comfortably without such a glut of signs. He looked at the copy of the passport pages again. Went on holidays to Spain on his own…
Minogue was almost by Eilis when her phone rang. She beckoned to him before he could reach the door. The call was from the British Embassy. Minogue listened to an English accent announcing that she was Miss Simpson, that Mr Combs was unmarried and that Mr Combs did not have any family extant. Extant?
'Mr Combs' sister, Janet Combs, died in Bristol in 1979. We know of no relatives.'
Just like that, Minogue thought. The way Miss Simpson had said it added a weight to the feeling he had held aside so far. Silly maybe: he had almost said 'poor devil.'
'Oh, I see. Now can you tell me where Mr Combs used to live in England? In Great Britain, I mean. Did he have a house there himself, like.'
'Mr Combs last lived in London.'
She gave Minogue an address which meant nothing to him. Some place called Wood Green. It sounded nice, but wasn't London very crowded? He scribbled while she spoke. A delphic Eilis sat behind a slim thread of smoke watching him. He tried not to be distracted by the way Miss Simpson was ending her words so precisely.
Mr Combs had retired from his job as a Customs Inspector at the Port of London. He had sold his house over two years ago and moved to Ireland. He had established contact with the embassy in Ireland as a matter of course. The address she gave him was the same house in Kilternan.
'I see, Miss Simpson.' Minogue said.
'Would there be an Irish background here at all, his parents perhaps?'
Miss Simpson didn't know and she said so.
'Is there no one we can tell he's dead? Relatives, I mean, of course.'
'I expect that his will may tell you something.'
'Yes, indeed,' said Minogue, adrift again. 'But we have none. Will, that is. Solicitors I suppose. If there are any.'
'Your Department of Foreign Affairs usually looks after the return of remains,' she said lightly.
Minogue realised that she was trying to be helpful.
'Yes, Miss Simpson. Thanks very much now. And 1 hope we find someone for Mr Combs. His relatives I mean, as well as the perpetrator. However distant the relatives. Oh, before I forget, is there a Mr Ball working at the embassy?'
'There is. He's a Second Secretary… Did you want to…?'
'Not at the moment, no thanks. It's just that we found a telephone number in Mr Combs' house for your Mr Ball.'
'One of Mr Ball's duties is to see to inquiries and communications with citizens of the UK resident in Ireland. As I mentioned, Mr Combs registered with us here.'
'That's a lot of work, though, isn't it?' asked Minogue. 'All those Britons who come here to live, even for a while, like.'
'Not everybody would do so, Sergeant. Some like to do it, but Ireland, the Republic, is not a foreign destination for Britons really, is it?'
A sense of humour maybe?
'True for you. I hope to have better news for you if I'm in touch again, Miss Simpson.'
Miss Simpson said that would be nice and rang off with a 'cheerio,' something Minogue had heard only in films. Eilis was lighting a cigarette from the butt of her last one when Minogue put down the phone.
'Poor Combs has no one to come and get him, it seems.'
Eilis drew on her cosmopolitan, continental cigarette.
'London. That's a very big place now, The Big Smoke. You'll be wanting to speak with someone in the Met there, will you?'
'I suppose I'd better. Will you find me a name and a number, please? Is there a fella we've dealt with before maybe?'
'There are several, so there are,' Eilis replied drily. 'The Inspector had need to be communicating with the authorities beyond in The Big Smoke and he keeps in touch with several. 'It's good to have them when you need them,' says the Inspector. Especially when there's wigs on the green over a political thing, I suppose. Extradition and the like. The inspector does be very nervous when that word is mentioned.'
'That's a word that'll bring the walls of Jericho down, all right,' Minogue agreed.
'I'd suggest that the Inspector could pop a name at you that'd ease your way if you'd like me to phone the hospital for you.' Eilis concluded her poor rendition of an imaginary Mata Hari.
'Or I could just pull a name off the card index…' spacebarthing
Kenyon's croissant had given him indigestion. He wanted to summon up a belch so that he might dislodge what felt like a piece of the croissant jammed in his sternum. He would have done so in his own office. Here, however, he could not be sure of concealing the belch under his palm should it erupt now.
Hugh Robertson, the Director of the Protective Security Branch, was reading Kenyon's summary. Although Robertson was Kenyon's immediate boss, Kenyon's liking for him supervened over rank and duties. Robertson had been a Colonel when Kenyon first met him. It was in Malaya, two years after Kenyon had joined the Service. As the Empire had contracted, so had the overseas doings of MI5 become more limited. Robertson was one of the leading brains behind the successful counter-insurgency campaign against the communists in Malaya. He had shunned jockeying a desk in favour of field operations.
Robertson had astonished Kenyon and many others with his bluntness. At a boozy farewell dinner in 1955 for a large contingent of MI5's field force-to hold the party itself was tantamount to mutiny-which was preparing to leave Malaya, Robertson had spoken his mind. He voiced his opinion about the shrinking Empire by saying good riddance to the damn colonies. He had looked around the room and said that now Britain would have to find something else for its second-rate sons and daughters to lord it over. It was only when the audience guffawed that Kenyon had realised Robertson had been speaking to the converted.
'Now, James. Who killed Cock Robin here?'
'I don't know.'
'Did the IRA kill him?'
'Very, very doubtful,' Kenyon replied. 'They'd be sure to tell, loud and clear. That's their propaganda bread- and-butter.'
'Burglary?' murmured Robertson.
'The police press release says they're pursuing it as robbery with violence.'
Robertson gave Kenyon a stage frown.
'Did we kill him?'
'No.'
'That's a relief, I suppose. But what do you want from me?'
'I need your approval. Then I'd be asking for staff to go surveillance on Combs' contacts. We have to get someone into Dublin, too, and pick up the bits. I want the Second Sec at our Dublin embassy for a few sessions. The chap who ran Combs. Name of Ball. That'd be a start.'
'Contacts?' Robertson asked.
'These people on the list. The asterisk means that the party is dead. There are eight left. Combs may have sent something to any one of them. We have to find out, that's what I'm saying.'
''Something,' James?'
'I'm taking Combs' threats seriously. He may have prepared some record of his grievances.'
'Several years back, wasn't it? I thought that the new man Murray had put in knew his onions, claimed to have this Combs toeing the line. You're discounting the reports sourced through Murray and company.'
'I am,' Kenyon answered, with enough emphasis to cause Robertson to look up at him.
'Bit of a twerp, is he, James?'
'More than that. He's covering his arse. I don't like the way he's treating Combs' murder. He couldn't or wouldn't say what deals were struck to bring Combs to Ireland in the first place. It's a crucial matter if I'm to make sense of things.'
'He doesn't have to, James,' Robertson rounded on him politely. 'You asked a lot of him, seems to me. We don't give out our more clandestine endeavours, you know.'
