'Look it, Shea. We can't be locking people up overnight, especially a traveller. It's a fright to God to travelling people to be confined. I don't want us to be giving testimony at an inquest as to why some poor divil woke up in the middle of the night and hung himself. To quote Jimmy Kilmartin, we're not a banana republic. Yet, anyway.'
'I know what you're saying,' Hoey answered slowly. '‹ 'Here. I'll call Stepaside and I'll tell them myself.'
'Ah no. It's all right, I'll phone them back myself,' Hoey said.
Minogue delayed by the telephone, distracted by the sweet burn of the anisette at the back of his throat. A traveller, tinker. Combs and drinking. A homosexual? Couldn't ignore it. But so squalid an end? Daithi opened the kitchen door.
'I'll be in early,' he said.
Daithi seemed relieved. Perhaps it was because he didn't have to face Kathleen who would have pressed questions on him.
'Oh,' Minogue shook himself out of his thoughts. Daithi turned quickly as though expecting a rebuke.
'Did I leave a tenner for you under the toothbrushes? Go up and take a look, would you? Maybe I left it under the clock in the kitchen, though. That's old age for you, the first signs. Try upstairs like a good man, would you?'
Daithi's face lifted. He sprang at the first few steps. Too proud to ask for a few bob. As stubborn as an ass. Must have got that from his mother's side. Minogue found a ten-pound note in his pocket and left it under the clock. He stepped down into the garden then, finding that the planet's tilt had raised the sunlight to the tree-tops. The edges of the sky were already primrose. A breeze stirred the poplars next door. Their leaves' soft clacking sounded like the sea. He heard Iseult laugh. He'd have to tell Kathleen about the extra pocket money, he knew, and why he had given it to Daithi if he thought there was a chance he'd be buying pints with it. We're only human, he'd tell her. Would she believe him?
He went outside again. He listened for a while to Pat explaining conditioning in the higher animals. Primates. Weren't cardinals called primates? Even Iseult kept a respectful silence. Then he walked arm-in-arm with Kathleen through the darkening garden. She stopped by the kitchen door. He yanked on her arm.
'If they wanted to smooch and carry on, they can do it anytime,' he said. 'It's not like we never did it.'
'You were all right in that department,' Kathleen murmured, not willing yet to release the smile. Minogue, a pagan, kissed his Christian wife.
'And I didn't have to get you all excited talking about monkeys and electrodes, did I?' he said, grasping her tighter.
CHAPTER 7
By eight o'clock, Kenyon had settled on an officer from the Sci and Support Services branch. The man's name was Moore, an Irish name. He phoned Moore's acting section head, cited his authorisation and asked him to hunt down his quarry. The night-duty man was back in ten minutes. Moore had been in his flat. He'd be in Century House within a half hour.
Bowers had given him seven names. Moore was the only one who had articled at law. At first Kenyon could not understand why a barrister would drop a practice and join MI5 unless he had been groomed as an undergraduate.
He noted that Edward Martin Moore had been recruited by the Service six years ago and had climbed four grades since entering. Although he was given field training during his probation period, Moore had been posted to Sci and Support section. He had used his legal training only occasionally since joining. Moore came from landed money, a farm in the home counties. Evidently he didn't need a barrister's income. He may not have wanted to do law in the first place. His forte at the moment was protective security measures in British university laboratories where Defence work had been farmed out.
Moore was unmarried. Both his parents were alive. Moore had toured Australia and the Far East before joining the Service. No Army or Territorial service. Probably not a boy scout either, Kenyon mused. An able administrator, lots of liaison with intelligence services in Europe, some with the Yanks. No tricky stuff with arms or poisoned pens. Moore spoke French and 'had a conversational facility' in German.
An administrator? So what? All Kenyon wanted was an astute, observant man to get close to the investigation in Ireland while he settled Combs' affairs. Then, if and when the police found a written record of Combs' rambling, Moore could be on the spot. With good timing, he could well get his hands on it before the police did. If the police found anything first, Moore could push hard with a legal approach and lay claim to papers as effects of the estate. If the Irish police balked at that, what then?
Kenyon's stomach, rising slightly in reaction to the question, signalled something which didn't need to be otherwise articulated. Throw more legal pepper around, bafflegab? Make a diplomatic kerfuffle about getting the papers back intact, unread? Fat chance… There'd be leaks from any Irish copper who'd read that stuff. But at least there'd be nothing in their possession to substantiate rumours. QED?
Kenyon shifted in his seat at the thought of going blind into that dark room which constituted 'Anglo-Irish co-operation.' It was a phrase as unlikely as anything he had come across. The blunt facts had to admitted: Combs' solecisms could easily become a stick to beat the Brits with, if indeed the Irish read them and took them as fact. All it would take was a nationalist-minded copper there to turn them over to a journalist. The timing couldn't be much worse with negotiations in the balance. Had Combs known that…?
It dawned on Kenyon that this possible outcome was why he had had such ready access to C. It was a good bet that C had realised how much could hinge on this if his, Kenyon's, evaluation was true. No wonder Robertson had worn that stoical face at the meeting, probably hiding an anxiety which he didn't want to rub off on Kenyon.
Bowers distracted him from his gloom.
'Found reference to your chap in Dublin, sir. That copper. Minogue, as in rogue, I believe. I found him in an Army Intelligence Report from four years back. There's more to him than that, actually. Seems he was on the spot when our Ambassador was killed. Minogue was part of the police guard in a convoy, following the Ambassador back to his residence. Do you remember?'
Kenyon did.
'Minogue was almost killed in the bombing. The Irish police took him back after a spell in hospital, and he showed up again when he was seconded to their Murder Squad. I don't know why. Minogue almost got himself peppered rather severely by our army unit at the border. Apparently he tried to intervene in a tip-off situation, a set-up with a car suspected of carrying IRA weapons. The Irish police gave us a hands-off, and they trailed the car from their side until it got to the border. A young woman, a student, was killed in the car when the driver tried to run the Army check-point.'
Bowers stood by Kenyon's desk, one hand pocketed, the other holding a notepad which he referred to occasionally. His brow wrinkled as though he were reporting something regrettable. Kenyon sighed as he launched himself up from his chair. All he could conclude was that the policeman investigating Combs' death was not an off- the-shelf copper. He looked out the window. It was one of the rarest of summer evenings. The sky had been cloudless all day and now only the tops of the taller buildings remained in the sunlight. Bowers was still standing by the desk when Kenyon turned from the window.
'Come with me when we go to see Moore. Keep notes and type them up before you leave this evening. I'll be briefing him later in the meeting, but you needn't stay for that part. He'll be coming here tomorrow morning after we run up a background for him. A good, staunch firm of barristers and solicitors will be dispatching our Moore to Dublin within twenty-four hours… to recover our dirty linen.' spacebarthing
A half hour into the meeting, Kenyon, Bowers and Moore were served weak tea and ham and cheese sandwiches. Kenyon had found himself looking into Moore's eyes whenever Moore was talking. He was trying to figure the man out. Save for under his eyes, Moore had a pallid complexion. There were dark saucers there, signs, Kenyon guessed, of a heavy reader whose habits taxed his capillaries. Moore looked anywhere between thirty-five and forty-five. Kenyon remembered seeing him somewhere before, probably in a pub crowd around Christmas or a retirement do. He read Moore for an academic despite the worldly and even raffish hints which Moore's file had suggested to him. Moore didn't smile much. He carried signs of the self-contained, which many would interpret as
