"Do sit down, James. Please."
Kenyon caught the sarcasm, but he didn't care now.
"Really, I insist. I'm not at all prepared for a fit from you."
"What the hell is Murray doing, running this operation?"
"Murray is not running the operation, James. He's part of a group gone to Dublin to sort this mess out. The offer of a chair still holds," Robertson added ominously.
"For Christ's sake, Hugh. His embassy man is shot to bits last night and Murray is already half-way across the Irish Sea by now-"
Robertson looked at his watch.
"Landed by now, I'd say, James."
"Landed in bloody Dublin after leaving us here tied up in knots. While he decides what has to be done and when. I can't believe it. And I'm being told that Murray isn't running the show?"
"James. Sit down, would you? I can't talk to a moving target. Let me go through it again. Murray is not running anything. We've just been asked to hold our investigation under advice from Murray. The immediate stuff has to be done first. The coppers in Dublin are being very damned co-operative. Murray has to be there if anything of Ball's work leaks out. That's all. Murray went through the Deputy Under Sec in the Foreign Office. He chairs the liaison meetings between the Foreign Office and MI6. Murray got territorial, that's all. 'Ball was ours, Combs was ours, let's fix this ourselves.' He convinced Chapman and they got to the Foreign Secretary. The Foreign Sec knows damn well that Murray is MI6. He took it up with the PMO and her ladyship issued her edict on it. She doesn't want a ripple. We're to freeze what we're doing and keep out of the way while Murray and company seal the business as best they can."
"Seal? Band-aid solutions. It's becoming unstuck every minute, that's pretty plain to me."
Kenyon sat down, still shaking his head.
"But can't you see we may have some edge out of this? The Irish are very embarrassed about security now that an attache has been murdered. They'll be more tractable in the conference because of it, James."
"Stinks," Kenyon retorted.
"Tell me," Robertson tried to divert, "what should we make of this Costello business?"
Kenyon slumped further into the chair. He paused before answering his Director. Robertson waited, balancing his pen delicately in the palm of his left hand.
When Kenyon spoke, his voice had softened.
"It doesn't make sense to me. I just did a brief check on this. Costello's down as a part of a feud in the INLA. There was a run of killings then, all part of the same squabble. Some wanted to go more political and others wanted more military targets. Costello's death sparked off other revenge killings. He was shot to bits and had his throat slit. A real horror show, right down to the message daubed on the car window in Costello's blood. Something in Gaelic about him being a traitor."
"Good riddance, hmm?"
"No tears shed here."
Kenyon yawned. He remembered reading that a yawn was a sign of repressed anger. He had been up since three.
"So they used Costello's name as an excuse?" Robertson probed. "A martyr, sort of?"
"The INLA? You can't take anything they say at face value. They might have suspected Ball was an intelligence officer. I'm sure the Irish Special Branch had Ball as a probable operative, just by powers of deduction from our staff numbers. There could have been a leak from their police. You just can't believe anything the INLA put out. They could have said that Ball was the oppressor of the Irish people for the last eight centuries."
"Their myth-making is that, shall I say, hyperbolic?"
Kenyon shrugged.
"You should read some of the interrogation transcripts I got from Defence intelligence when they picked up some of them in Belfast last year. They have a looney logic to them. Costello would be alive today if the British had never come to Ireland eight hundred years ago. Ball is British. We think he's an intelligence officer. Therefore, Ball led to Costello's murder. Something like that. Anything goes with them."
"Refresh me a tad on the INLA, would you?" Robertson asked.
"They're mostly ex-IRA and a few with overlapping memberships and loyalties."
"Kenyon began wearily. "Some INLA operations have had the direct support of the Proves. The Provos used to use them, supplied them and sheltered them but denied any link. They're what the Ulster Freedom Fighters or the Red Hand is to the Loyalist mob, the UDA. They're also nutters. Grown up under the gun."
"Something like the PLO-Black September exercises?"
"Yes. But they have their family squabbles, too. The INLA are very bad news indeed. That Costello killing had all the marks of an INLA job. They like to 'make examples.' They think the Provo leadership is too soft and they won't listen to them. We've put over twenty of them through the Diplock courts in Northern Ireland. All except three or four were for murder. They had a campaign going against prison warders and police. They're worried about the INLA in Dublin, too, I expect, and not just because of this thing last night alone. Three of their police were killed by the INLA, if I remember. Scores of bank jobs and a few punishment killings in the South, too. Then there was that feud started off by the Costello thing…"
"So the mention of Costello is misleading?"
"Ask Murray. He handles the breakdown for the Foreign Sec and the Home Office, too."
"Urn. Let's not keep coming back to Murray, James."
