“I know him not to run him over in the street, I suppose.”

“Uh-huh. Well. Tom says that Tynan’s a week away from a final decision about ‘reorganisation.’ Says Tynan is a holy terror in committee. Won’t listen to reason. Do you know what I’m saying?”

“I do and I don’t.”

Kilmartin flashed a wily smile.

“Come on now, Matty. Don’t lay the ace and you with the knave in your fist. You and Tynan are thick enough when you want to be.”

Minogue’s thoughts had flown to the prospect of a large white coffee in Bewleys. A read of the paper, plenty of noise and chat. Sociable, solitary, solace-noisy Dublin’s best secret.

“Well? Has he dropped any hint to you about folding up the Squad here?”

Of course the travel posters would have been treated to highlight the blue of the Mediterranean, Minogue thought, throwing up the whitewashed walls to startle the eye. Turquoise…but the pictures couldn’t be all hammed. Fishing nets and boats bobbing in the harbour. He heard Kilmartin’s tones straying into the combat zone.

“He doesn’t use me as a sounding board, Jim. It’s just social and how-do with him.”

“That a fact?” Kilmartin asked with his eyebrows arched. “Well, Tom Boyle isn’t one for idle chat, let me tell you. No flies on Tom, by Jesus. No sirree Bob.”

Minogue turned his gaze on Kilmartin but didn’t see him. He knew as well as Kilmartin that there had been a stay of execution on the current structure of the Murder Squad for several years. The Squad had been slated to move to Garda Headquarters proper in the Phoenix Park, adjacent to the Forensic Science Lab and the nabobs who could look over Kilmartin’s shoulder day to day.

But by dint of Kilmartin’s work, the Squad had not yet been folded back into its parent group, the Technical Bureau.