“What’s with your man down on the beach?” Hynes asked brightly.

“Apparently the man is dead, Mr. Hynes.”

“Ah, but the world and his mother know that, men. But sure that’s only the beginning, isn’t it?”

“Mr. Hynes, I’m going to be briefed as soon as there’s an officer comes here to brief me. There’s more than enough expertise and feet plodding over the scene below. You’ll doubtless have heard as much, and perhaps more, down there as you’ll hear from me,” said Kilmartin.

Minogue met Hoey’s eyes. Hoey looked to heaven.

“I thought as much,” said Hynes. He lit a cigarette from the butt of another and ground out the expended one slowly as though choking a hen. Minogue began calculating: he has a cigarette in his gob the minute he wakes up. Seven o’clock, say. A cigarette in his gob all day, then, so an average of five every hour if he takes them easy… up until the pubs close. Seventeen hours at…

Hynes was squinting up through a thread of smoke at Kilmartin, his fingers holding the butt pressed into the ashtray. “But my readers would still like your reactions.” He spoke around the cigarette.

“To what?”

Minogue liked Kilmartin’s pose. He even looked aloof, leaning back in his chair across from Hynes, as if trying to keep him at a distance.

“Someone phoned his paper, sir,” Hoey interrupted.

“Garda communications lagging behind the Press, is it? We passed it on to your crowd a half-hour ago,” said Hynes.

Kilmartin blinked.

“Your reaction to the murder of Billy Fine’s son,” Hynes added.

“Chief Justice Fine?” Minogue asked. The waiter laid a double Scotch languidly in front of Hynes.

“None other,” the reporter replied earnestly. He looked over his glass at Hoey and winked.

“Someone phoned the Irish Press claiming responsibility, sir. We couldn’t get through to you, what with the train and everything. I got it on the radio, but the Guards on the beach don’t know yet,” Hoey said quietly.