“Nervous, is it? He’s there in New York without a visa, working on the sly for some computer company and he’s nervous? What about his poor parents?”
“Cathy… same name as Kathleen basically. A very nice name that. He has the same good taste as his father. I was nervous when I met you,” Minogue tried to divert her.
“Pull the other one, it has bells.”
“We said we’d give him the fare, so that was that. The boy is enjoying himself a bit. He knows he can’t stay there forever.”
“That’s what I’m getting at,” Kathleen said. “Don’t you see? He may have it in the back of his head to marry this Cathy girl and stay there.”
Minogue returned to his egg. It looked up from the plate at him, begging not to be slashed. For a moment he remembered nearly emigrating to the States thirty years ago. Did genes act like that, wait and ambush the next generation?
“So will you drop him a line and make him see sense.”
Not the time to be asking her what ‘sense’ she meant, Minogue knew.
“I will.”
Iesult slouched into the kitchen in a dressing-gown.
“You’re only missing the curlers and a cigarette in your mitt,” welcomed Minogue.
Iesult stopped and sneered theatrically.
“When’s the wedding? I hope it’s one of those vulgar parties with everyone decked out in iijity clothes,” she fluted.
CHAPTER SIX
Kilmartin was lying in wait for him. Hoey rose from the desk and brought what looked like statement sheets with him, as the three policemen sat at Kilmartin’s table.
“Any one of these fellas jump out and say ‘me’ to you?” asked Mingoue.
Hoey shook his head. “One we didn’t find was a Syrian fella. The other Syrian knew him, though, said he was in England visiting his sister since last week,” said Hoey. He placed the statement sheets- photocopies, Minogue saw now-on the table and began sorting them.
“Let’s start with this one, Khatib. He’s Iranian.”
Minogue’s eyes ran beyond the Judge’s Rule, the caution given to the person making the statement. Hoey read his copy again.
“It’s clean, the whole thing. We got to see this Egan that he mentions and Egan confirmed that Khatib and another student were up on some mountain in Kerry over the weekend with him. Clean living. Why can’t they go drinking like everybody else, I ask myself. Khatib never heard of Fine. Didn’t know of any murder.”
“Now, this one here, Ali. He has a Jordanian passport but Gallagher says he is or was Palestinian. We had to put him on a Section 30 to shut him up. He’s a hot lad entirely.”
Hoey did not read this one. Minogue looked up from the half-page statement once to see Hoey’s lack of interest.
“Ali more or less dared the detective-who is it? O’Reilly from Store Street-to charge him. ‘What possible offences could I have committed against the Irish State?’ sort of thing. Knows his law,” said Hoey.
“Resist at all?” asked Kilmartin.
“No sir. If he had shut up he would have been home in bed by eleven o’clock instead of walking home at half- two in the morning. He’s a member of the Irish-Arab society, quite legit. More of an intellectual than anything else. He has a tongue like a rasp on him. He knew a lot about Irish politics, if that’s any consolation. Never heard of or knew anyone called Fine. He spent Sunday afternoon studying in his flat and he gave two names to corroborate.”
Hoey turned to the next statement. Minogue knew that they had nothing to help the investigation along, with these three students. They read through the remainder slowly. Keating sat at the table quietly without announcing himself.
“Did you put in a ‘want’ to police where this Ebrahim fella is supposed to be visiting, in Nottingham?” Minogue asked.
“Yes sir. There was a reply on the telex this morning. He is there, and his sister is married and living there too.”
Gallagher’s lists, Minogue thought: have to go back to them and widen the net.
“Only one admitted to knowing about the murder. None said anything to suggest that they knew Fine at all or knew that he was a Jew,” Hoey went on. “None professed to know of any organization called the League for Solidarity with the Palestinian People. One of them, the Mahoud fella three statements back, said he’d like to hear more about them. Smart-arse. Later on, as you’ll see if you read the end of his statement again, he says that if anyone’d know of such a group, he would.”
“Bit of a braggart, is he?”
Hoey shrugged and looked around the table as if to invite optimism.
Kilmartin coughed. “If we’re going to follow along with this line,” he began slowly, “I see two possibilities.”
He paused to light his cigarette.
“The outfit we want is a splinter, maybe a whole new group. It’s baptism of fire, if you like.”
“Like a declaration to take them seriously?” said Keating.
“Yes. I can’t see IRA involvement here at all, beyond maybe renting out some guns to this group. These people are likely young and have some contact with groups who have guns. A new crowd arriving here doesn’t have that contact, but a splinter group would. As for the IRA, they wouldn’t have anything to do with killing a Jew. Pardon me putting it like that. If they wanted to take a swipe at the judiciary here, they wouldn’t have picked Fine’s son. And if they did, they would admit doing it, am I right?”
Minogue nodded.
“So you have educated or semi-educated people with heads full of theories about how the Irish are in the same boat as the Palestinians maybe,” Kilmartin went on. “Fringe people, maybe did a bit of university, enough to get themselves confused.”
“Where ignorance is bliss…” murmured Hoey.
“Now you have it. Learned just enough to stay stupid. Definitely not for the man in the street. He doesn’t give much of a shite what’s going on in the Middle East-until some of the UN troops start getting shot. The IRA will take the guns and talk about the Palestinian cause but bejases…” Kilmartin concluded with a scornful pull at the cigarette.
“Gallagher says that the IRA wouldn’t touch Muslim fanatics with a ten-foot pole, sir,” said Keating. “On account of how the Ayatollah and his mob hate anything to do with socialism.”
“Oh, does he now?” said Kilmartin.
“But there might be another kink in this, sir-if you’ll pardon me saying so,” rejoined Keating. “Remember that Fine used to be enough of a Leftie for the Branch to have a file on him. Could we be talking about some class of a falling-out here?”
“We need to know where he was killed,” Minogue interrupted. “I think we’re jumping the gun here. What was the other possibility you thought of?” he asked Kilmartin.
“Just that it might be a group we know who did the murder-except that they don’t want to get a bad name on the head of it.”
The policemen fell silent.
“The timing of the call to the paper,” said Minogue. “That’s something I’m having trouble with.”
“We up and left for Killiney after the call came through from Dalkey Station,” Hoey joined in. “While ye were on the train out, that’s when the call came into the Press.”
“Ten twenty-nine,” said the exacting Keating.
“And that was only twenty minutes or so after the body was first sighted and reported to Dalkey Station.
