‘What are your political views? Would you describe yourself as a nationalist?’
‘Them fuckin’ Northerners, they should be walled off behind that border. Let them in anywhere and there’s nothing but trouble. The only thing that would drive me to violence is the threat that we might let any of these hoors into a United Ireland.’
‘Have you any ideas or suggestions to offer?’
‘The only idea I’ve got is that you should lock up them shagging Northerners—the ones that are left, that is—oh, yes, and that American pain-in-the-arse as well—and let the rest of us go home to our wives and families. And if you won’t let me go, I’d like you to provide an entire detachment of the Irish army to accompany me day and night until this is sorted out.’
***
‘What do you think, Mr Hughes?’
‘I think this is a nest of vipers, that my life is in danger and no one seems to care and that Billy was murdered for his devotion to the crown and his loyalty to Ulster.’
‘You knew Miss de Búrca and Father O’Flynn before this conference, didn’t you?’
‘I barely knew the priest. Taigs is one thing but Jesuits is another. There’s limits. Laochraí and Liam, now, I wouldn’t have had too much of a problem with. Well recently that is. Since we started to meet on committees and that. We have to acknowledge each other’s differences, as they keep telling us. And find common ground. Well we’d found that OK. I mightn’t have liked them much, but we agreed our main enemy was the old Protestant middle classes who’d ground us all down and we were united about the need for the British and American governments and the EU to give us the grants and the jobs.’
McNulty’s eyes glazed. He changed tack. ‘You definitely had no idea that Billy Pratt was going to raise that flag?’
‘Inspector, I said it before and I’ll say it again. I knew Billy when he hadn’t an arse in his trousers, but he’s learned a lot in recent years and one thing he learned good was how to get on. He wasn’t putting up any flag for God or Ulster. He was putting up a flag for Billy in the hope of taking that seat off me. And if I’d known about it, I wouldn’t have had to murder him. I’d only have had to tell that fat baroness and she’d have bawled him out and taken the flag off of him. But now he’s dead, I’ll probably lose the feckin’ seat to one of his side-kicks anyway on a sympathy vote.
‘As for that priest, I don’t trust priests, let alone Jesuit priests and I didn’t like him one bit. He was full of himself, and I couldn’t understand half of what he said—for all that Billy pretended he could—but if that was a reason to murder someone, I tell you there wouldn’t be a lot of people left to go to conferences on Northern Ireland.
‘And yes, I did serve five years for carrying explosives, but if you were to look up what happened, you’ll find that someone else made the bomb and gave it to me to plant. I put it in the boot of my car, I drove it fifty yards and it blew up. I was in hospital for three months, I still have the scars and quite apart from the five years I spent in jail, I can tell you it put me off the bloody things for life.’
***
‘Mr Gibson, you’re the only person at this conference who knew all the Northern participants at all well.’
‘Guilty as charged, Inspector. And indeed I can see why I might be your favourite suspect. I didn’t know that Billy Pratt intended that nonsense with the flag and had I known I would have done what I could to stop him. But I can’t prove I didn’t know. Indeed we’d had a confidential chat in the bar the previous evening about his election prospects.’
‘Really, Mr Gibson. And why was that?’
‘I’m supposed to know what’s going on at the grassroots.’ He sighed. ‘And what’s more, Billy was by way of being a popular pet with some of my political masters. I had been unofficially charged with passing on to him the information that someone would try to do something for his campaign in terms of giving him a political boost at an appropriate moment.’
‘I get the impression that this was rather distasteful to you.’
‘It was. Indeed Billy was rather distasteful to me. But not that much more distasteful than Mr Hughes or the majority of DUPEs. And certainly no less distasteful than virtually any of the MOPEs. I found it particularly distasteful that they received special treatment from people who seemed to have little grasp of morality or reality. It is no secret that I believe that far too many concessions have been made to people who don’t deserve them.’
‘What emerged from your meeting?’
‘Nothing. Billy said he thought he’d probably win. I have here a note I made afterwards.’ He passed it across to McNulty, who read it out loud, apparently for the benefit of Bradley.
