He had adopted the voice he used on the hustings, the sing-song, folksy tones of a doughty Connemara man, denizen of the mountains of the far west. In fact, his family had been Dubliners for generations.

‘He was perfectly sober,’ Phoebe said, giving him a cold stare. ‘He’s certain the woman he met is your niece.’ The more dismissive this smugly smiling man became, the more convinced she was that her father was right, that April was alive. ‘He saw her, he met her, he spoke to her.’

Latimer shrugged, making a ruminant’s chewing motion with his lower jaw. His eyelashes, like his eyebrows, were pale to the point of translucence, which gave to his face a stark, raw aspect, as if he had been exposed overlong to the elements and the sun and the wind had left him bleached and bare.

‘Has he confided his great discovery to anyone else?’ he asked.

‘Of course not,’ Phoebe snapped.

Latimer sat back on his chair and eyed her coldly, still making that rotating grimace with his lower jaw.

‘He’s known to be a great talker, is Doctor Quirke,’ he said. ‘Especially from the bottom of a bottle.’ He signalled to the waitress. ‘A Jameson,’ he said to her, ‘and a glass of plain water on the side.’

Phoebe reached out and touched again the cool smooth stuff of her gloves. She was surprised her hands weren’t shaking.

Latimer fixed her with a bloodshot stare. For all his time spent in the high places of public life, what he most closely resembled, she thought, was an irascible schoolmaster. He took a swig of whiskey and shifted his heavy haunches on the little bow-legged chair.

‘It would be a very bad thing if April’s mother was to hear of this …’ – he paused a second – ‘… this sighting, shall we say, of poor April that your father claims to have made.’

She studied him. All politicians were actors, more or less, and William Latimer was a particularly skilled performer. All the same, she wasn’t convinced. He was playing the part of the shocked uncle, yet he wasn’t shocked – he wasn’t even surprised – by what she had told him. He had known all along, she was suddenly convinced of it, that April was alive.

‘I can assure you again, Doctor Latimer, my father wouldn’t have spoken to anyone else about this.’

Latimer gave a vague growl, glancing about the room again.

‘And a good thing too, for it’s all wild stuff anyway,’ he said, in a tone of vague rancour. His attention had lapsed, but still he was thinking hard. She could almost hear the  weasel thoughts turning and turning in his brain. He gave her a soiled, sideways look now, his eyes narrowed again. ‘Wouldn’t you say it’s wild stuff?’

‘No, I wouldn’t,’ she answered. ‘My father is convinced.’