‘That’s no gas main,’ said Garda Phelan. ‘I don’t know what the feck that is but we need to go and check it out so.’

The barman was still standing in the doorway as they hurried past him. He raised his hand and said, ‘Thanks a million! Come along and have a scoop when you’re off-duty! It’s on the house!’

The two officers climbed into their squad car, slammed the doors, and sped out of The Bridle’s car park with a squitter of tyres. They turned down Ballincollie Road, a narrow hedge-lined boreen that ran south-westwards towards Dublin Pike. As they passed the new housing estate at Sean-áit Feirme with its red-brick detached houses, they could see now that the smoke was rising from somewhere further down the road. There was scarcely any wind, and so the smoke was towering up above them, higher and higher like some mythical ogre.

About three hundred metres past Sean-áit Feirme they came around a curve and saw a burning car by the side of the road. It was blazing so fiercely that it had set the hedge alight, too, so that the blackthorn and hazel bushes were lit up with thousands of crackling orange sparks. The car was white, but already its roof and the upper part of its bodywork had been blackened by the fire. All its windows had shattered and inside it was an inferno, so it was impossible to see if there was anybody inside it.

A tractor had been parked about fifty metres away, blocking the road, and a farmer in a tweed cap and a black donkey jacket was standing close to it, holding a bucket and looking hopeless.

Garda Phelan pulled their squad car into the verge and both he and Garda O’Connor jumped out. Garda O’Connor opened the boot and lifted out their fire extinguisher, and as they walked quickly towards the burning car, Garda Phelan called the fire station at Ballyvolane and Garda headquarters at Anglesea Street, breathlessly giving them the car’s location and its registration number.

The heat was so ferocious that they were still ten metres away from the flames when their faces began to feel scorched. They slowed down and stopped, and even backed away a little. All around the car, the asphalt road surface was bubbling up, and above its roof the air was rippling like a desert mirage.

Garda Phelan took the fire extinguisher from Garda O’Connor and started to spray dry powder towards the fire, waving it up and down over the top of the car. The flames subsided a little, but as soon as the extinguisher was empty they leapt up again, and now the car’s tyres were blazing, too.

The farmer came bustling up to join them. His boots made a wobbling sound as he walked, and he shielded his face with his arm as he passed close to the car.