Minogue had finished a jumble of cauliflower, potatoes and stringy mutton. The vegetables were barely tolerable and he had little relish for the mutton'. For his pains, the waitress could only offer him the choice of jelly or ice cream.
"I'll go jelly then," he said.
"Tea or coffee?"
"Neither thanks. I'm saving myself for Bewley's later on. Don't tell anyone or I'll be in trouble."
When Minogue saw the cubes of jelly shivering on the bowl under him, he knew that he didn't have the heart for it. Still, he trapped a cube under the edge of the spoon, cut it and tasted it. Wicked. Was jelly the kind of thing that old people living on their own would eat? Like in America with the TV dinners you bought and could just sling into the oven and eat right out of the package? Old people living alone… Maybe Mrs Hartigan had fed Combs right. Minogue felt his thoughts slump. Damn and damn again. There had to be something she'd know to get this moving.
When Minogue reached the Squad HQ in St John's Road, the smell of Turkish tobacco stopped him in his tracks. Yes, Paris, Minogue remembered, with his wife giggling at his French: the smell of Gauloises, piss and diesel in the early morning streets by Mont-martre.
Eilis nodded at him. Her air of impatience served to keep groundlings at bay. She had had enough of humans, it seemed, but not enough that she did not entertain a Trinity College professor as her lover. So the rumour went anyway. The ones who raised their eyebrows the most were the policemen who were about the same age as Eilis, married men.
"It's yourself that's in it, is it?" she breathed. Wisps of her dark red hair had escaped the clasp gathering her hair over the collar of her blouse.
"And how's our Inspector?" she continued in Irish.
"Fine and well," Minogue replied in her vernacular. "He says hello to all and sundry here."
Eilis sat down. She almost smiled at Minogue's pun. On the surface, "fine and well" in her vernacular of Munster Irish meant that the party so described was happily drunk.
"I have reams of stuff to give you, you'll be thrilled to hear," Eilis muttered around her cigarette. The smoke was irritating her eyes, the more so as she leaned over to unlock a cabinet.
Minogue took the folder and decamped to his desk and chair. Combs passport number along with a black-and-white snap-one taken in a Woolworth's box, by the cut of it-clipped onto a sheet was on top of the sheaf of papers. Combs had been looking back at the lens as if to challenge it, to make sure it reported a true picture of him. He looked older than seventy-three even then. Froggy, tired eyes on him, loose skin bundled under his chin. Sick-looking? Fleshy-looking anyway. How often did UK citizens have to renew their passport photos?
The photocopies of the visa pages from his passport showed a stamp from Malaga declaring that Combs had been a turista when he went there two years ago. Could have been over and back to Britain a million times, too; no passport needed. A poorly typed summary-a reluctant Hoey clattering on the keys on late Sunday night-listed names: Mrs Hartigan, James Molloy (barman), Joey Murphy (wit. in Fox's pub), Jackie Burke (do.), Larry O'Toole (do.), Mulvaneys (Barnacullia).
"Somebody phone the embassy of next-of-kin?"
"Master Keating did," replied Eilis.
Minogue returned to his papers. Copies of car insurance, an Irish driver's license and, handwritten below, two account numbers for the Bank of Ireland, College Green. Minogue called the bank and asked for Bill Hogan, another Clare expatriate.
"You'll phone me then, Bill, will you? Here's my number. I'll follow up with the paperwork later on in the week. What's the story on any safety deposit boxes or use of a big bank safe, will you find out about that?"
Hogan would. Unasked, Hogan would also offer Minogue twenty quid at four to one against Offaly making it all the way to the hurling final. Minogue asked if Hogan could perhaps effect a loan on his behalf for that amount. Hogan barked a laugh and hung up. Minogue then phoned Keating at Stepaside Garda station.
"What about your three divine persons?" Minogue inquired.
Keating couldn't keep a touch of disappointment from his voice.
"You were right,' sir. They're bad articles, but they're all blather."
Minogue heard the pages of Keating's notebook turning slowly.
