Minogue's view from his office consisted of a grey stone wall, patched decades ago with brick and mortar, slashed into a lunatic jumble by the thoughtless installation of distorting glass. He tried to stare through the glass but he became a little dizzy. Jarlath Brendan Walsh studied political science (is there such a thing?) and economics. If Jarlath Walsh wasn't dead and if his passing had not led to Minogue sitting at a desk with several fair-sized reports to read, Jarlath Walsh would be rather nondescript. Shouldn't think that: his parents must be in agony.

The door opened. The arrival was surprised to find someone in the room.

She introduced herself as Brid and announced that she would be adding to the file on Walsh. Minogue turned to the four carbon copy leaves when she left. Detectives from Pearse Street station had found a bloodied rock in the alley which ran next to the Pearse Street side of Trinity's walls. Looks like someone lobbed it over the wall after he'd made use of it. The blood matched. More crucially, there were four strands of hair stuck to it. The stone had apparently come from a stockpile of similarly sized and shaped stones which lay in a heap in Front Square. Trinity College had undertaken the Sisyphean task of repairing all of its historic Front Square. Workmen were ripping up the cobbled square and saving the stones so they could be reset. No wonder stone masons had a reputation for being stone-mad.

No prints that meant anything on said stone. Minogue sat back sipping at the sweet tea. The idea of it, a Catholic lad, parents up from the bog, finally emancipated into some status by attending Trinity College, the bastion of the Anglo Irish, and there he was done in by a stone in these ecumenical times, a stone taken from the squares where scholars walked. Would they find the spot where the boy's head had been smashed though? It had to have been a hard surface, likely cobblestones if it had been done inside the front end of the college. It might rain at any time and wash away clues like blood. At least the rock was something.