The Murder Squad had emerged from this confusion as the Investigation Section. It formed a branch of the Technical Bureau, itself a branch of the Central Detective Unit. The CDU's new headquarters was based close to the City Centre in Harcourt Square, and CDU detectives rubbed shoulders with the other glamour boys of the Security Section, the Special Branch and the Serious Crime Squad. Austrian-made folding submachine-pistols, souped-up pursuit cars, computerisedradio and telephone links, border shoot-outs… the whole shemozzle, as Kilmartin was wont to remark caustically over a Friday afternoon pint to Minogue. Television policemen, he called them.

The Murder Squad's transfer from the claustrophobia of Dublin Castle had brought it to St John's Road, close to Garda Headquarters in The Phoenix Park. Detectives working on the Murder Squad didn't mind a bit of glamour themselves. When other Gardai would ask them what it was like to work in the Investigation Section, they were told that it was murder, handily consonant with the nickname of the head of the section-the Killer himself, Kilmartin. The conceit around Kilmartin's nickname added to the Squad's reputation as being driven, meticulous and successful.

Less out of delicacy than sympathy, Minogue did not air his view that Jimmy Kilmartin was such a tiger abroad because he was a kitten at home.

CHAPTER 2

Mrs Hartigan's husband hovered uneasily by the door to the parlour. The Hartigan's house was a County Council labourer's cottage, scrupulously clean and suffused with the smell of a mixed grill.