‘“Billy Pratt is confident that he can take the seat if HMG comes through with the community grant he’s been demanding. He said he was suffering somewhat from a diminution in his street cred and was being accused of having sold his soul for a mess of government patronage and foreign junkets. It was therefore a relief to him that Willie Hughes had been persuaded to come to this conference too. He volunteered further allegations about Willie’s involvement in the drug business and indicated that it would be extremely helpful if Willie were picked up on suspicion as long as he wasn’t turned into a martyr.
‘“I stressed to him that this was no concern of mine and that there was no collusion between politicians, officials and the RUC. He didn’t believe me. But then they never do.”’
McNulty gave him back his memorandum. ‘And Father O’Flynn, Mr Gibson?’
‘What is there to say? Ever since he arrived I wished him back in Peru. When you are trying to persuade people to take responsibility for themselves and stop crying “victim,” the last person you want is someone as stupidly ideological as that useful idiot.’ He shrugged. ‘And yes, as I told you before, I knew about him and the wretched de Búrca. Or was pretty sure, anyway. And, yes, in theory I could have managed the bottles and the light bulb.’ He yawned. ‘Sorry, Inspector. I’ve found this weekend very, very tiring.
‘But I really didn’t need to resort to murder. I had reason to believe that certain words dropped in the ear of Call-me-Cormac…oh, sorry, force of habit…Father O’Flynn’s religious superiors about unfortunate sexual entanglements would do the trick. They might leave him in situ to stir up merry hell and community conflict, but as a Catholic I know our clergy still get very worked up about sins of the flesh. Especially where priests are concerned. So I expected a rapid transfer for him.’
He yawned again. ‘And as for her? Well, Inspector, we officials have many failings, but on the whole we spend our time trying to stop people murdering each other rather than joining in to fill the void we’ve helped to create. Perforce I know a lot about explosives in theory, but that’s as far as it goes. And frankly I’m at a bit of a loss to think of where I would have found a source of supply in County Mayo.’
***
‘Mr Steeples. Can you help us?’
‘I just want to go home, Mr McNulty.’
‘So does everyone, Mr Steeples.’
‘I must see my wife the night, for it’s our wedding anniversary, my father’s too old to be griping the silage, I’m to dedicate a banner the morrow and then be at the parent-teacher evening.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Steeples, but you’ll have to hold your soul in patience and warn people that you may have to miss these events.’
‘I’ve never missed my wedding anniversary in thirty-two years, or a parent-teacher meeting, or a commitment to the Orange.’
‘I’m sure you’re a very reliable fella, but it can’t be helped. Your family and friends will understand. And anything you can do to help us find the murderer of Miss de Búrca will help you to get home all the sooner.’
‘What do I know? What could I know? All these things seem to happen very late at night when I’ve been in the bed many a long hour. There would be no cows milked or calves fed if people kept the kind of hours these ones do.’
‘You have no loyalist conn
ections, have you?’
‘Not if you mean loyalist the way I think you do. I’m loyal to the crown and the bible, but I’ll not touch any paramilitaries or anyone who supports them. I’m against violence. And that means I’m against anybody killing anybody. It’s against the fifth commandment.’ There was a pause and then he ended, in a voice that shook slightly, ‘I know nothing and all I want is to go home to my family.’
Chapter Nineteen
Pooley and McNulty were chatting when Garda Bradley returned after a long absence. ‘Kapur’s missing.’
‘What do you mean “missing?”’ asked McNulty.
‘I mean I’ve looked for him everywhere and there isn’t sight nor smell of him.’
‘I thought he went to his room after breakfast,’ said Pooley.
‘I rang him several times and there’s no answer.’
‘Might he have gone out?’
McNulty looked at Pooley pityingly. ‘In this? Sure what Christian would go out in this?’ He caught Pooley’s eye and laughed. ‘Or heathen, for that matter. Whichever, I can’t imagine him going out in the worst rainstorm even Mayo’s seen this decade.’