"… Moved a few hot cars along and delivered the odd shotgun no questions asked. Shag was convicted three years ago for fencing stuff. He did six months… We questioned them separately but they came up clean so far. They're no strangers here. They want to know what we're holding them under."
"And is there anything ye can lean on them with? Anything around the house?"
"No, sir. A few dirty books and a new set of mechanic's tools that the likes of the Mulvaneys can't afford. And they have an independent alibi, all three of them, up'til five o'clock in the morning. Sort of tears the arse out of things," Keating spoke slowly.
"Well, they weren't saying the rosary all night. They were playing cards and drinking at a house in the village."
"All of them?" Minogue interjected.
"All of them. One of them, let me see… Shag, yes, Shag. He was put out of the game because he was blackguarding with the cards. But he sat in the kitchen, drinking with another fella."
Keating filled in more details from the interviews. Minogue was half-listening. The other half of him was thinking of the drawings in Combs' house. The whorls in the granite had been rendered in all their stark softness in his drawings: stone gnawed over by centuries of wind sun and rain. How many hands had caressed those stones? These extraordinarily ordinary images in a house that was empty of any trappings of family life, those other artefacts from which Minogue had fashioned bits of his own religion. Trappings, perhaps that was a word for it, all right. Maybe Combs never wanted to be entrapped by a family, and these drawings could only be produced by a man outside the rag-and-bone comforts of a family, those things which had brought Minogue back to life. Combs a transient? For two years? A man who couldn't conceal his feeling for such stones and signs was hardly a transient. It looked like he had found something.
Minogue gathered himself from his wool-collecting and took leave of Keating, but not before trying to buoy him up.
"Tell you what. Give it a rest. Shea can tidy up bits there, do you follow me? Get yourself a cup of something, polish up a summary of those three brothers. Get here for the four o'clock powwow here with me. Can you do that?"
"I think so, sir."
Bill Hogan phoned as Minogue was replacing the receiver. Hogan liked doing favours which showed his acumen and authority in the bank, Minogue remembered as he listened to Hogan's flamboyant greeting.
"Mr Combs had the two accounts, all right. One was for savings and the other was a current account. One of the girls remembers him. He used to wait for her so she'd do his business for him. There. Aren't we quick off the mark in this bank, Matt?"
"I'm blinded by your efficiency, so I am," Minogue said. "Listen, was Combs a big depositor?"
Minogue knew that his request was beyond the pale. Hogan could well ask for the official request in writing, in between apologizing for the formalities of course.
"Let's say he was comfortable, Matt. More comfortable than you or I."
"Any large transactions in the last while?" Minogue tried gingerly.
"No. He never left more than three figures in the savings. The current account was just to receive remittances from banks in England. Credit memos. Now, don't you want to ask me where these remittances came from?"
"Well. I suppose I do… yes, I do," Minogue said, taken by surprise. Had he such currency with Hogan, a man who had grown up as a townie in Ennis while Minogue was mooching around in the sodden fields with clay under his nails?
"National Westminster Bank. NatWest. A branch in London. Every month, a credit memo at the beginning of the month and then another one at the end of the month."
"A pension, Bill?"
"Arra, I dunno. If either one was a pension, then it's in England the pair of us should be living and not here. One of the memos had the name of another bank as source. Sampson Coutts. Sounds very 'nobby, doesn't it?"
"Like they supply snuff to the Queen."
"Well. That's as much as we know here. Oh, he had nothing in the safe with us here."
"Aren't you great, though," Minogue declared. "There wouldn't be more later?"
"Nothing of any import."
Minogue had to sit through a crude joke where only Hogan laughed. Then he returned to the itemized list of Combs' effects.
