“He’s dead,” Kilmartin muttered.
“I wonder what way his mind works. Does he seek out a person from the media? Does he want someone like Paul Fine to do a surface story on Opus Dei, as a way of letting this outfit know that they’re now in the public light so they’d better rethink their plans? Does he tell all he knows to Paul Fine? It doesn’t seem like that to us, judging by what Fine had dug up. But did Gorman, or whoever, think their whole enterprise was threatened? Did Brian Kelly purposely seek out a journalist who was also a Jew, by way of a symbolic act?”
“Fine and well to be speculating,” said Farrell. “But the way you brought it up, you want specifics. Can you link these murders at all, as yet?”
Hoey sat up and intervened.
“The killer may have wanted to make Paul Fine simply disappear,” he said quickly. “That would be a stiff warning to Brian Kelly. I doubt that the killer ever planned to kill the two people. It was more a case of ‘let’s get the more immediately dangerous character out of the way’… the journalist, that is… and then maybe try to persuade or bully Brian Kelly into keeping his trap shut. Then, when Kelly didn’t buckle under, or when it looked like he’d do anything because he was in a panic after hearing about Fine being murdered…”
“Killed him,” said Farrell and looked around at the faces of the policemen. “All right, I see how your mind is working on it. But lookit, now,” Farrell narrowed his glance when it came to rest on Minogue, “you’ve had your say. You’ve stated your priorities. I’m just telling you that it is my duty to bag all these characters as soon as possible. You’ll get your man, but you may have to do your digging and burrowing after I have these people in custody. I’m not saying this’ll make your job any easier, but that’s the story, and that’s how it’ll have to be.”
Before Minogue could say anything, Kilmartin deflected him.
“Do you think Gorman knows about Fine and Kelly?” Kilmartin asked Farrell.
The head of the Special Branch held his palms up.
“I’m no psychologist, Jimmy. He may suspect it; he may know it; he may have been told but turned a deaf ear; he may pretend to himself that he doesn’t know it. Christ, there could be any number of things going on. If you ask me, I think Gorman is being led by the nose. By his own bloody ambition. He ran out of patience waiting for the Chief to step down, and now he wants the cake all to himself.”
“Well, it appears that the people we’ve been listening to are not aware of us,” said Gallagher quietly. “Not yet, anyhow.” The soft, earnest Donegal hiss seemed to soothe the tension.
“And whoever spilled the beans in confession has not alerted this group,” added Minogue. That’s what Tynan would have argued, he knew.
“That could change at any minute,” said Farrell. “If we only knew the source, we could sit on him and make sure he kept quiet until we had all these lunatics in.”
Gallagher’s finger tapped lightly on the tape spool as he waited for Farrell’s instruction.
“So, this evening,” said Kilmartin at last,
“Yep,” said Farrell decisively. “We just can’t wait any longer. Now the, er, Commissioner suggested that we include some representation from your Squad, er, Jimmy-being as you have some business in this line of work.”
There was Kilmartin’s ten pounds safe, Minogue knew. It was plain that Farrell didn’t like offering.
“Not exactly a joint task force, or anything now. No need to be formal after all, is there? We all know one another here,” said Farrell.
“Right, Tommy. Good point, that,” said Kilmartin with a grave expression on his face.
“Just that, er, you’ve had valuable input and naturally you’d want to interview persons we pick up tonight. We have the manpower and everything, you understand,” Farrell continued in a restrained manner. “And if yous were to talk to a suspect directly upon arrest, you could have him at his most talkative.”
“Absolutely,” said Kilmartin. “That’s decent of you, Tommy.”
Minogue was seeing a Kilmartin he knew only too well at work on Farrell. There was no love lost between the two senior policemen. Kilmartin’s nose told him that Farrell was under orders to consult the Murder Squad, probably to the extent of having Squad officers present at arrests. A suspect surprised is often glad to talk. Now, Minogue bet an imaginary ten-pound note with his gargoyle, Kilmartin’s frown of concern and concentration was the practised foil for what he would come out with the minute they were away from Farrell: The bollocks, Farrell letting on he was doing us a favour, after Tynan laying down the law with him and telling him to co-operate with us. Oh we showed him, didn’t we!
“Would there be one suspect, say, that yous’d like to question in particular?” Farrell asked in a strained voice which could not carry the casual flavour he wanted.
Kilmartin put on a face of intense deliberation. Even Hoey knew that Kilmartin was dragging the time across Farrell’s patience like nails across a blackboard. Minogue spoiled the fun.
“Gibney. I’d like to have him the minute you lift him.”
“Good, so,” said Farrell, relieved.
“And I want to be in on the arrest too,” said Minogue.
“All right so, Matty. Do yous want to listen to any more of this? Ah, you probably don’t,” Farrell said busily. “Top secret, this tape. Gorman’ll ride to hell on this little thing yet. Yous heard the best of it, the worst of it. There’s work to be done, though.”
Gallagher was already rewinding the reel.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The stars twinkled and the moon rose. A faint breeze that had come in across Dublin Bay exercised itself in blotches of light which wavered on the footpath. Branches stirred slowly beneath the street-lamps. There was nothing left in the western sky, not the slightest brightness. Minogue thought about the planet turning, shadows creeping over land and water.
He could smell Kilmartin’s stale breath. Kilmartin was smoking constantly. Minogue was very nervous. Kilmartin had listened in disbelief when Gallagher had phoned earlier to say Gibney had left his flat on Morehampton Road and driven to Gorman’s house in Sandymount. Oblivious of the two teams assigned to watch him, Gibney had gone into Gorman’s house almost an hour earlier.
“That’s Gorman’s home, so it is,” Kilmartin said. “What about his missus and kids in there? Why didn’t they take Gibney when he left his place?”
Minogue didn’t understand it either. Gallagher’s explanation was that neither pair of Special Branch detectives knew what to do. They had been awaiting the arrest team proper. The swoop had been set for nine minutes after nine, but at a quarter to nine Gibney had simply walked to his car and driven to Gorman’s home in Sandymount.
“It must have been a regular appointment with them, and that’s why they didn’t mention it on the phone. That’s the only charitable excuse I can think of for those fellas to banjax this up,” said Kilmartin. “Walked out the front door and they didn’t know what to do. Farrell’ll eat those boyos… if I don’t first.”
It was now three minutes short of ten o’clock. Kilmartin held the cigarette in his cupped hand by the arm-rest and blew the smoke out of the window in measured puffs. Hoey had the volume on the car radio almost completely down. He was whistling softly, a sign of his nerves, too, Minogue remembered, tongue against his upper teeth. Occasionally Hoey rubbed a hand over his chin. Minogue could hear the stubble rasp.
“So Burke wonders if the people in this clique are quite capable of murdering someone,” said Kilmartin.
“They may have done it twice already,” answered Hoey. “They could do the same and worse, I suppose.”
“No wonder Farrell is hopping about the place,” Kilmartin added with some satisfaction.
The three policemen fell silent again. Their car was parked nearly eight doors down from Gorman’s house. It was a quiet street in the better end of Sandymount, within a quarter mile of Sandymount strand. On bright days, the strand was an enormous mirror for the sky when the tide drew away from this side of Dublin Bay. Horses galloped and trotted down the sands at low tide every day of the year. Some hardy souls still swam there despite the general belief that Dublin Bay was too polluted to be safe. The southbound trains of the Dublin Area Rapid Transit system, the DART, shot out from between the hedges of the inner suburbs on to the water’s edge at Merrion Gates, almost
