"Did ye take any casts, then?"

"We took two, sir. They were women's shoes."

Kilmartin looked over at Connors and then beyond him to the pallid sky above the Georgian parapets of the college buildings. Connors was staring at the three policemen in the bushes. They reminded him of fowl on the lookout for grains in a farmyard.

Back in the car, Kilmartin sighed.

"Rain, is it, Connors?"

"You'd never know now, sir. It has the look of it."

Kilmartin lapsed into silence. Connors had learned to wait. Two youngsters with skinhead cuts appeared on Connors' side of the car. The two laughed and tapped on the glass. Connors glanced at Kilmartin before rolling down the window.

"How fast does it go?" asked one of them. "A hundred? Do you have a gun? Aren't you a detective? Show us how the radio works. Any bulletproof glass? Give us a bit of the siren."

Kilmartin, a giant to the two and a man who was out of short trousers in Ballina, County Mayo, some forty years earlier, shifted his weight in the passenger seat.

"Who's your man?" said one of the youngsters, eying Kilmartin.

"I'm Kojak. The wheelman here is Danno. Book 'em, Danno. Murder one." Kilmartin said.

The youngsters began laughing again. Connors pulled away from the kerb. Kilmartin wasn't as sour as he looked.

"The telly is a divil, isn't it Connors?"

"The kids are nice though. You'd never imagine them turning turk on you in a few years," said Connors.

"God, haven't you the black heart in you today. Arra, you'll be all right. Sure isn't it Friday?"

Connors grinned again. "My Ma told me that people in parts of Dublin eat their young, so she did," Connors said.

"God knows now she might be right," agreed Kilmartin. He thought about putting on his seat-belt but decided he'd have too much trouble reaching in for his cigarettes.

"Any messages?"