The Death of an Irish Consul (4 page)

“Ente Nazionali Idrocarburi.”

“I often wondered why Italians are so enamored of initials. Now I can well see why. Where was I?

“Pays taxes on fifteen thousand, but with fringe benefits, et cetera, it’s more like twenty. Even so, they live at the utter end of their tether, and their credit rating isn’t much. I was beginning to think that now with the fellow dead she’d be having to cut her expenses drastically—both houses are mortgaged right up to the eaves—when I managed to come upon this interesting fact.”

“Insurance?”

“Yes. Let me save the best part for last. He had a Civil Service standard policy which he had already borrowed against up to the eighty percent maximum, so that renders two thousand pounds. He had a private endowment plan of twenty thousand, had paid in about six, but had borrowed it back at five percent interest, so that yields about thirteen. Then there’s a post office policy of under a thousand pounds. And then”—Madigan paused—“there’s a relatively new—five years—straight term policy for one hundred twenty-five thousand pounds. The premium payments, given Hitchcock’s life expectancy and his former occupation,
were extraordinary, but the Dutch company that assumed the risk claims that the payments were current.”

“Who’s the beneficiary?”

“That’s somewhat strange, that is. Even though he had a son of whom he was quite fond, everything in the big insurance policy goes to her.”

“Son’s name?”

“Edward Bernard David and resides in All Souls College, Oxford. Teaches mathematics, I believe. He’s sure to inherit some of this estate.”

“Well—that’s just fine, Hugh. Is there anything else?”

“Yes. Who’s handling this case? Gallup?”

“Right.”

“Is it true he’s going to be the new assistant commissioner of CID?”

“Yes.”

“Why, then, don’t the two of you meet me at the Carlton for drinks about tea time?”

“Don’t you know him?”

“Not as well as I should, considering his new and exalted position.”

“I’ll try to bring him ’round and will call you if I can’t.”

“Don’t bother about calling. Just be there yourself. We haven’t hoisted a few jars since—I can’t remember when.”

McGarr surmised that Madigan, a functionalist, also had some Irish problem beyond his wish, which McGarr did not doubt in the least, to share a few drinks
and reminisce about dear, dirty Dublin. “What do you know about the present C., Colonel Cummings?”

“That he’s very good at his job, but not very well liked by his staff.”

“Why so?”

“Runs the place on fear. Sacked a number of old-timers straightaway, put the rest into administrative limbos. Hasn’t really done much field work himself—you know, a couple of years in Budapest where he specialized in blonds, beards, and bars, one year in Istanbul, and then he got a Washington assignment. Lacks humanity, they say, and a feel for what it’s like being out on point all alone and cut off.”

“Four-thirty?”

“Five—better, five-thirty.” Madigan hung up.

Gallup was just completing his secondhand relation of the details pertaining to the Hitchcock murder when McGarr returned to the dining room.

Since the four men were sitting close to Cummings at the head of the table, which had been set for eight, McGarr had the choice of three seats. He chose the one at the other end of the table. This made a gap of two seats between him and the other men.

“And what do you know about this affair, McGarr?” asked Cummings. He had just finished a dish of thick oxtail soup and now gently stanched his lips with his napkin. Besides his obvious nastiness, there was something supercilious about his manner, gestures, and appearance. Somehow what little hair that remained on the sides of his head was a bit too neat and his skin
seemed too fresh and talced, like that of a baby with an officious nanny. His gray eyes were sparkling now, as he reached for his wine glass.

“Only what I related to Assistant Commissioner Gallup, and he, no doubt, has conveyed to you.”

“Assistant Commissioner?”

In the midst of raising his soup spoon to his lips, Gallup glanced at the other men and blushed.

“Some congratulations are in order, it seems.” Cummings took the opportunity to taste his wine again.

Several of the men smiled to Gallup, but nobody said anything. It was quite obvious that Cummings had the floor and that, far from being a pleasant convocation over lunch, the meeting was to be an interrogation of McGarr.

“But certainly having seen poor C. in his last agony—”

One of the other men started, his head turned toward the window, and his hand began fumbling in his suit for a packet of cigarettes.

