Minogue tried to remember his own odd grief at his father's funeral, the macabre sorting out and handling that was part of the ceremonials. Patrick Minogue, age fifty-seven. Minogue's mother holding out jumpers and socks and shirts and shoes and jackets belonging to her husband. Would they fit you, Matt? Or maybe you could get them taken in or altered? Great wear still left in these boots, hardly used at all, two pound ten in Limerick at the sales last year. Would they be your size? Jumpers that she had knitted for all the family, elbows patched, the tobacco- sweat-home smell of his father bonded to each fibre. The man who had chastised and loved him, worked alongside him in the fields, the man he had listened to in the pub, watched at the table, heard snore at night, fought against and cursed, implacable and infrequently gentle, but most often with a horse or a dog… Minogue had been invited to slip into these clothes and make them his own.
'Mr Moore? Sergeant Minogue, Mr Moore. Concerning Mr Combs?'
'Yes, yes. Hello, Sergeant. Thank you for calling back so promptly. I must say I didn't expect your call this soon.'
Eilis, Minogue fancied. Left him hanging because of his English accent?
'Nothing to it. You're here to fix Mr Combs' estate, now?'
'I'm here from Mr Combs' bank, actually. I'm supposed to settle his affairs. For the moment anyway, until we can do a thorough search for relatives and locate a will.'
'Where there's a will, there's a relative,' Minogue observed.
'Quite so, Sergeant. I must remember that one. That's a good one.'
They must be hard up for jokes across the water, Minogue surmised.
'No family, I hear, Mr Moore. Not like here. A man can't throw a stone over a wall without hitting a relative of his.'
'Indeed, Sergeant. No family here at any rate. Odd but by no means unusual, I'm afraid. Some people actually resist making wills. As though a will might hasten death, I suppose,' Moore said.
'Like a body with a pain in his chest wouldn't go to the doctor, for fear he'd find out there was something amiss?'
'How true, Sergeant, how true. You have that phenomenon here in Ireland, too, do you?'
No, Mr Moore, we eat raw meat. And pray to statues by the roadside. After we've mangled a few of our fellow countrymen with Armalite rifles and gossip.
'In any event, not a happy occasion really,' said Moore.
Which is exactly when the law profession steps in and makes pots of money, hand over fist, Minogue reflected. He listened while Moore described what he planned to do. It wasn't that anyone feared that Mr Combs' effects would be interfered with, Moore stressed, but his firm prided itself on handling such matters promptly… to ensure the integrity of the deceased's worldly estate.
Moore had a nice armchair BBC accent, Minogue thought. So far he hadn't laughed. A bit too tactful, though. Maybe he had been reading a How to Deal with People in Ireland, UK version, on his way over from London. Nice of him to be polite, especially on the telephone: absolutely no hindrance to the investigation… could be of any assistance to the investigation, more than glad to… a few days at most, an inventory, see to any possible claims on the estate from Irish sources… arrange for the remains to be returned… take advice, of course, from authorities here. Moore said that it was likely that Combs had a life insurance policy, but he didn't know where it might be.
'Of course,' Minogue replied. 'By the way, you speak the Irish vejry well.'
'I beg your pardon?' from a tentative Moore.
'Gardai. You knew the word for the police here.'
Moore gave a rather breathless laugh. Out of practice, Minogue wondered.
'We prepare ourselves. It wouldn't do for the legal profession to be putting their feet in their mouths.'
The man was a comedian entirely.
'No more than it would the Gardai, Mr Moore. Look. I must tell you that I don't know the procedures on this class of thing. I don't doubt but there are affidavits and applications and letters of authority and God knows what else to be dealt with. I think that if it were Jesus himself being taken down from the cross, there'd be a line-up of civil servants with reams of forms waiting.'
'Don't trouble yourself, Sergeant,' Moore interjected. 'This is merely a courtesy call to let you know I'm here. I have to settle my presence with some of your civil service departments, I believe. Your Foreign Affairs for a start. A Land Registry for ownership of the house and lands, I think… Doubtless some officials who deal with death duties and taxes.'
'Department of Finance, Mr Moore. Death Duty Section.'
'But mainly to seal the house and see what the estate consists of. Frankly, I'd be relieved if I can find a will. Of course, for selfish motives, I mean; I would then be directed by a sound legal instrument. But just to do right by Mr Combs, there's that, too. Perhaps to benefit those he would have liked to benefit. A charity, some relative. To bring something out of this tragedy. Might I call on you or your staff, so that I can get into Mr Combs' house?'
'You can, of course. Can you find your way to our offices here in St John's Road? The middle of the day, say?'
Minogue allowed himself several seconds' pause after putting down the receiver. He heard men's voices, not their words, resonating in the building. Laughter then, a jibe: still no words. Was it still raining? He walked to the barred window. A margin of sodden fields rose sharply up from the village. He located a puddle and saw that it was not disturbed. Maybe step outside for a breath of air and not be drowned now. Minogue retraced his steps through the hallway. He stepped out the back door of the station into a yard which served as a carpark. The air was clear as though it had been scrubbed. What day was it today, Tuesday? Three days gone by. Minogue leaned his hip against a squad-car and drew in the mountain air.
It did not worry him that he might have been remiss about placing an appeal in the papers and on the telly before today. It was politic to wait and pull all the loose threads which he found locally. Minogue looked to his anniversary-present, fancy quartz watch and saw half three looking implacably back at him. Quartz watches didn't fib, that was the trouble. Keating could hold the fort here and finish off with Joyce. Could Joyce kill a man? Rejecting sexual advances from Combs?
Minogue met Tobin in the hallway. The Garda was balancing three plates of chips and dangling a bottle of ketchup as well. Minogue followed him upstairs. Tobin put the plates on the table and then stood inside the door, his hands in his pockets. Minogue saw that Keating didn't know how to get rid of the sulking Tobin.
'If I might lean on your generosity again, Garda Tobin. A pot of tea would be just the thing. If I could trouble you,' Minogue added.
Tobin did not tell him that it was no trouble at all. He glared at Keating, who had wisely turned his attention to a plate of chips. Minogue sat on the edge of the table and picked a chip.
'Ye had better dig in, the pair of yous. Being polite will leave you hungry when I'm around a plate of chips.'
While Joyce began working on one plate, Keating drew Minogue back into the hall. The two policemen stood plucking chips at the head of the stairs.
'While you were gone, sir. Joyce maintains he visited Combs several times,' said Keating. 'He called around once in a while in the evenings when he knew the housekeeper wouldn't give him the bum's rush at the door.'
'Combs would pour him a drink, and how could he refuse, says our tink-our traveller. They'd chat, if you can believe it.'
'About what?'
'About everything and anything, he says. Combs seems to have been interested in finding out about Joyce's family and background.'
'Any indication of the sexual thing?' Minogue asked.
Keating deftly caught a chip, which he had upset on the edge of the plate.
'I haven't put it directly to him, sir. I'm waiting for a hint. Then I'll press.'
''Talk,' 'chat'? Yarns, like?'
'Maybe Joyce romanced about the gypsy-rover life. That'd have been good for a few evenings by the fire, I'm sure,' Keating added with irony. He plucked another chip from the plate.
'Is he lying to us, Pat? Obstructing at all?'
'I don't get that sense. Yet, anyway. When I asked him about anything he might have learned about Combs'
