Minogue sensed challenge. The heavy beard seemed to close Cohen’s face. “The investigation, like? We were at it late, yes. But that’s what we do-”
Cohen scratched his eyelids, blinked and frowned. Then he looked over Minogue’s shoulder at the Special Branch car. “You didn’t hear, then,” Cohen stated the question. “The Museum.”
Minogue glanced from Cohen’s face toward the front door grinding open. Billy Fine stood in the doorway.
“Petrol bombs thrown at the doors of the Museum,” Cohen said. “The synagogue, I should say. Billy was up all hours. He got a phone call and off he went.”
Minogue’s wary drowsiness fled. He was acutely aware of details now: the cloying scent from the hedge, the far-off hum of the city centre traffic, Cohen’s bloodshot eyes. Fine stood very still in the doorway. Minogue pushed at the gate and strode towards the front door. He heard the gate being closed in his wake, his own feet skipping up the steps.
“I only found out this minute,” he said.
Fine’s arm moved and the door scuffed over a carpet. The sun escaped from a puffy white cloud and the light raced across the garden to the house. Minogue felt a tremor of helplessness when he looked at Fine now, the figure framed in the doorway, the morning sun, so kind to Minogue already, mercilessly bathing Fine in a harsh light, leaving him in the sharp contrasts, the shadows and glare of a fierce daylight. Fine had lifted his arm above his eyes so as to see Minogue. Cohen was walking toward the steps now. Dazzled by the sun, Billy Fine looked to Minogue as if he were grimacing in agony.
“They, whoever they are, tried to destroy the Museum,” said Fine. “Someone spray-painted PLO on the wall and threw a petrol bomb against the door.”
Minogue’s stomach froze and held tight. Cohen appeared by his side.
“The door held, we’re all right,” said Cohen. “The door held, that’s the main thing.” He did not take his eyes off Fine as he spoke.
Fine nodded. Minogue could not stop staring at him. Fine was unshaven, his eyes were reddened and his white shirt, open at the top, seemed to exaggerate the unkempt face. He drew Minogue into the front room.
“What else can happen?” said Fine. “Today’s Wednesday? If I don’t go to work I forget what day of the week it is. Do you have any cigarettes on you?”
Minogue wondered, from Fine’s tone, whether he was faltering, close to snapping.
“I don’t,” Minogue replied. “But I’m sure that… Look, I should leave off this interview if you’re-”
“It’s all right,” Fine said firmly. “Rose’ll be down in a minute. She has fags.” He went on remotely then: “You’ll have to persuade her it’s all right for her to smoke. She’s forever trying to give them up. She’s afraid I’ll start up again myself, so she won’t smoke in front of me, so…” The sentence died.
“We’re in a bit of a bind, you see,” Fine’s voice had changed to a monotone. “We can’t begin the week of mourning proper until after Paul’s burial. It’s very trying indeed to have to break custom as regard interring… We’re in a bit of a limbo, and what with droves of people in here to help… Then this thing last night-it must be some kind of nightmare, I thought first. Maybe the head is gone on me, and I was dreaming all this.”
“It’s well in hand now,” said Cohen. “Can’t you go up and lie down awhile? Get some rest even if you don’t sleep.”
Fine’s face eased. He looked at Cohen with a fleeting smile. “Ah Johnny.” He clapped Cohen gently on the shoulder.
“David and Julia are upstairs. Julia flew in from Boston yesterday. She’s knackered and very upset. David had to find a locum but he got in yesterday. He sat up most of the night.”
“May I ask about Paul’s wife?”
“Lily? Ask away. But she’s in a state,” said Fine as he examined his hands carefully. “She’ll only come for the funeral, I’m afraid. Very… upset. Bitter, I suppose. I think she feels that his family stole him from her, or Ireland did. Maybe Dublin. She was never gone on the place here,” said Fine, rising. “You’ll have a bit of coffee, will you?”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” said Minogue.
“I’m getting a pot for meself. You have a phone call to make before we do anything, anyway. Better do it now, man. It’s been hopping off the hook all morning. A Garda Hoey phoned not five minutes before you arrived, apologizing for himself but needing to speak to you.”
Cohen, slouched in the chair opposite, looked up as Minogue made for the hall. Minogue’s mind was cartwheeling, embarrassed and angry. Here he was, on a delicate enough visit, trying to mine more so that he could fill out a better picture of their murdered son, and this had gone off under him. He should have had a call about this, no matter what time. Hoey… probably tried him at home.
Cohen touched his arm as he passed. “It doesn’t look promising, does it, Inspector?”
Minogue scrambled for words. “Well, it seems to put a strong cast on the murder investigation. I’m just, I don’t know how to put it. Shocked. It’s…”
“PLO. I saw it on the wall, with my own eyes,” said Cohen. “Half-two this morning. Someone in a car. There were no witnesses to the actual thing.”
“Give me the name of the ranking Gardai you talked to, would you?” said Minogue.
“A Sergeant Hickey. I didn’t ask him what station. Then a mob of Guards showed up, just before some of the media. We’ve been getting calls from all over the world since five o’clock this morning. American television stations. The Taoiseach phoned here at eight o’clock. Archbishop of Dublin, the Lord Mayor. Then your own.”
“Commissioner Lally?”
“The very man.”
Minogue couldn’t decide if Cohen was hinting at his, Minogue’s, ignorance of the event. Hoey must have tried him at home, Minogue thought again. He excused himself and went to the phone.
“God Almighty, Shea,” he whispered into the receiver. “What the hell is happening? I’m up at the Fines’ and I’m looking for a place to hide my face. What broke down?”
“I only happened to be in early,” Hoey answered. “I heard it off the radio, and me parking the car.”
“Damn and blast it, Shea, we can’t be running an investigation like this. We look like iijits. We are iijits. This has to stop, man.”
Hoey didn’t reply immediately.
“It’s on your desk, sir,” he said finally. “I took the liberty of looking through your morning stuff from Eilis. Timed at four-fifteen from Dispatch. They knew to get you, anyway. I tried you at home but you were gone already.”
Cohen walked into the hall now, heading for the kitchen, thereby cutting short Minogue’s anger.
“All right, all right.” Minogue dug the receiver into his ear. “All right. Was it just this bombing thing, Shea?”
Hoey told him that he was awaiting a call from the National Library with more information. Doyle had gone over to the Library already to see the dockets and give Kearney a good going-over.
“Kearney, the library assistant who phoned?”
“Yes. He knew Justice Fine’s name and figured that the fella looking for books and filling in the request dockets was some relation of Fine’s. That’s how he remembered. Guess what Paul Fine was interested in?”
“Go on, Shea, for the love of God. I’m in Fine’s house here, sitting on their phone.”
“Sorry. He signed retrieval slips for nine books. Do you know how the system works there? You ask for books to be brought to you. There are millions of books there, and very valuable ones too. So Kearney is one of the assistants who’d go and get the actual books down off the shelves. Now it doesn’t say what time the books were given out and Doyle’s going to try and pin Kearney a bit better than that. All the nine books got to him, that is to say that none of the books was missing or anything. Ready for a few titles? Catholicism and the Franco Regime by a Norman Cooper. Never heard of any of these meself… Addresses, Essays and Lectures by J. E. De Balaguer, Church and Politics of Chile by a fella called Smith…”
“Hold on, hold on there, Shea. What’s all this? I’m swimming in detail here and now is not the time.”