Cummings stared at him until he had the cigarette lit, then continued speaking to McGarr, “—you can tell us more particularly about—how do you people in the police phrase it?—the significant details?” Turning on the man with the cigarette, he said, “I really wish you would learn to quell that filthy habit, Stone. Having to smoke between courses is incontinent, as well as being quite disagreeable to the others of us at this table.”

McGarr had tasted his soup, which he imagined must have taken a full day to prepare—sweating the thin oxtail slivers over a bed of carrots, leeks, and onions, covering it with an eight-hour bone stock, simmering for ten more hours, clarifying with chopped beef and further leeks, finely chopped, both ingredients whisked with raw egg white, then a brown roux and tomato purée for thickening, and sherry for taste—and found it delicious. He hardly heard Cummings say, “McGarr? Well—McGarr?”

McGarr took several additional spoonfuls of the soup and blotted his lips with the napkin. “No. I have nothing to add.” He dipped his spoon in the soup once more.

Gallup had caught on to McGarr’s tactic in dealing with Cummings. Being one of the men sitting closest to McGarr, he asked, “How do you manage to remain so thin, Peter? Your appetite has always been so unbounded.”

“I concentrate on my comestibles, never rush through a meal, and always try to dine in pleasant company.” McGarr smiled toward Cummings, who said, “Let’s get the facts straight. Hitchcock was shot once in the back of the head. Small-caliber gun. His hands and feet had been trussed behind his…”

While Cummings catalogued the details of the crime and his associates pretended to listen to him attentively, one waiter removed McGarr’s now empty soup service and another began serving
entrecÔte mirabeau
,
the cut between the bones of the ribs of beef which had been grilled, garnished with anchovy fillets, tarragon leaves, and stoned, blanched olives. It was served with anchovy butter. At the same time, the wine was changed from a pleasant Marsala to a hearty Clos Vougeot. Halfway through the dish, a waiter informed McGarr he had a telephone call in the lobby.

When McGarr returned to the table he pushed the plate aside and, interrupting Cummings, said, “Are all your operatives issued a ketobemidone knockout potion?”

“Of course not—those supplies are signed out only for special need and on a high-priority basis.”

“How many of your agents carry twenty-two-caliber automatic handguns?”

“None. They’re issued an effective weapon, the Walther nine millimeter. Each weapon is registered, as are the firing pin configurations and barrel markings. Look here——”

“Would it be possible to obtain a list of present and former SIS agents who had a grudge against Hitchcock and might want to kill him?”

“Certainly not. I don’t know or care what the esprit may be in Irish organizations, but here in SIS the staff respect their commander. That some former agent, no matter how alienated, might try to murder Hitchcock is unthinkable.” Cummings glanced around at his men. All were busily eating their steaks.

“Perhaps, then, you’d better begin thinking the unthinkable. The phone call I just received was from
Dublin.” McGarr stood. “Another man has been found in the same shed at the same house with a similar bullet hole in the back of his head. His name is C.B.H. Browne. Does that mean anything to you?”

Two men placed their napkins on their plates. Another slid back his chair and stood.

“I’d appreciate greatly your checking your records about the ketobemidone compound, the gun preference, and for disgruntled agents who might have threatened either one or both of these men. Also, I’d like to know right now if you have any idea of some foreign power which would benefit by the systematic execution of your former chiefs. Is this some sort of vendetta?”

Cummings shook his head. He was worried.

McGarr turned and started for the door.

“Where are you going?” Cummings demanded.

“Dingle, of course.”

“Hold on—Gallup is going with you?”

Gallup looked up from his partially consumed steak.

“Well, aren’t you?”

Gallup took a swallow of wine. “Well, I don’t think so. I’m running CID now. That’s an administrative assignment.”

“Nonsense. I’ll take care of all that,” said Cummings. “I want
us
represented in this investigation.” Cummings eyed McGarr once more.

As they hustled down the stairs of the Proscenium Club, Gallup said, “Blast his hide. Who the hell does he think he is?”

“A most important man in your government.”

“But besides that.”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“I can’t go traipsing all over the Irish outback like some rookie leg man. I’ve got supervisory duties to attend to. I’ve planned a reorganization. And then there’s the new man I shall have to break into my old job!”

“But what if we crack the case and put a lid on the messy business right off?”

Gallup only looked out the window of the speeding police car at the busy London street.

“Anyhow, feel lucky that you won’t have to work for Cummings but just this once.”

