Downstairs again, Minogue spied Hoey sitting on the kitchen doorstep. He was lighting a cigarette. Minogue looked into the kitchen- Almost like snow. Eerie. A fly was trapped between the curtain and the glass. It buzzed noisily, throwing itself against the glass, then rested. The outline on the linoleum tiles was the shape of a body lain on its side with the knees drawn up a bit, arms into the chest. A flash and the motorised ejection whirr of the Polaroid startled Minogue. He had been leaning on the button. Iijit…

The living-room had boasted no knick-knacks, it seemed. Books borrowed from the public library still lay atop a low table, the chaos on the floor all about it. There were no plants in the room, no pictures on the walls. Two ashtrays, both clean: copies of the Irish Times; magazines scattered on the floor. A colour telly with rabbit ears had been toppled, the screen cracked. The gravid atmosphere of the house begin to weigh on Minogue. He sat down on the doorstep next to Hoey.

"Who do we have available as of tomorrow morning, Shea?"

"There's you and me, sir. Pat Keating, of course. The two detectives from Stepaside; I know one of them-Driscoll. There's two Gardai from Stepaside taking statements and feeding them to Driscoll for us. I phoned in to get a crop of likeues off the Criminal Record Office…..

Johnnie Carey is back in court tomorrow again and it might be for most of the week. The pub stabbing back in March. The defence threw a surprise in last Friday and they're rubbing Johnnie hard on how he got the confession. He's lost to us for the week, I'd say."

Hoey drew on the cigarette. Minogue had a sudden lust for a cigarette himself. Keating stepped around the seated policemen.

"Well, the percentages so far," Keating began with a yawn, "tell me he was killed right in the kitchen. I was talking to the lads who went through the kitchen… "