Dublin had changed in four hours.
James noticed it at the first set of lights. There was a Garda car parked across the mouth of Merrion Street with its blue lights turning silently, and two officers in high-vis standing beside it. Further on there was another outside the Department of Finance, and another beyond that. Government Buildings had a ring of them.
The streets were quieter than they should have been at that hour. They were not empty. People were still out, walking home and getting off buses. But every few metres someone had stopped on the footpath to look at their phone. Outside an electronics shop on Baggot Street, a small group stood in front of a window full of televisions all showing the same frozen frame of a man in a dark chair, and none of them were talking to each other.
He parked where O'Shea had told him to and walked to the gate.