“Only the idea that this killer, whoever he is, is working on a pattern cheers me at the moment.”

At Heathrow, a Shannon-bound jet had been held up and was awaiting them. On the way down the aisle toward first class, McGarr ordered double whiskeys from a passing stewardess.

MIDAFTERNOON
in late spring, the sprawling runways of poured concrete were bare. From above they looked like intersecting shuffleboards built for a giant. McGarr noted the clusters of buildings—light manufacturing and assembly plants, warehouses, and worker residence units—which now dotted the area near the terminus. As ever, the grass below was very green, the Shannon River silver, the ocean beyond a blue that merged to black offshore.

At the airport Garda post, McGarr and Gallup were unable to arrange for the use of a police car, since, as the lieutenant on duty told McGarr, “Of the three, two are in use, and one must remain at base in the event of an emergency.”

McGarr looked the man straight in the eye and be
gan smiling. He knew that the Shannon airport duty was considered to be among the softest in the country, since during the late fall, winter, and early spring very few problems arose. He wondered what sort of police business the other two automobiles could possibly be engaged in on a day like this. “This is an emergency of sorts. Ned Gallup, here,” he gestured to the Englishman, although they had introduced themselves to the lieutenant a few minutes before, “is the assistant commissioner of CID, Scotland Yard. He has flown all the way over here to investigate a matter in Dingle. He’s a busy man and must get back to his duties as soon as possible.”

“That’s no concern of mine,” said the lieutenant. He was a wide man, young for an officer, with protrusive cheekbones that made his eyes seem sunken. His thick shock of black hair had been combed down but still bristled. “Orders are orders. The car stays put.”

“I want the keys,” said McGarr. He looked the man straight in the eye.

The prominent knobs on the lieutenant’s cheeks flushed. “Well, you can’t have them and that’s
that
.”

Both of the Garda patrolmen who were in the small office turned to them. One was reading a newspaper and smoking a cigarette. His feet were on a desk. The other was pecking out a report on a typewriter.

McGarr turned to Gallup, “Would you wait in the car, please, Ned? I’d like to have a word with the lieutenant in private.” The Cortina patrol car was visible through the window at the rear of the office.

“Well, goddammit!” the lieutenant shouted. “You so much as move and I’ll place you under arrest!”

Gallup gave him a pained look and walked straight through the office and out to the car.

The two patrolmen were standing now, and one had walked toward McGarr, who turned to them and said, “My name is Peter McGarr and I’m chief inspector of detectives, Dublin Castle. Now, obviously your lieutenant doesn’t believe me, but don’t you make that mistake too.” He pointed to one of the men. “Where are the other two police cars?”

The man looked at the lieutenant.

“Never mind about him,” said McGarr. “Just tell me.”

“Well,” the man stammered, “one’s at—at home with one of the boys. His wife has a doctor’s appointment in Limerick. And the other is—”

“Son of a—” The lieutenant spun on his heels and took two large strides to the desk. He picked up the receiver of a phone and dialed
O
.

McGarr was still looking at the Garda patrolman. His small blue eyes demanded an answer.

“Well, the truth is only the lieutenant ever uses that one. It’s new. It hasn’t yet been run in.”

“Where is it?” McGarr turned to the window. He could only see one car out there.

“Over in hangar
B
. We keep it there whenever the weather looks like it might be soft. One of the Aer Lingus boys gives her a touch with his polishing cloth now and again.”

“Is this Dublin Castle?” the lieutenant barked into the phone. “Do you have a McGarr there? Put him on.” He paused a moment. “Is this McGarr?”

McGarr knew the policeman must have reached McKeon, who dealt with all incoming queries when McGarr was away.

“This is Garda Lieutenant Mallon calling from Shannon airport. Does a McGarr work there? What’s his position? I’ve got a joker here who says his name is McGarr. He claims he’s chief inspector or something.” McGarr had been on the job slightly over two years now. He conscientiously maintained a low image, which he believed best for efficient police work. He had had little to do with the regular Garda. Still and all, Mallon should have known who he was. “He’s a little man, bald, about fifty.” McGarr was still in his forties.

