What the fuck? Why did I smell even deeper bullshit? And yet there was that other part of me – the blue-collar Irish boy brought up to respect the parish priest and consider him the local moral barometer – who wanted to believe that Todor might just have come to the conclusion: this is all so out of hand. Maybe I was wrong to think that Todor knew all about the terrible crime that his benefactor had committed. Maybe Kelleher had kept his priest friend unaware of this dark secret. I knew that Todor remained deeply ambitious and always on the lookout for advancement. I also knew that, given his serious moral discomfort about all things to do with sex and the unborn child, the story of what had happened to Amber would horrify him – especially if he found out that she wanted an abortion while five months pregnant. Just as I also knew: my oldest friend was increasingly unknowable. A stranger to me.

Elise came back to the car. Shutting the door behind her she said:

‘Now what I am going to say you probably won’t like – but I felt I needed to get some legal counsel on all this. So I called Stanley Greenbaum.’

‘Klara doesn’t want anyone to know any of this.’

‘I’m aware of that. But Stan is my lawyer – and an absolute Jesuit when it comes to keeping secrets … even if Greenbaum is hardly a priest’s name. He is the best of the best when it comes to something like this. As such I thought he should know what’s going on.’

‘Did you tell your lawyer guy about Kelleher?’

‘Yes – but with the understanding that nothing could be put into action until I met the girl and found out the whole story. He told me that, as Klara got that threatening text, they might put a trace on her father’s phone as well.’

I found myself trying not to slam my fist against the dashboard.

‘I can’t use my phone?’ I said, the anger rising.

‘No way. We’ll use mine for the GPS. And I am also going to call Klara on my cell and tell her that she should not try you again; that it’s just my phone she should call.’

‘Fuck fuck fuck.’

‘We’ll get through this. “The coolest head in a gunfight” and all that …’

It took us over an hour to inch our way onto the 10 East. Elise decided to simply text Klara that we were on our way. Her reply:

Can you bring food please? Can’t leave her alone.

‘That doesn’t sound good,’ I said.

‘No it doesn’t,’ she said. ‘We need to find a supermarket somewhere and get supplies for dinner.’

‘I can google –’

‘No you can’t.’