John Brady - Unholy Ground

"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.

Bustle greeted Minogue in Bewley's restaurant. To be indoors was a relief from having to negotiate the crowded footpaths outside. Masses of people flowed from Grafton Street around by College Green, spilling out into the street. The crowds thickened further as they massed in Westmoreland Street, unwilling to test the reactions of drivers speeding down the quays by O'Connell Bridge. Double-decker busses wheeled across five traffic lanes in front of the entrance to Bewley's and screeched to a halt at their stops along the street. Lunatics on bicycles hurtled through the traffic and diesel fumes.

Safe inside the door, Minogue wondered where all the people came from. A huge proportion of the population was between eighteen and thirty-five-a fact unprecedented in Irish history-Minogue remembered from an otherwise dull and farcical debate on the telly.

Bewley's always smelled of burned coffee beans. The cafe had been gutted by fire several years back due to an over-zealous employee roasting beans in a hurry. So used to the smell of burnt coffee beans were the patrons, passers-by and employees, that a delay in alerting the fire-brigade ensued. Much of the restaurant had been destroyed as a result of this habituation.

Minogue eyed the self-serve section before slotting himself into the queue which was waiting for coffee. He spent little time on non-essentials, choosing an almondy-looking bun of irregular shape so that the coffee wouldn't lack for company as it hit his belly. The room was full of cigarette smoke, talk, dishes clashing, young people. Minogue glanced from the table, half-expecting to see an Iseult or a Daithi there. If Kathleen were with him now, she'd probably mutter darkly that it's in pubs he should look for Daithi, not Bewley's Oriental Cafe. Minogue's turn at the coffee came.

"A large white, if you please," he said to the girl.

She was working behind a brace of bulbous boilers which served to heat water and to build up steam for scalding the milk-which in turn became a constituent of white coffee. The whole apparatus reminded Minogue of a submarine, but he didn't know why.

The afternoon sun cast broad beams of coloured light through the stained-glass windows, dividing the room into several realms. Along with the wreaths of smoke, the effect of the light entranced Minogue. Here a blond heat! of hair afire with light from behind, there a group softly adumbrated. The patrons seemed to take their cues from the light which their placements afforded them. Those outside the direct light looked subdued. They smiled ruefully, distracted perhaps by the sight of the blazing angels who laughed and gestured in the full light nearby. Newspapers were up like flags at many tables. There were racehorses to second-guess, letters-to-the-editor to compose, births, deaths and bankruptcies to savour.

The girl doling out the coffees had a compact, determined face. Her expression suggested detachment from the din about her. The steam scalding the milk for Minogue's coffee burbled and hissed in the cup. He stole another glance at her profile. Maybe her ancestors were the Vikings that helped settle this shambles of a city and she had one of their axes ready behind the counter for the likes of a bogman interloper like Minogue. Irish: kings and queens all, lost entitlement. Did Combs, with the dry sense of humour, cotton onto that trait? Queenly? The woman was tired, Minogue's common sense reprimanded. She probably had to wait a half hour for the bus home.

"If you went on at the steam yoke for a bit long, you'd have the makings of a cappuccino" Minogue observed.

"A what?"

"It's a style of coffee that they favour in Italy. Oh, but you'd want to have strong coffee to start with. Espresso. Black stuff. Like tar, for all the world. There's the stuff that'd keep you up all night, I'm telling you."

"Jases, mister, I wouldn't want that," the girl intoned slowly. Minogue recognised a Dublin accent all right, along with the carnal import. Sleep was a very underrated form of birth control, he thought.

"The French are very partial to espresso on its own, I don't mind telling you," Minogue went on. "Yes, indeed. Myself and the wife were over there for a holiday and you'd see fellas standing by a counter knocking back an espresso. Out of a cup a bit bigger than a good-sized inkwell. In an instant, bang, down it goes. Then they leap out the door, back to whatever they were doing. High as kites, I'm thinking."

"Go way," said the girl, turning off the valve.

"It's a fact. You get used to it, I suppose, like anything. Am I right?"

She threw a damp cloth on the counter to wipe up a spray of milk.

"You're right there," she said.

"Thing is," Minogue went on, heartened by her approval, "I'd say there are people that are so used to it that they might wake up in the middle of the night squealing and bawling like a goose caught under the gate looking for a hit of espresso. Caffeine's a very powerful drug. Do you know what I'm saying?"

Minogue had not noticed the queue gathering behind him. He was relieved that yet again he could count on someone from the real world to unwittingly help dispel the gloom which had unexpectedly settled on him as he had walked to Bewley's. Thinking about Combs again. Had Combs ever patronised Bewley's? She left him the trace of a smile as she looked to the next in the queue.

The coffee did indeed perk Minogue up. Still, it took him only a few seconds of thinking to dismiss those three topers, the Mulvaney brothers, as distractions. The drink led them to their choleric behaviour and brought out an innate need to be disputatious. The only people they'd be killing, singularly or collectively, would be one another. The weapons used would be drink and pique and time and bitter memory.

Minogue sipped at his coffee again. He congratulated himself for keeping out of the way of vexatious interviews with the troglodyte Mulvaneys. Mulholland and Murtagh had interviewed two men with lengthy records for burglary. One, Malone, had a record of assaults to match. Neither of the two was a suspect yet. They were unconcerned that their alibis were being checked.

His thoughts let go of the Mulvaneys abruptly and ran to Daithi and Iseult. Then he sat up with a start: he was to bring home a cake this evening and he had nearly forgotten. Iseult's fella was coming for tea. As for Daithi, Minogue was more anxious. If Daithi couldn't get his exams this time… well, that wasn't the end of the world. But to persuade Kathleen of that…? Have a word with him, Matt. Bring him back to the fold. Like the other sheep?