talk all right, I says to myself, but I couldn’t say that to them, now, could I?”
Indeed, Minogue reflected. It was known that Farrell had had a hand in the selection and training of a squad of Special Branch officers whose sole job was to interrogate suspects.
“Well, they’ve been trying,” said Kilmartin. “They’ve been up all night with the files and they’ve added possibles to the list.”
Gallagher got up off his knees red-faced and turned the switch again. This time it worked. After the hiss of the leader portion, a broad Kerry accent announced the time and the names of the persons speaking on the tape.
Gibney’s voice was a measured and polite Dublin accent. There were no pauses when he talked. He seemed to have prepared everything he wanted to say to Gorman on the phone. The tone was reasonable, gently persuasive. Minogue watched Kilmartin’s face go blank when Gibney mentioned the Ard Fheis.
“… We’ve drawn up a list of proposals for when the Dail gets back in session. Wait a minute, I dropped something… OK. Now you’ll have just the one day because the Opposition will go right to work and table the no- confidence. Now there’s no way around the business we discussed, you know? You know? We just have to have them so as we can accelerate the thing and- ”
“ I still say the momentum will carry us through.” Gorman’s tone was almost urgent, a palpable effort to stay calm.
Minogue felt a non-existent draught on the back of his neck.
“But we’ve talked about this ad nauseam, Fintan. Even your own estimates are for four to break ranks and then you-”
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying. That’s more than enough to carry the vote when the Dail sits. Don’t you see what I mean? There’s no need for anything more.”
Farrell held his hand up. Gallagher stopped the tape.
“This is toward the end of the call,” said Farrell. “The call went through to Gorman’s home phone at eight o’clock this morning, just before Gorman was heading off to work. Do you know what these two men are talking about?”
“Gorman’s going to jump ship on the Chief,” said Kilmartin slowly. “He’s going to lead away his supporters at the Ard Fheis next week…”
“… and he’s going to bring down the fucking government,” said Farrell calmly.
“Four sitting members of the party?” said Hoey. “Who are they?”
“Wouldn’t we all like to know that,” said Gallagher in his sibilant Donegal tones.
“But Gorman,” said Kilmartin. “What’s he going to get out of this? He’s not going to be the next Taoiseach, that’s for certain.”
“Will we take bets on that?” said Farrell.
“He doesn’t need to be,” murmured Minogue.
“Smart lad, Matty,” said Farrell savagely. “Give the man the rabbit. Gorman needs only four government members to walk out of the party for the government to fall. The next government’ll have to be a coalition, and they’ll need Gorman. He’ll be sitting pretty when they offer him a plum Ministry. Guess which one he’ll pick?”
“Defence again,” said Kilmartin.
“Top of the class, Jimmy. Gibney and the others will have Gorman in their pockets, then. If they don’t have him in their pockets already, they will after they do their bit of ‘business’ that Gibney’s hinting about. Any guesses on what Gibney means there?”
“I don’t know why I’m thinking this exactly,” Hoey began. “Wouldn’t it be to Gibney’s advantage to have a bit of disorder in the streets? A general strike, say?”
“How about a bomb in Dublin to get the Army out on to the streets?” said Farrell, “How about shooting someone?”
Farrell looked from face to face in the room. Gallagher rubbed his nose with the side of his hand.
“Name of Jases,” said Kilmartin finally.
Farrell leaned lower on his elbows. “What’s on here, as I told the Commissioner, is that we have several citizens plotting to destabilize the government of the Irish Republic, and they’re willing to use violence to that end.”
“ ‘They’, though,” said Minogue. “The ‘they’ that’s trying to do this is an Opus Dei faction. It’s not necessarily an Army coup or the likes of that.”
“Right,” said Kilmartin, recovering with one of his favourite sayings at hand. “This isn’t a banana republic, you know, Tommy. We’re a democratic country with troubles, that’s all.”
“All right,” said Farrell quickly. “I’ve been on the phone to Army Intelligence half the day. I know that O’Tuaime had started a search of Army personnel files for yous, but it was pretty half-hearted. As of half-ten this morning he was relieved of that piddling assignment, and Army Intelligence has launched a real search now that they have two names to start with. Cunningham seems square enough, a follower. This Gibney’s a very popular officer all up and down the ranks.”
“Like Gorman… all things to all men,” muttered Kilmartin. Minogue thought of the friendly, open faces of Heher and Drumm.
“They think he might twig to the surveillance. Lookit, if they’re jittery, I’m hopping about like a bloody Mexican jumping-bean. The security of the State and its citizens can’t be waiting around for any of us to be playing with bits of files and phone lines to gather bullet-proof evidence.”
Which is probably exactly what he told the Minister and the Commissioner earlier, thought Minogue.
“So if yous think that your Squad has first dibs on this, you’d be wrong,” said Farrell bluntly. He nodded to Gallagher, who restarted the tape.
Farrell looked at his watch after five minutes.
“There you are now. We’d be waiting for ten years before we’d get any mention of the word ‘murder’ out of them.”
“No mention of Paul Fine or Kelly yet. We need to point a finger at a killer, or killers,” said Minogue.
“Killers, did I hear you say?” Farrell frowned.
“Murder in the first degree can be charged to more than the actual killer,” said Minogue. “If there was a concerted, coherent plan, assistance rendered, weapons secured for-”
“All right, all right,” Farrell interrupted. Minogue gave Farrell a level stare across the table.
“Listen,” he murmured in the stillness which followed, “we’re investigating two murders.” He paused and returned Farrell’s gaze of impatient scrutiny. “That’s where all this stuff flows from, plain and simple. These two victims-and I had better spell it out, that we suspect these two murders are connected-are, or were, individuals. I’m sure we’re all entitled to be alarmed by this group, this conspiracy, but I’m in there, and my colleagues are in there, to nail a killer or killers.”
Minogue glanced to Kilmartin, who was searching the ceiling, and then to Hoey who nodded once, but kept his eyes on his shoes.
“I hear you, Matty,” said Farrell in a tone soft enough for Kilmartin to look at him in some surprise. “Who do you see as the killers here? I mean the ones that actually did the dirty work?”
Minogue exchanged looks with Hoey.
“Out of this list…” he took a deep breath, “my hunch is Gibney.” Hoey nodded briefly, and Kilmartin kept his eyes on Minogue. “I see it like this: Brian Kelly hears or overhears chat about this scheme to push Gorman to the top and install a government that leans hard to the right. You heard the tape yourselves: it’d be nothing for people to make a pretext for getting troops out on the streets these days. You even hear upright citizens who should know better,” Minogue paused briefly to savour Kilmartin’s discomfort, “pushing for easy answers. ‘Crack the whip’ kind of attitudes. We’re always looking for the leader, the man on horseback, the hero, in this country. Anyway. Brian Kelly finds out about these plans. He may even have tried to talk people out of it, appealed to them. This kind of talk could have been floating around for years and then it got serious suddenly, so Kelly gets alarmed. He’s caught, because he has a loyalty to his pals in Opus Dei too, but it seems that the organization shuns him. So he’s torn about the whole thing, he needs to talk to someone. Maybe he tries again with this group, maybe even talks to Gorman. We may never know if he threatens to reveal what he knows, but I can see him doing that, if he’s upset. Think about it. Here’s a man who has invested so much in this organization. He’s sincere, he’s responsible, he’s devout…”
