head and prayed but the hands on the wheel remained as fists, tight and tighter as he struggled. Lucky, he thought again with savage irony. Lucky because he was still sane enough to get this far.
He checked his watch again. He imagined the body moving, rising, casting off the blanket, going for his throat. Less than an hour ago he had killed the other man who now lay huddled across the seat. The man had shouted once but the bar had thudded into the side of his turning head before he got his arm up. Hit him again, this time on his knees, putting him out. The film of yellow light had seemed to pulse and brighten as he had stood over the man, listening to the deep breaths whistling in his nose. He had fumbled the cord out of his pocket, finished him. Desperate then, feeling this could not be real, he had heard himself sob as he tightened the cord, his hands cramping with the strain until he let go at last. A blob of blood had issued from the man’s ear.