The Captains and the Kings [antikvár]

The two guards left the barracks at ten past four on the afternoon of September 20. The barracks, a small white house, was set in a terrace of similar houses, the only distinguishing features being a small sunburst over the door, signifying Garda Siochana, and a tall white flag pole on the roof for use on ceremonial occasions, which were very few and far between. They cycled slowly along the village street with the sun behind them and their shadows, black on the ground, always that unattainable length in front of them. Guard Devenney was the taller of the two men and the older and the least ambitious. For nearly twenty years he had lived in the village. His kids had been born and reared in the barracks and were all gone now, bar one. His wife had evolved from a tender girl, with soft nunlike white skin, into a woman of enormous proportions with a greying moustache fringing her upper lip. He knew everyone for miles around. He knew their weaknesses, he knew when to blink the eye. Guard Conroy was new to the job, new to the country, a Dublin man, with high hopes of quick promotion back to the hard, grey city streets again, where there was a bit of gas when you were off duty and the possibility of some real crime when you were on.