John Brady - Kaddish in Dublin

Minogue continued glossing over Hoey’s notes. Hoey lit a cigarette. The coffee had killed Minogue’s incipient appetite, leaving him with a smouldering space in his belly. Fine had anticipated the questions and the details which the detectives sought. He had left the room twice during the interview, both times to answer the phone. He took the first call before the lumbering Johnny Cohen had made it down the stairs at a run. Cohen had pounced on the second ring with the second call.

“He must have had a row with Paul somewhere along the line,” Hoey murmured. “And they sort of kept their distance, if you follow me.”

“Um. I remember the way he mentioned about Paul dropping out of the uni after two years, all right,” Minogue agreed.

“Not to say there would have been bad blood or that class of thing. God, no. Just the usual family thing,” Hoey emphasized. Minogue heard the caution behind Hoey’s qualification: he was giving himself, not the Fines, the benefit of any doubt as to whether Jews were also mired in ‘the usual family thing’.

“I mean to say, look at the other two children in that family,” Hoey continued. “One a dentist, the daughter some type of a research scientist. Careers and families, the whole bit.”

Both policemen watched the taxi stopping in front of their own car. A middle-aged woman emerged hurriedly from the back seat, her eyes red from crying. She ran to the gate and pushed it open. A younger woman stayed to pay the taxi-man and then she too hurried up the steps to the door, which was already opening. Fine stood in the doorway, his arms by his side, the shock clear on his face now. Both women embraced him. It seemed to take an effort more than he could summon for him to embrace them in return. He stood with his eyes closed as they drew him back into the house between them.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Hoey whispered tersely. His fingers jabbed at the packet of Majors in his haste to get another cigarette. Minogue felt the stab of grief keener this time.

“For the love of Christ,” Hoey mumbled, his hands shaking with the lighted match wavering at the end of the cigarette. “Will this day never end?”

“That’s the sister-in-law he’s been waiting on, I’d say. He’ll be out in a minute,” Minogue said. His chest heaved once, twice. He wondered if Hoey felt the same ache of shame as he did, the same confusion after realizing that it was shame.

It was five minutes before Fine reappeared at the door. Johnny Cohen was with him and both men were wearing black hats with modest brims. Hoey was out of his seat and holding the back door open by the time the two men had walked to the gate. Fine was very pale now.

There was no talk in the car. Minogue stared out the front window all the way to Vincent’s Hospital. Cohen had his hand under Fine’s arm when they stepped from the car.

Minogue heard Hoey’s ‘Jases’ under his breath before he himself saw Kilmartin and God Almighty, Garda Commissioner Lally, in the hall. God Almighty was in a civvy suit. Kilmartin danced attendance on him, seconding his nod to Minogue before they advanced to meet Fine. Minogue saw Kilmartin’s signal to stay back. The Commissioner took Fine’s hand. Fine nodded but seemed dazed. He did not look at any of the policemen’s faces. Cohen seemed to be trying to get closer to Fine, his hand firm under Fine’s elbow now. The Commissioner’s head bent close to Fine’s and Minogue heard “condolences… family… sincere… outrage…” Kilmartin followed with a briefer handshake. Minogue heard an “everything possible…” at the end of Kilmartin’s whisper.

Minogue went to the toilet. He took his time washing his hands. He washed his face then, and checked that his hairline had not scampered back another inch or two since that morning. Then he stooped and took a drink from the tap. He recalled the doctor kneeling by the body on the beach, shaking his thermometer, and shivered at the commonplace indignity of death. Kilmartin barrelled into the toilet just as Minogue was ready to take more stock of the face looking back at him from the mirror. Kilmartin stepped to the urinal and fumbled.

“That’s the boy, all right. At least we got that part right.”

“Did he give God Almighty an earful about not hearing it from the Gardai first?” asked Minogue.

“No he didn’t. Relief all around, let me tell you. Jases, I would have given out the pay about that if I were him.”

“I’ll wait outside,” said Minogue.

“Don’t be running off on me now, do you hear me, Matt? God Almighty wants to see the pair of us after you’ve seen Fine home.”

Minogue did not try to hide his unease.

Hoey drove stiffly, with almost ostentatious care, as though carrying a delicate or explosive cargo, Minogue thought. Billy Fine’s slack, pale face didn’t turn to meet Minogue’s eyes but stayed, instead, directed toward the window. Minogue did not take notes: he knew that Hoey was soaking it all up too. Hoey steered the car up through Ranelagh on the return journey to Fine’s home, while Johnny Cohen held Fine’s hand on the back seat. Minogue had watched Cohen dart occasional angry stares at him during the drive, and had returned them several times. All right, be protective, Minogue was ready to tell Cohen, but don’t get in the way of any scrap of information that’ll help us to catch Paul Fine’s killer.

“Lily couldn’t stand Dublin,” Fine murmured. “That’s the long and short of it. And I don’t blame her for that, not one bit. The heartbreak was that Paul couldn’t stay away from Dublin, probably for the same reasons that Lily couldn’t stay in it.”

Cohen coughed; a sure sign, Minogue decided, of anger that he was trying to control. He sensed that Cohen was the prickly guardian of a community which did not welcome prying Gentiles.

“How long were they married?” Minogue asked.

“Two years,” said Fine tonelessly. “She tried, you know,” he then said and glanced momentarily at Minogue. “Even with our community here she still felt like a stranger.”

Minogue watched Cohen scratching behind an ear, and wondered if Cohen could hold off making a remark.

“ ‘Strangers in a strange land’,” said Fine. He let out a sigh and his free hand went to his eyes. Minogue looked away as Fine’s head went down. Cohen leaned close to his friend and whispered in his ear. Fine nodded several times and relaxed against Cohen’s bulk. Hoey’s frown had deepened, and he seemed to be squeezing the wheel very tightly as if willing the car to move. Minogue waited.

“Anyway,” Minogue heard Billy Fine say,“that’s our lot, maybe. Paul wasn’t as thick-skinned as our other children. David’s set up as an orthodontist in London. Never come back, I imagine. Julia’s engaged to an American fella she met at a conference on plant genetics…”

Minogue stole a glance at Fine and noted the wry expression.

“We’d given up her getting married,” Fine added with the beginnings of a faint smile. He met Minogue’s cautious eye and smiled weakly. “Tough piece of work, the same Julia.”

“Great,” said Minogue. “The only way to be, I’m thinking. We have one like that. She’d frighten the wits out of lesser mortals.”

Fine’s smile rallied, but then dropped off his face. He turned to look out of the window again.

“I gave you that woman’s name, didn’t I?” said Fine. Minogue looked from Fine to Cohen. Fine seemed to sense the tension immediately, and he sat up and looked at Cohen. “Oh it’s all right, Johnny. For God’s sake, it’s not dirt or anything. Everything counts in this line of work. I gave you her name, didn’t I?”

Minogue nodded. Paul had had a girlfriend, Mary McCutcheon. She was a journalist.

“Although he never talked to me directly about things like that.” Fine paused as though to weigh his words. “He never introduced her to us. I think he was ashamed. Yes. But I believe he was very fond of her.”