John Brady - A stone of the heart

"Upstairs, Mr Minoooog."

He wondered if he was putting on the Bertie Wooster stuff. Minogue ate an indifferent dinner at a well-laid table in company with the college Security Officer and Griffiths. Huge painted figures of dead bishops and scholars looked down at them. Cutlery clanked, food was prompt. Captain Loftus, the Security Officer so-called, kept his army rank in conversation as well as in other forms of intercourse, Minogue realised. Well, in verbal intercourse anyway.

Loftus was a Corkman. He liked to dress well. He was one of the few men Minogue had met in the last few weeks of whom it could be said he looked very upright. Minogue had heard that he had done tours of duty with the UN or peacekeepers before springing into this cushy job in Trinity. A modest beeper poked from his pocket.

By way of taking his attention from the metallic taste of the cabbage, Minogue spoke:

"Well now, Captain Loftus. Has there been stuff like this before?"

Loftus affected puzzlement.

"This boy Walsh, done in," Minogue added. Loftus leaned forward and confided that there hadn't. Griffiths, no doubt daydreaming about Homer or "The Rape of Lucrece," looked to Loftus and then began stuffing a pipe.

"Is there anything about politics here amongst the student body that'd go to this extent?"

Loftus looked at him without answering. Griffiths, with a peculiar crack in his face which Minogue suddenly realised was a smile, murmured,

"None other than the boy was a member of the Fine Gael association, Sergeant Minogue. Hardly just cause."

"There was talk of drugs," Minogue said.

"Mr Walsh was a conscientious student, Mr Minogue. His lecturers thought very highly of him," said Griffiths.

The politesse and containment began to grate on Minogue. The fun was gone out of this place very quickly. The boy was dead. These two stuffed shirts were sitting on the fence.

"An interest in journalism?" Minogue tried.

"As much as any other student, Sergeant Minogue," replied Griffiths.

"Captain Loftus. How often do patrols of security guards go by that area where the body was found? On average, at night…?"

Loftus looked up to one of the paintings.

"Em, say roughly once every three quarters of an hour after midnight."

"Reliably?"

"Yes. They log in to check-points, a keying system tied to a timer. The college gates were locked. Pretty well impossible to get in over the walls."

"Say, the lowest would be fifteen foot?"

Loftus looked to Griffiths before answering.

"Well, we don't want it known but there are certain parts of the perimeter that can be scaled without assistance. They're in laneways."

Minogue felt resistance. He had been prodding only. This wasn't the place for swipes. He knew well that someone could get over the wall. He had walked the perimeter the previous afternoon. Griffiths and Loftus were reluctant because they couldn't believe someone in Trinity would do this. Loftus didn't want his security and gadgetry to look bad. Griffiths obviously felt the Gardai were barking up the wrong tree. They presumed that some scofflaw from outside the hallowed walls had done it. Minogue looked away to find the eyes of an eighteenth-century judge staring haughtily at him from a painting overhead. The canvas shone dully. And up yours, too, Minogue thought. At least he had managed to resist an atavistic urge to prod these two. Master Walsh was done in in a hurry as he headed for the Nassau Street gate of the college to catch the 63 bus home. It didn't matter too much right now whether the killer attended Trinity or not: he or they knew enough t6 drag the body away to a safe place and make an escape.

In the afternoon, Minogue used a college telephone to make appointments with four of the five lecturers Walsh had had. By half past four, Minogue had chatted with all but one, Professor Allen. No, they weren't being asked for statements, he explained. Perhaps recall the last time you saw him. Any unusual things, conversations, remarks.

The late afternoon was quietly drawing Minogue's energy and interest away. He asked questions mechanically as the feeling grew that even with but one day gone by, he was getting nowhere. He had not realised quite how distant lecturers were from their students. He thought of Iseult and Daithi, how they lived in this kind of world. But, he consoled himself, they had friends. Minogue thanked the lecturer and asked him to direct him to where he might find a Professor Allen.

"He's Psychology," replied the lecturer.

"Yes," Minogue said. He eyed the lecturer's frown.

"Is there something unusual in that?"

"In psychology?" Both laughed lightly.

"No Sergeant. It's not often that a lad enrolled in things like political science and economics would be doing a psychology course. Nothing wrong with it of course. But would his time allow that?"

Minogue dithered.

"You could phone Professor Allen," the lecturer murmured with a faint smile, waking Minogue from his lassitude.

Minogue found Allen's name in the college telephone book. He counted five degrees after Allen's name. Maybe Allen suffered from an excess of modesty in keeping his other dozen degrees to himself?

A secretary said that Allen was not in his office. Could he make an appointment?

"Are you a student?"

"I'm a Sergeant in the Gardai."

Not impressed. Professor Allen made his own appointments personally, she intoned. Minogue should phone tomorrow. She would leave a message with him to say that Sergeant Malone called.

"And tell him that Sergeant Minogue called too, like a good woman," Minogue said. She did not ask for an explanation. Sorry for asking, Minogue thought, are they all Caesars here?

The next morning, Minogue awoke before the clock radio. Amongst other things, he had dreamed of Agnes McGuire. She was the spitting image of Lady Lavery on the old paper money, sitting there looking out in such a melancholy way at the bearer of legal tender. Maybe she realised that the money was going to be exchanged for pints in a pub. Minogue lay still in the cream-lit morning bedroom. He had his fortnightly appointment with Herlighy, the psychiatrist, this morning. There were birds galore outside. The radio popped on and Kathleen elbowed up to look at him. Then she lay down and held her arm over her eyes.

The news came on after the electronic fanfare. Two RUC men had been killed last night in Belfast. They were plain clothes officers in an unmarked car, apparently following a van. The van doors had been kicked open from inside and too late the two realised that they had been drawn into the figures, history, headlines. Nowhere to hide from an M60 machine gun. The van didn't even stop. It didn't need to. Death on the run, a couple of hundred shells fired off in a matter of seconds. Hardly need to aim it.

Kathleen stirred. Belfast was just up the road really, thought Minogue, a million miles away. In Derry, a rocket-propelled grenade had blown in the w'tall of a garage which housed some city buses. "If it's not American, it's Russian," Minogue murmured. That was psychology, a message, an experiment to show they had got them and it could have been you. Kathleen blessed herself.

"God look down on them and all belonging to them."

And she means it, Minogue knew. At one time she had discounted the death of a British soldier in a gun battle. She had felt there was some fairness in that. He was part of an occupying army. That was back in the early seventies. Minogue agreed with her then, but with a lifetime's practice, had not said so aloud. What could be said now? Gardai had been shot and killed. Whoever had set the mine that day, whoever had tripped the switch had not been indifferent to Detective Sergeant Minogue's fate at all: there was intention there, but nothing personal. It was the Ambassador we were after.