discovery. The body, cruciform, drifting in the darkness as the moon drew and released tides around the island.
Kilmartin flicked the Venetian blinds open and Minogue rubbed his eyes in the glare. Gallagher waited until the assistant had left and his audience was all commissioned Gardai. He began with the file which the Special Branch had maintained on Paul Fine. With a sense of decisive deliberation, Gallagher said the file was inactive. The last entry had been three years previously.
“What status was Fine’s file?” asked Minogue.
“Status?” Gallagher resisted.
“Was he regarded as a high priority?”
Gallagher didn’t reply immediately. Minogue caught sight of the mild warning in Kilmartin’s glance. Fine and well to bite Gallagher if he was surly, but not in front of other policemen.
“Er, no. Fine was a student in Trinity College for two years, studying Political Science. His name came to our attention a few months after he started college when he appeared on a membership list for a certain organization, one we routinely keep track of,” Gallagher lisped, without looking up from the sheet he had drawn out of his jacket.
“Hardly the Legion of Mary, ha, lads?” said Kilmartin. The policemen grinned obligingly.
“You may know the organization,” Gallagher rode in on Kilmartin’s attempt to head off awkwardness. “Eco-Al. Let me give you a sketch on this group. Eco is just eco, the way it sounds. It can mean economy and ecology. Al is for alliance. Say it quick and it sounds like ‘equal’. All intentionally clever. We have reason to believe that Eco-Al got some funding from unusual sources on the Continent. There’s common stuff between Eco-Al and other movements: the Green Party, CND in Britain, Greenham Common women, Animal Rights movements. Take it as understood that Eco-Al has received money from an organization in Paris called Accord International. It’s by way of being a quartermaster for cash which is thought to originate in Eastern Europe and probably the Soviet Union. There is no doubt in the wide world that Eco-Al has been infiltrated by persons with other priorities, secret or
otherwise, including Trotskyite groups and ex-members of RS.”
“RS?” asked Kilmartin. “If you say that quick, it’s ”arse“, isn’t it?”
Even Gallagher laughed at that.
“Not intentional this time, but you might be on to something there. I’ll pass it along.”
More laughs.
“Revolutionary Struggle. They’re nearly all students. The ones that aren’t are hangers-on who want to get off with rich girls who have fallen in love with the proletariat. They’re not all the ideologues and screamers they look. One of ‘em turned up at a post-office robbery last year in Castlebar with an assault rifle under his armpit. He’s number two on our list since. We think he’s in Amsterdam. Anyway…”
“Any cross-over between this mob and the IRA?” asked Kilmartin.
“No,” answered Gallagher. “That Eco-Al thing fell in on itself in fact, whatever about in name. You couldn’t keep a coalition like that together in Ireland. It was a hothouse thing. All that’s left of Eco-Al is a small group of university graduates who meet over pints and write letters to the paper about acid rain and the state of the nation’s water resources.”
“Right enough, I know that crowd,” said Kilmartin. “They let their children run around with no nappies. Want to give fish and sheep the vote and outlaw flush toilets and motor-cars.”
“Let’s get back to the other business,” said Minogue, struggling against a sluggish afternoon mind. “Palestinians and their sympathizers.”
Gallagher stretched his arms and began fiddling with a pencil. Minogue deduced that Gallagher was restive at having to explain basics to crime ordinary detectives. Hoity-toity Special Branch: Supermen with their own liturgy.
“The Palestinian thing is not a cut-and-dried affair in Ireland. It’s an odd business. Palestinians find common cause with Republicans here. Then there’s a lot of people saying that Irish nationalism has so much in common with Zionism and that results in support for Israel.”
“So you’re telling us that it’s confused.”
“No. A good rule of thumb here is that Lefties here tend to stick to the Palestinian side. You and I know that IRA personnel have trained and travelled and received munitions from various places in the Middle East.”
“Wait a minute, Pat,” said Minogue. “Sooner or later we have to consider the possibility of a some quid pro quo thing, a favour done by our local gunmen in return for arms or money.”
“It could well be a Provo loaning out a gun or two,” added Gallagher. “They’re still at the rent-a-gun for bank jobs, I grant you. But,” he paused, “why not take the line of a paid-up contract murder? A professional killer or terrorist, in and out from the Continent or someplace.”
“All right so,” said Minogue, still scrabbling for some hold. “You’ve brought the meeting to that contentious point, Pat. We’re trying to profile a killer. Trying to see him clearly. I’ve given the matter some thought, the possibility of a professional killer being responsible, for whatever motive. I think we can’t be distracted by thinking about some international hit-man or hit-men: that would be discouraging. Let’s plug away with the lines we have. Stay flexible. Even if we are chasing a pro, we need to find the locals who set it up. A pro doesn’t just walk in and pick anyone. What we can try to focus on is some small cell, one fella even, who’s a cross-over between IRA or Left-wing and other groups with strong interests in the Middle Eastern business. Not just in Palestinian matters but militant Muslim groups.”
Gallagher nodded and continued stroking his moustache as if trying to drain something out of it, looking toward the ceiling as he listened.
“But like I said,” Gallagher murmured finally,“if it’s a pro or semi-pro floated in for this, paid for the job and gone already…”
“Shite,” said Kilmartin. “The hell kind of a chance do we have if the killer got a gun and a passport and a fistful of money out of a diplomatic bag and he’s back in Paris or Beirut or whatever?”
Gallagher shrugged. “Then we have our work cut out for us,” he said. He continued mulling over the question and then shook his head slowly.
“We can usually pick names out of our heads for certain jobs. If you said: ‘We’re looking for someone who knocks off post-offices using assault rifles and works with two others and steals four cars for one job, ’ I could reel off three or four names. But right now we can’t point to anyone in or out of the groups we monitor who is fired up enough and savage enough to do this murder. Three shots in the head suggests expertise to me, that’s all I can say. Our militants are a fairly tight family bunch, to tell you the truth. The home-grown real hit-men don’t care a damn for anything outside the IRA-Brit side of things. They wouldn’t do freelance stuff like killing Fine for an Arab cause. Very, very unlikely.”
“Humph,” grunted Kilmartin, shifting himself in his seat. “Don’t forget the call to the newspaper was an Irish accent. Let’s say some foreigner, some fella from the Middle East, did it but had an Irish mate to do the phoning. They’re cut-throats out there in the Middle East, you only have to watch the news to know that.”
“You may have something there,” Gallagher allowed cautiously. “It’d also make it look like there was an organization here, some support for their cause.”
No one spoke for several moments.
Gallagher’s quizzical glance toward Minogue brought him out of his thoughts and he suppressed a yawn. “Yes, Pat. Sorry. Yes. Will you carry on with the student thing now, if you please? Middle Eastern students and groups and what-have-you here in Ireland?”
Chair legs scraped and policemen rearranged themselves while Gallagher prepared his notes again. Minogue lapsed into his chair, retreating within.
He had been lucky, if luck was the word. After the nightmare of carrying the body through the bushes and briars in the early hours of Monday morning, the panic and fear and sweat like a fever gripping him, he had hefted and dragged, rested with then wrestled with the corpse for an hour, getting him down off the damn hill. His body remembered the dank night air off the sea enveloping him like a clammy cloak.
He had seen dead bodies before, plenty of them. Those villagers shredded in the Bekaa Valley, the dust of their pulverized homes still settling on their faces where the flies fed. Never so close, though: close enough to see the head jerk, hair part suddenly as the shot spread shock through the skull, the body drop like a stone, as though thrown to the ground. Had to make certain then, and not think: shoot and hold and shoot again, quickly before you scream yourself. Must watch, too, as the head hopped and the legs twitched.
