So now with the guidance of the Aspergian Sergeant Aine Collins in the Europol National Unit, Minogue was learning how to process Analytic Work Files. He worked with coppers from London and Spain, and another from Austria, a gateway for Eastern European crime. The dubious excitement of a month on the Offshore Financial Centres section awaited. He had taken to making up his own acronyms from those initials for the OFC.

So far on his way through the unit, Minogue’s training had taken in matters that Kathleen believed were very exciting. There were counterfeit designer goods coming in from China to figure out. A Croatian immigrant making good money as a window-washer had three passports. The case of three Nigerian brothers who preyed on West African refugees with a mixture of witchcraft, intimidation, and extortion was still dragging through the system. The twenty-first century…?

Minogue powered down the window, pausing and reversing it twice to test it. It was quicker than he liked, but there was no slack. He looked down to the files again. He might as well practise pronouncing names. Klos, like close. Tad-eh-oosh.

Another name he had to know was that of the middling bigwig from the Polish Embassy, an attache named Juraksaitis, who would be accompanying Mrs. Klos. Juraksaitis was to be pronounced like You’re Excited.

A diesel clanking announced Kilmartin’s arrival. Minogue watched him in the mirror as he reversed a battered and sagging farm Jetta he had borrowed from his brother, to the curb behind. There was some difficulty to locking the door. Kilmartin put his overcoat on the back seat next to Minogue’s funeral gabardine and he sat in.

Chapter 3

Dermot Fanning’s bike had a puncture. It was the same wheel as last week’s. It might even be the same puncture. He leaned the bike back against the wall and he resolved to be calm about it. There were basically two possibilities: a) a fresh puncture, b) he hadn’t mended the last one right. It was likely b), he decided. It was all too easy to pinch the tube during a repair, enough to cause a slow puncture.