Anglo-Irish Murders (18 page)

‘But I really didn’t need to resort to murder. I had reason to believe that certain words dropped in the ear of Call-me-Cormac…oh, sorry, force of habit…Father O’Flynn’s religious superiors about unfortunate sexual entanglements would do the trick. They might leave him
in situ
to stir up merry hell and community conflict, but as a Catholic I know our clergy still get very worked up about sins of the flesh. Especially where priests are concerned. So I expected a rapid transfer for him.’

He yawned again. ‘And as for her? Well, Inspector, we officials have many failings, but on the whole we spend our time trying to stop people murdering each other rather than joining in to fill the void we’ve helped to create. Perforce I know a lot about explosives in theory, but that’s as far as it goes. And frankly I’m at a bit of a loss to think of where I would have found a source of supply in County Mayo.’

***

‘Mr Steeples. Can you help us?’

‘I just want to go home, Mr McNulty.’

‘So does everyone, Mr Steeples.’

‘I must see my wife the night, for it’s our wedding anniversary, my father’s too old to be griping the silage, I’m to dedicate a banner the morrow and then be at the parent-teacher evening.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Steeples, but you’ll have to hold your soul in patience and warn people that you may have to miss these events.’

‘I’ve never missed my wedding anniversary in thirty-two years, or a parent-teacher meeting, or a commitment to the Orange.’

‘I’m sure you’re a very reliable fella, but it can’t be helped. Your family and friends will understand. And anything you can do to help us find the murderer of Miss de Búrca will help you to get home all the sooner.’

‘What do I know? What could I know? All these things seem to happen very late at night when I’ve been in the bed many a long hour. There would be no cows milked or calves fed if people kept the kind of hours these ones do.’

‘You have no loyalist connections, have you?’

‘Not if you mean loyalist the way I think you do. I’m loyal to the crown and the bible, but I’ll not touch any paramilitaries or anyone who supports them. I’m against violence. And that means I’m against anybody killing anybody. It’s against the fifth commandment.’ There was a pause and then he ended, in a voice that shook slightly, ‘I know nothing and all I want is to go home to my family.’

Chapter Nineteen

Pooley and McNulty were chatting when Garda Bradley returned after a long absence. ‘Kapur’s missing.’

‘What do you mean “missing?”’ asked McNulty.

‘I mean I’ve looked for him everywhere and there isn’t sight nor smell of him.’

‘I thought he went to his room after breakfast,’ said Pooley.

‘I rang him several times and there’s no answer.’

‘Might he have gone out?’

McNulty looked at Pooley pityingly. ‘In this? Sure what Christian would go out in this?’ He caught Pooley’s eye and laughed. ‘Or heathen, for that matter. Whichever, I can’t imagine him going out in the worst rainstorm even Mayo’s seen this decade.’

‘He’ll be in a corner somewhere, meditating. I’ll have a look.’

Having hunted around all the public rooms of the hotel and rung anyone he thought Kapur might conceivably have called on, Pooley was beginning to panic when a thought struck him. This time, instead of ringing Kapur’s room, he knocked gently on the door.

‘It is who?’ called a faraway voice.

‘Rollo, Chandra.’

‘Please come in.’

Kapur turned out to be naked and standing on his head in the bathroom.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt, Chandra.’

‘Do not trouble yourself.’

‘The police have been trying to get hold of you. They were getting worried.’

‘Ah, so that is why the telephone has been ringing, ringing, ringing. I thought someone wanted something, but it is not good to interrupt a headstand abruptly. And usually, everything can wait without injury. Do they want anything in particular?’

‘Just a chat. I’m glad I’ve found you. They’re rather nervous.’

‘In case I too should be another body? That would be very amusing. It would give the whole affair a cosmopolitan flavour indeed. Perhaps the Indian embassy could arrange protestors to shout outside that I was a victim of racism.’

‘What’s wrong with sectarianism? Shouldn’t we hold to the prevailing theme of the conference?’

‘Ah, no. For that to be credible we would have to find a Muslim rascal and we would surely have to send to Dublin for one of those.’

In a single fluid moment he lowered his feet to the floor in front of his head and without using his hands, stood upright.

‘I’m impressed.’

‘Just showing off. What is the good of being an Indian sage if you can’t show off the flexibility of your body occasionally? Maybe I should do a cabaret to provide amusement while we are all locked up together.

‘Now, if you will excuse me, I will have a shower. Please be so kind as to reassure the inspector and tell him to expect me in ten minutes. Oh, but warn him that an Indian ten minutes is longer even than its Irish equivalent.’

***

‘I am at a loss in all this, Inspector. I came here to oblige my old friend Lady Troutbeck.’

‘You’ve known her a long time, Mr Kapur?’

‘Since Cambridge. We shared a particular interest in nineteenth-century English literature and a common passion for the novels of Anthony Trollope and the poetry of Rudyard Kipling. Have you read Trollope, Inspector?’

‘Can’t say that I have, Mr Kapur.’