There was no sign of a will. There was a box which seemed to have contained the receipts that had been scattered about the kitchen. Receipts for the electricity, receipts from a garage for a new clutch in the car, bills for water. Combs owned the house freehold. There was no safe or cubby-hole in the house. No money had been found. Combs' wallet, if he had had one, was missing. Minogue read through Hoey's report for mention of an address book, a diary, any notes for appointments. There was none. There was, however, a photocopy of a list of telephone numbers which had been taped to the wall beside the telephone. Hoey or somebody had tried the numbers, because red felt pen marks were next to all of the numbers. A doctor in Stepaside, the housekeeper's number, numbers for two bookies (ah, a racing man), the B amp;I ferry office, Aer Lingus, British Airways. One number had the name "Ball" next to it. "British Embassy" had been written in red on the photocopy.
Minogue leaned back in the chair. He almost toppled back onto the floor. Recovering his poise, he leaned his elbows on the desk. It was gone three o'clock. Eilis was burrowing in a filing cabinet. There was a smell of tea lurking somewhere, not yet suffocated by her Gitanes. It was a toss-up whether he should visit Bewley's in Georges Street (in which backwater you were liable to fall asleep) or go for the real Bewley's in Grafton Street or Westmoreland Street. Minogue took stock of what he needed. Meeting at four to put the nuts and bolts together. Combs didn't seem to have any solicitor in Ireland. Did the bank deal with this kind of thing, seeing as Combs had been a customer? Eilis to phone Bill Hogan back. Listen to his jokes, too?
But this was all a bit too routine, Minogue sensed, when he stood up from the offending chair. Beyond the sketches there was little enough personal in Combs' place. Did no one write him letters? No grandniece to send him a postcard about her holiday in Brighton? No shoebox of snapshots and cards? Mrs Hartigan's mention of Combs' corresponding with others… but no sign of him hoarding any letters he had received in reply. Minogue's house held mountains of knick-knacks, all sacraments sufficient to his own faith. He didn't know how a person could live comfortably without such a glut of signs. He looked at the copy of the passport pages again. Went on holidays to Spain on his own…
Minogue was almost by Eilis when her phone rang. She beckoned to him before he could reach the door. The call was from the British Embassy. Minogue listened to an English accent announcing that she was Miss Simpson, that Mr Combs was unmarried and that Mr Combs did not have any family extant. Extant?
"Mr Combs' sister, Janet Combs, died in Bristol in 1979. We know of no relatives."
Just like that, Minogue thought. The way Miss Simpson had said it added a weight to the feeling he had held aside so far. Silly maybe: he had almost said "poor devil."
"Oh, I see. Now can you tell me where Mr Combs used to live in England? In Great Britain, I mean. Did he have a house there himself, like."
"Mr Combs last lived in London."
She gave Minogue an address which meant nothing to him. Some place called Wood Green. It sounded nice, but wasn't London very crowded? He scribbled while she spoke. A delphic Eilis sat behind a slim thread of smoke watching him. He tried not to be distracted by the way Miss Simpson was ending her words so precisely.
Mr Combs had retired from his job as a Customs Inspector at the Port of London. He had sold his house over two years ago and moved to Ireland. He had established contact with the embassy in Ireland as a matter of course. The address she gave him was the same house in Kilternan.
"I see, Miss Simpson." Minogue said.
"Would there be an Irish background here at all, his parents perhaps?"
Miss Simpson didn't know and she said so.
"Is there no one we can tell he's dead? Relatives, I mean, of course."
"I expect that his will may tell you something."
"Yes, indeed," said Minogue, adrift again. "But we have none. Will, that is. Solicitors I suppose. If there are any."
"Your Department of Foreign Affairs usually looks after the return of remains," she said lightly.
Minogue realised that she was trying to be helpful.
"Yes, Miss Simpson. Thanks very much now. And 1 hope we find someone for Mr Combs. His relatives I mean, as well as the perpetrator. However distant the relatives. Oh, before I forget, is there a Mr Ball working at the embassy?"
"There is. He's a Second Secretary… Did you want to…?"
"Not at the moment, no thanks. It's just that we found a telephone number in Mr Combs' house for your Mr Ball."
"One of Mr Ball's duties is to see to inquiries and communications with citizens of the UK resident in Ireland. As I mentioned, Mr Combs registered with us here."
