She wondered who he might be. Not a tourist, she was sure of that, but not a Dubliner, either. He had the air of one who had come from nowhere, and of not being on the way to anywhere, despite that quick, stiff-legged strut. Someone really should tell him about those fawn trousers, they gave him the look of a prematurely aged and ravaged boy. He passed her by without a glance. He was carrying a paper bag containing what must be a book. He didn’t strike her as the bookish type. In fact, he didn’t look like any type at all. He would be, she thought, with a faint shiver, one of a kind.

Chapter 32

Ned Gallagher regarded politicians of every stripe with what he considered to be a healthy contempt, which he found hard to hide. He had never known a straight one yet. Also, the majority of them were as thick as planks. Thank God for the  civil service, the backbone of government. Without  people like himself, the whole intricate business of running the country would come to an ignominious halt. This was rarely admitted but known to all, except the jumped-up gombeen men, a new one of which, proud as Punch in his ministerial colours, was foisted on him in the wake of each cabinet reshuffle or general election.

His colleagues in the service were not all geniuses, either – that went without saying. But certain qualities and skills were universal among them. They knew their place, or at any rate made a good fist of pretending that they did. Even the worst dolts among them kept their mouths shut when that was what was required of them, and would offer advice or venture an opinion only when it was absolutely unavoidable. It took the rawest recruit up from the country no more than a month or two to learn how to bury a file beyond finding, or, at the other extreme, how to bamboozle a minister with an avalanche of documentation, preferably handwritten.

And when there was a cock-up, all of them, the old hands and the new, were masters at passing on to someone below them the blame that should rightly attach to themselves. This was only as it should be, in Ned’s view.

In his schooldays, Ned had always been top of the class in Latin, and it was he who had come up with a motto that every one in the service could quote from memory, even if they didn’t know where it had originated: Nunquam licentia revelat operimentum tuum in ano est – never leave your arse uncovered.