Because he felt that Minogue was owed something? Maybe he, Kilmartin, was superstitious and wouldn't admit it to himself.

Kilmartin blew a ring across the desk. It was over a year now since the British Ambassador had been blown to smithereens outside the residence in Stepaside. Somehow Minogue had avoided the same fate, by feet, by seconds. Freakish but hardly magical, no.

Even before that, Kilmartin had been conscious of currents in Minogue which marked him apart. Kilmartin believed that his unease with Minogue was the key to Minogue's rank, rather the lack of it. Minogue doubtlessly made his superiors a bit nervous, the same way he made Kilmartin weigh his words or put on the facade of casual conversation. A circumspect man, Minogue, some powerful imminence in him. He was rumoured to have a terrific sense of humour.

Some months after Minogue came back on duty, Kilmartin wondered if Minogue had snapped maybe, or had become depressed. Minogue had not been publicly outraged, he hadn't sought vengeance. He hadn't relentlessly questioned his hospital room visitors about the investigation. Minogue seemed to have liked the lying in bed, the long afternoons reading in the hospital. His tall frame humping the sheets up, his head resting on a farmer's hand, his other hand holding a book. Minogue didn't shave for weeks. His wife, Kathleen, didn't fuss him.

When Kilmartin went to see him one Sunday, Minogue was asleep. Kathleen had fallen asleep in the chair next to the bed. The broadcast of the hurling match could be heard from the transistor radio. Clare and Offaly at it. Why did Kilmartin remember that detail? Something had impressed itself on him, this scene of a sleeping couple, one supposed to be watching over the other.

Kilmartin had begun a note to leave with them, rather than wake them.