Moore shrugged. His hand strayed lightly over the sandy hair. For a moment, doubts wormed deep in Kenyon. He searched the face opposite him. Moore, parachuted into an operational role, this time as a lawyer; whatever field instincts he may have had rusted by now. But the assignment didn't require James Bond; just someone who was observant, methodical. Was that enough? Moore interrupted his drift.
"I'll need a letter of authorisation, an introduction, as well as proof of accreditation here."
"You'll have them by the morning. Draw what you need to get settled into a hotel there. We'll book you on a Dublin flight tomorrow, mid-day. You'll have your letters and background paperwork waiting for you here. Briefing at seven-thirty. Any difficulties with this schedule?"
Kenyon thought he saw a smile start on Moore's features, but he couldn't be sure. Moore shook his head once.
"We'll get you to Heathrow. Run yourself up a three-piece pin-stripe or something. Don't bring a bowler hat to Dublin, though. Only the Orangemen wear them there."
At least Bowers smiled. Kenyon gestured for him to leave. Moore sat gazing at the tea-tray. He didn't acknowledge Bowers' leaving.
"Now, I know it's short notice and all that," Kenyon began in a conciliatory tone. Moore looked at him as though to agree, but with a heavily ironic emphasis.
"I expect you want to know more about Arthur Combs and why we're falling over our arses trying to get at him now that he's dead." spacebarthing
Minogue's mouth was chalky, cloyed from the anisette. Iseult and Pat were in the kitchen now, as was Kathleen. They were drinking mugs of tea and attacking the leftovers of the Bewley's cake.
Minogue poured himself more tea. It turned out to be the bottom of the pot. He filled the kettle from the tap. While he waited for the kettle to fill, he tried to look through the blued reflections of the kitchen which came back to him from the window. He could make out the bushes and the grass where the kitchen light reached. His own blurry shadow, fattened, lay in the distorted rectangle of yellow light. The shrubs beyond the light were faint but dense masses, as if the night had clumped them there, giving them a protective bulk. Was there no moon? He didn't see one, but he did notice a slight fan of blue behind the tree at the end of the garden. Would that be the beginnings of the moon he wanted? Combs, coming home in the darkness to a lonely house. A bit unsteady on the legs after a few drinks? Didn't notice anything amiss. Was there someone with him, a boyfriend? The anise had stilled Minogue, making his movements laborious. He knew it was a fake sleepiness. He wondered what the night-time was like at Tully, the whorls on the stones now faded into the shadow, the ruins no longer standing out against the sky.
The kettle filled, he placed the lid on and plugged it in. How does one draw or paint night anyway? Anytime there was a bright moon Minogue could not resist turning out the lights in the room to admit the moonlight. Moon, luna. Lunatic.
"Don't be falling asleep there, Da," Iseult said.
Kathleen resumed her interrogation of Pat. She asked about his brothers and sisters. Pat likely knew that this wasn't the first time he'd have to account for himself and his background to his girlfriend's mother, Minogue thought. Mrs Hartigan, the housekeeper. How could she not notice if Combs was homosexual?
He unplugged the burbling kettle and poured a little of the water into the teapot to scald it. Minogue would only drink tea that had been drawn in a fresh pot which had been scalded first. As he poured the tea, he tried again to shake himself of the passport photo: Combs' flabby, tired face, those candid eyes staring into the camera.
Minogue allowed himself an hour and a half of Tuesday morning for the State Pathologist's report, additional pages from Garda Forensic and the State Lab, and typed-up reports based on interviews done by Gardai in Stepaside. Arthur Combs had consumed approximately four small whiskies and one, perhaps two, half-pints of beer in the two hours before his death. Fond of it? Minogue wondered. Murtagh's trips to the gay bars had produced nothing. Only one pub had phoned back when the new shift had had a chance to see the photo of Arthur Combs. A barman in Lydon's pub thought that an older man, like the one in the photo, had come in some Friday nights over a year ago. If his memory was good-and Minogue couldn't silence the cynical gargoyle within-the man had read a sporting paper, probably horse-racing, and had left the pub after a couple of drinks. Alone. What next? the gargoyle whispered. Go to all the bookies in Dublin? Another motive for doing in a man who owed money to a bookie? But no, Minogue realised: Combs wasn't short of money. Horses, a little betting. Tinkers?
He rang Stepaside station and asked for Driscoll.
"One Michael Joseph Joyce, sober," said Minogue. "Reliable, usable testimony. It may be twelve and me getting there but…"
"No bother. He can cool his heels here."
Minogue turned to the forensic report. No pressure prints or UV traces of prints on victim's skin. No cord, twine or string of any description found on premises. Shoe-prints in the laneway matched brogues found in Combs' kitchen. Thirty-seven recoverable prints lifted from kitchen. Twenty-two from Combs, twelve definites from Mrs Hartigan, awaiting more intensive comparison checks on three marginals. More from the car and other rooms in Combs' house. All matches to Combs, none pending even. Tire treads that matched the radials on Combs' Renault. Didn't trust himself to drive up the narrow laneway after a few drinks? Didn't mean that no other car had parked in the laneway, Minogue brooded. Clues like asymptotes: nowhere he could see. Ahhh…
He phoned the Garda Forensic Lab and listened for almost twenty minutes while he was told much the same as he had read. Still no prints outside of Mrs Hartigan's and Combs'. Only eight pending for matches now. Any amount of ones smudged, unrecoverable. No, no one had done the end of the laneway. Why not? It was examined and found to be virtually all stones coming up through the soil. No tire marks visible. Clothes, any struggle at all, nails? No. Had to be something in all these pages, some clue.
Michael Joseph Joyce, itinerant, age thirty-eight, currently residing in Heronsford, Ballcorus, Co. Dublin. Married, wife Josie (Josephine), seven children. Minogue pushed away from his desk using his knee. He didn't get far. One of the rollers under his chair was seized.
"Tea, your honour," from Eilis, by his side. He hadn't heard her walk over to him. Smoke followed her and began to settle on him, a smell from the Levant. A souk, coffee-like tar in thimbles? Maybe a stone-flagged square with gristled and moustachioed men at dusk. Anatolia, Minogue wished. Wouldn't mind being there.
"Thanks, Eilis."
Eilis slouched back toward her desk. It was a quarter after eleven. It had been lashing rain since Minogue awoke at six.
Joyce: no relation to the one writing the dirty books beyond in Paris, of course. Joyce is a Galway name. Galway is the City of the Tribes. Travellers, itinerants, often converged on Galway city, the gateway to the west. Michael Joseph Joyce had been found malingering around the outside of Mr Combs' house by a member of the Gardai. Garda Eoin Freely was answering a telephone call from a concerned citizen, one Brian Mahon, who happened to be driving by with his brother. Happened to be driving by? Mahon lived in Stepaside. He had come by to see "the murder house." More lurid sightseeing, Minogue snorted.
Joyce had drink taken. Not completely legless but intoxicated enough not to be sensible to the waking, official world. Michael Joseph Joyce told Garda Eoin Freely that he was on Mr Combs' property to see to it that "the horse was fed and watered." Garda Freely did not report that he laughed at this explanation. He did report that he promptly took Joyce to Stepaside Garda Station for further questioning. No questioning had been done of course. They had rung Hoey by then and Minogue had issued his edict. Heronsford, where Joyce was camped, was three miles and more from Combs' house. What really brought Joyce that far from home at that hour of the night?