“Right,” said Hoey. “A bit better news may be just around the corner for us. After the new appeal this evening a fella phoned us-not twenty minutes ago-to say that he saw Paul Fine on Saturday. He remembers Fine’s name only. Guess where he works?”
“Radio Telifis Eireann,” Minogue tried.
“Good try but no. The National Library above in Kildare Street.”
“Paul Fine was in the National Library some time on Saturday.” Minogue declared the question.
“Yep. We should be able to place him for a good part of the Saturday, during the day anyway. Things are coming together a bit better now, hah?” said Kilmartin as he sat back in his chair.
Minogue did not want to be uncharitable but the gargoyle within was off the leash already. Jimmy Kilmartin had come from a meeting with the Commissioner anxious for any apparent loosening in the investigation. He would read much into the National Library business.
“There’s two lads gone out to this man’s house and we’ll have a statement out of him before the evening is out. Then there are the slips which Fine filled in to get books in the Library,” Kilmartin pointed out contentedly.
“So Paul Fine worked on Saturdays too,” Minogue speculated aloud. “They mustn’t have had what he wanted in RTE, so he went to the National Library instead?”
“That looks like it so far,” replied Kilmartin.
Was this why Kilmartin and the others were keen at this hour of the day, the gargoyle asked Minogue.
“Now here’s the most interesting thing entirely, the one we’ve been holding back,” said Kilmartin cagily. “We have a match based on the dental work for that poor divil out in Bray. It was Kelly in the car all right, but the Pathologist’s report will be saying that Kelly may have been walloped in the head before the fire. There are signs of a very small hairline fracture, but he’s not sure about it. It may have been the heat of the fire and his head boiling-but the bone around it is not pressed out enough, he thinks. Kelly could have been knocked out, maybe even badly injured, and shoved into the back of the car. The car was set alight and Bob’s your uncle, it was a ball of fire inside of a minute.”
Minogue decided that it was indeed time to sit down.
“Meanwhile, back at the ranch,” Kilmartin continued. “Kelly’s brother is a priest. We got him to go into Kelly’s house with us, up in Leopardstown. Naturally the brother is very upset. Kelly was a very good-living man, he says. And sure enough, there’s some class of a chapel in the house. One of the bedrooms is like a monk’s cell, I’m telling you. ‘For prayer and contemplation,’ the brother says.”
“There are odd people in Leopardstown, I always knew that,” Minogue murmured. He was thinking of Kelly’s body being consumed in the inferno, the head expl-Ughhh. Christ.
“Odd isn’t the half of it. Our help-line number from the radio and telly appeals was on a scrap of paper by the phone.” Kilmartin leaned forward over his desk, his eyes hooded, and delivered the surprise. Minogue suddenly realized that Kilmartin had probably done this performance for the policemen already. They were all looking at Minogue now.
“Do you know whose name was also on this scrap of paper, but misspelled?”
“Go on,” said Minogue, prickly alert now. “Make my day.”
“M-I-N-O-G-H. That’s how he spelled it. Definitely out of touch with surnames from the County of Clare, I’d say. Wouldn’t you?”
CHAPTER NINE
Minogue chose Keating to work through the tally of calls logged to the Murder Squad’s help-line so far. With a copy of that call they could play it back to an acquaintance of Kelly. If it was identified… Minogue’s brain tumbled down mental stairs.
He would have liked to have the nerve to take one of Kilmartin’s cigarettes, so fierce was the pleasure and resolution which Kilmartin seemed to be drawing out of them now. Minogue still felt left behind in the excitement which had taken visible hold of the others. He finally waved in a passing Hoey and Hoey tried to sort it out for him.
“I know it’s not certain,” Hoey said. “But why would he have the number at all? You said you remember being told about the call, Keating telling you-a man phoned, asked who was in charge of the Fine case and wanted to talk to you. You alone, right?”
“Right.”
“So if and when we find out it was Kelly, there’s an obvious connection between two murders.”
“But Kelly is a senior civil servant, not a Palestinian or a local gangster. Maybe he was just out in Killiney on Sunday, an ordinary citizen. Maybe he knew Paul Fine somehow.”
“Why would he only want to talk to you, so?” said Hoey conclusively as he drifted away from Minogue’s desk.
Gallagher phoned Minogue ten minutes after Minogue called Special Branch HQ. Gallagher was co-ordinating the interviews with the people on the list he had drawn up himself. Minogue extricated his copy of the list and placed an X beside five of the thirty-eight names.
“They’re the ones you’re finished with,” said Minogue.
“And they’re not in the running. We’re still with the rest of them. There’s only three that we haven’t got a hold of yet.”
Minogue glanced down at the names he had marked with an O. Xs and Os, hit and miss. “How do you feel about second interviews with those Arab students before the weekend?”
Gallagher didn’t reply directly. “It could be done, if need be.”
“Nobody so far knows this group this League for the…?”
“They admit to reading it in the papers reporting on the murder. That’s all.”
“Well, sooner or later, Pat…” Minogue concluded.
“Later, I’d say,” Gallagher replied.
Minogue had nearly ten minutes of vacillating about calling the Fines that night or the next before Hoey waved the phone at him. It was the direct line to the Murder Squad offices, usually marshalled by Eilis. Minogue slid into Eilis’ seat.
“Not the Church, Not the State, Women must decide their fate,” said the woman’s voice.
“I know the air, I’m not sure of the words, though. Or the singer,” Minogue said.
“It’s the voice of sisterhood everywhere,” came the reply.
“Are you actually a paid-up member of the Women’s Action Movement now?”
“No, I’m not. But that doesn’t mean I sit idly by.”
“Sorry, I forgot to phone you back. I don’t blame you giving me a speech. Where are you?”
“I’m at home. That’s great about Marguerite Ryan, what do you think?”
“How do you know this phone isn’t being tapped by my superiors here and that I won’t be out on my ear over what I say to that leading question?”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Da. I think it’s great anyway. I hope they drop the manslaughter charge, too,” Iesult said. “And let her get on with her life.”
“Uh,” Minogue said. Iesult paused. Minogue could see her sprawled in the hall, on the floor most likely.
“When are you going on your holidays anyway?”
Minogue wondered what his daughter was working around to asking. “Now you’re talking. A grand idea. I had been thinking of driving across with the ferry to France or something.”
“You’re a howl. Does Ma know you’re planning this caravanserai, or will you just mention it the morning you’re going?”
“Your mother likes surprises. Not the kind that your generation deals out, let me add. Something like I think you have in mind to tell me…”
“Get up the yard, Da. Why would you-?”
“You’re a bit amateurish at this still. Remember that your father is a Clareman with powers of divination and tricks galore. If you were phoning me just to chew the fat or discuss the weather, I’d be more than happy anyway. I have ready answers and a fund of inconsequential chat. For example: I was rained on unmercifully, and me coming back after me tea in a restaurant. I’m still soggy.”