was irritating her eyes, the more so as she leaned over to unlock a cabinet.
Minogue took the folder and decamped to his desk and chair. Combs passport number along with a black- and-white snap-one taken in a Woolworth's box, by the cut of it-clipped onto a sheet was on top of the sheaf of papers. Combs had been looking back at the lens as if to challenge it, to make sure it reported a true picture of him. He looked older than seventy-three even then. Froggy, tired eyes on him, loose skin bundled under his chin. Sick- looking? Fleshy-looking anyway. How often did UK citizens have to renew their passport photos?
The photocopies of the visa pages from his passport showed a stamp from Malaga declaring that Combs had been a turista when he went there two years ago. Could have been over and back to Britain a million times, too; no passport needed. A poorly typed summary-a reluctant Hoey clattering on the keys on late Sunday night-listed names: Mrs Hartigan, James Molloy (barman), Joey Murphy (wit. in Fox's pub), Jackie Burke (do.), Larry O'Toole (do.), Mulvaneys (Barnacullia).
'Somebody phone the embassy of next-of-kin?'
'Master Keating did,' replied Eilis.
Minogue returned to his papers. Copies of car insurance, an Irish driver's license and, handwritten below, two account numbers for the Bank of Ireland, College Green. Minogue called the bank and asked for Bill Hogan, another Clare expatriate.
'You'll phone me then, Bill, will you? Here's my number. I'll follow up with the paperwork later on in the week. What's the story on any safety deposit boxes or use of a big bank safe, will you find out about that?'
Hogan would. Unasked, Hogan would also offer Minogue twenty quid at four to one against Offaly making it all the way to the hurling final. Minogue asked if Hogan could perhaps effect a loan on his behalf for that amount. Hogan barked a laugh and hung up. Minogue then phoned Keating at Stepaside Garda station.
'What about your three divine persons?' Minogue inquired.
Keating couldn't keep a touch of disappointment from his voice.
'You were right,' sir. They're bad articles, but they're all blather.'
Minogue heard the pages of Keating's notebook turning slowly.
'… Moved a few hot cars along and delivered the odd shotgun no questions asked. Shag was convicted three years ago for fencing stuff. He did six months… We questioned them separately but they came up clean so far. They're no strangers here. They want to know what we're holding them under.'
'And is there anything ye can lean on them with? Anything around the house?'
'No, sir. A few dirty books and a new set of mechanic's tools that the likes of the Mulvaneys can't afford. And they have an independent alibi, all three of them, up'til five o'clock in the morning. Sort of tears the arse out of things,' Keating spoke slowly.
'Well, they weren't saying the rosary all night. They were playing cards and drinking at a house in the village.'
'All of them?' Minogue interjected.
'All of them. One of them, let me see… Shag, yes, Shag. He was put out of the game because he was blackguarding with the cards. But he sat in the kitchen, drinking with another fella.'
Keating filled in more details from the interviews. Minogue was half-listening. The other half of him was thinking of the drawings in Combs' house. The whorls in the granite had been rendered in all their stark softness in his drawings: stone gnawed over by centuries of wind sun and rain. How many hands had caressed those stones? These extraordinarily ordinary images in a house that was empty of any trappings of family life, those other artefacts from which Minogue had fashioned bits of his own religion. Trappings, perhaps that was a word for it, all right. Maybe Combs never wanted to be entrapped by a family, and these drawings could only be produced by a man outside the rag-and-bone comforts of a family, those things which had brought Minogue back to life. Combs a transient? For two years? A man who couldn't conceal his feeling for such stones and signs was hardly a transient. It looked like he had found something.
Minogue gathered himself from his wool-collecting and took leave of Keating, but not before trying to buoy him up.
'Tell you what. Give it a rest. Shea can tidy up bits there, do you follow me? Get yourself a cup of something, polish up a summary of those three brothers. Get here for the four o'clock powwow here with me. Can you do that?'
'I think so, sir.'
Bill Hogan phoned as Minogue was replacing the receiver. Hogan liked doing favours which showed his acumen and authority in the bank, Minogue remembered as he listened to Hogan's flamboyant greeting.
'Mr Combs had the two accounts, all right. One was for savings and the other was a current account. One of the girls remembers him. He used to wait for her so she'd do his business for him. There. Aren't we quick off the mark in this bank, Matt?'
'I'm blinded by your efficiency, so I am,' Minogue said. 'Listen, was Combs a big depositor?'
Minogue knew that his request was beyond the pale. Hogan could well ask for the official request in writing, in between apologizing for the formalities of course.
'Let's say he was comfortable, Matt. More comfortable than you or I.'
'Any large transactions in the last while?' Minogue tried gingerly.
'No. He never left more than three figures in the savings. The current account was just to receive remittances from banks in England. Credit memos. Now, don't you want to ask me where these remittances came from?'
'Well. I suppose I do… yes, I do,' Minogue said, taken by surprise. Had he such currency with Hogan, a man who had grown up as a townie in Ennis while Minogue was mooching around in the sodden fields with clay under his nails?
'National Westminster Bank. NatWest. A branch in London. Every month, a credit memo at the beginning of the month and then another one at the end of the month.'
'A pension, Bill?'
'Arra, I dunno. If either one was a pension, then it's in England the pair of us should be living and not here. One of the memos had the name of another bank as source. Sampson Coutts. Sounds very 'nobby, doesn't it?'
'Like they supply snuff to the Queen.'
'Well. That's as much as we know here. Oh, he had nothing in the safe with us here.'
'Aren't you great, though,' Minogue declared. 'There wouldn't be more later?'
'Nothing of any import.'
Minogue had to sit through a crude joke where only Hogan laughed. Then he returned to the itemized list of Combs' effects.
There was no sign of a will. There was a box which seemed to have contained the receipts that had been scattered about the kitchen. Receipts for the electricity, receipts from a garage for a new clutch in the car, bills for water. Combs owned the house freehold. There was no safe or cubby-hole in the house. No money had been found. Combs' wallet, if he had had one, was missing. Minogue read through Hoey's report for mention of an address book, a diary, any notes for appointments. There was none. There was, however, a photocopy of a list of telephone numbers which had been taped to the wall beside the telephone. Hoey or somebody had tried the numbers, because red felt pen marks were next to all of the numbers. A doctor in Stepaside, the housekeeper's number, numbers for two bookies (ah, a racing man), the B amp;I ferry office, Aer Lingus, British Airways. One number had the name 'Ball' next to it. 'British Embassy' had been written in red on the photocopy.
Minogue leaned back in the chair. He almost toppled back onto the floor. Recovering his poise, he leaned his elbows on the desk. It was gone three o'clock. Eilis was burrowing in a filing cabinet. There was a smell of tea lurking somewhere, not yet suffocated by her Gitanes. It was a toss-up whether he should visit Bewley's in Georges Street (in which backwater you were liable to fall asleep) or go for the real Bewley's in Grafton Street or Westmoreland Street. Minogue took stock of what he needed. Meeting at four to put the nuts and bolts together. Combs didn't seem to have any solicitor in Ireland. Did the bank deal with this kind of thing, seeing as Combs had been a customer? Eilis to phone Bill Hogan back. Listen to his jokes, too?
But this was all a bit too routine, Minogue sensed, when he stood up from the offending chair. Beyond the sketches there was little enough personal in Combs' place. Did no one write him letters? No grandniece to send him a postcard about her holiday in Brighton? No shoebox of snapshots and cards? Mrs Hartigan's mention of Combs' corresponding with others… but no sign of him hoarding any letters he had received in reply. Minogue's house held mountains of knick-knacks, all sacraments sufficient to his own faith. He didn't know how a person could live
