I took off my clothes and stepped into the shower. I remembered that the DNA results would show, too, if Deirdre and I were full or half-sisters, though it didn’t much matter any more what the answer was. No more than a spectre at the start, the case had made her real to me. As the water washed my body clean, it came over me what we had missed, what we had lost, by never knowing each other.

I felt a whole new kind of lonely.

43

‘Miss Fitzpatrick.’

‘It’s Finn, Dermot. It’s always been Finn until today. What’s changed?’

‘What’s changed is that, prima facie, you’ve brought this firm into disrepute. Unless you can show grounds for your, to say the least, odd behaviour.’

He adjusted his yacht club tie with one hand and, with the other, smoothed his thinning fair hair. We were in the boardroom at 17–19 MacSwiney Street: first floor, high ceilings, original restored Georgian sashes, enormous marble fireplace, a gracious drawing room in days gone by. Dermot was trying his best to restrain himself, but it was proving difficult. Over the collar of his blue-striped shirt, his fat neck bulged red and a blood vessel throbbed under his left ear.

‘What Dermot is saying, Finn, is that we’re seeking an explanation from you,’ Gabriel said. ‘And we’re entitled to it, I think you’ll agree.’

‘I do,’ I said.

I leapt to my feet and went to the projection screen at the side of the room.

‘I thought it might be easier if I did this visually.’

I smiled at Dermot. He tore a page out of the barrister’s notebook on the desk in front of him, crumpled it into a ball and threw it with force on to the long antique table. It rolled on to the floor at my feet. I kicked it out of my way and started the presentation. An image of Jeremy Gill, holding his Oscar over his head, flashed up.

‘This is outrageous,’ Dermot Lyons said. ‘A joke. Abuse of process.’

‘It’s not meant that way,’ I said. ‘I’m hoping it’ll save a bit of time. I want to make all this as clear as it can possibly be so that you and Gabriel understand exactly what I’ve been doing for the last while. And why I’ve been doing it.’

‘Make clear? It’s abundantly clear already. You’ve taken on a frivolous and vexatious claim without authority and without any regard for the consequences for this firm.’

‘As I said, I want to explain in full what I’ve been doing. But, in summary, my investigations …’

‘It’s not your job to investigate anything,’ Lyons said.

‘Let her talk, for God’s sake, Dermot, or we’ll be here all day,’ Gabriel said. ‘I’m in favour of anything that shortens the matter. It’s all terribly unpleasant, I must say.’