“What?” Kilmartin asked, with the urgency of the suddenly awoken.

“You were asleep.”

“I am not. What did you say before that?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Well you cursed. Under your breath. That I know.”

“I must have been thinking of someone else.”

A heavily loaded lorry overtook them, swaying a little as it returned to its lane. There were left-hand drive cars coming toward Dublin from the Rosslare ferry now. Many towed caravans, French a lot of them.

Kilmartin sat up, and turned in his seat.

“Oh oh,” he said. “Thought I heard something. Action stations.”

The blue lights of the Garda car came up fast in Minogue’s mirror. He checked the speed, and felt for his wallet. The squad car went by at ninety. He got a quick look at the two Guards inside. They were in traffic gear. The passenger with a mobile to his ear looked to be about twenty.

“Bigger rogues than us to be chasing. What speed were you doing?”

“Seventy something,” Minogue said. “Eighty, maybe.”

He was already anticipating the route from the turn-off at Kilmacanogue, along the Roundwood Road that climbed up to Calary Bog.

It had been months since he had been up here. The houses would peter out within a half mile of the motorway, he recalled, and then more and more rock would surface in the scruffy, marginal fields. A mile or so in, the kingdom of brambles, ferns, and furze would take over. He half-remembered views of Glencree, with whitethorn hedges and the yellow, spring-flowering gorse leaning in over the road.

“Super-cops,” Kilmartin murmured.

The squad car had taken the ramp up the overpass toward the start of the Roundwood Road. It was long gone by the time Minogue drew up to the stop sign.