He’d go to Crossan’s office in Ennis before the week was out, by God, and see what he had done. A. Crossan, Barrister-at-Law, he recalled on the plate by the door. Huh. Crossan had changed like the rest of them. He’d had twelve years to do it in, to get on with his life. The office and the secretary with her eyes like bloody saucers when he had walked in. Crossan no more than fucking Dan Howard didn’t want to be reminded of things that they’d written off as dead and buried years ago. But Crossan was all he had for now.

The anger tingled in his arms before it burned his chest. The rainwater ran across the road in little rippling waves like the sea ebbing on the strand. The drugs would only keep him asleep. That was like letting part of himself stay dead. It was time to wake up. Better this way than hanging on, hanging around with half a life. He called out to the dog and his heart lightened when he saw the wagging tail, the willingness. There were prisons with bars, he thought as he set out for home, and there were other prisons too. His prison now was his own memory, but he had been locked out.

Kilmartin was waiting for him. Minogue bowed to Eilis, the secretary of the Murder Squad, as he passed. She spared him a smile and a mock curtsy in return for his.

“Your Worship,” she intoned in her native Irish.

“Aha,” Kilmartin called out. “Hardy Canute himself. Howiya?”

“I’m a bit shagged.”

“Well, that’s life in the big city, pal.”

Minogue glanced at the mass of his friend and colleague, Chief Inspector James Kilmartin. Eilis scratched a match alight next to him.

“A real beaut,” said Kilmartin, thumbs behind his belt now.

“Kathleen doesn’t think so,” Minogue baited. “Says it’s depressing.”

“I didn’t mean the fecking weather. I meant last night. The job done above in Drimnagh. Signed, sealed and delivered.”