“I really don’t know any more than yourself, Jimmy.”
Kilmartin changed tack.
“Maybe you don’t give a fiddler’s fart, Matt.”
“Well, there are days…”
Kilmartin leaned in over his desk.
“Look, head-the-ball. You think I don’t know what’s going on? Me bollicks. I know you. Shy but willing, we say at home, like an ass chewing thistles. You know Tynan a damn sight better than I do. Find out what the hell he thinks we don’t do well here. What we can do to keep him away. Budget? Public relations? More trainees? Christ, he can’t complain about the stats! Didn’t we clear 95 per cent last year? Well…aside from the feuding, of course.”
A feud between the IRA and the Irish National Liberation Army had blown a large statistical hole in the Squad’s proud record. As though to taunt Kilmartin personally, both groups had taken up the habit of abducting a victim in the North and then killing him inside the border of the Republic-or vice versa. More often than not, this grisly ruse left the Royal Ulster Constabulary, whom Kilmartin despised, the kidnapping investigation and the Gardai the murder investigation.
Kilmartin’s tone had grown moody.
“It’s just that I know Tynan is looking right through me anytime I talk to him,” he said.
Bewleys in Grafton Street would be just about right at this time of the day. The dinnertime mob gone. But the rain? Jam the car up on the path in Dawson Street and scamper over. With any luck it’d be robbed. How much would insurance pay out for an eight-year-old Fiat…?