He ran his eye down the page, stopped. ‘… a shabby smart suit, the cloth too thin for much wear, a face of starved intensity, a kind of hideous and unnatural pride.’

Hideous pride? What was that supposed to mean?

The shop woman approached. She was smiling, but still suspicious. She asked if she could help, in that prissy way they all did. Genteel, that was the word. He would have liked to smash her face in, see how genteel that would leave her.

‘This book,’ he said, holding it carelessly in his left hand, ‘how much is it?’

‘One and six,’ the woman said.

Same as the glass of dishwater he’d drunk in the pub. This amused him, he wasn’t sure why, and he smiled back in the bitch’s face. He fetched out a florin. The drawer of the cash register sprang open with a crash and the sound of a bell. She handed him back a sixpence, and his receipt. He gave her a last, disparaging half-grin, and walked to the door. When he opened it, there was the ping! of another bell, over his head this time, and a waft of dampish air came in from outside. He dropped the receipt on the mat, and stepped over the threshold. The woman had put the book into a bag. He lifted it briefly to his nose. He had always liked the flat, dry smell of brown paper.

Pinkie, eh?

Back there in the pub he had almost begun to regret what he had done to Percy, but now he was glad.

*

Turning into Merrion Street, Phoebe spotted April’s uncle, Bill Latimer, in his big black coat, coming out of the Office of the Taoiseach. He didn’t see her, and turned left and strode down a little way and entered Leinster Lawn by way of a narrow black metal gate. The Garda on duty saluted him, and was ignored.

Phoebe walked on. She had fairly flung herself out of the house, furious at Paul, but by now she was calmer. She had harboured doubts about Spain, but the row with Paul had banished them. The thing was done, and she would go. Her airline ticket was in the drawer of the cabinet beside her bed. There were also some Spanish pesetas she had got at the foreign exchange counter of the Bank of Ireland, and a satisfyingly solid little block of traveller’s cheques from American Express. She had even laid out a summer frock, black, of course – she never wore anything else – but lightweight, and fetched up a pair of espadrilles she had bought in France when she was there on holiday. Some grains of sand still clung to the rope soles. French sand, from two years ago. She smiled wistfully. Quirke had taken her to Paris, and then on to Deauville. He had been nice, and had stayed mostly sober.