The woman looked familiar. The big glasses on her put Minogue in mind of a frog. He tried to place her, believed he was coming close, but soon gave up trying. Lawlor seemed to be explaining something complicated. She didn’t often return his smiles. She nodded every now and then, but her eyes went often to the ruck around Kilmartin.

The weatherwoman and her maps disappeared in a flurry of stars. She was replaced by sliding words and the twirling logo of Radio Telifis Eireann. The shine on that, Minogue thought, we’re international now, we have everything. And why not. Taxpayers, a lot of them probably German taxpayers still, would be paying for Kilmartin’s junket to the States. He’d be visiting Quantico of all places, to get the lowdown on how the FBI profiled their serial bad guys. He wondered what they’d have made of the likes of Dublinman and all-around thug, drug dealer, vandal, robber, and scut Larry Smith.

Kilmartin was well into his joke now. The taxi driver had been informed by his passenger that she had no money for the fare. A face appeared on the screen, a telephone number below it. Kilmartin’s voice was louder but Minogue still caught most of the words from the announcer. Touring the west of Ireland in a rented blue Ford Escort.

“No sign of your man yet,” Malone said.

The snapshot looked like the regulation crop of a group scene. A wedding maybe. The large, even teeth, the tan, they could only mean American. Minogue wondered what exactly it was that made the face so easily typed. The beefy neck? Some stock expression of ease and entitlement.