‘Sean – if they do find any likely suspects, I don’t need to tell you that they’ll need to be approached with the utmost caution. Dr Power’s right, and mass murderers like to go out in a blaze of glory. We don’t want the Lee Pusher taking his own life, but most of all we don’t want him taking any more innocent victims with him.’

‘Whatever you say, ma’am. Myself, I’d love to give your man a swimming lesson when we finally haul him in – preferably while he’s wearing a pair of concrete badinas.’

16

‘Want some ket?’ asked the skinny young man with the rainbow sunglasses and the lopsided fade hairstyle.

The broad-shouldered feen standing in front of the urinal shook himself and then zipped himself up.

‘Ket? How much are ye asking for it?’ He was probably no older than mid- to late-thirties, this feen, but he was bald, with a head that resembled a Halloween pumpkin, both in colour and nubbly texture, and his black T-shirt gaped open at his belly.

‘Sixty.’

‘Oh, go feck yourself. Sixty?’

‘Okay, to you, special offer price. Fifty. But it’s quare stuff, like.’

‘Not interested, boy. So lay off, will you, you’re blocking my road.’

‘Forty, then. But I can’t go lower.’

‘You’ll go lower when I shove your head into that there cock manger. Now, out of my road, will you.’

The young man stepped back. ‘Your loss, horse.’

‘You think so?’

The broad-shouldered feen pushed his way out of the toilet and climbed the narrow stairs back up to the Zombie Lounge. Except for its swivelling strobe lights, the dance floor was pitch dark, with thumping disco music. It was early yet, only 11:30, but the club was beginning to fill up, with a line of young people silhouetted against the orange-lit bar, laughing and jostling each other as they waited impatiently to be served with beer and alcopops. At least twenty or thirty girls were already dancing around the DJ’s stage, waving their arms in time to ‘Taki Taki’.

The broad-shouldered feen trudged up another flight of stairs to the club’s second floor, which was equally dark, except for twinkling red string lights. This floor was partitioned into several intimate booths, where customers could sit around tables drinking the Zombie Lounge’s signature rum cocktail, the Walking Dead, and nibbling on their signature snack, the plantain fritters called tostones. In the furthest booth, Thomas O’Flynn was jammed in tightly with Muireann, his older brother Doran, his cousin John Mary John, as well as his two henchmen, Darragh and Milo.

‘What’s the story, Breaslain?’ asked Thomas. ‘You look like you forgot to unzip your pants when you went for a piss.’

‘There’s some young guttie down in the jacks flogging Special K.’

‘You’re codding me, aren’t you?’