"I was just stating facts," Kenyon muttered. "Murray was the analyst. He'd know more than I would."
"All right, I see that. Don't forget, though, Murray has his way for the time being. The edict is that whatever we're doing in Dublin has to come through Murray for the moment. Murray has taken direct control of all intelligence work out of the embassy right now. We simply have to be sensitive to the negotiations."
"It's a security alert,'" said Kenyon.
"It's a security alert," Robertson continued, ignoring the sarcasm. "We're to keep out of his way and anything we are running there is his business, as of this morning. That's the directive. He can tell us to shut down and get out if he thinks the work is at risk, James. Tiptoe, softly softly."
"Murray hasn't actually told us to get Moore out of there, has he?"
"Not yet he hasn't," Robertson replied with an effort. "We can continue until such time as he thinks we're a potential balls-up. I outlined the operation because the PMO asked me to. That's how Murray knows about Moore snooping around for us in Dublin. I may not like it-you evidently don't like it-but if we can sign a border security deal or get better extradition for IRA men and that saves the life of one of our lads there…?"
Kenyon breathed out heavily.
"Hugh, you make me feel like a shit. But don't ask me to approve of Murray. Look at the mess he's gotten us into already."
"He may be a double-dehydrated shit, James, but we have to swallow our puke for the moment."
The image repelled Kenyon. He shivered.
"Any yield from Moore, and he has to at least show it to Murray in Dublin; that's the net effect right now. Murray may have to evaluate it on the spot and do whatever he needs to do security-wise then and there. I want you to tell Moore to stand by for an order to get to hell out of Dublin if that's what Murray thinks is necessary. And if he does find anything, he has to set up an RDV with Murray and show him any material he has."
Kenyon let out a long breath.
"Will do, Hugh," he said softly.
"Now, what's the risk to Moore at the moment?" Robertson asked.
"I don't see how they could connect Moore to Combs. All Moore has to do is to do his job and keep his eyes open."
Robertson nodded.
"He'll know what is happening," Kenyon added. "If he thinks there's a mark on him, we'll pull him out immediately. He can walk in the door of the embassy as a last resort. We have no reason to worry about him right now. Moore is actually doing quite well…"
The atmosphere in Robertson's office felt less strained now. The silence between the two men floated on a vague hum of traffic outside.
"Can I quote you on that, James?" Robertson tried to bring some relief to his subordinate. Kenyon picked up on a less agreeable interpretation. He left Robertson's office with the question trailing him, driven home by Robertson's parting remark, one which was far less ambiguous.
"Be sure to call me on any contact with Moore, James. Just so as we stay in touch on this." spacebarthing
Corrigan was a robust Garda Inspector in his mid-forties. What could have been a belly on him was on his chest instead. Minogue noticed that Corrigan had had his hair styled. When Minogue last worked with him, Corrigan had been a sergeant in the Special Branch. In the five intervening years, he seemed to have gotten younger. Perhaps it was the confidence which rank brought him. He had all his own teeth or else very good dentures, Minogue observed. Probably the latter, Minogue guessed as he walked away from the cashier, seeing as Corrigan had a broken nose from his favourite sport, hurling. As he drew closer to Corrigan's table, Minogue noticed the eyes again. For a tough nut-and he was Wyatt Earp when he had been stationed at the border-Corrigan had clear, soft grey woman's eyes. Minogue would have liked to tag the word vulpine on those eyes, but he could detect no signs of concupiscence in him. As though to compensate for the gentle eyes, Corrigan's eyebrows were bushy prominences.
Corrigan tested the seams on a classy-looking light sports jacket when he reached out to shake Minogue's hand. Minogue, no willow himself, saw his cup of coffee shake in his other hand while Corrigan pumped vigorously.
"How's the man?" Corrigan smiled. The lines out from his eyes drew the eyebrows down more.
"Pulling the divil by the tail, Pat. And how's yourself and all belonging to you?"
"Great."
Minogue dug a lump of dried brown sugar out of the bowl and plopped it into his cup.
"And how do you like your new premises, the Puzzle Palace?" Minogue inquired, referring to the Special Branch's move from Dublin Castle to Harcourt Square.
"It's like Phoenix, Arizona, or someplace."
Minogue laughed aloud and let the pleasantries settle while he stirred his coffee.
"Well, thanks for coming over, Pat. I hope you're not discomfitted. Do you know about this Combs man?"
"Murdered? Over the weekend?" Corrigan asked.
"That's the one. The well is dry on this so far, you see. But the name Ball-your business-his telephone number was on a little list that Combs had by his phone at home."
Corrigan nodded noncommittally. Both men made use of their cups and spoons now, each pretending to be absorbed in his coffee.
"The thought crossed my mind, Pat, that-"
"That your business might be connected with mine?"
