“… Opus Dei: the Call of the World by-”
“What?”
“That’s it, though,” said Hoey. “They all have something to do with Opus Dei.”
“Opus Dei? But Shea, this thing at the Museum. Get Gallagher on to it, or at least confirm he’s alerted to it. And is Jimmy Kilmartin on to this already?”
“Yes he is, sir. He fairly pounced, I can tell you.”
Minogue stared at a shrouded mirror by the phone. Thoughts flickered and escaped. No order. He realized that he was biting his lip.
“He says he’s going to hold off on a separate task force until we sort this out,” Hoey continued. “He’s hunting down the top dog in Opus Dei, or whatever they call their boss.”
“I don’t know anything about them, so I don’t,” Minogue muttered. “All I know is that they’re religious.”
“Wait now,” said Hoey. “More stuff breaking, wait’ll you hear this. This is what you should have heard before the balls-up about last night.”
Minogue stopped chewing his lip.
“Remember we left just after ten last night, didn’t we? Well a woman phoned in at a quarter past, a woman from Dun Laoghaire. She has a young lad in the Scouts. There was a troop of them out on manoeuvres on Killiney Hill some time on Sunday afternoon. Putting names to trees and counting birds and that sort of diversion. Her young lad was up after his bedtime last night, annoying the heart and soul out of her. He saw a clip from the news though, our bit on the site up on the Hill. Quick as a flash-so says the mother-the chiseller says: ‘I was there.’ She asked him about it. There’s two detectives dispatched out to the house and the young lad will miss a morning’s school over it. Will I call you back there when I have any news?”
Minogue considered the suggestion. A morning with the Fines would be a long morning but Hoey’s news had buoyed him.
“No, Shea. Be better if you had some brief on what this Opus Dei is all about.”
Minogue remembered Kilmartin’s jibes from the previous night. Before they had knocked off for the night, Kilmartin had showed a shrinking Hoey the black-and-white photos of a curled, black mass. It was unrecognizable as the body it was supposed to be, except through the foreknowledge which Kilmartin’s expression of grim indulgence brought. ‘Trial by fire. Burnt offerings,’ the blasphemous Kilmartin had muttered as he had laid snap after snap of what had been Brian Kelly on Hoey’s desk like a ghastly game of cards.
“And try and get a hold of stuff and roll it out for me and Jim Kilmartin,” Minogue finished. “And find out what Gallagher and company make of the bombing. Stay put by the phone. I’ll get to you within the hour.”
Minogue held the receiver while he broke the connection. Phone Gallagher himself? Kilmartin? Drop the interview here and head for the Squad HQ, try and get into the driving seat as the information came in? The phone rang under his stretched fingers.
“Yes,” Minogue said, not yet back in the present. A man with a northern accent asked if Justice Fine was available. Minogue recognized the voice from somewhere.
“May I say who’s calling?”
“Sean O’Duill from Armagh.”
Cohen was already through the kitchen door and he took the receiver from Minogue. Fine emerged, carrying a tray. Minogue trudged after him into the front room.
“John Cohen, Your Eminence,” he heard Cohen say. “Very glad of your support… I’ll pass it on to him.”
Fine paused, tray in hand, listening to Cohen. He laid the tray down.
“Look after yourself,” he said to Minogue.
Minogue sat down in an armchair. Cohen came in yawning. Through the closing door Minogue heard Fine’s voice now, resigned and gentle. “Yes, Sean, we do. We keep on asking ourselves if this is really happening. Shock, yes…”
Cohen closed the door and sat opposite Minogue. The two men remained silent, one staring contemplatively at the tray, the other, a bewildered, middle-aged Clareman, anxious and distracted.
Rosalie Fine, a compact, stocky woman, entered the room noiselessly. Small patches of colour had gathered high on her cheeks. Her eyes were clear hazel, but they seemed out of focus to Minogue. He rose. She held the limp sleeves of her cardigan as she sat. Billy Fine came in after her and sat next to her on the couch, taking one of her hands in his.
“I’m sorry for your trouble,” Minogue said quietly. The words were thick and clumsy in his mouth and they ran back in his mind to taunt him. Rosalie Fine looked at him but Minogue felt she was not seeing him. Different people, these are. His embarrassment flared again. These people didn’t use a countryman’s stilted words. He dithered with the coffee, grateful for the strong sweet mixture.
“I was just about to apprise your husband of the investigation so far.” He paused to look at Fine. “But I’m far from sure now if this is the time-”
“There’s no time,” she interrupted. “There’s never any proper time. There’s no time that’s right…”
“With all the people coming to the house,” Minogue murmured, trying to recover.
“And last night’s…?” she paused, stuck for words, and looked directly at Minogue. Minogue took a quick sip of coffee. He heard Fine’s breath exhaled quickly.
“I wanted to reassure you that we’re casting the net wide. We have the expertise and the tools at hand to track down the suspects. And the will,” Minogue added slowly, returning Rosalie Fine’s distracted gaze. “The Special Branch has already conducted an extensive search for extremists who might be even remotely connected with Arab or Islamic causes. We’re still not ignoring the possibility of third-party involvement.”
“You mean the IRA?” said Fine.
“And groups on the Continent who have links with the IRA,” Minogue replied.
Fine nodded. The gesture seemed to wake Rosalie Fine from her detachment. “You don’t sound very confident about this,” she said abruptly. “We’ve been hearing these assurances from your Commissioner. I wonder if we’re not being reassured a bit too much.”
“Rose means that she’d sooner know the truth,” said Fine. “Same as myself.”
Minogue took a deep breath. He found that Rosalie Fine was still looking at him.
“This group that phoned the paper is not known to the Gardai. We’ve interviewed a large number of possible suspects already. Now, in the light of what happened last night, we might well be dealing with something involving more than just your own tragedy. I mean, not that…” Minogue felt his face redden and prickle.
Then Rosalie Fine spoke as though she had just entered the room. “Billy told me that you were in our Museum in Walworth Road.”
Minogue nodded. A faint alarm buzzed behind his thoughts.
“What did you think of it?” she asked. She might be making polite conversation with someone she had just bumped into in the street, Minogue saw. Was this the distraction that grief brings?
“I enjoyed myself,” he said. “All new to me. I’m County Clare, you see. Transplanted. I was taken to the altar by a Dublin-woman and I’ve been here since. It’s a tough calling. Our two at home would put the heart crossways in you.”
Rosalie Fine’s face took on a slightly indulgent cast, with a trace of irony plain in her eyes.
“I’d say you’re well able for them,” she murmured. Fine seemed glad to let down his load for a moment too. He leaned forward and placed his cup on the table. Rosalie Fines’ eyes slid out of focus again.
“I was talking to Lily,” she murmured in a different voice. “Last night, she phoned… Paul met Lily here on a holiday. She’s a cousin of the Greens. Greens the booksellers. Lily is a Londoner, of course. We were happy when Paul fell for her. A nice family and she wasn’t your traditional type to stay home and all that. Very modern and Paul liked that, he needed that. She was into the journalism herself, just starting into television.”
“Well he went to London with her but he couldn’t stand it.‘Exile’ he called it.”
“Lily had every right to say no to living here in Dublin,” Billy Fine took up the conversation. “And to be blunt,” he glanced at his wife before resuming, “they were bitter parting. Lily is a very strong personality, very confident. Of course you’d assume that Paul was the opposite, the one who gave way more…”