He distinctly heard McKeon say, “He’s
the
chief inspector of detectives, special branch, and his other…” before Mallon tightened the receiver to his head. His other title was superintendent of the Garda Soichana, which made him the second most important law enforcement official in the country. Only the commissioner, who was two years from retirement, held higher rank, and McGarr had been hired into his present job on the agreement that the top post would be his when it came open. Of course, the Minister for Justice controlled all police matters, but his was an elective position.

From the length of time that Lieutenant Mallon listened, he must have been hearing most of this from McKeon. When Mallon turned to McGarr again, his face was drawn. The redness in his cheeks had spread. He handed the phone to McGarr. “Sergeant McKeon would like to speak with you.”

McGarr took the receiver from him. “Do you mean Detective Sergeant McKeon?” he asked, smiling. McKeon’s sergeancy was perhaps twenty years away from Mallon’s present rank. “Bernie?”

“SIS, London, has been trying to get in touch with you for several hours now. They won’t talk to anybody but you or Assistant Commissioner Gallup.”

“Number?”

“No number, just an operator. Seventy-eight dash
H
. They do things official there. You’d think you were dealing with the Kremlin or the Pentagon.”

“Many of the things they do involve both of those places. I sort of wish we could become a little more official over here as well.” He glanced up at Mallon.

“If they call again, tell them to get in touch with Superintendent Scanlon in Dingle. That’s where I’ll be.” McGarr hung up. He figured Cummings had been in no great rush to cooperate with him in his investigation of the Hitchcock murder and could well do with a little of the same treatment.

Turning around, McGarr said, “Would you two patrolmen mind leaving us alone for a moment?” He would never dress down an officer in front of his men.
If he took away Mallon’s pride, he could never expect the lieutenant to command the respect of his staff again.

When the men had shut the door behind them, McGarr asked Mallon, “How old are you, Lieutenant?”

“Thirty.”

McGarr raised his eyebrows. “That’s quite young to be a lieutenant. You must have done things right previously. University?”

“Cork.”

“Honors?”

“Second, but high second in history.”

“What do you think of this post?” McGarr meant the Shannon lieutenancy.

Mallon, flustered by the questions, confused that McGarr wasn’t ripping into him, said, “Well—it’s a—it’s a job.”

“But not much to do, right? No challenge. That’s what the car is all about isn’t it? That’s at least a part of why you feel rather”—McGarr searched for the proper word—“nettled today? You think this is a dead end, that your career will be a concatenation of similarly boring assignments—Donegal, Roscommon, Wexford—little cattle towns or fishing villages with a paltry pension at the end of it all. Are you married?”

“Yes.”

“Children?”

“Two. Boy and girl.”

“How does your wife feel about this place?”

“Well”—Mallon was still looking down at his shoes—“it’s not Cork City.”

“Nor Dublin.”

Mallon glanced up at McGarr. He breathed out and said, “No—nor Dublin.”

“So, you’re not happy here.”

“No, I’m not.”

“And, consequently, you’re not happy being a Garda lieutenant.”

Mallon breathed heavily again. “I shouldn’t say this, but no, I’m not.”

“And you’ve been considering quitting to try your hand at something else? Business? The law?”

Mallon nodded. “Yes—the law. Look, if you’re going to sack me, I’ll save you—”

McGarr reached up, grabbed the young man’s shoulder. “Hold it, don’t say anything stupid. Control yourself, man. If I acted the way you are acting now, certainly I would have sacked you ten minutes ago. I’ve got a temper, too, you know. Have a seat.” It was not a request.

Mallon sat on the desk. Now he was McGarr’s height.

“Now then,” McGarr checked his watch. It was 4:15. “How would you like to come to work for me?”

Mallon, surprised, glanced up at him.

“Wait—let me tell you the advantages and the disadvantages of my offer. First, you’ll be living in Dublin, I’ll let you go to school part-time, and you’ll certainly
feel challenged. That brings me to the disadvantages, which are legion. That man you just talked to on the phone—”

“Detective Sergeant McKeon?”

McGarr noted that Mallon had understood the distinction. “—he is not a gentleman. He will think he owns you. He won’t give a farthing for your home life or aspirations. You’ll lose that monkey suit and your title. You’ll be the new boy on the block, a raw inspector. The pay will be slightly less, the Dublin expenses grievous. Now then, do you want to think on it, discuss it with your wife?”

