Minogue was an Inspector in the Investigation Section of the Garda Technical Bureau. His office was in St. John’s Road, hard by Garda H.Q. in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Although seniority would have allowed him to dodge an on-call shift after ten o’clock at night, Minogue insisted on his name being entered on the rota. He partnered Seamus Hoey, a Garda fifteen years his junior from Galway. In the six years he had worked with him, Minogue had been unable to figure him out. He liked Hoey a great deal and didn’t mind his colleague’s moods.

He heard stirring upstairs: his wife turning over in bed, he decided. Kathleen had become a heavy sleeper since they had had the house to themselves. Their daughter, Iseult, had moved to a flat in Cabra, to be with her fella, Pat the Brain, Minogue guessed. Kathleen knew this too and pretended not to know. Iseult worked mostly with embroidery out of a shared studio in Temple Bar. This last year she had been given a grant to travel the length and breadth of the country working up murals on school walls. Sometimes he liked to think of his daughter as beginning a mural in Donegal and painting it all the way down to Kerry, cutting a swath of colour and life across the island.

The Minogues’ son, Daithi, was biding his time in Boston, three months away from a Donnelly visa allowing him to work legally in the U.S. Daithi had displayed an American girlfriend on a visit home eighteen months ago. He had spoken feelingly of the States being full of opportunity. Kathy had slept in the attic, talked glowingly of her Irish ancestors and been unremittingly cheerful during her two-week stay. She had an enthusiasm for learning more about the Celts and learning Gaelic. Even Kathleen had been impressed.