"That's a lot of work, though, isn't it?" asked Minogue. "All those Britons who come here to live, even for a while, like."
"Not everybody would do so, Sergeant. Some like to do it, but Ireland, the Republic, is not a foreign destination for Britons really, is it?"
A sense of humour maybe?
"True for you. I hope to have better news for you if I'm in touch again, Miss Simpson."
Miss Simpson said that would be nice and rang off with a "cheerio," something Minogue had heard only in films. Eilis was lighting a cigarette from the butt of her last one when Minogue put down the phone.
"Poor Combs has no one to come and get him, it seems."
Eilis drew on her cosmopolitan, continental cigarette.
"London. That's a very big place now, The Big Smoke. You'll be wanting to speak with someone in the Met there, will you?"
"I suppose I'd better. Will you find me a name and a number, please? Is there a fella we've dealt with before maybe?"
"There are several, so there are," Eilis replied drily. "The Inspector had need to be communicating with the authorities beyond in The Big Smoke and he keeps in touch with several. 'It's good to have them when you need them,' says the Inspector. Especially when there's wigs on the green over a political thing, I suppose. Extradition and the like. The inspector does be very nervous when that word is mentioned."
"That's a word that'll bring the walls of Jericho down, all right," Minogue agreed.
"I'd suggest that the Inspector could pop a name at you that'd ease your way if you'd like me to phone the hospital for you." Eilis concluded her poor rendition of an imaginary Mata Hari.
"Or I could just pull a name off the card index…" spacebarthing
Kenyon's croissant had given him indigestion. He wanted to summon up a belch so that he might dislodge what felt like a piece of the croissant jammed in his sternum. He would have done so in his own office. Here, however, he could not be sure of concealing the belch under his palm should it erupt now.
Hugh Robertson, the Director of the Protective Security Branch, was reading Kenyon's summary. Although Robertson was Kenyon's immediate boss, Kenyon's liking for him supervened over rank and duties. Robertson had been a Colonel when Kenyon first met him. It was in Malaya, two years after Kenyon had joined the Service. As the Empire had contracted, so had the overseas doings of MI5 become more limited. Robertson was one of the leading brains behind the successful counter-insurgency campaign against the communists in Malaya. He had shunned jockeying a desk in favour of field operations.
Robertson had astonished Kenyon and many others with his bluntness. At a boozy farewell dinner in 1955 for a large contingent of MI5's field force-to hold the party itself was tantamount to mutiny-which was preparing to leave Malaya, Robertson had spoken his mind. He voiced his opinion about the shrinking Empire by saying good riddance to the damn colonies. He had looked around the room and said that now Britain would have to find something else for its second-rate sons and daughters to lord it over. It was only when the audience guffawed that Kenyon had realised Robertson had been speaking to the converted.
"Now, James. Who killed Cock Robin here?"
"I don't know."
"Did the IRA kill him?"
"Very, very doubtful," Kenyon replied. "They'd be sure to tell, loud and clear. That's their propaganda bread-and-butter."
"Burglary?" murmured Robertson.
"The police press release says they're pursuing it as robbery with violence."
Robertson gave Kenyon a stage frown.
"Did we kill him?"
"No."
"That's a relief, I suppose. But what do you want from me?"
"I need your approval. Then I'd be asking for staff to go surveillance on Combs' contacts. We have to get someone into Dublin, too, and pick up the bits. I want the Second Sec at our Dublin embassy for a few sessions. The chap who ran Combs. Name of Ball. That'd be a start."
"Contacts?" Robertson asked.
"These people on the list. The asterisk means that the party is dead. There are eight left. Combs may have sent something to any one of them. We have to find out, that's what I'm saying."
"'Something,' James?"
"I'm taking Combs' threats seriously. He may have prepared some record of his grievances."
"Several years back, wasn't it? I thought that the new man Murray had put in knew his onions, claimed to have this Combs toeing the line. You're discounting the reports sourced through Murray and company."