‘He’ll be in a corner somewhere, meditating. I’ll have a look.’
Having hunted around all the public rooms of the hotel and rung anyone he thought Kapur might conceivably have called on, Pooley was beginning to panic when a thought struck him. This time, instead of ringing Kapur’s room, he knocked gently on the door.
‘It is who?’ called a faraway voice.
‘Rollo, Chandra.’
‘Please come in.’
Kapur turned out to be naked and standing on his head in the bathroom.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt, Chandra.’
‘Do not trouble yourself.’
‘The police have been trying to get hold of you. They were getting worried.’
‘Ah, so that is why the telephone has been ringing, ringing, ringing. I thought someone wanted something, but it is not good to interrupt a headstand abruptly. And usually, everything can wait without injury. Do they want anything in particular?’
‘Just a chat. I’m glad I’ve found you. They’re rather nervous.’
‘In case I too should be another body? That would be very amusing. It would give the whole affair a cosmopolitan flavour indeed. Perhaps the Indian embassy could arrange protestors to shout outside that I was a victim of racism.’
‘What’s wrong with sectarianism? Shouldn’t we hold to the prevailing theme of the conference?’
‘Ah, no. For that to be credible we would have to find a Muslim rascal and we would surely have to send to Dublin for one of those.’
In a single fluid moment he lowered his feet to the floor in front of his head and without using his hands, stood upright.
‘I’m impressed.’
‘Just showing off. What is the good of being an Indian sage if you can’t show off the flexibility of your body occasionally? Maybe I should do a cabaret to provide amusement while we are all locked up together.
‘Now, if you will excuse me, I will have a shower. Please be so kind as to reassure the inspector and tell him to expect me in ten minutes. Oh, but warn him that an Indian ten minutes is longer even than its Irish equivalent.’
***
‘I am at a loss in all this, Inspector. I came here to oblige my old friend Lady Troutbeck.’
‘You’ve known her a long time, Mr Kapur?’
‘Since Cambridge. We shared a particular interest in nineteenth-century English literature and a common passion for the novels of Anthony Trollope and the poetry of Rudyard Kipling. Have you read Trollope, Inspector?’
‘Can’t say that I have, Mr Kapur.’
‘Such few insights as I have had into the Irish until I came here have come from him, though I have to say that they are of limited use in these circumstances. Mr O’Shea, now, would be a recognizable Irish type from his pages—unreliable, irresponsible and essentially unscrupulous, but so charming as to be almost always forgiven. I refer you to the portrait of the Honourable Laurence Fitzgibbon in the Palliser novels.’
McNulty cleared his throat.
‘Ah, yes, Inspector. Sorry. The problem with Trollope is that it was the southern gentry he understood mainly. He would be as puzzled by some of the people here as I am myself. The MOPEs and the DUPEs were not familiar Irish types as far as I was concerned. Which is not to say that I do not recognize aspects of them. They represent what one might call cloaked sectarianism. They have grown beyond the stage of parading it nakedly and have acquired rhetorical garments with which to cover it. It is, I suppose, evolution and therefore to be welcomed. Though there are moments when I would prefer the honesty of nakedness to the hypocrisy of clothes.’
‘You’re a man of the world, Mr Kapur.’
‘It depends, Inspector, on which world you are talking about.’ He looked at McNulty’s blank expression. ‘Forgive me. You have sufficient troubles that I should spare you the self-indulgence of mystical speculation. As I have explained to you, I have seen nothing that could be useful to you. Indeed while I have spent most of every day with these people, I have been with them little at night. I have never been able to adapt to a drinking culture. And devoted though I am to my friend Lady Troutbeck, I find her overwhelming when she is flown with wine.’
McNulty looked at him helplessly. ‘I’ve been told you’re intuitive. Is it your intuition that there have been three murders, two murders or just one?’
‘Coincidence is part of life, Inspector. I believe in its long arm, but not an arm as long as this. I could be persuaded reluctantly to believe Billy Pratt was careless enough to bring about his own death. I do not believe the priest tripped over his own bottles.’
