“Let’s be reasonable. Marriage is a sacrament too. Man proposes, God disposes.”

Minogue held off his sarcasm. “Well, do you think she’ll be charged with murder in the first degree?”

Kilmartin frowned. “Well now, it’s not my decision, is it? The Director of Public Prosecutions lays the charges. Tell you the truth, I’ll be as happy as Larry if this Women’s Action Movement crowd concentrate their efforts on the mob in the Department of Justice and leave us Gardai to get on with the work. I don’t relish the thought of another effort like the Kerry Babies,” Kilmartin said, sucking in air through his teeth.

Minogue had had an earful on that topic from his daughter, Iesult. Even Kathleen had prodded at him. A woman in Kerry had been charged with infanticide some time before. The police work had included bullying her during interviews to invent evidence for her trial. Minogue had not seen Iesult so angry since she had been a small child. She had been quite right when she shouted at him that the woman was condemned-what had she called the detectives? Brutal, patriarchal rednecks? — for being some class of a whore and consequently was obviously guilty of the lesser crime of killing her child at birth. ‘Tried and sentenced before she even got near a courtroom!’ Iesult had shouted down the stairs at him as he headed out the door one morning.

“You’re right there,” Minogue concluded. He well knew that Inspector James Kilmartin of the Murder Squad had a different reason than he for wishing to ward off such an eventuality.

Kilmartin’s secretary, Eilis, drew a draught of cigarette smoke and the smell of paint into his office when she entered.

“Is it yourself that’s in it, Eilis,” Kilmartin said. Minogue noted the mixture of slight apprehension and irritation in his voice. Perhaps Eilis treated Jimmy Kilmartin thus by way of goading him into asking her to knock on doors first? It was widely believed amongst the detectives who worked in the Murder Squad that Jimmy Kilmartin feared his secretary.