"I am," Kenyon answered, with enough emphasis to cause Robertson to look up at him.
"Bit of a twerp, is he, James?"
"More than that. He's covering his arse. I don't like the way he's treating Combs' murder. He couldn't or wouldn't say what deals were struck to bring Combs to Ireland in the first place. It's a crucial matter if I'm to make sense of things."
"He doesn't have to, James," Robertson rounded on him politely. "You asked a lot of him, seems to me. We don't give out our more clandestine endeavours, you know."
"I'm not a reporter from the Mirror. We're supposed to be on the same side. I won't be happy until we've had a thorough search through Combs' stuff ourselves," Kenyon retorted.
"Threat, you said," Robertson diverted. "A threat to go to the IRA or someone and tell him that he was doing odd jobs for a British intelligence service?"
"Hardly, Hugh. He had no time for them, I'm sure."
"Or a threat to give out with his war stories, shall we call them? He could have sold that stuff for a tidy bundle here. He was a commie, was he not?"
"He passed some stuff to a Soviet ring in Berlin, yes. That's what we rapped his knuckles for. The real trouble started when he turned us down on staying in East Germany after the Liberation. Never trusted after that."
Robertson cleared his throat.
"Mr Combs didn't say at any time what exactly he had in mind, did he?"
"No," Kenyon conceded. "Murray puts it down to alcoholic raving. I still think that if Combs was threatening anybody with anything, it'd be what we did with him during the war and after. I don't see him betraying any of us to a bunch of thugs like the IRA."
"So… some documents on that, perhaps… notes he might have made?"
"Yes."
Robertson looked up from the papers.
"I see no mention of a joint op with the Secret Service in your brief. Or the Foreign Office itself. Don't trust our friends, do you, James?"
"Ask me after a few drinks at the next Christmas party," Kenyon joked morosely. "But first I need to confirm Murray and this Second Sec at the embassy."
"As to what they do?" Robertson half-smiled.
"For whom do they do what they do?"
"Why they work for our gallant Secret Service, James, our MI marvellous six."
"Just Foreign Office cover?"
Robertson nodded.
"So what is Six doing about this?" Kenyon asked.
"They're doing bugger-all at the moment, James. Naturally they'd like to know who killed Mr Combs and why. Howandever, the Home Secretary 'advised' that we carry it from here. Six will get around to their own investigation, but it won't be fast enough for the PMO. We have finally gotten the Irish to the table on border security. The PMO is more than keen not to have any, let's say, fans invade the pitch… so the game is called off."
"Speed, as well as jurisdiction?"
"How politic of you, James. Yes, yes," Robertson said quietly. He put the sheets back in order and laid the folder on the table between them. "You base your proposal on what you have assembled from Combs' file?"
"Yes. I talked to Murray this morning, too," Kenyon replied.
"You're saying that the risks are too high not to assume some dossier, some notes?"
"Right. Whether Combs was talking in the bottle or not, I'm assuming he made some note or notes. Even scattered notes, something to organise his thoughts. There's the two sides to the knife, though. One is how peeved we were-or SOE was-when we found out he was feeding some material to the Soviets back in '44 and '45. The people running the show back then include a former Minister and a D.G. of the Security Service. Anyway, Combs fouled his nest finally when he refused to go into the East and do low-level stuff. Turned us down point-blank. Wouldn't shop the Soviets, he said. Our allies in a common cause… When we told Combs to get lost then, he knew we were serious, that we wouldn't tolerate any public disclosures. And I must say, the climate was tough enough then with the blockade on Berlin and Stalin throwing his weight about with a well-equipped army sitting half-way across Europe. Still, Combs knew some nasty trade secrets. He knew, for example, that we shopped a fella called Vogel to the Nazis because we found out
Vogel was reporting to the Soviets, too. Of course, Vogel was played to set up something better. Combs was particularly bitter about that."
"And he knew the same could be easily done with him?"
