"I'll hear from ye during the day," Minogue said.
Minogue nodded toward the district detectives from Stepaside. He visualised them returning home later and enlarging upon their meeting with members of the Murder Squad. Excitement. Drama. Tall tales.
"I'm obliged to ye for coming in, all of ye. It's no small matter to be running around and taking statements like ye did today. Ye've laid great foundations, I'm sure," Minogue said above the screech of scraping chair-legs on the linoleum.
He remained seated, watching the policemen leave the room. He had been more embarrassed by his little morale speech than by the plain fact that they still knew next to nothing about Combs' life. It was almost two full days since the man had been murdered. He looked at the card which Eilis had left on his desk.
Along with a long telephone number, the card also had Inspector Newman's address-down to his room number-with the London Metropolitan Police. The card mutely informed Minogue that Newman was the head of a section called C11 in C Department, the office which travelled under the agreeable name of International Liaison. Would this crowd be working after five o'clock, though?
It took Minogue but a half minute to hear a man's voice announce himself as Inspector Newman. The accent made a funny "r" at the end of his rank, not an accent that Minogue expected. Not like Alec Guinness in The Bridge on the River Kwai, for example.
"Detective Sergeant Minogue calling from Dublin, Inspector. I'm in the Investigation Section of the Gardai here. The Murder Squad, that is. I'm calling on behalf of Inspector Kilmartin. He's indisposed at the moment…" Minogue paused to allow Newman to digest his intro. Should he tell him that Jimmy had his arse in a sling?
"Yes, I know Inspector Kilmartin. And you're…?"
Minogue repeated his name.
"We're looking to a murder here, Inspector. A citizen of the United Kingdom. He last lived in London. A place called Wood Green. Am I making sense?"
Newman said that he was.
"Mr Combs. Mr Arthur Combs. Will I spell it?"
"Honey — C-O-M-B?"
"The very thing. Do you want a date of birth and the like?"
Newman said "righto" each time he recorded details. Recounting those details, Minogue wondered at what meagre things these accoutrements of a life were. A middle name, a height, a weight, a job. All pegs to keep you rooted while life buffeted you, its gusts and lulls alternately testing the pegs. Finally to have a lid closed over you, cold in the earth.
Minogue told him that the Gardai had not assigned a motive for the murder. He did not tell him that the other two of the policeman's morbid trinity-opportunity and resources-were as wide as a barn door with the wind whistling through. Mr Combs had been strangled rather expertly by a person or persons who had been waiting for him as he entered the kitchen door of his house. The Gardai would be glad of Newman's help in furnishing information about Mr Combs before he came to live in Ireland, and after too, if that was to be had. Newman said that he would do what he could. Minogue liked the sound of that. Inland Revenue, army service, would that be a start? Minogue said that would be a great start. Would the Inspector be needing written requests to get it going? He would not. Then he surprised Minogue.
"What kind of weather have you in Dublin?"
Newman pronounced the name of the capital city as if there were a hyphen in the middle, much as a respectful traveller might try to say "Zambesi" without offending the sensibilities of tribesmen leaning on their spears nearby.
"Oh, it's very nice, you'd love it," Minogue said. He had guessed right from the accent. Newman was no sooty Londoner but one of God's chosen, a countryman like himself.
Newman paused.
"Well, that's very nice," he said finally.
"It certainly is. We get buckets of rain here by times, summer or winter. The bit of dry weather does wonders for the morale," Minogue enthused.
"Ay, ay. I'll have an officer start a file on it, and you can call on that when you need it, too," Newman said.
"That'd be great. Yes."
Minogue replaced the receiver and clapped his hands. They weren't bad lads over there at all. Maybe Kilmartin had him over here on a golfing holiday or something, that Newman was so helpful. He glanced at his watch. Holy God: twenty after five. Hoey and Keating could hold the fort and show off all they'd learned off Jimmy Kilmartin. Damn: forgot to phone the same Jimmy…
C had completed the requisite number of patrols, mixed in with the odd full circuit of the room, to whatever end he alone knew, Kenyon guessed. Now he was seated with his legs crossed at the knee. He had taken but a few drags at a second cigarette before leaving it to smoulder. The smell of the burning filter was distasteful to Kenyon. He stole another glance at the balding, basilisk C. Some of the senior staff called him F. Hand-in-hand with his eccentricities, the current Director had the reputation of being a vengeful bully.
"So: find if this Combs committed any gripes to writing," C declared as a question.
"Writing or perhaps tape," replied Kenyon.
"Tape, file, dossier," C murmured. "Would this Combs have secreted material with someone else?"
"There's a possibility, sir," Kenyon answered quickly. "But it just doesn't make sense that Combs' grievances dried up when Ball became his handler. I strongly believe that Combs was at the end of his tether. He may have felt that he had nothing to lose."
"But Combs didn't issue any threats this last while," C stated.
"True, sir. But at the very least, Combs may have made some record. Named names."
"Low-level intelligence work," C murmured. "You don't say. Do we call it that because it was done in Ireland?"
Kenyon mustered a polite smile.
"Bloody burkes," added C. Neither Kenyon nor Robertson needed to wonder if it was the Foreign Office his remark addressed.
"And we have to pick up the bits after these brainwaves… Yes. Tape, file dossier," C murmured again. "It's altogether too like a bloody sordid little treasure hunt or something."
He turned to Kenyon.
"You know now that Hugh and I have had this pot heating before we looked to you for a fresh appraisal?"
Kenyon nodded.
"The most problematic part will be that bloody miserable island of nutters next door to us. Murphy's Law, home of. How do you plan to do business in Dublin with this? You're willing to act on the theory that Combs put something by locally, right?"
"Yes, sir. He may have believed that we had his post screened, too…"
"Was this Combs' thing picked as a complete fiction then? How much cardboard is behind this character? Will it hold up?"
"I think it will," Kenyon took up the question. "As long as there's no leak from our level. We held the death certificate _when Arthur Combs died, so the Irish police will get the goods from the Met here and it'll be bona fide. I have an alert with them if anyone inquires after Combs. Nothing from the Irish police yet. Combs was sixty-seven when he died, six years ago. Not married, no family either. Retired Customs Inspector. One of Six's better fits, I have to admit," Kenyon said.
"No one there in Ireland he'd pour out his heart to?" C persisted. He seemed to Kenyon to be talking to himself.
"Seems not, sir. He had a more general or, shall I say, abstract attachment."
"Meaning?"
"The business about local history there. Old artefacts, ruins, things like that."
"Bit of an old ruin himself, come to think of it," a mirthlessly sarcastic C murmured.
"You're relying on D notices and the Secrets Acts to tame our journalistic friends should they receive anonymous parcels of notes from Ireland?" C challenged.
"Yes, sir. They'd cough up, I'm sure," Kenyon tried to sound confident. Robertson cleared his throat, a cue for Kenyon to get to the main course.