Read Games of the Hangman Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
Games of the Hangman (7 page)
Fitzduane
gathered his thoughts.
Kilmara spoke
again.
"Of course I'll help,"
he said.
"But I am curious about
your rationale for what seems, on the face of it, a somewhat arcane
project."
Fitzduane
laughed.
"I don't have one neat
reason," he said.
"More like a
feeling that this is something I should stay with."
"You and
your instincts," said Kilmara, shaking his head.
"They are, as I remember full well from
the
downright spooky.
So what's on your
mind?"
Fitzduane
refreshed his memory from his notes.
"I'd like to talk to the pathologist who carried out the postmortem
on our freshly dead friend.
The normal
pathologist for
the are
was away at a conference, and
Harbison was tied up on some thing or other.
A Dr. Buckley drove up from
"I know
Buckley," said Kilmara.
"He's
first-rate, but he's like a clam when it comes to professional matters unless
there are good reasons for him to talk."
"That
ball is in your court," said Fitzduane.
"I tried ringing him off my own bat and got nowhere.
He was affable but firm."
"Ah, the
people of
said Kilmara.
"It must go with the
scenery.
I'll see what I can do.
What's next?"
"I'd like
copies of all the relevant reports:
police, forensic,
coroner's
.
The lot," said Fitzduane.
"It's
certainly improper and arguably illegal to give that sort of thing to a
civilian.
But okay.
No problem."
"I need
some sort of introduction to the authorities in
"That's where Rudolf von Graffenlaub
came from.
That's where his parents and
friends live.
I want to go over and ask
some questions, and I don't want to be politely deported on the second
day."
Kilmara
grinned.
"This one calls for a
little creative thinking."
"Finally,
what do you know about
Fitzduane.
"And I don't mean have
you got a copy of the college prospectus."
"I
thought you might get to that one sometime," said Kilmara.
"Now it's my turn for a question.
Do you have any idea what you're looking
for?"
Fitzduane
smiled gently.
"No," he said,
"but I expect I'll know when I find it."
They were
silent for a few moments.
Kilmara rose
and stretched and walked over to the window.
He peered through the venetian blinds.
"The rain isn't so bad," he said.
"It's only spitting now.
What about a stroll in Herbert Park?"
"It's
winter and it's March and it's cold," said Fitzduane, but his movements
belied his words.
He shrugged into his
still-damp coat.
"And there are no
flowers."
"There
are always flowers," said Kilmara.
*
*
*
*
*
They walked
the short distance to Herbert Park and turned onto the deserted grounds.
The four
security guards moved in closer, though they were still out of earshot.
They were perceptibly edgy.
The light was dull, and the shrubbery
provided cover for a possible assailant.
It was unlike the colonel to expose himself for this length of time in
what could not be made, with the manpower available, a secure area.
The bodyguard commander called in to Ranger
headquarters for backup.
He wondered
what the two men were talking about.
He
hoped the rain would get heavier so they'd return to bricks and mortar and a
defensible perimeter.
They were
talking about terrorists.
"Take our
homegrown lot," said Kilmara.
"We hunt them and imprison them, and occasionally we kill them, but
I still have
a certain
sympathy for, or at least an
understanding of, the
They want a united
They don't want
North."
"By
exploding bombs in crowded streets, by killing and maiming innocent men, women,
and children, by murdering part-time policemen in front of their
families?" broke in Fitzduane.
"I know,
I know," said Kilmara
,
"
I'm not defending the IRA.
My point is, however, that I understand their motives."
They left the
ponds and gardens of Herbert Park and crossed the road into the area of lawn
and tennis courts.
Wet grass squelched
underfoot.
Neither man noticed.
Kilmara
continued.
"Similarly, I understand
other nationalist terrorist organizations like ETA or the various Palestinian
outfits, and the Lord knows there are enough of those.
But I have great difficulty in grasping the
motives of what I tend to think of as the European terrorists — the
Baader-Meinhof people, the ‘Red Army Faction,’ as they call themselves, Action
Directe — or gangs like the Italian Brigate Rosse.
"What the
hell are they after?
Most of the members
come from well-to-do families.
They are
normally well educated — sometimes too well.
They don't have material problems.
They don't have nationalistic objectives.
They don't seem to have a coherent political
philosophy.
Yet they rob, kidnap, maim,
and murder.
But to what end?
Why?"
"What are
you leading up to?"
Kilmara
stopped and turned to face Fitzduane.
He
shook his head.
"I'm buggered if I
know exactly.
It's a kind of feeling I
have that something else is brewing.
We
sit on this damp little island of ours with mildew and shamrock corroding our
brains and think all we have to worry about, at least in a terrorist sense,
is
the IRA.