"Yes. But all that is wrapped under Official Secrets. It was renewed for another twenty-five years with the national security clause last year. At any rate, SOE made him an offer he couldn't refuse then. The feeling was that what he had done for us outbalanced what he had been passing to the Soviet networks… and he had done good work."
"So he sailed off into the sunset. The cattle ranch in Canada or the outback?"
"Neither, actually," Kenyon answered. "Left in a huff for Spain. Now, the other side of the coin is what he was up to in Dublin. I asked myself: What if he has prepared some account of what he was doing in Ireland?"
"Christ," Robertson sighed. "Every nonentity seems to want to write a bloody memoir these days. The Irish could skewer us at the conference with that."
"They could threaten to release it, or even leak it to any of their hardliners. Combs did very low-level eyes-and-ears stuff, but there'd be an uproar. Hardliners in Ireland carry enough votes to get any government to walk away from the table. They'd put us to the wall on it."
"I expect they would," Robertson agreed. "As we would them, I believe."
"And, for once, we need the Irish more than they need us on this. The South is still holiday-land for IRA on the run. It was tough enough for us to get them to the table at all. There's an election due within two years, and there are some marginal seats with
Sinn Fein slavering in the wings. It could add up to a lot of fall-out."
"Indeed. If the assumptions are strong." Robertson's brows knitted and then raised abruptly. "I'm very familiar with Combs' file too, James. Were you aware of that?"
Kenyon tried not to appeared startled.
"Yes. I read it when I got this job. I have a diarised memo to read the file twice a year. Tell me you're not surprised, James."
Kenyon managed a wan smile. So Robertson had not simply been passing on a routine inquiry about Combs.
"I'm less surprised because of the timing," replied Kenyon. "The Irish delegation feels it has conceded too much de facto on their constitutional claim to Northern Ireland by discussing the problem at all. The logic is that by negotiating border security, the government in the South implicitly accepts the fact of a border."
"Nicely packaged, James. Sure you wouldn't like to chuck what you're doing and go into the negotiating business?"
"And get an allowance to dress like Murray?"
Robertson fixed a look both bemused and distasteful on a point somewhere over Kenyon's shoulder.
"Let's not fret over whether Murray and his cohorts should be in the business of gathering any intelligence in Ireland at all, James. It's at our door now. I happen to know, because I don't ignore comments from the people I dine with, that the Foreign Office was rather red-faced some years ago as far as Ireland is concerned. There was flare-up in assassinations of police and troops in the cities in the North. We knew of IRA redoubts near Dublin. The Foreign Office suddenly discovered that, lo and behold, they had no one at ground level in Southern Ireland. The PM gave one of her grim-reaper looks during a meeting, and Murray and company fell over themselves trying to get anyone they could at short notice. Hence Combs. Fact is, and I'm sure you'll agree, Combs dead or alive could be messy."
Kenyon nodded. He could not banish the image of Murray from his mind. The sharp cut to the suit, the Rolex watch which he had fingered during their discussion.
"I asked you to look in on the business about Combs so that you'll support my conclusions. Can you live with that? Good."
Kenyon's breathing had quickened. He felt the beginnings of anger.
"You are quite right," Robertson continued, "to believe that there is a lot in the balance. I needn't lecture as to the arithmetic. It's our troops and police being shot at. I too tend to the conclusion that our Mr Combs was not a man to bluff. I'm old enough to remember what a war is. Mr Murray and his acolytes wouldn't know their arses from their elbows about men who have been through a war. Nuffink. Even if I did suspect it was a lot of hot air, I'd still want a complete re-evaluation on Combs now."
Kenyon could not resist any longer.
"So why are we treading water?" he asked. "Why are we still at arm's length?"
"Come on now, James, no righteousness please. Jurisdiction. I made representations about it when I saw that memo about Combs' death."
Robertson leaned back in his chair and smiled an unsmile at Kenyon. At least he's on the defensive for once, Kenyon thought.
"And you are quite right," Robertson added. "Let's face it. They were under pressure; they placed Combs in there quickly. Inertia takes over pretty quickly. Combs was left in place. Now they realise they may have cause to regret their haste. To hear you now, it seems I chose the right person to go for the neck."