He threw his arms wide in a gesture of surrender. ‘I’m sorry. I was brought here to act as an unofficial member of my friend Jack’s praetorian guard. I understand words and ideas. But for most purposes, I live in my own head.’ He smiled gently. ‘Indeed, on it, as much as possible.’
***
‘I observe little, Inspector. I lecord it. It is a besetting sin of Japanese culture that we are so enslaved by gadgets that we have turned ourselves into a nation of people who never enjoy the moment but instead lecord it in the hope that at some moment in the future they will enjoy it. We go to London, we watch a gleat celemony like Trooping the Coroul thlough the rens of our camcorder and sometime we hope we will sit down with our lelatives and actually enjoy the experience. I am not sure that we can do so plopally. You can see it and you can hear it but you can’t feel the templature or the rain or the sun or the snow.’ Okinawa looked sad for a few seconds, but then smiled. ‘Still, I expect our technicians will lesolve this in time. And for me it is all light, for I can delude myself that I do this for a higher purpose, not because I am vulgarly obsessed with new equipment. I can say to myself that I do this for my students, to bling to them experiences they could not have had except through my filming. Yet more and more I find myself in the thlall of this object I take everywhere with me.’
He paused and giggled. ‘That is one leason I enjoy getting dlunk. Japanese men like to get dlunk because it is an excuse to be irresponsible. Also, for me, it is an opportunity to become flee of my master. There is always the moment when I can no longer work it and I am thlown back on the enjoyment of the moment.’
‘Is there any chance, Mr Okinawa, that you might have recorded anything that might be helpful to our investigation?’
‘I have lecorded nothing that was not witnessed by other people. But you are of course welcome to see my films if they could help you.’
‘How many hours of film would we be talking about, Mr Okinawa?’
There was a long pause while Okinawa calculated. McNulty noticed with interest that he counted on his fingers in a way he’d never seen before, resting his fingers one-by-one on the palm of his hand without assistance from the other. Eventually, having run through the fingers of both hands twice, he looked up. ‘Maybe haughy
-whore?’
‘Come again.’
Okinawa held up four fingers on both hands. McNulty’s face cleared. ‘Oh, sorry. I’ve got you. But sweet effing Jesus, that’s an awful lot. Let me think about it. I’ll let you know.’
***
‘I truly think you should,’ said Pooley.
‘Forty-four feckin’ hours? And who’s going to do the watching? It’d have to be someone who knew what they were looking for and who wasn’t just going to fall asleep and miss any good bits.’
‘I’d be prepared to do it.’
‘For forty-four hours?’
‘I’d be sampling it. Not going through the whole thing. I’d have a fair idea what to skip.’
McNulty chewed his moustache. ‘Well, since you’re offering, I’ll have another word with him and find out about processing the film. I’ll be back to ye. Go off and have some lunch.’
***
The baroness was cheerful. ‘I never thought I’d be grateful for anything ersatz, but then I never thought I’d be marooned in a place like this. But by some miracle, that bogus bit of the bar that they call the library has actually yielded a few books worth reading. Someone bought a job lot from a country vicar, I’d say. I’m about to begin re-reading Maria Edgeworth. What are you doing with yourselves?’
‘I’m still lurking behind the arras.’
‘And I’m making myself available to anyone who wants me,’ contributed Amiss. ‘Smiling ingratiatingly. Hoping for useful confidences I can betray to the authorities. You know. The usual.’
‘Seen anything?’
‘Kelly-Mae and Liam seem very thick, I thought.’
‘Really,’ said the baroness. ‘I didn’t think he was particularly thick. Rabid idealogue, yes. Thick, no. Though of course she is.’
‘I didn’t mean thick as in stupid, idiot. I meant thick as in cahoots.’
‘It’s hardly surprising,’ said Pooley. ‘She’s on the verge of hysteria and there are very few people she’s prepared to talk to. And vice-versa.’
‘Well I suppose having your other two mates dead might depress anyone. What’s everyone else doing?’
Anglo-Irish Murders Page 20