Minogue stole a glance at the neck stretching the collar, the farmyard face. Gardai had always had a measure of suspicion for their Commissioners since the force was founded in 1922. There had been autocrats and weaklings, Napoleons and incompetents in the post. It didn’t take a Leftie to declare publicly that every Garda Commissioner was too much under the finger of his political overseer, the Minister for Justice. Too political.

“You can’t imagine the pleasure I had putting me name to last year’s Report on Crime,” said the Commissioner.

Minogue’s gargoyle within sniggered: did he mean the 450-odd crimes in which firearms were used? The seizure of four rocket-launchers by accident, perhaps? Maybe Lally meant the overall detection rate of 32 per cent, published in black and white for the public to get the willies over? Maybe the state of community-Gardai relations in Dublin, the one county with half the country’s population…?

“Yes, indeed. Every blade out there on the beat knows that if there’s a person murdered in this country then the perpetrator has less than one chance in twenty-five of getting away with it…”

Must be going to ask for something big, thought Minogue. Kilmartin listened with an apparent gravity, nodding his head for emphasis.

“… I threw that 95 per cent success rate at policemen in that bloody conference in Stockholm last month and bejases if they were nearly calling me a liar.” The Commissioner shook his huge head for emphasis. He’s like a horse settling on the bit, Minogue thought. A finger came out of the fist which the Commissioner had been raising and lowering on the table.

“ ‘Oh but in Ireland we hear there is much crime of violence,’ says one of them, a shagging Frenchman, I think. Well I cut him short then and there, so I did, in short order too. And I was thinking of Jimmy Kilmartin and yourself, Matt, when I settled this Frenchman’s hash. I wouldn’t mind but the ones that were bragging about little crime were iijits like the Swiss and the Norwegians, races without the brains and the vim to do a bit of divilment anyway. All they do is sit at home and count their money or commit suicide. Pack of shites… Anyway, all the lads on the Squad have the creative approach as well as the hard work. Do you know what I said to this Frenchman, do you?”