“Jimmy too?”
Tynan flicked away the question with a quick movement of his hand.
“Don’t be fretting. It’s smarts that should be the basis of entitlement to comment, not rank alone. So don’t be kicking in the stall now.”
“I’ll be sure and phone you,” said Minogue. He felt pleased and bewildered. Tynan finished his coffee, rose and replaced his chair under the table. He looked down at the Inspector.
“Like the suit? There’s stripe to it but you’d need glasses to see it.”
Minogue issued a wink that he hoped might convey a sybarite’s approval. Tynan’s baleful gaze swept the room again.
“Well,” the Commissioner murmured. “I’m going to see if what some journalists write is true. That some Gardai are not, em, sensitive to Dubliners of lower socio-economic status.”
A swell of sympathy and liking swept over Minogue. He hoped that Tynan was not too isolated. “See you, John,” he called after him.
CHAPTER TWO
Minogue hummed along with the radio while he waited for Donnybrook to unjam itself. It was early in the afternoon for traffic jams, he thought. At least the sun had come out. An ambulance passed him, heading into town. A crash? Several teenagers in masks-one of Mick Jagger-trudged by carrying a shopping bag with the outlines of bottles straining at the plastic. Good day for pulling a bank job, thought the Inspector. The traffic moved. Minogue waved to a Guard directing traffic around a Toyota sports car which had taken down a lamp post on its way through the railings in front of a house. A youth with a sullen, pale face and a gash on his forehead sat in the back seat of the squad car. Joyriders, Minogue guessed. Were others hurt? The Guard was talking to himself and frowning. He didn’t wave back to Minogue.
The Inspector stopped in Donnybrook and quickly settled on a bottle of wine to celebrate the beginning of his break from work. Couldn’t be worse than the bottle of home-made plonk that Iseult’s boyfriend, Pat, had opened for dinner last week, the red stuff with the homemade label “Banshee.” Kathleen was on the phone when he turned the key in the hall door. “Maura,” she mouthed at him. “Matt’s just in the door,” she said. “Yes, that’s the job, come and go as you like…”