“You have me there,” Minogue replied.

Beyond the barrier and the security guard at the entrance to Radio Telifis Eireann, Minogue phoned to confirm a five o’clock pow-wow on the Fine murder. As the murder appeared to have been committed in Dublin, the State Pathologist could autopsy the body. Minogue had not seen a coroner out on Killiney strand before he and Kilmartin had left for the hotel. They might not have bothered to have him come to the scene: gunshot wounds on a body, along with ‘clear signs of wounds from the effects of an explosive detonation’, were at the top of the list for mandatory post-mortem examination. By five o’clock today Minogue would have something from the Technical Bureau’s forensics, those incongruous boiler-suited men who had inched and kneeled their way over the beach. These scenes-of-the-crimes examiners knew of but didn’t much like the name which Minogue most often heard them referred to: bagmen.

Mickey Fitzgerald had to be paged from the security desk which met the visitors to the RTE radio building. Minogue spent the two minutes’ wait gawking at the employees who entered and left the building. Hoey jabbed him in the arm once and nodded toward a duo of stylish men leaving.

“That’s your man, what’s-his-name. Reads the news most days.”

“Him?”

“Yes. The one with the baggy suit that looks like wallpaper.”

“The up-to-the-minute Italian suit that costs three hundred quid, you mean. Sinnott?”

“Yep.”

Fitzgerald was a tall, skinny man with a beard. A few strands of grey stretched out to the fringe which almost touched the rim of his wire spectacle frames. Minogue thought of John Lennon. Fitzgerald shook Minogue’s hand.

“I know you,” he said and turned to Hoey.

“Detective Officer Seamus Hoey, also of the Investigation Section,” said Minogue.

“Ah, what a relief it is,” Fitzgerald said without any evident humour. “At least yous’re not part of An Craobhinn Aoibhinn.”