“Well, of course, I must—”

McGarr checked his watch once more. “You can do your thinking in the car while taking us down to Dingle. That way you can observe what a very small—the best—part of your job may be like, after you’re with us for a while. I’ll give you five minutes to call your wife. Tell her you won’t be home until late tonight. At that time I’d like your decision.” McGarr walked through the office. At the car he apologized to Gallup for the delay and altercation.

“No problem—it’s a wonder any of them were awake.” The vast parking lot was utterly devoid of automobiles.

When Mallon climbed behind the wheel, he asked, “Dingle?”

“No. Hangar
B
is our first stop. It’ll probably be your last chance to drive that or any police car for a long time.”

“You didn’t—” Gallup asked McGarr.

McGarr put his finger to his lips.

A traffic light brought them to a halt just in front of the hangar. Stopped in a car across from them and traveling in the opposite direction was the very same black man with the broad forehead and close-set eyes who had been dining in the inn on the Shannon the day before. Next to him sat the other man. He was wearing a tan coat with a large fur collar. The car was a black Morris Marina and looked brand-new. Watching it pass by, McGarr noted that they were headed toward the terminus.

They drove southwest, nearly into the dwindling spring sun which, now that the days were growing longer, lingered well past supper. It was still weak, however, and cast upon the rock pastures and ubiquitous stone walls a pale, grainy light. For the second time in as many days McGarr was rushing down the banks of the Shannon. At this time of day, the salmon fishing boats were port bound, bucking the stiff tide and current upstream. Starboard running lights, bright green, winked as the boats pitched in the choppy whitecaps that a brisk wind now made. A supertanker droned twice, intending to overtake a pilot launch, and the other vessels scurried from its path. The monstrous craft, most of its hull submerged, wallowed up the estuary, pushing, it seemed to McGarr, half the Atlantic before its stubby prow.

Superintendent Terrence Scanlon was waiting for
McGarr in front of Hitchcock’s summer home on the tip of the Kerry peninsula. Hughie Ward and Liam O’Shaughnessy were inside the house.

After tea had been poured, Ward began his rundown. “The interior of the house is spotless, since we sealed the doors and windows because of the prior investigation. The outbuilding, too, was sealed, but that didn’t seem to matter. Whoever they are, they hammered off the seal, then dumped Browne, who was unconscious—he’s got a gash on his forehead—into the shed, and shot him once. His hands were bound with the same cargo cord.”

Whoever they were, McGarr mused, they were very intent on making sure these two men with identical pasts had died in identical ways. “Have you checked the neighborhood?”

“No. We’re only after just arriving ourselves,” said O’Shaughnessy. “We called you the moment Terry called us. We had to drive.”

“Then that’s the first order of business.”

“But most of the houses are vacant this time of year.”

“But not all of them.”

“No—not all.”

“And laborers, field hands, shepherds, fishermen?”

“You could count them with either hand.”

“Good. You take them, Terry. Liam and Hughie, you take the road to Dingle. After looking about for a while, Ned and I and Lieutenant Mallon will take the road around the head. Make sure you speak to everybody.”

“What exactly are we looking for?” asked Scanlon. He, being the Dingle barracks commandant, was not used to McGarr’s techniques.

“Anything out of the ordinary. If necessary, sit down, have a cup of tea. Certainly these two bodies didn’t drop from the sky.”

But, in fact, McGarr couldn’t have been more wrong, for after having examined C. B. H. Browne’s body and having quickly perused the immediate environs of the house, the three of them began canvassing the other dwellings in the area only to find a woman who had indeed noticed something strange earlier in the day.

Her bungalow was perched below the road and on the very face of the cliff of Slea Head. The walkway down to her front door had been chipped from the basalt itself, as had the foundation of the house. A long paned window in the main room, which served as a kitchen and living room, offered a view of the sunset over the western ocean.

Rolling clouds way out on the Atlantic were now a fiery pink that cast a red glow along the inner walls of the room. Over a peat fire, a black pot, hanging from an andiron, piped a small jet of steam. McGarr recognized the aroma immediately. It was lamb kidney stew with rashers. Also, he could smell fresh soda bread, the kind with caraway seeds and eggs. Sure enough, cooling on a low, stone-top table near the hearth was a
large, circular loaf, its crown a glistening golden surface of baked yolks through which the currants protruded like so many eyes.