dangerous suspect.'
Minogue saw Kilmartin's hands fist in his pockets.
'Sir, with respect, it's not like that. That McCarthy is the last fella to do this. It had to be something else, sir. He wouldn't have done that, sir.'
'My arse for a yarn, Kelly,' Kilmartin snapped.
Minogue heard the chatter from a handset the sergeant was carrying. Kelly looked down at the ground, then back at the rigid Kilmartin.
'Understand this, Kelly: when we finish our job, there'll be ructions. Unarmed Gardai are paying the bill with their lives for what's going on. I won't stand for that. Inspectors in other departments won't. Neither will the public. This is Dublin, the capital of Ireland, for fucks' sakes, not New York.'
Minogue watched Kilmartin stalk away. He turned to look around and watch the men securing the plastic rail.
Kelly glanced at Minogue.
'He's right, you know. That fella in Blackrock and now this? Where's it all going to end.'
'Are we talking about an organised series of killings here?' Minogue asked.
Kelly shook his head and looked over at Kilmartin, now holding a handset. What a place to die, Minogue was thinking.
The plastic-covered ID had slipped from the man's fingers. It lay face up on his chest. The tanned man saw the polaroid with some print to the left side. He felt suddenly seized, unable to move. A cop. Jesus.
The tanned man rolled off the silencer and buttoned his jacket. He walked to a path nearby and within two minutes was leaving the Green by an entrance which faced onto a taxi rank. He decided against taking a taxi. His back prickled in a sweat, vulnerable. Still he heard no shouts or sirens. Mentally he counted the people he had met as he left. An old woman who had fallen asleep in a chair. Two teenagers entwined, trying to walk on a path.
The rush hour had eased to the degree that cars were moving into third gear between traffic lights. He walked across to the College of Surgeons and turned right toward Grafton Street. He had to work hard at not running. He knew that he had to get in the hotel and then out as soon as possible. They'd find McCarthy.
The tanned man stepped into a pub and went to the Gents. In the remaining fraction of a mirror, he saw his own face, strange and wide-eyed. He could not stop his hands from shaking. He did some belly breathing. Then he combed his hair and straightened his tie. He checked for any mud on the sides of his shoes. He went back outside and bought a newspaper. He tucked it under his arm and, taking a deep breath, strolled toward the Shelbourne Hotel. And still there was no sign that anyone but he knew that there was a body lying under the trees not two hundred yards from where he was walking.
'Picked him up then?' Kilmartin said into the microphone. 'Pearse Street station?'
'Well, tell them I'll be there. I want in on this.'
The sergeant jammed the car into the traffic and headed down Kildare Street. Kilmartin turned to Minogue.
'Yes. They found what's-his-face, McCarthy, him in a pub. O'Neill's. So they took him in for questioning in Pearse Street.'
Minogue still found it hard to believe where he was and what he was doing. He should be phoning home. What was for tea? Did he have to buy sausages? Connors was dead, dead.
'That was quick,' Minogue said, trying to fan away the fear.
'He'd better have something for us quick. Those boyos from the Branch may be full of fancy footwork, counter-terrorist this and counter-terrorist that, but I'll wager they won't know how to make do with this fella.'
Minogue knew that the Special Branch could be extra-legal and they could get away with it. They'd be all the more urgent because it looked as if they hadn't looked after a policeman who had been on loan to them: faulty intelligence had occluded the danger, bad work.
Kilmartin's fear and anger were not abating. They had grasped his guts, squeezed and held. A vast indigestion had control of him. He couldn't fathom what had happened, no more than Minogue. His neck and shoulders were knotted. He wanted to shout, to hit someone. For an instant he recalled a mannerism of Connors and it tightened his chest. In desperation, he turned to the sergeant driving.
'Coincidence be damned, hah?'
The sergeant looked over and said gruffly,
'That's too much to swallow, sir. I know that fella Kehoe out in Blackrock. I know his parents too. I'm thinking we have to decide who's running the bloody country, them or us?'
Kilmartin wasn't listening. The sergeant's eyes sought Minogue in the mirror.
Speeding and braking along Pearse Street, Minogue saw a dirty, heartless city. The sergeant swore aloud and bullied the engine, himself a countryman trying to wrestle with this brooding dump.
Minogue recognised the playwright. He looked younger than his years, preserved by a fanatic's purity. He didn't look in the least intimidated. A knot of policemen cluttered the corridor, a mixture of Special Branch, uniformed and hard chaws from the Technical Bureau. Minogue saw the door close on the playwright and two plain clothes.
'This way men,' a desk sergeant said. 'Come on now, it's set up for sound so ye can listen over beyond.'
Minogue saw resentment burning in Kilmartin's face. They sat in the briefing room along with three others who nodded and produced notebooks.
'Tea, lads?' the genial desk sergeant said.
They listened to preliminaries. McCarthy was not going to be manhandled in this session with the mikes on.
'You're obliged to tell me under what Section I'm being held,' the playwright said.
'You'll be told sometime during the next forty-eight hours. Where were you this afternoon?'
'Where you found me. In a pub.'
'How long?'
'How long does it take to drink two pints of ale?' the playwright asked.
He's enjoying this, Minogue realised. A threshold hiss came across the speakers. The men in the room looked at one another. The sergeant stepped in with a tray of tea.
'Technical problems, lads?' he said and smiled.
No one replied.
The hiss stopped and they heard the playwright's voice again.
'You shouldn't have done that. That'll show. This isn't Guatemala you know. Or Belfast,' the playwright said. The men in the room heard him breathing out of turn.
'What time did you get in?'
'About a quarter past four.'
'Anybody see you come in?'
'I was with friends. You can ask them.'
'Where were you before that?'
'I was in another pub.'
'Where?'
'The Bailey.'
'With who?'
'With anybody, is who. No one specific. I do the rounds.'
'Name any of them.'
'Ah, they're regulars, I hardly know their surnames. What am I supposed to have done?'
'How long were you in the Bailey?'
'I don't know. A half hour, three quarters. Since after the Holy Hour. I moved on. There was no one there of any interest.'
'You know the barmen there?'
'Yes.'
'Who was on?'
'I don't know their names.'
'He saw you come in?'
