“For a man who doesn’t like the current government, you know a lot about them.”
“Ah go on, I don’t know more than the next man. You know yourself that the fella who’s belly-aching about this or that party is the fella who’ll vote for them come the election. ’Tis the bane of our existence here, voting for personalities…”
Minogue marvelled privately at what Kilmartin had just said. Even Jimmy Kilmartin, middle age on him like a volcanic crust, was displaying that enduring paradox of cynicism and hope, that cardinal Irishism that Minogue had learned late he could not escape himself: professing to be aloof while sitting on an overwhelming desire.
“Do you hear me at all?” Kilmartin was saying. “When we find out who was in the car in Bray, we won’t be sitting here running the world. We’ll be earning our pay these next few days, I can tell you.”
Hoey put Doyle on hold and walked over to Minogue’s desk.
“Doyle, sir. He nosed around with the computer thing in RTE. Something interesting, do you want to listen in?”
Minogue pressed the flashing yellow button while Hoey returned to his extension.
“Minogue here now. Shea Hoey says you are inside a computer or something.”
“I went to Fine’s office, that big room with all the desks, and I asked a man called Downey if Fine made much use of the computer for his work. Some people use the computer for word-processing and what they call internal mail. Downey says yep, that Fine used to use the computer. Journalists file stories on them. There’s a room with eight terminals in it for the staff to use them as they wish. Some bigwigs have terminals all to themselves. Anyway. Paul Fine has used the computer in the past, to type up reports. He had a user number and a password like the others. The idea is that you do your bit of whatever on the computer and then you save it. There’s a print room, too, and you can go and collect your stuff, depending on whether it’s your turn on it or whether the printers are taken up.”
“Did you get into the computer and look?”
“That’s what I was saying to Shea, sir. There were no items in Fine’s file on the computer. I got the manager of the Information Services to get the password and get in. Downey thought it was a bit odd that there was nothing because he was always slagging Fine about using the computer instead of his own brain. I was told they scrub the files every now and then but they give you lots of warning to save your files or to let them know they’re still active.”
“Is there any other way to check and see for stuff he may have had in his files there? Stuff he had a while ago?”
“I asked him that. There is. They do tape back-ups every day in case there’s a power loss. The computer does the taping automatically every evening. Some of the stuff they keep, like payroll, in case they find there was a mistake later on. They always keep a week’s worth of everything on the computer but only selected stuff stays on tape for longer than that. He’s gone to find the tapes for me now.”
“To all intents and purposes a person working under his own password would not have people looking over his shoulder, would he?” Hoey asked.
“God, yous’re very devious. Matter of fact I asked him that: who would know other people’s passwords, like,” Doyle replied. “He told me that it was no big secret with passwords at all. He keeps the passwords in his files but it’s not a question of anybody knowing another person’s password after snooping around for it in his filing cabinet. It’s that the passwords are quite easy to figure out. Often it’s a bit of someone’s name. He knows that some users even loan out their passwords to others so they can work on the same material.”
“Are there other ways to eavesdrop, so to speak?” Minogue broke in.
“There are, apparently,” said Doyle. “If you know another person’s password there’s a way to look at what he’s doing if he’s working on the computer at the time.”
“Phone us when you get through that tape thing, so,” said Minogue. “And dazzle us with more of that verve and acuity.”
Eilis turned from emptying her second ashtray of the day. She looked from the becalmed Hoey still cradling the phone idly to the semi-reclining Minogue who was also mulling over Doyle’s discoveries.
“Verve and acuity,” she said as she lit up a Gitane. “There’s no knowing what a person will hear from parties working around here. It’d make a girl think twice.”
Kilmartin emerged from his office, scratching his ear and looking for Minogue.
“Time for evening prayer,” Kilmartin said with a leaden irony.
Minogue flipped a folder on his desk and uncovered his summary for Kilmartin to feed the Commissioner with.
“There’s a little something to add to this and bring it up to the minute,” Minogue murmured. “Doyle went out to RTE and chased up something on the computer there. Paul Fine used the computer but there’s nothing in his file. Doyle’s working up a copy of what might have been on the computer in Fine’s name a while ago.”
“Fair enough,” said Kilmartin vacantly as he read down the page. “That’s all from the Gardai on the beaches today?” he asked, looking down to Minogue.
“The best we have is from callers-in, I’m afraid. That woman who put us on to the site. The lad with his girlfriend in the carpark late Sunday night, we’re stuck with him… he still can’t put a make on the cars he saw.”
Kilmartin couldn’t hide his disappointment. “Jases, that’s not much. With seventy-odd men?”
Minogue shrugged. “Don’t forget the better parts. There’s the ticket man who can tentatively place Paul Fine in Dalkey Station around one o’clock. He might have gotten out of a train with time to spare and walked up over Dalkey Hill to Killiney Hill Park. It’s a nice little jaunt.”
Minogue watched Kilmartin’s head wave slightly from side to side as he went down the page again. “And remember the appeal tonight will be on Killiney Hill, not the beach. I put Gallagher’s plans in point form because I don’t know any more than what you see. Thirty-eight names, he told me. It’ll take time. Not something we can rush him with,” Minogue added.
Kilmartin nodded distractedly and yawned. He slapped the file folder against his thigh.
“I didn’t even want to be thinking about this fella who was toasted out beyond in Bray. The remains are in poor shape but we have an engine block number. A Volkswagen. I was to get a phone call a half an hour ago.”
Kilmartin had been gone ten minutes when Eilis directed a call to Minogue. The car in Bray had belonged to one Brian Kelly, thirty four, of Leopardstown Gardens, civil servant. Mr. Kelly was a Principal Officer in the Department of Finance. He was unmarried. He was not answering his phone. Gardai from Cabinteely were at the house. Mr. Kelly had a brother a priest in Finglas. His parents lived in County Carlow. Had any effects been left intact for identification after the fire? A watch with an expanding strap was partially intact. Clothing had been burned off completely. Remains of a leather wallet, melted plastic (probably bank cards), some change on the floor of the car.
Minogue asked for the details again. This time he wrote them down. It was a matter of ferreting out his dentist’s name to light on an X-ray identification. Minogue saw five o’clock looking back down off the wall at him. He watched Keating about to begin typing from his notebook.
“How would you like to be Jimmy Kilmartin for a while?” he asked Keating.
“I wouldn’t mind the pay and the perks,” Keating answered cautiously. “I was just about to type up me summary of Fine’s office stuff.”
Minogue headed Keating off at the pass. “Is there anything that’d change what we’re at now? Diaries or notebooks?”
“No,” said Keating as he flicked his notebook shut.
“We will most likely have to set up a team for another case, that’s what I’m getting at.”
“The man out in Bray?”
“Yes. It may well be this man here,” Minogue replied, handing Keating the sheet.