“I mean here he is, out in the back of beyond, down amongst the buffs of County Clare… ”

Kilmartin looked across at his friend and colleague, Minogue, and his wink gave way to a leer. Minogue raised an eyebrow to register the slur against his native county. This seemed to enliven Kilmartin.

“So anyway,” he went on voice, “here’s this fecking tourist, this poor iijit of a Yank, beginning to wonder if he’d been given proper directions at all. Researching his ancestors, walking in ditches, and staring at oul cow sheds — you know the routine! What happens but doesn’t he fall over this courting couple in behind a ditch…”

The red-faced sergeant began to chortle. Kilmartin paused and leaned back, let his tongue trace his bottom lip.

“Now you know what they’re up to,” he said.

The sergeant laughed outright. Malone drifted over to Minogue and laid his glass on the counter.

“Another pint, boss? My twist.”

Minogue shrugged. Hoey had followed Malone over now.

“Is this the Family Member one?” Hoey asked. “Or the Old Log Inn?”

“Family Member,” said Malone. “But we won’t know for a while yet.”

Minogue looked at his watch. Half-six. Kilmartin had insisted on taking them all to the Garda Club. Sure didn’t they have plenty to celebrate, God damn it, was the chief inspector’s tack: a) Tynan fighting off the decentralizing shite from the Department of Justice for another year. Who’d have thought he’d be coming to our rescue at all? Then b), finally getting the chief supers with their whinging about dispersing the squad buried for another year too? Tynan again, strangely enough, and this time telling those yobs just how bad crime had gotten here in Dublin with the frigging jackals and hyenas and wolves doing their own take on the Celtic Tiger rigamarole? Not to speak of c) Hoey’s promotion, the speed of it and all…? And not to mention d) that bastard Harte finally coughing up for the Dunshaughlin shooting?