"You're very quick off the mark. What do you think?"
Corrigan paused and breathed out heavily before he sat up, elbowing onto the table.
"Let's be practical now. I checked your Mr Combs after you phoned me. There's nothing in our files. He's not connected with the British Embassy so far as I know."
"Well, Pat, I asked myself if it was enough for Mr Combs to be English for the IRA or their likes to kill him. Only a passing thought, really. They wouldn't kill him the way it was done anyway, though. Maybe I shouldn't be asking you."
"Go ahead, you can if you like. The crowd that killed Ball last night, they meant business. There was at least three of them. More, I'll bet. Someone tagged him at that eating house or pub he was at and they let him drive his moth home. Very chivalrous. The fella on the motorbike used a sub-machine gun on Ball. Typical of the action men in the INLA out for the kill."
"Have you got anyone picked up for it yet?"
"We picked up two INLA fellas in Castle-knock, see if we can shake anything out of them up in the Bridewell," Corrigan went on. "But they were gangsters from the North, we're almost certain. There were four or five jobs like this one done in the North since last September. We think they have a unit that specialises in this stuff only. We had one strong name from the Brits, but he's at home in bed in Derry this morning."
"What about them telling the papers that Ball was some class of intelligence man?" Minogue asked.
Corrigan scratched the back of his ear.
"Ah, they'd have to say something like that. You know yourself, Matt. Make it sound like they had a reason."
Minogue spoke to Corrigan without looking at him.
"Is it all classified, Pat?"
Corrigan made an effort to smile.
"Sure isn't everything classified these days?"
Corrigan hadn't been quite able to carry it off.
"Did the INLA work something out about Ball and intelligence work here?"
Minogue watched Corrigan work harder at appearing relaxed.
"Sure isn't that what I'm telling you? They'd make up any kind of a yarn or excuse for a bit of gun-play. You know, make hay out of it for their outfit."
Corrigan leaned further over the table to confide.
"Now you know and I know that there's still an unspoken agreement for there to be no stunts like this here in the South. I can say this in confidence to a fellow member of the Gardai. Now you know more about the INLA anyway, more than would others, so what I'm saying will be no big news to yourself. What has me and my higher-ups jittery about this is that the rules aren't sticking…"
Minogue nodded.
"Yes, Pat. But the INLA are out of their minds at the best of times," Minogue said gently. "Since when did they care a damn what the public thinks? Didn't they break away from the Provos because they thought the Provos cared too much for what the man in the street thought?"
Minogue looked into Corrigan's eyes as he spoke. The friendliness "was quite gone now, as though a window had been closed behind them.
"True for you. But like I was saying, that's what we're wondering about. If this is a whole new way of operating on their part. A new campaign. New rules."
Corrigan sat back in his chair, disengaging himself. He drained his cup and replaced it carefully on the saucer. Then he winked at Minogue. He sat upright. Minogue watched Corrigan labour again to look jovial when he whispered.
"British intelligence at work in Ireland, I ask you," Corrigan said. "That'd make a change, wouldn't it? They never applied any in the country before."
Minogue agreed with the thrust of the conceit, but he could only manage a smile.
"Who needs any fecking spies lurking around here, Matt? Go into any pub in Dublin and you'll know everything that's going on. The country's a bloody sieve. Here, look now. Tell me a bit about the case you're on."
Minogue knew that Corrigan was trying to get something for nothing. It took him but three minutes to give Corrigan the gist of his investigation. He did not embellish any detail.
"And you're looking for a handle?"
Minogue nodded. He felt a barrier, an invisible line running down the table between them. He knew that Pat Corrigan was preoccupied by the assassination of Ball. Minogue did not dislike Corrigan. Minogue also knew enough of the workings of the Special Branch to understand that Corrigan had to be circumspect. He looked around the cafe. Bewley's was one of his cathedrals. He recalled the phrase that^he had heard on the news: "had received information." And what did that mean? Given the choice of the two most likely alternatives, Minogue guessed that someone had tipped off the INLA. They didn't maintain a network of touts, and even if they did, they'd never have gotten a man-or a woman-close enough to Ball to know for sure what he was about.
Corrigan had regained his agreeable expression. He laid a hand on the saucer and slid it to the centre of the marble table-top.
"You never know, Matt. I tell you what, though. We'll stay in touch, so we will."
Corrigan's car was next to the door to Bewley's. Corrigan smiled briefly at Minogue, then he stretched his arms over his head and groaned.
"That's what you get for being up all night. They called me and me going up the stairs to bed. The perils of being indispensable. Ah sure the holidays are coming up," Corrigan continued, grasping the doorhandle. He seemed anxious to restore something which had ebbed from the conversation. Holiday, Minogue thought. Hegel's Holiday, the glass of water upright and poised over the umbrella.
