John Brady - Kaddish in Dublin

Kilmartin had heard from Hoey that Fine had been in his chambers when he was told about the murder of his son. No policemen had been to the house yet. Minogue had seen and heard the old Kilmartin then, the gritty Mayo giant who had been lost to the cattle-dealing or horse-racing profession in becoming a policeman; the Kilmartin who still defied the tailors of Dublin to encase him in suits which lessened the comic incongruity of city garb for him. When Jimmy Kilmartin had been recuperating after an operation, Minogue believed he had discerned a more thoughtful Chief Inspector, but the cajolery and cattle-fair persuasion now seemed to have returned in full force. “That bloody snake Hynes in there knew before we did, for the love of Jases,” Kilmartin had grumbled. “We’ll nearly have to be thanking him for not notifying next of kin before we get our hands on a case. I don’t like looking like an iijit.”

Uncharitably, Minogue wondered if the Chief Inspector was fretting less about the dead man’s next of kin than about Hynes making him look flat-footed. It was more likely that Kilmartin’s agitation had ballooned at the realization that he would be dealing with one of the leading members of the Irish judiciary. If Justice Fine were to but raise a ripple on his forehead about this investigation, Kilmartin might expect that ripple to be a tidal wave of disapproval by the time it reached him.

Kilmartin used a radio patch to phone from Hoey’s car. Fine was home by then, he found out, so Mrs. Fine knew now. It was at this stage that Minogue had had the first snare tripped on him, by his own agency in part. He had mentioned to Kilmartin that he knew Justice Fine peripherally. Kilmartin lost his choke-hold on the microphone as he waited for a message from dispatch and squinted at him. Minogue knew then that there was something afoot. He believed that had he looked closer he might have seen the horns sprout from Kilmartin’s calculating temples.

“How peripherally, Matt?”

“Um. I was in the Jewish Museum several months ago and I saw him there. Very peripheral entirely.”

“ ‘The Jewish Museum’? In Dublin, Ireland? Europe? Go away out of that, there’s no such place. Sure there’s hardly a Jew in the country,” declared Kilmartin.

“You might not see it as you drive by. It’s also a synagogue too, by times. It’s of part a terrace row of houses in up near the canal. A galloping horse would miss it.”

“Go on, anyway,” said the galloping horse.

“Visitors sign their name in a book by the door. There he was, sitting there, reading the paper. I recognized him. Very ordinary-looking fella.”

“No robes?” tried Kilmartin.

“They don’t sleep in them, Jimmy. It’s only Special Branch men and defrocked Jesuits sleep in their clothes.”

“That’s it, then?”

“Well. He said something to me as I was signing the book.”

“What?”

“He didn’t look up from the paper, that’s what made me laugh. ‘And how’s tricks with the bold Inspector Minogue this fine day?’ he said.”

“Go on with you, he did not.” Kilmartin’s jaw slackened. Hoey was staring too.

“I was surprised, to say the least of it. I signed me name anyway and I asked him if we had met. He said no. I asked him how he knew me so, and he said my name came up in a dinner conversation, in connection with that Combs thing.”

“Ho ho, bejases and I’d say it came up all right.” Kilmartin shook his head. “And you minding the shop for me. Wanting to give External Affairs and every other public servant on the island heartburn, bad luck to you.”

“All I wanted was to get them to drop their immunity for Embassy staff so we could interview some of them.”

“And all the tea in China. So he knew you were a bit of a…” Kilmartin rubbed his chin.

“A crank?”

“Did I say that? Did I even think that? I was going to say ‘topnotch Garda officer’.”

The former Jimmy Kilmartin was indeed back. There was that challenging sincerity on his face, daring Minogue to suspect that he was being buttered up.

“Fine’s on the committee that runs the Museum,” said Minogue.

“So you’d know the man to say hello to and pass the time of day with,” Kilmartin burrowed.

Minogue had paused then, while Kilmartin spoke into the radio, knowing the battle was lost but wanting to let discomfort settle on Kilmartin too.

“You’re not going to be asking me to pass the time of day with him, though, are you, Jimmy?”

Hoey was through Terenure now. Fine’s house was but minutes away.

Paul Fine had been married until two years ago. His ex-wife was English and she remained in London. ‘ One of our own to be sure, but a Jew nonetheless.’ Did that ‘nonetheless’ sum up the fact of being a Jew in any place but Israel? Kilmartin would definitely be worried by the mention of ’Palestinian‘. A question still hung around the edges of Minogue’s thoughts: how had the telephone call from this group come within an hour of the body’s being discovered? Had the group planned to phone anyway, knowing that he’d be found? Yes, Kilmartin would not like this mention of Palestinian one bit.

To stem his own anxiety, Minogue turned to Hoey. “Do you know any Jews here at all, Shea?”

“Not a one, sir. I wouldn’t know one if I saw one.”

“Do you know how many Jews there are in Ireland?”

“I don’t.”

“There’s about 2, 000, so there is. North and south. Fewer every year, too, I’m thinking.”

“Is that a fact? I heard a joke there a while ago. Maybe now’s not the time, though. Ah… harmless enough though. It’s about a roadblock with a gang of thugs up in Belfast. Doesn’t matter if they’re Catholics or Protestants for this one. They stop this fella driving his car and they stick a gun in the window, like. ‘Are you a Protestant or a Catholic?’ they ask. ‘Neither,’ says the man. ‘I’m a Jew.’ So that sets them back a bit. They have to think about that one, you see. Finally one of them asks: ‘Are you a Protestant Jew or Catholic Jew though?’ ”

“I think that’d be a good one another time,” Minogue allowed. “Do you know Abrams, the jewellers down in Dame Street?”

“Beside the hat-shop? I do.”

“They’re Jews. I bought Kathleen’s ring there. It didn’t fit properly so I brought it back. She thought I had bought it for another girl. Or so she said. Bernard Abrams was in it then. He fixed it. I was by the place there a few months ago and the son was selling out. To go to Canada, I think.”

“Hold on a minute. There’s a Dr Lewis up in the Rotunda: he’s a Jew, isn’t he?” Hoey asked.

“To be sure. If you hadn’t been a Galwegian, you’d have been one of the thousands that Lewis delivered. It was him who landed Kathleen and meself with our two. Three actually…” Minogue felt a tingle, all that was left after the years had cauterized the memory of their first child, an infant, Eamonn. They had been told at the time that the child had forgotten to breathe.

“Well the Lewises go back a long time. A family of doctors,” Minogue added.

He took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself. Damn and blast that Jimmy Kilmartin, the sleeveen: all that talk about Victor Hugo and loaning him books to read in the hospital hadn’t changed him an iota. Damn him the more for infecting me with his own anger and anxiety, thought Minogue as the car turned into the street where Fine’s house was.

“There’s a funny thing, now,” Hoey began as though talking to himself. “Hold on, is it 147 we’re wanting?” He leaned over the wheel looking for door numbers. “There it is,” he muttered.

“Yep. A funny thing,” Hoey murmured as he turned off the ignition. “I don’t know what words to use when we’re talking about this. I hear meself saying ‘Jews’, then ‘Jewish’, and I don’t like the sound of either. I don’t mean the words themselves. I don’t know what it is.”