I'm not
sure it's that simple."
"I've no
time for communism, which is self-destructing anyway, but all is far from well
in Western democracies.
There is a
gangrene affecting our values that gives rise to terrorists like the Red Army
Faction, and I'm beginning to get the smell in this country."
They started
walking again.
To the great relief of
the bodyguard commander, the heavens opened, and rain descended in solid
sheets.
The colonel and his guest headed
toward a Ranger car.
"Is this
instinct or something harder?" asked Fitzduane.
"Is this academic discussion or
something that crosses what I'm up to?"
"It's not
academic," said Kilmara, "but it's not hard.
"
It's
bits and
pieces sifted from intelligence reports and interrogations.
It's the presence of elements that shouldn't
be there.
It's stuff on the grapevine.
It's the instincts of someone who's been a
long time in this game.
As for whether
it affects you, I don't see how — but who knows?
Suicide is about alienation.
There are other ways to show society you're
pissed off.
And there is a lot about our
society to piss people off."
Kilmara
stopped at they approached the car.
The
sky was black, and thunder rumbled.
Rain
poured down and cascaded off the two men.
Lightning flashed and for a moment illuminated Kilmara's face.
He started to say something,
then
seemed to change his mind.
He reverted to what they had just been
discussing.
"In this new modern
substitute the Western capitalist world — our idea of progress is a new
shopping center or video machine.
It
just isn't that simple.
Life can't be
that hollow."
Fitzduane
looked at his friend.
"I've got
children," said Kilmara, "and I'm not sure I like the view in my
crystal ball."
They returned
to the hotel and dried off and had a hot whiskey together for the road.
They drank in companionable silence.
The hotel's central heating was as usual too
hot, but their coats and hats, draped over the radiators and dripping onto the
carpet, were drying out.
The room
smelled like an old sheepdog.
"I wonder
what you've got into this time, Hugo," said Kilmara.
"You and
your
fucking vibes."
He swirled the
clove in his hot whiskey.
"Tell
me," he said, "do they still call you the Irish samurai?"
"From
time to time," replied Fitzduane.
"The media have picked it up, and it's in the files.
It livens up a story."
Kilmara
laughed.
"Ah," he said,
"but the name fits.
There you are
with your ideals, your standards, your military skills, and your heritage,
looking for a worthwhile cause to serve, a quest to undertake."
"The idea
of a samurai," said Fitzduane, "Is a warrior who already serves, one
who has already found his master and has his place in the social order, a
knight in the feudal system answerable to a lord but in charge of his own
particular patch."
"Well,"
said Kilmara, "you've certainly got your own particular patch — even if it
is in the middle of nowhere.
As to whom
you are answerable" — he grinned — "that's an interesting
question."
The
thunderstorm was working itself up to a climax.
Rain drummed against the glass.
Lightning split the sky into jagged pieces.
"It's the
weather for metaphysics," said Fitzduane, "though scarcely the
time."
*
*
*
*
*
Fifteen
minutes later Kilmara was connected by telephone to a white-tiled room in
A smallish man
with salt-and-pepper hair and the complexion of a fisherman was given the phone
by the lab technician.
The smallish man
was wearing a green smock and trousers and rubber apron.
His white rubber gloves were splashed with
blood.
"Michael,"
said Kilmara after the proprieties had been observed, "I want you to take
a break from cutting the tops off of Irish skulls with that electric saw of
yours in a fruitless search for gray matter.
I'd like you to take a friend of mine out to dinner and do a wee bit of
talking."
"What
about?" asked the smallish man.
There was the sound of dripping from the open body into the stainless
steel bucket below.
"A Berlinese hanging."
"Ah,"
said the smallish man.
"Who's
paying for dinner?"
"Now, is
that a fair question from a friend to a friend about a friend?"
"Yes,"
said the smallish man.
"The firm."
"Well
now, that's very civilized of you, Shane," said the smallish man.
"It will be the Arbutus, so."
He decided he
would have a nice cup of tea before returning to the corpse.
Kilmara phoned
*
*
*
*
*
Fitzduane
soaked in the bath, watching his yellow plastic duck bob around in the
suds.
That was the weakness of
showers.
There was nowhere to float your
duck.
The music of
Sean O'Riada wafted through the half-open door.
Fitzduane
didn't hear the phone.
He was thinking
about O'Riada — an outstanding composer who was dead of drink by early middle
age — and Rudi von Graffenlaub and the fact that killing yourself, if you
included drugs and alcohol, wasn't really such an uncommon human activity.
It was just that hanging was rather more
dramatic.
The duck caught his eye.
It was riding low in the water.
He had a horrible feeling that it had sprung
a leak.