Spain, though, Spain would suit April. Surely that country would be lively enough even for her, with its bullfights and its flamenco dancers. People used to say of April that she was ‘wild’. Had she been tamed by now?

The tea at the Shelbourne had been straw-pale, but here it was the colour of only slightly diluted molasses. Phoebe wasn’t sure she should drink it. Didn’t they say tea had more caffeine in it than coffee? A stimulant was the last thing she needed, she was so agitated already. All the same, the tremor in her hands had stopped, and the butterflies in her stomach had begun to fold their wings.

A thought came to her. Quirke’s friend Hackett, Detective Chief Superintendent Hackett – he was the one she should have called on, not William Latimer. Why hadn’t she thought of him? It was he who had led the investigation into April’s disappearance. When weeks passed and her body wasn’t found he had shut down the case, no doubt with relief. He would surely have been glad to be free of the Latimers. They were the kind of people, powerful and dangerous, a policeman would wish to avoid.

She smoked a cigarette, then stood up, and paid for the tea and for the bun she had eaten only half of, and climbed the steps into daylight. She crossed the road to a telephone box that stood under the shade of a chestnut tree. She had no more pennies, however, and had to go back to the café and ask the friendly waitress for change of a sixpence. The waitress, counting out the coins from the till, blushed scarlet and suddenly said:

‘It’s lovely to see you in here again, after so long.’

Phoebe was startled. But yes, it was a long time now since she had been here, with Jimmy Minor, with April, even with Isabel Galloway, though Isabel was a night bird and often didn’t get up until the middle of the afternoon, and hence preferred the Shakespeare or the Bailey. Goodness, how long ago was it? They seemed so simple now, those days, simple and innocent, when she looked back on them.

‘I’m not around these parts much, nowadays,’ she said to the waitress, slipping the pennies into her purse.

But why had she said that? She lived in Baggot Street, and was around these parts all the time.

The waitress smiled again. How kind people could be, and yet young men got beaten to death and disposed of like dogs, and young women were abused by their families and forced to flee abroad. Phoebe smiled, and bit her lip. It was hard to think of April Latimer being forced to do anything she didn’t want to do.

She hurried across the road, and stepped into the phone box again, and dialled the operator and asked to be put through to Pearse Street Garda station.