‘Have you more aspersions you want to cast on her character? Is that it?’ she barked. ‘Because I don’t want to hear lies about my friend, having affairs, sneaking around or lying to us. There has to be a more reasonable explanation. Either that or you’ve overlooked something. God knows, it’s been almost a week. She’s still lying cold up there on her own and you’re no further forward.’

‘I know this is very difficult,’ DI Bradley said.

‘No, you don’t. You’ve no idea of just how difficult this is.’

‘Julie, please,’ I urged. ‘They’re trying to help. They’re not the enemy,’ I soothed, even if I did wonder why we were here.

She threw her hands in the air, muttered something under her breath then folded her arms and sat back in her chair.

‘Okay, okay, then. Let’s get on with things.’

DI Bradley pulled some grainy images from the folder and turned them in our direction.

‘We did a sweep of CCTV on nights when Clare’s bank records showed she’d stopped at Chill Off Licence, as we know she did on the night of her death. Just on the off-chance they might have showed her with someone we’d be able to identify. We did find someone with her on 24 May. I wondered if you’d have a look? We’ve already shown these images to Mr and Mrs Taylor, and to Ronan.’

Julie looked at me as DI Bradley pushed two pictures in our direction. Was it possible we were about to see our friend’s killer for the first time? I felt the claustrophobia of the small room start to swoop in around me. I braced myself and then looked at a picture of the back of Clare’s head as she walked into the off-licence.

Her head was tilted to the side as if she was chatting to the person who was with her. There wasn’t much to guess from. He was tall. Looked to be wearing suit trousers and a short-sleeved shirt. His face wasn’t picked up with the angle of the camera, but I could see his hair was on the longer side. Curled. In need of a trim. There was a familiarity about him, but before I could place him, Julie spoke.

‘That’s Liam Connolly. He works with us.’

Constable King wrote the name down.

‘And he and Clare got along well?’

‘Well, he’s worked there as long as we have. They got on grand. Had a bit of a laugh, you know. He’s more senior than us, so they’d have worked together on a few projects, but I don’t think … No … there was nothing like that going on. He’s married. A few kids, too – one only a few months old.’