Cohen paused by the door at the mention of his name.

“If I recall, it was Johnny actually got the words out first.‘I hope and pray that Paul is not dead because he is a Jew,’ you said, Johnny.”

Fine’s eyes stayed fixed and vacant while he sipped at the coffee. Cohen’s head dropped and Minogue could see the eyelashes batting rapidly. Hoey’s body seemed to scream as Minogue noticed him squirm. Cohen looked to Minogue’s eyes once as he closed the door. Minogue had to break the contact and stare down at his cup, his mind raging with shame and helplessness.

“I hope the same, Mr. Fine,” Minogue said to his cup.

Minogue thought about Hoey’s question before he slammed the car door.

“Peculiar because he’s so ordinary? What did you expect, Shea?” he asked.

Hoey shrugged and started the engine. Minogue took his notebook and flicked through the pages.

Paul had been born on 12 July 1956. Fine even remembered the time: a Thursday morning around three. Fine had last seen his son on Friday, in the restaurant of the Art Gallery in Merrion Square. Who would make the formal identification of the body, he had asked. If he was up to it himself, Minogue had replied, they could bring Justice Fine to the hospital now. Fine had said that he couldn’t go then, not before his wife’s sister showed up at the house.

“Your handwriting is gone as bad as mine,” Minogue murmured. “But go on: what did you expect?”

“I don’t know. Something different, I suppose.”

Minogue remembered his own pleasant bewilderment when he had first visited the Jewish Museum. An older man who had been sitting at a desk had looked up at Minogue as he entered and asked him if he had been to the Museum before. Minogue replied that he had not. The man rose from his seat, introduced himself as Stanley Davis-he was called Stan- and led Minogue on a tour of the synagogue. Where Minogue had expected the rich accents of Eastern Europe or the Middle East, he heard only the practised diffident stoicism, the tones of men ever ready to disabuse a non-Dubliner of any presumptions about Dublin. He heard in Davis’s voice something else too, an easy mix of earnestness and resignation.