"Disgusted maybe," Keating interjected. "The old man has no stash, but the killer either doesn't believe him or kills him to cover himself. Maybe a local all right, known by sight to the victim. Real animal work."

Hoey shrugged.

"There's fellas out there will go that far, I can tell you," he said. "Remember that juvenile, Rice, the lad who took a neighbor's housekeeping money and cut her throat to cover himself?"

Minogue remembered, all right. It was just before Keating's time on the Squad. Kilmartin had cursed psychiatrists and social workers for weeks after the diminished capacity ruling. Fintan Rice was a heroin addict at fifteen, a murderer at sixteen, an inmate in a prison psychiatric ward at seventeen. Dublin's Fair City…

"Fit of rage," said Hoey. "Like a ritual thing if the killer is a nutcase entirely."

"Defilement," Minogue muttered.

"Like in a church?" asked Keating.

"Wholesale wrecking of the place after the act. There's the other good angle. An acquaintance of the victim, a row getting out of hand. Maybe a mental case around here and something set him off."

Minogue thought it unlikely. In an explosive rage, nothing so neat as strangling with a rope would have occurred, especially without signs of resistance. His mind skipped erratically. Sex? Bachelor, old bachelor… maybe of the "other" persuasion? Need background. Money? How much was the old man worth? If known to the victim, the killer could have surprised him handily enough… back turned for a moment, the killer has his opportunity. Resources? Rope.

"The string or rope, Shea. That the kind of thing you'd find lying around handy in this man's house?"

"Good one," Hoey allowed. "That's where I go off a bit on tangents. A premeditated murder, a killer with the instrument ready in his pocket or whatever. The victim doesn't look to have been a handyman at all. His housekeeper says he never did repair stuff about the house but had tradesmen do it. We better dig up a solid motive for premeditated, more than a robbery trick…"