‘Such few insights as I have had into the Irish until I came here have come from him, though I have to say that they are of limited use in these circumstances. Mr O’Shea, now, would be a recognizable Irish type from his pages—unreliable, irresponsible and essentially unscrupulous, but so charming as to be almost always forgiven. I refer you to the portrait of the Honourable Laurence Fitzgibbon in the Palliser novels.’

McNulty cleared his throat.

‘Ah, yes, Inspector. Sorry. The problem with Trollope is that it was the southern gentry he understood mainly. He would be as puzzled by some of the people here as I am myself. The MOPEs and the DUPEs were not familiar Irish types as far as I was concerned. Which is not to say that I do not recognize aspects of them. They represent what one might call cloaked sectarianism. They have grown beyond the stage of parading it nakedly and have acquired rhetorical garments with which to cover it. It is, I suppose, evolution and therefore to be welcomed. Though there are moments when I would prefer the honesty of nakedness to the hypocrisy of clothes.’

‘You’re a man of the world, Mr Kapur.’

‘It depends, Inspector, on which world you are talking about.’ He looked at McNulty’s blank expression. ‘Forgive me. You have sufficient troubles that I should spare you the self-indulgence of mystical speculation. As I have explained to you, I have seen nothing that could be useful to you. Indeed while I have spent most of every day with these people, I have been with them little at night. I have never been able to adapt to a drinking culture. And devoted though I am to my friend Lady Troutbeck, I find her overwhelming when she is flown with wine.’

McNulty looked at him helplessly. ‘I’ve been told you’re intuitive. Is it your intuition that there have been three murders, two murders or just one?’

‘Coincidence is part of life, Inspector. I believe in its long arm, but not an arm as long as this. I could be persuaded reluctantly to believe Billy Pratt was careless enough to bring about his own death. I do not believe the priest tripped over his own bottles.’

He threw his arms wide in a gesture of surrender. ‘I’m sorry. I was brought here to act as an unofficial member of my friend Jack’s praetorian guard. I understand words and ideas. But for most purposes, I live in my own head.’ He smiled gently. ‘Indeed, on it, as much as possible.’

***

‘I observe little, Inspector. I lecord it. It is a besetting sin of Japanese culture that we are so enslaved by gadgets that we have turned ourselves into a nation of people who never enjoy the moment but instead lecord it in the hope that at some moment in the future they will enjoy it. We go to London, we watch a gleat celemony like Trooping the Coroul thlough the rens of our camcorder and sometime we hope we will sit down with our lelatives and actually enjoy the experience. I am not sure that we can do so plopally. You can see it and you can hear it but you can’t feel the templature or the rain or the sun or the snow.’ Okinawa looked sad for a few seconds, but then smiled. ‘Still, I expect our technicians will lesolve this in time. And for me it is all light, for I can delude myself that I do this for a higher purpose, not because I am vulgarly obsessed with new equipment. I can say to myself that I do this for my students, to bling to them experiences they could not have had except through my filming. Yet more and more I find myself in the thlall of this object I take everywhere with me.’

He paused and giggled. ‘That is one leason I enjoy getting dlunk. Japanese men like to get dlunk because it is an excuse to be irresponsible. Also, for me, it is an opportunity to become flee of my master. There is always the moment when I can no longer work it and I am thlown back on the enjoyment of the moment.’

‘Is there any chance, Mr Okinawa, that you might have recorded anything that might be helpful to our investigation?’

‘I have lecorded nothing that was not witnessed by other people. But you are of course welcome to see my films if they could help you.’

‘How many hours of film would we be talking about, Mr Okinawa?’

There was a long pause while Okinawa calculated. McNulty noticed with interest that he counted on his fingers in a way he’d never seen before, resting his fingers one-by-one on the palm of his hand without assistance from the other. Eventually, having run through the fingers of both hands twice, he looked up. ‘Maybe haughy-whore?’

‘Come again.’

Okinawa held up four fingers on both hands. McNulty’s face cleared. ‘Oh, sorry. I’ve got you. But sweet effing Jesus, that’s an awful lot. Let me think about it. I’ll let you know.’

***

‘I truly think you should,’ said Pooley.

‘Forty-four feckin’ hours? And who’s going to do the watching? It’d have to be someone who knew what they were looking for and who wasn’t just going to fall asleep and miss any good bits.’

‘I’d be prepared to do it.’

‘For forty-four hours?’

‘I’d be sampling it. Not going through the whole thing. I’d have a fair idea what to skip.’

McNulty chewed his moustache. ‘Well, since you’re offering, I’ll have another word with him and find out about processing the film. I’ll be back to ye. Go off and have some lunch.’

***

The baroness was cheerful. ‘I never thought I’d be grateful for anything ersatz, but then I never thought I’d be marooned in a place like this. But by some miracle, that bogus bit of the bar that they call the library has actually yielded a few books worth reading. Someone bought a job lot from a country vicar, I’d say. I’m about to begin re-reading Maria Edgeworth. What are you doing with yourselves?’

‘I’m still lurking behind the arras.’

‘And I’m making myself available to anyone who wants me,’ contributed Amiss. ‘Smiling ingratiatingly. Hoping for useful confidences I can betray to the authorities. You know. The usual.’

