and a Civil Servant. A reporter’s job is to get information and to present it to his public. To his boss first, to see if it makes sense.”
“But Fitzgerald didn’t know anything about any interest Fine had in Opus Dei.”
“Let’s be bold and say that Brian Kelly got in touch with Paul Fine. Recently, very recently. Thursday, Friday even.”
“It couldn’t be the other way around, all right,” Kilmartin said. “What has Fine got to offer Kelly?”
“Right. Before we start to wonder what it is that Kelly wanted to say to Fine, let’s ask why Kelly would want to get in touch with Fine specifically. Assuming he has something to impart.”
“Why Fine? Well, everyone knows everyone in Dublin, Matt. He might have heard Fine’s name in conversation or met him socially over a gargle. He might have heard Fine’s name on the programme. We can find that out sooner or later, I’m sure.”
“But why not get in touch with Mickey Fitz if the same Brian Kelly wanted to air a complaint? Fitzgerald is a tough piece of work. People’d listen to him.”
“You have me there, all right.” Kilmartin rubbed his hands together as if to summon a genie. “Maybe he, wanted to remain anonymous and decided that going through Fine would help him stay that way?”
“All right. Now we bump back into the big question as to what it was that Kelly may have wanted to air.”
“A gripe about something going on in the Civil Service?”
“Then Paul Fine would have been cramming on the Civil Service. He appears to have been trying to digest what he could about Opus Dei.”
“Can’t get around it, Matt, you’re right. Give me a minute and I’ll try and come up with a better one.”
After a pause, Kilmartin gave in. “Has to be something about Opus Dei. I can’t see around it.”
“Fitzgerald has his staff rotating through the scandal department, or whatever name he likes to call muck- raking. Paul Fine’s turn came, are you with me?”
“I am. But how would Kelly know that Fine was the man who’d like a bit of dirt on Opus Dei?”
“Who’s to say that he needed to know? Perhaps all he wanted was someone in the media.”
“But Jases, why pick Fine? He wasn’t any tiger, you know, no disrespect intended. And when all is said and done, I can’t see what scandal this crowd of Holy Joes in Opus Dei would worry about to the extent of killing someone over. We have to admit that they’re motivated by religious principles and all that goes with that. This isn’t a dog-eat-dog business, like in Chile or whatever, with the Communists on one side and the Fascist lads waving crucifixes and guns on the other side.”
“Umm,” said Minogue. “I get the feeling you’re a bit shy yet. Are you going to give me the three Fs?”
Minogue was referring to what some detectives liked to call the Three Eff-offs. It was something which any astute officer invoked when speculation was getting in the way of police work. The injunction was meant to propel would-be clairvoyants back into the world of facts, forensic information and files. A killer was to be found in one of these three worlds, not in metaphysical police minds.
“Tell you what,” said Kilmartin. “By all means we’ll go as far as logic takes us with this Opus Dei thing, but I’ll have to rethink splitting the team tomorrow. You with the Fine case of course; Gallagher and his big-shots thrown in. What we have of the whole task force will work through what your interviews can point to as well.”
“I need Shea Hoey.”
“OK,” said Kilmartin, less than enthusiastically. “Me, I’ll be wanting Keating and Murtagh then, for a start, to take on Kelly. Lookit, sure, you may have something under your hat this very minute and you not knowing it. That Boy Scout lad-his mother phoned in. There, see?”
Minogue’s mind began to wander. Why would Kelly get in touch with Fine? Fine’s turn at the dirt pile had come around, but he had kept his own project on Arab-IRA links on the side. The help-line number and Minogue’s name beside it on the pad…
“Kelly phoning here looking for me the other night,” Minogue murmured. “What can we do with that…?”
“I can tell you-that one easy enough,” Kilmartin said slowly, rubbing the filter end of an unlit cigarette around his lips as an aid to concentration. He slid further into the chair. “You know I have a copy of that call on the day’s tape. I’m carrying that copy around with me-here, right inside in me pocket-so as the minute we can latch on to any pal of Kelly that hums and haws about anything, I’ll fire the tape at him. We’ll get better confirmation it was Kelly’s voice, as well as leverage, I’m thinking. There’s life in the old dog yet, isn’t there?”
“There seems to be,” Minogue had to concede.
“Are you sure you don’t want a bottle of holy water with you, your honour?” Eilis asked. Minogue made a face at her. He looked back to Kilmartin’s office to see Kilmartin half into the jacket of his suit, like a bear struggling to get a bee out of its armpit.
“Did you see that film The Exorcist years ago, did you?” Eilis persisted. “A young one possessed by the divil, spewing up a big spout of pea soup any time the priest came near her. And then she had an unholy leaping fit when the priest took out the holy water. Cursing and swearing galore.”
“I’m not sure it’ll be the same effort with us today, Eilis. This is a Christian country. Pagans have their own way to defend themselves against priests anyway.”
“Well, beir bua. That tape with that call on it, it’s a fright to listen to it.”
“I hope it is,” said Kilmartin. “We’re off to bell the cat. I’m taking the radio car. Patch anything important to the car, would you, especially anything from Keating out talking to the Boy Scout and his mammy in Dun Laoghaire.”
Kilmartin had used rank where Doyle could not and thus Kilmartin had two names, two men to meet in a house on Churchtown Road. Drumm, Finbar Drumm, was a member of the Opus Dei residence; Father Heher, of order unknown, was from the seminary at Cloncliffe College. Kilmartin had had his name from the secretary to the Archbishop of Dublin, as one who had contact with Opus Dei members in the city.
“As for the explanation that the Archbishop’s office was not directly responsible for the work of Opus Dei, that didn’t thrill the shoes off me, I can tell you,” Kilmartin was saying. “Felt like I was getting the brush-off.”
“As I understand Church politics, bishops and archbishops want to know about every sparrow that falls in their dioceses,” said Minogue.
“Every sparrow… what do you mean?”
“The idea is that God know about and cares about every bird that falls, no matter how tiny. He also keeps track of every molecule and every blade of grass that grows, I understand.”
Kilmartin looked across the roof of the car at Minogue, grimacing against the glare. “I hope you’re not going to be contrary out here with this priest and the other fella and give me heartburn, for the love of Jases, are you?”
“Of course I am, Jimmy. Isn’t that why you’re dragging me along? Before you got these two names you were content to let me get on with the Fine investigation.”
“Don’t be exercising yourself, man dear. The deal was that we hold off splitting the case-work until after we see these Holy Joes. Later on today we’ll know better if there’s anything real to be working on as regards the two deaths.”
Kilmartin swung the tape-recorder on its straps into the back seat of the police car. He drove himself. Minogue signed in on the radio, available for calls through. The traffic seemed to have eased. Kilmartin capitalized on Dublin people’s sharp facility for recognizing Gardai in any garb and Garda cars of plain hues and stared down drivers beside him at traffic lights. None tried to jam him out of lanes.
“Play it, why don’t you?” he said to Minogue.
Minogue listened to the clicks and tones as the voice asked to be put through to the chief officer investigating the Fine murder. He was not available, would another do? No. Could Inspector Minogue return your call? What was that name again? Minogue. The caller hung up.
Minogue rewound the tape. “Gives me the willies,” he said. “I hope there’s enough there for one of these fellas to identify it as Kelly’s voice.”
“Now you’re talking-get out of the way, you half-wit-but the thing is,” Kilmartin paused to give a withering look at a slow driver he was passing. “Why you’re along for the outing is, I want you to watch how they react to the tape. You’ll know what I mean if you see it.”
“I’m an experienced lie-detector, am I?”
“Well you’re always blowing your horn about magic powers from Clare.”
