So it is a paramilitary thing, Minogue thought. But Fine?

“Paul Fine,” Hynes said.

“Who called and said they’d done it?”

“Are you ready for this one?” Hynes said, flourishing his glass. “The League for Solidarity with the Palestinian People.” He downed another gulp of Scotch.

Kilmartin stood up and motioned to Hoey, who followed him out to the foyer of the hotel. Minogue did not get up immediately, preferring to leave Kilmartin to vent his unjust anger on a tardy Hoey in private.

“I never heard of that mob, did you?” said Hynes, his eyes a glaze of wily smugness. He swallowed more whisky and slipped a notebook out of his pocket.

“Maybe you can have your say instead of Kilmartin, now,” he continued. “Give him time to find his feet.” Try as he might, Minogue did not detect any sneer on Hynes’s ruddy face.

“When he finds them he may plant one of them on your arse, I’d say,” Minogue offered.

“Oh, comical entirely. Is it my fault that the newspaper values its correspondent enough to put a space-age phone in his car? You’re well known for your ways, yourself, Ser-Inspector Minogue,” Hynes replied without trying to hide the ambiguity now. “But this isn’t a home-grown effort, with the mention of Palestine, is it?” he probed.

Minogue extemporized by saying nothing.

“And I don’t mean just that the man’s daddy is a Justice in the Supreme Court.”

Hynes finished the Scotch and looked down the glass at Minogue.

“The Fines are Jews, Inspector dear. One of our own, to be sure, but Jews nonetheless.”

CHAPTER TWO

Minogue’s thoughts kept returning to Hynes’s ‘nonetheless’ while Hoey drove back into Dublin. Instead of going back to the beach with Kilmartin, Minogue was now on his way to Justice Fine’s home in Rathgar. He was very nervous but too agitated to stay annoyed at Kilmartin. It was not so much that he resented being stuck with going to Fine’s house; what galled him was Jimmy Kilmartin’s method of inducing him to go with Hoey.