‘Don’t worry. I’m all over it,’ I added, knowing that nothing would really change, that I’d keep getting the time-consuming, low-paying, miscellaneous work I always got and that Gabriel knew that too. But at the next partners’ meeting he’d be able to say that he’d had a word, and I would go back to the bottom of the agenda for another while. Hopefully. I knew that I wasn’t popular with some of the other partners, Dermot Lyons in particular. I made a point of avoiding him, though I kept a low profile at work generally.

‘Good girl,’ Gabriel said.

I had stopped cringing at the ‘good girl’ comments from Gabriel a long time ago. He didn’t mean to patronise, and wouldn’t have understood if I’d complained. Did that make me a bad feminist? The short answer was yes. But some day I’d crack and sit him down and give him a comprehensive education in gender politics.

Gabriel waved goodbye, and took off at speed. I didn’t need to ask where he was going. His migraine-inducing yellow golf jumper gave me all the information I needed. I watched him go, short legs working at the double to keep up his pace. Half man, half whippet, he never walked when he could run.

I had family law district court on Monday, so there was no chance of putting that off. But by noon I had phoned my clients with Tuesday and Wednesday appointments and rescheduled them for later in the week. Next, I reviewed the information I’d gathered last night, did a short note of my meeting with Sean Carney, and rang and arranged to call out to their house to see him and Ann at half past one.

I had time to spare so I worked through my inbox and did some prep on my Monday caseload. I glanced out the window at the blue-grey slate of the rooftops. It isn’t Cork’s best view. It might even be one of the worst. The city centre is in a hollow. You have to climb the streeted heights on either side to get the views, go northside for the full panorama. My office would be claustrophobic if it weren’t for the light. It might have something to do with the proximity of water, the double river, the enormous harbour beyond, but no two hours look, or feel, the same. I’ve thought about leaving this town, thought about it often. And then I walk around a corner, and see something I see every day made new against the sky, and the notion of living anywhere else loses purchase.