“An opportunity to grow in faith and commitment once the dark night is past?”
“You seem to know the tune well.”
“Humph. They haven’t changed much in that department, anyway. You know they come in for criticism, even from inside the Church?”
“No I didn’t,” Minogue replied. “I thought they were just very religious.”
“ ‘Just’ is right. There’s the charge of brainwashing against them. The way they recruit was the subject of some criticism a few years ago but it seems to have died down. They are very good at recruiting high-minded young people to throw in their lot with them. The initiates are usually very driven types of young men, very sincere, very conscientious and very clever… clever isn’t everything, is it?… the way only young adults can be, before the world announces itself to them in earnest. Hmm. This would be a chat to pass the time, though, if it weren’t for the context: Billy Fine’s boy.”
“Indeed,” said Minogue. “It was a cold-blooded murder. Savage. I want the killer very badly indeed, and I have less patience as the days go by.”
“That I noticed earlier in the afternoon. Let me ask you, now, what do you think is really going on here?”
“Like I said at the meeting, I’m beginning to think that the murder had something to do with Opus Dei. A youngster has come forward, a boy who had a glimpse of a man who may be the killer. He said the man looked like a copper. You know how it is with kids.”
Tynan nodded. “They tend to be a problem in so far as they see things a bit too clearly for our liking. But the claim about the fringe group and the Palestinians?”
“Sergeant Gallagher in the Branch has been banging his head on that one. He’s still interviewing but so far he has nothing to lead us with.”
“It’s a cover-up?”
“It might be and it might not. Just because the killer didn’t look like an Arab to the young lad who’s shaping up to be an excellent witness, that doesn’t mean…”
Minogue stopped when he saw Tynan nodding his head.
“We believe that Brian Kelly was also murdered and that the forensic will confirm that soon enough. So with those facts, we’re starting off with this line of investigation.”
“And Kelly was looking to talk to you one night late?”
“He was; we tape the calls to the help-line. We have the sense that Brian Kelly knew something about Paul Fine. I believe he may have arranged to meet Paul Fine just before Paul Fine was murdered.”
“Did Kelly kill Paul Fine?”
“No. He didn’t match the description we have off that sharp young lad. There’s a snapshot of Kelly on its way out to the boy’s home so that we can be positive of this.”
Tynan looked down into his cup. “The other alternative seems to be that Kelly was killed for the same reason that Paul Fine was killed, and perhaps by the same person or persons,” he said.
“Tell me why,” said Minogue.
“Kelly gives Fine some information. Kelly has some troubles with Opus Dei.”
“Thanks,” Minogue said archly. “Now I know how Jimmy Kilmartin feels when it’s me talking like that.”
“Doesn’t work very well when you don’t have evidence and facts, does it?” Tynan said quietly.
“I just can’t see religious people getting up to this mayhem,” said Minogue. “That stops me in my tracks, too.”
“All right, so. The gist of what’s bringing me here is this. I happen to know that Opus Dei has changed over the past few years. The whole character of the organization has changed and so has its membership in Ireland. I know this because I have a personal interest in it. I also know that there are serving members of the Gardai in Opus Dei. You may remember what General O’Tuaime said in the meeting,” said Tynan ambiguously.
“That the issue of Army members belonging to confraternities has come up before, but that it’s of no consequence?”
“Yes. Opus Dei has been around since the ’30s. It was a product of the ’30s in many ways, when people looked to the Soviet Union and began to get the shivers. Fascism as a counter to Bolshevism, and that sort of mania. Opus Dei never really got near the goal of having a broad base of membership here in Ireland. That’s what they realized not too long ago, so the emphasis was put less on recruiting big numbers of young men and more on using the ones they had already, using them more efficiently to do the apostolic work. Quality, not quantity became the by-word for them. I was approached several years ago by a certain party, unnamed, a senior Garda officer. He’s retired now. At one of those get-togethers in the Clarence Hotel, you can imagine. A few jars after the speeches, and we got down to the real business of gossip and character assassination. I’m sure that a goodly number of people know that I was once well on the way to being a priest and this man did. He suggested to me in the friendliest way-two Gardai having a jar and gabbing-that it would do me no harm if I were to resuscitate an interest in lay apostolic work. I caught on immediately that he meant Opus Dei. If it had been the Knights of Columbus, he would have said so. ‘No harm’ meant to my career, of course.”
Tynan’s eyes had taken on a frosty glint.
“This was 1971 when there were deaths every night in the North. The Provos were full of Marxist rhetoric and there was a feeling that anything could happen. I didn’t tell him that as regards resuscitating this interest he might as well be asking me to raise the dead. That’s none of anyone’s business, inside the job or outside of it, except my own. Don’t bother trying to think back as to who’s senior and who’s retired now: he was a harmless fellow, really. With me, you see, and the priestly calling, he would have assumed that once in, I was never ‘really’ out. It’s like being seduced, I suppose. He saw five years in a seminary on my card, and he saw what he wanted.”
Was Tynan a pagan too, Minogue wondered. Tynan flicked a glance beyond Minogue as though to address an unseen audience.
“I was told that as a bit of helpful advice. Naturally, as I’m married and the rest of it, I couldn’t aspire to the heights of being a Numerary or even an Associate in Opus Dei. My would-be mentor would have known that anyway. What he was saying, I decided, was that someone, some people who mattered in the Gardai, were involved with Opus Dei, even in a minor way. If I was to join, I’d be one of the boys.”
“Are we waiting to use the word ‘conspiracy’ but it sounds too dramatic?”
“Could be. I have no idea if it went anywhere beyond being a few people motivated by piety and a bit of nationalism. I simply said to myself that one day I’d find out more about this. I had put it on hold, and almost forgotten about it.”
“When you say ‘people who mattered’, do you mean someone senior to you at the time?”
“I was a Chief Super, working in Sligo then. There were three ranks above me. Assistant Comm, Deputy Comm, and the man himself, God Almighty.”
Seven in total, Minogue estimated. The noise of Bewley’s began to get in on him now. He was dimly aware of some backstage movements but he couldn’t focus on them while he had Tynan across the table from him. He watched him finish his coffee. Was he trying to get him tangled up in some messy speculation that could turn out badly? Why would Tynan confide in him like this instead of monitoring the investigation at a distance?
“If you’re trying to remember who was in those posts then and where they are now, give yourself a rest. I’ll tell you. DC1 was there then, and he’s still there. God Almighty used to be DC1 before Quinn. There’s only one of us four Assistant Comms who was at that rank back then. But that’s not the point, because we’re not on a witch-hunt, and I’ll tell you why before you get the spyscopes out. You know that Supers and Chief Supers have a lot to say indirectly in who gets promoted above them. In my case, other Chief Supers at the time would have been discreetly asked: ‘Is that Tynan worth the money?’ or ‘Can you work with Tynan?’ They even ask Supers and Inspectors, to see how they feel about their masters and their future masters. Not in so many words, of course, but their remarks are noted. So for any of these Opus Dei men to help a fellow along in his career, they wouldn’t have to be the dogs with loudest barks in the house.”