"Pat."
Corrigan turned from the open door, the grimly benign smile still holding firm under the grey eyes. Almost like a cat, the eyes, Minogue thought.
"You know how it is with me, Pat. A bit of a crank, I suppose," Minogue began.
Corrigan tried to maintain the smile.
"Do you remember that business with the Ambassador?"
"Could I ever forget it, Matt. You've had it rough."
"To be sure. There were droves of people thought I was owed something after that. Jimmy Kilmartin included. That's why he took me under his wing, I'd say. God knows why really. I was glad to be able to pick meself up out of the bed afterwards. Even drink a pint or two and wake up safe in bed in the morning."
Corrigan snorted, but held the flinty smile. He waited.
"Plenty of people telling me that I could call in a favour any time," Minogue added in a vacant tone. "As I say, I don't know what for. I mean, I was just there by coincidence really. But you don't want to be disabusing people of their notions. Do you know what I'm saying, like?"
"I think I do," Corrigan replied bleakly.
"You were one of those people, you see, Pat. Said to call in my chips with you any time I needed."
Corrigan looked up and down Fleet Street. Minogue scrutinised his face until Corrigan met his gaze again. A double-decker bus, its full diesel roar at the curb opposite, drowned out Corrigan's voice.
"Fire away," Corrigan murmured. Minogue didn't need to hear the words after he noted the expression.
"What about Ball, Pat?"
"Well, what about him?"
"Was he really doing intelligence work here?"
Corrigan was watching each passer-by's face until they passed beyond Minogue. Then he'd shift his scrutiny to a new face so he'd not collide with Minogue's limpid stare.
"Yes, he was. We think. I just hope to God it wasn't a leak from one of ours that cost Ball his life."
Corrigan gathered cheeks full of air and then released them slowly. He looked suddenly resigned, gentle.
"Are you going back to John's Road?" he asked.
Minogue replied that he was.
"Hop in and we'll go that way with you."
Corrigan's driver was a detective, Dunne. He had a head shaped like an egg, pointy end up, upon which the divinity that shaped rural Irish people's ends had pasted elephantine ears. He stopped the car next to Kingsbridge Station. It was five minutes' walk to Minogue's office from here.
Corrigan was jittery. Minogue did not know what to do. Corrigan had explained to him that Ball had merely been the devil they knew. Why raise a fuss when they knew Ball was a tricks man, only to have him transferred and the Gardai track a new man in the job? Someone had to do it… No, they had no way of knowing whether Ball had been in touch with Combs recently. When the guileless Minogue asked why, Corrigan had slapped his knee lightly in an unconvincing gesture of mirth.
"Man dear," Corrigan began, as though explaining venial sin to a child, "sure don't they have the best electronic detection and security in the business? Bar none, the Yanks included. Listen in on their phones, is it? Sure we bought most of our bells and whistles off the British firms. You can be damn sure that they wouldn't be sending the equipment to us if they thought we could be using the stuff on their embassy here without them knowing about it?"
"Uh," Minogue grunted.
"I'm not saying we don't do any of it, but they have a cast-iron system. They have bigger fish than us to worry about."
"How much work did Ball actually do, Pat?"
Corrigan made no reply but looked vacantly up at the sky as if to sight gamebirds for his rifle. Minogue noticed the slice of jug-eared driver's face in the mirror. He was studying Minogue.
"All right, Pat. One more thing though."
Corrigan leaned his head against the glass of the car door, looking down his nose at Minogue. He had a genuine, rueful smile now, as though he knew a cat was out of the bag.
"Plough ahead."
"Did that Costello fella ever spend time here in Dublin? When he was on the run from the North, I mean."
Corrigan's frown returned instantly.
"I don't remember exactly, Matt."
"Can you find out-quicker than myself, I mean-if Costello spent time in south County Dublin?"
Corrigan's panther eyes widened momentarily before narrowing.
"Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
"I suppose I am. Whatever that is."
"Like Costello is somehow linked with your fella? But sure Costello was done in years ago. His own crowd popped him, did a terrible job on him. He was a bad egg anyway, was Costello."
Corrigan bit his lower lip for several seconds, gazing out at the grey stone walls of the train station. Minogue looked to the mirror again. The driver was pretending to be deaf. Minogue yanked at the doorhandle and pushed at the door with his knee.
"Look it, Matt," Corrigan said.
Minogue was taken aback at the tone of solicitude he heard in Corrigan's voice now. He sounded more puzzled than dismissive.
"On the off chance, on the wildest off chance, I'll poke through the files. Maybe not today, but I'll get around to it. Will that do you?"