why had Tynan called, if this was thirty years ago?
“It’s not really,” said Tynan. “ Ipso facto, I mean. I was interested in the mention of Opus Dei-surprised, even. I expect you’ll find yourself in Bewley’s before the afternoon is out, will you?”
“I beg your pardon?” from a flustered Minogue. He glared back at Eilis’ amused scrutiny of his embarrassment and felt the prickly heat radiate up to his scalp. Let her think it’s hot flushes for all I care, his gargoyle hissed.
“I’ve seen you feasting yourself there before of an afternoon. I’ll be there in Westmoreland Street, the non- smo part. Will you make a point of being there yourself?”
“I’m not sure I follow the arrangement.”
“I can hole up in my office if you want, Minogue, and we can get bored out of our skulls wishing we were out of the bloody place in a restaurant where we would discuss the matter just as thoroughly. Let’s do it the easy way. I have some titbits about Opus Dei for you.”
Minogue was not pleased to be feeling slightly apprehensive as he walked to Bewley’s. He regarded it as a sanctuary, a place where even Kilmartin’s company might be tolerable for a short while because the coffee and the noise and the faces swamped any attempts at being official. Why had Tynan not taken him aside after the meeting with the Commissioner? He remembered the steady eyes, not unlike those of a fish should a fish ever have lazy eyelids.
Tynan was not a policeman’s policeman at all. He had done his time dutifully in uniform and had worked his way up the ranks steadily, taking his exams. His superiors couldn’t help but notice that where Tynan went, order followed, and that much of their own job was made easier by the work of this diligent officer. Tynan didn’t seem to mind that others took the credit for his efforts. He had managed to reform many bureaucratic areas in the Gardai. “A mind like a steel trap,” Kilmartin had said several times, usually over pints. Oddly, Tynan had managed not to antagonize rank and file Gardai. He was new to Garda B Branch, and lately Minogue had heard quiet compliments being passed about him. B Branch now seemed to be caught in the grip of some odd efficiency and this efficiency was very quickly noticed by ordinary Gardai because B Branch dealt with their bread and butter. As well as each Garda’s personal file, Tynan’s dominion included transfers and promotions, leave and gratuities, discipline and training. Tynan, a man to be suspicious of because he had turned away from the priesthood, was in danger of becoming popular. Gardai would never again accept the dictatorial regime which had only begun to ease up in the early ‘70s. An unhappy coincidence of history-the North boiling over, and the aftermath of a commission of inquiry which had been scathing about Garda administration-had brought Gardai more say in their working conditions.
Tynan’s reserve had become the springboard for ribald jokes to be pitched out in Garda company. Minogue had heard the jokes but didn’t much like them. Tynan had married later than most and his wife was supposed to be very glamorous. Minogue remembered her laughing a lot and smoking American cigarettes at the parties and functions which she attended with Tynan. He thought he had heard Tynan say something to her in Latin once, and recalled the dry expression on his face while she burst out laughing. Lovely teeth. Jokes about what spoiled priests could do in the line of sexual behaviour were probably signs of an acceptance, Minogue guessed. They had to make him their own because he wouldn’t do so himself…
He spotted Tynan immediately next to the door in the nonsmoking room. Tynan nodded faintly and returned to his newspaper. Minogue, deciding to forgo the bun, carried the coffee slowly and planted it on the marble table- top. Tynan folded the paper and watched as Minogue shoved a spoon and a half of brown sugar into the cup.
“Just the job for this time of the day,” said Tynan. Minogue saw that Tynan’s civvies were well cut: navy blue, but lightweight, and an ironed white shirt. The tweed tie was to let the discerning know that he wasn’t a puritan.
“Do you like it?” Tynan said and looked down at the suit.
“It’s all right,” Minogue replied boldly.
“Roberta told me to buy it. Rank has its responsibilities. The Emperor has to have his clothes.” There was no trace of humour on Tynan’s features.
“There’s an expression about that, I believe,” Minogue hammed slightly.
“‘To lead the people, you must turn your back on the people,’” said Tynan. “You don’t want your followers looking at a poorly tailored back, don’t you know. If the suit impresses them, they’ll be less likely to spoil the cut by sticking a knife between your shoulders.”
“I have but the two suits myself,” said Minogue. “One is for funerals and the other one is gone too tight for me…”
Tynan nodded as if commiserating.
“I prefer to be in the uniform all day. I even have pyjamas done to look like a uniform, I suppose you know that.”
Minogue spluttered coffee, still too hot for his greed. Tynan knew of some of the jokes about himself, then.
“I heard that, all right,” he said. “I think the blue sits well, though.”
Tynan looked off into the middle distance.
“It’s the cut,” he murmured. “That’s why you pay the price, so says Roberta. She’s always right in the sartorial line. Those Protestants know how to dress, I tell you.”
Tynan sipped from his cup.
Roberta, Minogue echoed within. At least ten years younger than Tynan, so full of life, and she laughing away. American cigarettes, poise. What had Tynan said to her to make her laugh so much that time? A would-be Jesuit marrying a laughing Protestant-no wonder Jimmy Kilmartin was wary.
“Are you a regular here?” Minogue asked.
“No more than yourself. I know that you favour the place an odd time. Even Jim Kilmartin gets dragged in here too. It’s not on your file or anything. Now, about Opus Dei,” Tynan said quietly. He leaned over the table. “I told you that I was closely associated with them a long while back. This Brian Kelly, the lad in the car, he was a member?”
“Yes he was; high up in it. He had been a Numerary, but the pair we talked to said he was ranked as an Associate when he died.”
“You know that’s lower on the totem.”
Minogue nodded.
“Well that doesn’t happen often. You’re in or you’re out of the organization, if you’ve attained that standing. It’s usually all or nothing. I’m surprised-unless it was a temporary thing, a punishment.”
“They told us that he was going through his period of re-evaluation, his life and aims. That everyone has these… spiritual milestones.”
“An opportunity to grow in faith and commitment once the dark night is past?”
“You seem to know the tune well.”
“Humph. They haven’t changed much in that department, anyway. You know they come in for criticism, even from inside the Church?”
“No I didn’t,” Minogue replied. “I thought they were just very religious.”
“ ‘Just’ is right. There’s the charge of brainwashing against them. The way they recruit was the subject of some criticism a few years ago but it seems to have died down. They are very good at recruiting high-minded young people to throw in their lot with them. The initiates are usually very driven types of young men, very sincere, very conscientious and very clever… clever isn’t everything, is it?… the way only young adults can be, before the world announces itself to them in earnest. Hmm. This would be a chat to pass the time, though, if it weren’t for the context: Billy Fine’s boy.”
“Indeed,” said Minogue. “It was a cold-blooded murder. Savage. I want the killer very badly indeed, and I have less patience as the days go by.”
“That I noticed earlier in the afternoon. Let me ask you, now, what do you think is really going on here?”
“Like I said at the meeting, I’m beginning to think that the murder had something to do with Opus Dei. A youngster has come forward, a boy who had a glimpse of a man who may be the killer. He said the man looked like a copper. You know how it is with kids.”
Tynan nodded. “They tend to be a problem in so far as they see things a bit too clearly for our liking. But the claim about the fringe group and the Palestinians?”
“Sergeant Gallagher in the Branch has been banging his head on that one. He’s still interviewing but so far he has nothing to lead us with.”
