“Can we do it?”
“According to the phone call I got this afternoon from You-know-who, we’d better,” Kilmartin replied sardonically.
“I see. Let’s put men to yacht clubs and boat clubs, then, and boaters out of any harbours south from Sandymount,” said Minogue. “All the way to Bray. Anything stolen in the line of boats, people seen tampering with boats, boats going out after dark. Railway stations on the suburban system, in case he got on or got off on the south side. Leave a photo at every ticket office, for starters.”
Minogue heard his assumptions creak insistently as he widened the net which he knew was in untried waters. Who was to say that Fine hadn’t been shot anywhere in Dublin and then left on the beach or in the water after dark? So far they hadn’t met anyone who could tell them where Paul Fine might have been on Sunday after he’d left his flat. Minogue mentally underlined Mary McCutcheon’s name again.
He walked out into the yard and took in some of Dublin’s stale air. Kilmartin sauntered out after him.
“I called God Almighty and I got the Assistant Comm instead,” Kilmartin muttered. “Are you ready for thirty men tonight? Give them your mind after we set them up at a meeting tonight and then we’re off and running already.”
Minogue wanted to be away from Kilmartin, away from this swell of impossibility rising toward him. Fine’s friends-someone-must have been with him some time over the weekend. Kilmartin flicked his cigarette away and spat expertly.
“I don’t see myself as the one to bang the drum for this crowd tonight, then,” murmured Minogue. “Will you give them the run-down and I’ll sort out individual assignments with Shea Hoey?”
“Fair enough,” said Kilmartin brightly, chastening the surprised Minogue. “Do you have an idea where you’ll want to start?”
“Six men to go over cassettes and videos we found in the flat. I’ll earmark another six experienced interviewers for whoever Gallagher thinks is worthwhile off Fine’s index. Those are my main ones for now anyway… I don’t know if the Branch will insist on using their men for any suspects they pull out of their own files.”
Kilmartin nodded, looked to the sky and yawned long. Minogue thought he heard Kilmartin’s dentures click when they dislodged during the yawn. Age, he reflected dully.
“Here’s something I was thinking about just now,” said Minogue. “Do you think that whoever shot him knew that the bullets would go clean through?”
Kilmartin didn’t look away from the skyline.
“You’re the crafty boyo, aren’t you now? I know what you’re getting at.”
Minogue felt guilty stepping into the pub with Kilmartin. It was ten to eleven.
“That’s what I worked all these years to set up, Matt. Don’t be looking like a whipped pup. Hoey probably knows the ropes better than I do now, and Keating is no slouch either. Murtagh just looks stupid; he’s actually a sly bollocks with plenty of brains, just a bit lazy. Don’t be worrying about no skipper at the helm. No one is indispensable, they say.”
Kilmartin knew the barmen in Nolan’s. Minogue declined whiskey, settling for a pint of stout instead. Kilmartin had a Powers whiskey and a bottle of stout.
“Here’s to retirement. The golden years and all that,” Kilmartin toasted ambiguously. The stout was too heavy and too chilled for long gulps. “Let’s not be fretting about international gangsters. We’ll come up with some Provisionals link yet, wait’ll you see.”
Minogue thought about the work which was afoot already tonight. Gallagher had settled on the names of eleven students which he believed might help. One of the detectives had asked if they should Section 30 any students. Reluctantly, Minogue had assented, and told the detectives to throw the Offences Against the State Act at people on the list if they dragged their heels.
“I’m not happy sending them out to interview those students with nothing under their belts to poke at them with, no way to see if they’re being entirely truthful,” said Minogue reflectively.
“No other way around it, Matt,” Kilmartin countered decisively.
Was this what rank did, Minogue ruminated. Another pint of stout was slapped on the counter in front of him.
“Ah, Jimmy, I can’t.”
“You can’t leave it behind you, that’s a fact.”
He watched Kilmartin scoop the change from the fait accompli off the counter.
“Lookit, wait and see what turns up on these tapes. Maybe Fine had a diary on him and it was lost. Stolen? Maybe they took it, whoever did him in, don’t you see. No sign of a wallet or anything, am I right? So he may have had vital things on him when he was killed.”
Kilmartin was right to keep doors open, Minogue reflected. For himself, he needed a night’s sleep, to be away from this.
Minogue re-read the letter, posted nine days ago somewhere in New York City. At least the boy wasn’t writing from the bridal suite of some dive in Las Vegas. Kathleen buttered more bread. It was half-past seven. Minogue had managed to steal into bed without disturbing anyone last night. He awoke to the alarm, lying in the same place as he had when he first stretched out in the bed. He felt dull, bunched.
“Cathy with a C. I don’t know. I can’t tell from this letter, I’m hardly an expert,” Minogue tried.
“Your own son, mister. Don’t you see what he’s getting at?”
“I don’t, I suppose.”
“He’s interested in her, that’s what. To my way of thinking he’s not telling us the half of it. ‘Irish’, he says. As if that’s supposed to impress.”
Minogue believed that Kathleen was more nervous than angry.
“Everybody’s Irish over there, I suppose, if they want to be. You see he’s after meeting her family and everything,” she added.
Minogue folded the letter and placed it under his saucer. Hopefully the saucer might devour it.
“He’s testing us out. A fella can be very nervous when he meets a nice girl,” said Minogue. Listening to himself he heard the stupidity of the remark.
“Nervous, is it? He’s there in New York without a visa, working on the sly for some computer company and he’s nervous? What about his poor parents?”
“Cathy… same name as Kathleen basically. A very nice name that. He has the same good taste as his father. I was nervous when I met you,” Minogue tried to divert her.
“Pull the other one, it has bells.”
“We said we’d give him the fare, so that was that. The boy is enjoying himself a bit. He knows he can’t stay there forever.”
“That’s what I’m getting at,” Kathleen said. “Don’t you see? He may have it in the back of his head to marry this Cathy girl and stay there.”
Minogue returned to his egg. It looked up from the plate at him, begging not to be slashed. For a moment he remembered nearly emigrating to the States thirty years ago. Did genes act like that, wait and ambush the next generation?
“So will you drop him a line and make him see sense.”
Not the time to be asking her what ‘sense’ she meant, Minogue knew.
“I will.”
Iesult slouched into the kitchen in a dressing-gown.
“You’re only missing the curlers and a cigarette in your mitt,” welcomed Minogue.
Iesult stopped and sneered theatrically.
“When’s the wedding? I hope it’s one of those vulgar parties with everyone decked out in iijity clothes,” she fluted.
CHAPTER SIX
Kilmartin was lying in wait for him. Hoey rose from the desk and brought what looked like statement sheets with him, as the three policemen sat at Kilmartin’s table.
“Any one of these fellas jump out and say ‘me’ to you?” asked Mingoue.
Hoey shook his head. “One we didn’t find was a Syrian fella. The other Syrian knew him, though, said he was in England visiting his sister since last week,” said Hoey. He placed the statement sheets- photocopies, Minogue saw now-on the table and began sorting them.
“Let’s start with this one, Khatib. He’s Iranian.”
Minogue’s eyes ran beyond the Judge’s Rule, the caution given to the person making the statement. Hoey read his copy again.