Detective Garda Thomas Malone had been fourth in line. Minogue ascribed the detour in his nose and the close-cropped hair to what was listed in the file as “Sporting Interests”: Tommy Malone was still ranked second in the Garda Boxing Club. A stocky Dubliner with postcard blue eyes and a laconic manner which Minogue sensed was studied rather than natural, Malone had not been Kilmartin’s favourite. Minogue still smiled in recollection of Kilmartin’s aggressive questioning during the interview and the results it had brought him. Why was Malone’s brother in jail, was Kilmartin’s opener. He’d messed up, was Malone’s reply. What experience did the candidate think he could bring to the Squad? Malone had enumerated the record of service and commendations from his file in a tone which suggested to Minogue that he, Malone, knew that Kilmartin had read it. Kilmartin had pressed him again with the same question, altering it only by adding a really and giving Malone a deeper frown. Earley too had almost laughed out loud at the reply. Experience, Malone had replied after a calculated pause. Living with me brother, I suppose. Earley had had difficulty stifling a snigger.

Minogue’s and Barley’s combined votes had produced a black mood in Chief Inspector Kilmartin which buying him three glasses of whiskey after the interviews hadn’t much lightened.

Part of Kilmartin’s stock-in-trade was nicknames and he wasted no time in setting to work on Malone. ‘Molly Malone’ was too easy, he liked to grumble. Kilmartin’s atavistic disdain for Dubliners, their championing of trade unions and their votes for the Labour Party at the expense of the rurally based populist carpetbagger party he, James Kilmartin, had supported all his life, gave birth to a nickname which Minogue thought had the most bite: ‘Voh’ Lay-bah.’ Decades in Dublin had honed Kilmartin’s mimic abilities and he could manage an accomplished delivery in the classic ponderous, nasal Dublin drawl.