At the discretion of the investigating officers (unnamed), Mr Moore could be apprised of certain details of Mr Combs' death, provided that the rights of any suspect or potential suspect were not prejudiced in receiving such information or that the investigation was impaired by disclosing such details. Life insurance, Minogue wondered. And more. The letter from Foreign Affairs noted that Mr Combs' estate might be subject to a determination by the Revenue Commissioners in the Department of Finance as to whether taxes or death duties were or would be owed from the estate of Mr Combs. Public property, now, thought Minogue. The bureaucrats had swooped.
"And good day to you, Mr Moore. We spoke on the telephone."
"Sergeant Minogue, hello."
The voice was even, incurious.
"You found your way here all right, with the traffic and everything."
"Dublin is not too big, Sergeant."
"You must have pressed the right buttons with our civil service, Mr Moore."
He shepherded Moore back by Eilis' desk and ushered him into the windowless briefing room. It smelled of ashtrays and damp socks. At least someone had wiped the blackboard and arranged the chairs around the two pitted table-tops.
"You are bona fide, authorized and up-and-running as regards officialdom here, Mr Moore. There are men labouring a lifetime to be so recognised," Minogue began.
"Fine," Moore said.
"Maybe you could let me know how you did it. So I can get the same results, you see."
Moore tried out a smile. It seemed to come from a long way away, setting only on the lower part of his face, pushing his eyebrows up momentarily. Then it was gone.
"I think I know what you mean. So it's not just the British civil service which works best in the future conditional?"
Minogue liked that.
"Well, we more often dwell in the pluperfect here. The politics and things here. Lost fortune, you understand. I gave up trying to figure it out some time ago."
There was something about Moore which reminded Minogue of a plate-glass window. It wasn't that you couldn't see through it, but more a quality of mirroring things from the outside. Minogue was passing the letters across to him when Eilis appeared in the doorway.
"Excuse me for a moment, Mr Moore," Minogue said and closed the door behind him.
"There are two messages," said Eilis. "Mrs Kilmartin phoned to say that they're not allowing any visitors to see the Inspector until tomorrow at the earliest. But that he wakes up sometimes and appears to have all his faculties," she said.
"More than I ever had, I can tell you," Minogue murmured.
"And Pat Corrigan called. I don't need to go through those boxes of files by the sound of things now. He says to phone him. It's about a surveillance report on a certain person in Glencullen several years ago. Said you'd know who he was referring to."
Minogue clicked his fingers.
"That definitely tears the arse of out things. We may be on the move, Eilis." As he turned the doorhandle, Minogue caught a light scent of aftershave from the room.
"Excuse the intrusion, Mr Moore. It's feast or famine, I think, and I don't have an appetite for feasting at the moment."
Moore nodded. He kept his legs crossed lightly. An academic, Minogue thought.
"May I ask if you are close to a resolution of this case then, Sergeant?"
He had asked in such a casual way that Minogue was half-way through an honest answer before a hint of caution slowed him.
"We may well be making some progress at last."
Moore's expression did not change.
"But it may be a complicated box of tricks entirely. You probably know yourself that these murders that don't fit into the 'known-to-the-deceased' variety are the ones that do have us flummoxed for a while at least."
"There was a robbery in progress, though?"
"Let me say first, Mr Moore, that the deceased appears to have been the class of person who liked to keep to himself. We are not entirely sure at all as to what valuables he had in the house. A robbery in progress, you ask. Well. It has all the hallmarks of it. Household effects upset. A lot of damage done. Items of value on the person missing. Wallet, you see. About forty pounds that he had in a little bowl in the kitchen, too."
Moore pursed his lips slightly. He changed legs. Minogue caught a glimpse of a white, hairy shin atop the socks as Moore shifted.
"May I ask you then, Sergeant, something else? If I'm stubbing my toes here, please tell me."
Minogue glanced at the flawless sheen on the black oxfords. They hadn't been scuffed yet.
"Was Mr Combs the victim of, shall I say, anti-British sentiment?"
Minogue tongued his lower lip.
"Now, there's an interesting question, Mr Moore. Yes, it is. I don't know. It might be a possibility, but we're not concentrating on it at the moment. Does that sound equivocal enough to you?"
Moore tried a little with his smile, but it was gone as quickly as his other efforts.
"Not wishing to be obtuse, now, Mr Moore. But we don't show our cards too soon. Now, have you had your dinner at all…?"
"Later in the day, thank you. I'd greatly appreciate the chance to get to Mr Combs' house as soon as I can."
"You'll accept Detective Murtagh's assistance, won't you?"
"No need, actually-" Minogue searched Moore's face.
"It's a matter of policy here, I'm afraid, Mr Moore. We may need to return to the house in search of further evidence. An unsupervised visitor might upset things. Inadvertently, of course. Now, would you like copies of the rules in these letters here? About notifying us as to what you might do with Mr Combs' stuff? Then I'll leave you in Detective Murtagh's very capable hands."
"Kindness indeed," Moore replied. He stood and laid his brief-case on the table.
Minogue was mildly amused by Murtagh trying to exact a handshake from Moore. It was the only clumsy moment for Moore that Minogue had noticed. He changed hands on the brief-case to take Murtagh's outstretched hand. Eilis watched them go.
"A natty dresser," she murmured. She reached for another cigarette.
"A cold fish, too, by the cut of him," she added after blowing out the match.
"Just the man for this class of work so," Minogue added. "I hope that Pat Corrigan is buying me a dinner."
"You had better phone him all right. He sounded like his trousers were catching fire." spacebarthing
There was no trace of smoke from Inspector Corrigan's trousers. Minogue and he sat outdoors, on the footpath in Dawson Street. The staff of the otherwise stand-up-and-eat-it-quick delicatessen had placed tables, chairs and imitation Martini umbrellas out on the sidewalk in an effort to make boulevardiers of their clientele. Cotton-wool clouds moved quickly across the sky, a breeze flapped the umbrellas in the sun.
"What's that stuff?" Corrigan declared. Meant to be a question, his words came out as an accusation when he pointed to Minogue's scrambled egg.
"Take it easy, Pat. It's paprika. Your palate is crying out for some training." Minogue spooned more soup.