This was progress, the progress I had hoped for. I should have been happy. But there was no timescale, and there was an express prohibition on further contact from me. Should I reply, or would that be a breach of Rhona’s terms? It seemed rude not to reply at all. In the end, I sent back a short neutral email:

Thanks Rhona, I will wait to hear from you, Regards F.

Then, overcome with a wave of exhaustion that felt a lot like dread, I went back to bed and fell into a deep sleep.

Awake again before ten, and feeling more energetic, I rang Ann and Sean Carney and arranged to call out to see them at 11.30. I needed to update them on what had been happening, and get their retrospective consent to my disclosures to Rhona. And I needed to obtain a sample of Deirdre’s DNA for the case I was trying to make. It had occurred to me overnight too that, if I asked the lab to test my own DNA simultaneously, I would be able to find out if Deirdre and I shared a father as well as a mother, although I wasn’t yet sure if I wanted an answer to that question.

I made a few more calls. Tomas de Barra was the one who picked up. A barrister, he specialised in criminal defence work: he was sure to know of a private forensic lab where I could get DNA and chemical constituent tests done, along with a report that would stand up in court. I had used a brilliant London-based scientist as a DNA expert in the past and, usually, if I had to do a paternity test for a client, I would use one of the local labs and get a DNA kit sent to a GP. But, in this case, the DNA I hoped to find was on a drinks coaster. Something different was needed. Tomas gave me the name of a specialist lab and started up with the questions about had I seen Twitter and the Examiner, and how I’d even made the Irish Times, and what was going on with me anyway?

‘Not talking about, Tomas,’ I said. ‘But, hey, great to know my fame has spread.’

Next, I rang the lab, explained what I had, and told them what I wanted: tests for every possible sedative that might have been used fifteen years before, along with alcohol and cola and DNA. Then I asked for a cost estimate.

‘You’re looking at nearly four for everything you’ve mentioned there,’ the lab representative said.

He didn’t mean four hundred.

‘Let me think about that and I’ll get back to you,’ I said.