“There’s a funny thing, now,” Hoey began as though talking to himself. “Hold on, is it 147 we’re wanting?” He leaned over the wheel looking for door numbers. “There it is,” he muttered.

“Yep. A funny thing,” Hoey murmured as he turned off the ignition. “I don’t know what words to use when we’re talking about this. I hear meself saying ‘Jews’, then ‘Jewish’, and I don’t like the sound of either. I don’t mean the words themselves. I don’t know what it is.”

“Like a ‘Jew’ is not an Irishman too? Or is it a declaration?” Minogue suggested.

“Something like that maybe.” Understanding flickered in Hoey’s eyes before he lapsed into the preoccupied frown. “And ‘Jewish’ doesn’t sound strong enough, like someone’s only tending to be Jew. Ah I’m not making any sense. It’s just words.”

“Did Fine ever send away any gunmen?” Hoey asked as he parked the car.

“I don’t think he did. The nearest he would have come to the Special Criminal Court might have been an appeal on a sentence that got to the Supreme Court.”

“So they wouldn’t have been trying to get at him through the son for that. But it’s the Palestinian thing that gives me the willies, so it does,” Hoey whispered.

Minogue walked ahead of Hoey to Fine’s large Victorian house. The half-dozen stone steps up to the door seemed a penance to Minogue. Damn and damn Jimmy Kilmartin again. He knocked. Hoey was licking his upper lip nervously as he looked to the scroll on the door-frame.

“You take a few notes here if we can talk, Shea, all right? I’m jittery, I don’t mind telling you.”

Minogue heard the latch being pulled back inside. His apprehension crested as the door opened slowly. He breathed out and felt his body root him through leaden feet to the step, while the September sky pressed down on him.

Fine stood in the doorway. Minogue identified himself. Fine beckoned the two detectives inside and they followed him into a parlour. Fine walked slackly to the fireplace and leaned his shoulders on it. Minogue heard him breathing through his nostrils.