A black and white photograph of a group of young men and women at a party looked up at Minogue from his desk. This was a picture of a crowd of young ones at Trinity Ball, taken the previous year. Jarlath Walsh looked out from behind glasses. One of his arms disappeared behind the waist of the girl standing next to him. Others in the picture were Up to antics and posing, so they must have been into the gargle. Our man Jarlath looked composed, in place, as an older man might.

Next to this photograph was an assorted set of colour snaps, also taken from his parents' box, doubtlessly kept in the same kind of old shoebox on top of the wardrobe as Kathleen kept hers in. A younger fellow with different glasses, standing beside a grandparent; milking a cow somewhere; holding a certificate; seated, posing, at the piano. "Hardly started living really," Minogue murmured, but not the time or place to be maudlin. Stick to the necessities. Well, one of the necessities was to be realistic: this young fellow looked fairly stuffy, bookish and mannered.

Jarlath Brendan Walsh was the eldest of two children, the other one a girl, Maria, away at boarding school in County Kilkenny or to be up to date, currently in the family residence in Foxrock, grieving. Jarlath Brendan Walsh was a twenty-year-old observing Catholic with modest academic achievements behind him as he worked through his second year in the Faculty of Economic and Social Studies in Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. Jarlath Brendan Walsh had no known reason to get himself bumped off. "He had everything to live for," Minogue muttered.

Soap operas aside, Master Walsh could look forward to some entitlement. His father was a well-to-do fruit importer. The family lived in a big new Mclnerny house in Foxrock, a fine summit of achievement for a man from the country. Mustn't get snotty, thought Minogue: I'm a benighted peasant myself but, God help me, I have a Dublinwoman and a family of Dubliners in tow.