Numeraries. They’re about one-tenth of the whole outfit.”
“How big is this Opus Dei thing?” Kilmartin asked.
“They don’t give out lists of names or tell you the membership in any country. Estimates average about 70, 000 world-wide.”
“They’re not Masons or what have you, running around with funny clothes and doing unnatural things, are they?” Kilmartin pressed.
“I don’t know about that, sir. I believe that the church forbids Catholics to become Masons… Anyway, the top group are Numeraries. They stay celibate and they have to be highly educated and trained in things like philosophy and theology as well. They usually live in centres, one big house, like. There are at least three centres in Dublin but I’m having a divil of a time getting any facts on this. The next rank is Associate. They can be priests as well. They’re supposed to be celibates but they needn’t be university grads or professional types. Then there are Supernumeraries. They can marry and so on. The last rank are Co-operators and they’re basically sympathizers. I’ve been talking about the men’s branch of Opus Dei. The women’s branch has either Numerary Assistants-they’re basically skivvies who keep house for the higher-ups-or Numeraries like the men’s.”
“You mean ‘don’t like the men’ by the sound of things,” said Kilmartin.
“Oh, I get it,” said Hoey. “That’s a good one. You’re probably right there. The women Numeraries are celibates too. Matter of fact the women are encouraged to sleep on a plank until they’re forty years of age.”
“On a plank?” asked Kilmartin. “Are you in earnest? What the hell for?”
“On a plank. Wait’ll you hear this: the men and the women often wear bands with pins stuck on them, stuck into their thighs. So as to mortify themselves. That’s not the end of it either.”
“Go away out of that, you’re codding me,” said Kilmartin.
“They flog themselves too,” Hoey declared.
“They do not!” said Kilmartin.
Hoey repeated the notes slowly. Kilmartin looked to Minogue. Minogue shrugged. “We’re the Island of Saints and Scholars, Jimmy-penance and mortification. The monks did that class of caper too, you know. If that was our Golden Age, I’ll take me chances down by the docks after dark.”
“Ah, come on now.” Kilmartin the custodian of Irish virtues past rallied. “They can’t all be cracked like that.”
“Right, sir. Those details sort of jumped out at me though, I must say,” said Hoey. “I should tell you the more important stuff-”
“Sleeping on a plank until you’re forty sounds pretty important to me,” Minogue muttered darkly.
“Like I was saying, I couldn’t find out how many Opus Dei there are in Ireland. They’re conservative and they consider themselves the knights of the Church. As for people saying they’re a secret society, they say they’re not. The members take vows in front of a superior but Opus Dei says these vows are not necessarily holy vows. The Pope changed the status of Opus Dei a few years ago and they’re now a personal prelature. I’m not sure what the ins and outs of that are but I think it means they are allowed to work more on their own and not have to be telling their local bishop what they’re at as much as they used to. They have residences here in Dublin, a few of them near to the university. They have a constitution.”
“A constitution?” repeated Minogue. “Sounds like a country. Organized, anyway.”
“They have titles like ‘President’ and divisions like ‘Region’, so it doesn’t sound very religious, does it?” agreed Hoey. “They don’t allow their constitution to be translated out of Latin except with the permission of their brass,” he added. “Their current President, they called him ‘Father’, is another Spaniard. His name is del Portillo. And the constitution is not to be made public at all. That’s why people say that Opus Dei is shady.”
“No more than shady, though,” said Kilmartin.
“Right. Some people say that Opus Dei interferes in politics and what have you. There was a stink a few years ago in Spain because that oul? dictator fella, Franco, liked Opus Dei and some of his Ministers were Opus Dei members. And I seem to remember reading the name Opus Dei in the paper several years ago to do with Chile and Paraguay.”
“Well at least we don’t fit into that class of act, do we, men?” said Kilmartin. “It’s my opinion that climate has a lot to do with the fanatical temperaments of the races and peoples who make their homes in southern climes. The Equator and all that. Latin peoples are very unstable; very tricky with the knife and the gun and full of talk about honour. Sure the men are like bloody cockerels strutting around the place.”
“If they only had our brains and our way of life, they’d be sensible enough to lay aside the gun and the knife.” Minogue couldn’t resist goading his colleague. “Then they could take up the rocket-launchers, I suppose. Do the thing right.”
“I could rely on you to come up with something like that,” said Kilmartin in the tone of betrayed loyalty. “I know you’re only poking fun at me. I was just voicing an opinion. Look at the papers any day of the week and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”
Look at the papers, Minogue echoed hollowly within. He resisted throwing his eyes to heaven.
“Anyway,” Kilmartin continued. “This is very interesting. How did you get your hands on this so fast?”
Hoey looked embarrassed. “Well actually, Darling-Doyle, I mean, went to the National Library first thing this morning to get the dockets from that fella. He had a look at one of the books and he stuck it in his pocket. He’ll take it back, of course. I had a dekko through it this morning for an hour.”
“Darling Doyle?” asked Kilmartin.
“Doyle used to be on the whore squad, sir, up outside the Burlington. The girls got to know him rather well.”
“The same Doyle is hardly tripping over his mickey in a hurry to join this Opus Dei, I’d say, after some of his work assignments,” Kilmartin chuckled. “Maybe we should ask him what he know about planks in that line of business. Now, no more of this blasphemy: what about our Mr. Kelly? Where does he fit in this order of things?”
“So far it’s not clear, sir. He didn’t live in an Opus Dei house so it’s doubtful he was one of their Numeraries. He was university educated. An economist.”
“Bejases, he must have seen the state of the nation’s finances and realized that prayer was our only hope,” said Kilmartin weakly.
“Never married. There was some class of oratory in the house but hardly a stick of furniture. House was his own, bought two years ago and half-way paid already. Kelly had steady advancement in the Civil Service since he joined up eight years ago. He used to go to Brussels quite a lot on EC business. He was an expert in banking.”
“But we haven’t actually fitted Kelly in with Opus Dei, have we?” Minogue said.
“Bit of a lemoner there, you’re right. Doyle is still on the phone trying to get a name so we can try to plug Kelly in somewhere along the line and see if he has any connections or associates in this group. I’ll go out and see if he’s having any luck.”
Hoey left his notes on Kilmartin’s desk and he walked back out to the squadroom.
“Has a head on his shoulders, Hoey,” said Kilmartin. “ That Doyle is handy too, isn’t he?”
Minogue nodded. He looked at his watch. “What’s Keating doing that he hasn’t phoned in? This young lad out in Killiney…”
“Time enough, Matt. He’d phone if there was something we had to jump on right off the bat. You should know how tricky it is getting stuff from kids. Keating might end up having to reconstruct this interview in evidence, so he’s probably taking his time and getting it right. Sooner done right than done hasty, man.”
Minogue held off a snappy rejoinder.
“You know how the current is taking us, don’t you, Matt?”
“Matter of fact, I don’t really. I still can’t see Paul Fine’s killer in my mind. He or she or it or they… no profile really. And I don’t even want to think about motives, for fear if I look at one I’ll see it can’t hold water.”
“Jases, man,” said Kilmartin. “It’s being so cheerful is what keeps us going. Come on now, we’re on the road here with this at last, I can feel it in me water. Aren’t we, damn it?”
“All roads lead to Rome,” Minogue murmured.
“Don’t be acting the maggot. We seem to have a bridge from Kelly back to the Fine boy. Leave aside the fire-bomb thing now for a minute. Maybe we had better start thinking out loud so as we know we’re on the same track.”
“Fair enough,” said Minogue, stretching. “We’d like to believe that there’s a connection between a reporter
