The traffic-lights in Cabinteely were red. As often happened to him in his waking life, Minogue was reluctantly coming out from a minor road onto a busy one. He was obliged to yield, to wait and watch a stream of cars speeding along the highway. He slouched in his seat, wondering. Of an evening at Tully Cross, he had imagined druids with their followers looking out on the present from the darkness gathering under the trees. And what of the O'Tooles and the O'Byrnes who later raided from the hills, snapping at the edges of the English Pale? What would they make of the place now?

Minogue's light turned green and he pulled away from the white line. Tires howled on the road nearby. A crowd of young lads in a BMW deciding at the last minute not to crash a red light. Minogue pulled around them slowly. Three of them, laughing; dressed and coiffed to the nines, rich snots on the way into Dublin, by the cut of them. A cigarette flicked out the window bounced on the roadway, sparking the gloom. Minogue steered his arthritic Fiat onto the new Bray Road. Before he let go of his acid thoughts, he resolved to side with the raiding O'Tooles and the vanquished druids. The gombeen sons could have their BMWs: he would have his pagan stones.

Detective Garda Seamus Hoey telephoned Minogue's home at six fifteen Sunday evening.

"C-O-M-B-S, like you'd comb your hair?" Minogue asked.

"Yes, sir," Hoey replied.

Minogue asked if the scenes-of-the-crime technicians from the Garda Technical Bureau had started the first sweep of the murder-site. Hoey said that they had. The victim's body had already been removed to Loughlinstown Hospital, pending autopsy in James' Hospital. Minogue's eyes followed the pendulum on the heirloom clock hanging in the hall while he listened to Hoey.