Hoey blew his breath out between tight lips. “Jesus, I hate this. I really hate this. I’m not cut out for this at all. Christ, I’d give anything to be out of here this second. I’m not up to it.”

The doors opened and Fine returned. The bearded man followed him and laid a tray on a set of nesting tables. Minogue busied himself making unnecessary way for the arrival of the coffee, the better to allow Fine to take out his hanky and wipe away the tears. Hoey had noticed too and he co-operated by standing up and fussing about awkwardly.

“Ah, that’s too kind of you now, Mr. Fine. Our tongues were just hanging out for the want of a bit of something in this line. We’ll have this down and be out of your way in a flash,” Minogue said. He looked up at the bearded man, seeing a face perhaps familiar.

“You may know Johnny Cohen here, Inspector. He’s a cantor up at the temple in Orwell Road,” Fine sighed as he dabbed his eyes.

Minogue stood and shook hands with Cohen.

“Johnny is a relation of my wife, Rosalie. His wife, Carol, is upstairs with her, along with Rabbi Silverman. I expect there’ll be a gaggle of people descending on the house any minute so let’s get started,” Fine said, sitting heavily into an armchair.

Minogue sat down gingerly, anxious not to spill any coffee into the saucer. He felt an odd relief at Fine’s words. Fine had a Dublin accent, soft and nearly ironical, so unlike the contorted blends which Minogue heard regularly in the suburbs. A real Dubliner, a Jew, one of the great legal minds on the island, and he still used expressions like ‘a gaggle’. Fine’s face now seemed bigger, open.

“You know,” Fine said slowly, the cup next to his lip as he stared out the window, “Johnny and I, the first thing we said when he came to the house an hour ago.”