“Jesus,” Larry Smith whispered. “Yvonne.”

Running feet were zigzagging his way. They weren’t stopping, slowing down even. The panic broke over him then. He shoved the pistol around the side of the bumper, fired twice, ducked back.

Larry Smith was turning to see if others had come up behind him when a bullet shattered the base of his skull. It was a firearm of similar caliber if not the identical weapon, the Garda press release stated two days later, that was also used to blow parts of Larry Smith’s head across Strand Road. The postmortem report contained three further sentences which were to be much remarked upon in the Murder Squad. They concerned what appeared to be the marks of a kick to the face delivered, it seemed, prior to the coup de grace.

“Lads,” said APF Colm Brennan. He waited until they looked over at him. At least they’d see the uniform and cop on that he was Airport Police. “Lads? Come on now, for the love of God. This is Dublin Airport now, not a bloody rave-up. Yous can’t be blocking the way here.”

There were five of them now. Brennan looked around at the faces of these die-hard fans of Public Works. Nobody had actually complained. The trouble was that the big fella, the dopey-looking one with the four hundred studs in his ears, had started drinking out of something from inside his jacket. He could be fifteen or he could be twenty, couldn’t be sure. But he was the one to watch. He might lose the head handy enough, that one.

“Well, turn it down at least. Do you hear me?”

The big fella threw his hair back, began nodding to the beat. teenage babies die at night

Brennan thought, God, if he heard that stupid song one more time. Where were those fellas living with their depressing frigging “tunes”? Hadn’t they heard there were jobs out there, the Celtic Tiger going around roaring money now? He waited for the big fella to look over. Not a chance, no. And the others were ignoring him too. The young one with the tights for pants and the yellow hair and the thing in her nose was swaying and dancing and grinning. A taxi pulled away from the drop-off area by the terminal doors. The driver beeped as he passed. The big fella waved and raised his fist