Kenyon felt his own excitement edge his anger aside.
"Now let me ask you: what was it that tipped the scales for you with Combs?" Robertson asked. "Was it his record during the war?"
Kenyon paused. He'd have to stay out on a limb and tell the truth.
"No," he said finally.
Robertson sat up and placed his elbows on his desk.
"Ah, what a relief. Trumps, James, trumps. I thought you'd lecture me by telling me how abominably we treated him after the war."
It was Kenyon who felt defensive now.
"I shan't do that, today anyway. But selling out another operative, that Vogel chap. That stank to high heaven."
"The case-officer was a highly decorated and effective intelligence officer. Since deceased, James. Honourable service. We were fighting for our lives against Hitler, man."
Kenyon read Robertson's raised eyebrows as roadblocks to further rhetoric.
"What really persuaded me was reading the last reports he sent in," Kenyon went on warily. "I think I'd better explain that, and I'm not sure if I can give you a rational picture for what is a hunch. They started out precisely and in the last year I noticed a… well, it's that vagueness. Like I said, it's that drop-off in real information, I mean, it's quite noticeable. Distinct even."
"You mention here his use of place names," Robertson said.
Kenyon winced. Robertson was pushing him while letting him stew in his own suppositions.
"An impression that he was getting used to the place there. Yes, but-"
"Stale, you mean?"
"No. The tone was as if he were guiding us around a spot he knew well. And we were rather like, well, ignorant tourists."
Robertson smiled.
"Redundant stuff, about some place being near an archaeological site."
Robertson's eyebrows still held onto a trace of amusement.
"Gone native, James? Kurtz in Ireland, something like that?"
That was enough to provoke Kenyon.
"Look, Hugh. It's difficult enough to defend it if one takes a stony empiricist approach, for Christ's sake. I never met the man. I admit that my impressions come from the windy side with these sources. But I look at what he sent out this last year and it's nothing really. And then Murray: 'What we have heeere is an aul poof-dah on the bottle, a dispirited and cynical man, James.'"
Robertson smiled.
"You do that rather well, James. Combs has been on the books for more than forty years. There are none of his contemporaries left in the Service. As for those memos about Combs' being less than satisfied about what he was expected to do in Ireland-"
"Murray kept on telling me how Ball's predecessor as Second Sec was a softie, someone Combs could push around," Kenyon interrupted.
"— they did dry up, those complaints. That's not to suggest that Combs' grudges simply disappeared, is it?"
"Tell that to Murray, Hugh. Let me just reiterate that Combs had two levers if he ever really wanted to strong-arm us for concessions. I don't know if he understood that he wouldn't get much mileage out of his wartime mess. If he realised that, he might have opted to tell anyone that he was doing jobs for us."
"But if he spilled the beans, James, he'd have no more arrows in his quiver."
Kenyon made no reply. It wasn't a question. This was the Hugh Robertson he knew best, a man who kept his own conclusions to himself until he had heard his staff out.
"The stakes are high here," Kenyon murmured. "I think we should be as thorough as we can on this."
"Thank you, James," said Robertson without sarcasm. "Let's just do our job, seal it as tight as we can."
Robertson's face brightened.
"Don't take my caution too seriously. I have to meet with C at four. Now I can confidently tell him that my most able officer has independently reached the same conclusions as I have. Your conclusions will become his conclusions, James, after I air them with him. I have just stolen your ideas. Feel flattered."
Kenyon managed a smile.
"Now. As to the field men. Where again?"
"Spain and Greece. Malaga and Athens. There's that friend of Combs in Britain. One to Ireland of course."
"Indeed. They aren't bound by an Official Secrets Act, our Irish neighbours," Robertson said wryly as he stood up.
"You'll be by about a quarter before four then?"
"For…?" asked a puzzled Kenyon.
"A briefing with C? God!"
Kenyon nodded. Robertson enjoyed his surprise.