‘Seen anything?’

‘Kelly-Mae and Liam seem very thick, I thought.’

‘Really,’ said the baroness. ‘I didn’t think he was particularly thick. Rabid idealogue, yes. Thick, no. Though of course she is.’

‘I didn’t mean thick as in stupid, idiot. I meant thick as in cahoots.’

‘It’s hardly surprising,’ said Pooley. ‘She’s on the verge of hysteria and there are very few people she’s prepared to talk to. And vice-versa.’

‘Well I suppose having your other two mates dead might depress anyone. What’s everyone else doing?’

‘Wyn’s in her bedroom. Gardiner’s wandering around the castle miserably and Pascal and Wallace are in the bar. I’m surprised you’re not with them.’

‘Robert, I may be a heavy drinker by English standards, but I know when I’m beaten. I have no aspirations to compete with a lush of such epic stature as Pascal O’Shea. Wallace, maybe, on a good day, but I’ve had enough good days for now. I’m off to my room with Maria and we will probably have tea.’

‘Even Pascal’s proposing an afternoon nap.’

‘No one’s proposing a walk?’

‘In this? Are you kidding? McNulty says he’s having real difficulties in keeping up his chaps’ morale. I should think they’d probably fail to notice a convoy of armed terrorists if they were to brave the downpour.’

‘That’s comforting. See you later.’

***

‘OK, Rollo,’ said McNulty. ‘I’ve talked to your boss again and he agreed I can keep you quiet for a while longer. There wouldn’t be much more trouble if they found out later than if I told them now. Anyway, I have you on the list of people completely ruled out, so the Special Branch shouldn’t pay you any attention.

‘Now, there’s no need to process anything. Okinawa’s going to give me all his tapes and you can watch them on the sly in your bedroom. We’ve got a video recorder for you.

‘It’ll be embarrassing if anyone finds out, but if you’ll take the risk, I’ll take the risk. And if you find anything out, I’ll take the credit. Now let’s get on with the rest of them.’

***

Pooley tracked Amiss down around six o’clock and gave him a run-down on the day’s events. ‘And then there was Liam, who was very mulish in the beginning, until McNulty brought home to him that to be uncooperative might imply he was complicit in her death. Like Laochraí two days ago, he eventually grudgingly admitted that he wanted the murderer caught and offered what assistance he could give, which turned out essentially to be virtually nothing.’

‘McNulty was very forthright with him and annoyed him by accusing him of being a dissident. Liam pointed out forcefully that he was so committed to the mainstream that he had been prepared to split his family on the issue. He made much of what we knew already—that he has nothing to do with his brother and that his father refuses to speak to him. There was no arguing his point that all this would have been avoided if he’d just dropped out of republican politics. “Violence is not just behind me,” he said. “I’m making great personal sacrifices to try to make sure it’s behind everyone.” And he couldn’t be faulted on his assertion that Laochraí and he had been friends and comrades for years and that her death was a grievous personal blow.’

‘So that was that?’

‘Not quite. He was quite emphatic about who had committed the murder.’

‘Really? Do tell.’

‘Guess.’

‘Judging by your tone, I suppose he fingered me or you.’

‘No. Jack.’

‘Why should Jack give a stuff about Laochraí?’

‘Oh you know. The usual. She’s M15 or M16.’

Amiss groaned. ‘One of the things that bewilders me these days is that on one level you hear everyone complaining about the government being hell-bent on appeasing terrorists, while the next minute you’re supposed to believe that very same government, through its security agencies, is trying to rub out the very self-same terrorists.’

‘It’s a safe enough allegation. Rogue elements. All that sort of thing.’

‘While I can see Jack as a rogue element in anything, I think Liam is overdoing it a bit this time.’

‘McNulty saw him off pretty straightforwardly on that one by pointing out that since—fortunately mistakenly—they had decided that Jack was the prime target, she’s been discreetly followed by a plain clothes garda at all times. Indeed she has one stationed outside her door all night. Ever since the IRA blew up Lord Mountbatten, they seem particularly frightened of losing another peer. So she would have had no opportunity to plant the grenade in Laochraí’s wardrobe.’

‘If I were Liam I would have suggested she had spotted the police and at some stage climbed out her window and across the ivy to Laochraí’s room.’

‘A highly likely scenario, especially in the driving rain. Anyway, it’s fake ivy and wouldn’t bear her weight.’

‘What a pity. I cherish the image.’

‘Did McNulty interview Kelly-Mae?’

‘Indeed he did. She was hysterical and went on a lot about the securocrats, but mostly she claimed that the British government was secretly committed to the destruction of the peace process and the murders had been ordered directly by the prime minister. McNulty’s attempts to extract information from her about her own links with republicans got nowhere. Was he asking her to be an informer? Never, never, never. There was nothing worse than being an informer: if it hadn’t been for informers Ireland would have been free centuries ago. Anyway, she knew nobody. She had attended the Orange parade solely as a concerned American citizen. She knew nothing of the people involved. She followed Irish politics sufficiently to know about the evil oppression practised by the British occupying forces but she had nothing much else to contribute. As for evidence, there was nothing.’