Sinead slid onto the other sofa and tucked her legs underneath her. ‘Paddy was a good boy but that job at the bank turned his head. The money they earned, it was like toy money. We’re retired now but, growing up, he’s always seen his father and me struggle to get by, struggle to make ends meet. Oh, he was very generous – but it sent him dizzy. He went from being skint to earning thousands of pounds a week. He could afford anything. They were all drinking champagne and eating oysters. And then there were the drugs. He denied it of course but we knew. Nicola covered up for him for several years. I always said the drugs would get him, didn’t I, Gabriel?’ She glanced over at her husband who seemed to be in his own world. ‘When he came here to visit, he’d be off his head. Wild-eyed and sniffing, all twitchy and jumpy, saying that he’d got a cold or a bit of flu. And either snappy or deliriously happy.’

‘It wasn’t drugs which killed your son,’ Maya said gently but straight to the point. It was something Dan admired about her. ‘Didn’t your daughter-in-law tell you?’

Her eyes popped with surprise. ‘What was it then? Did you hear that, Gabriel?’

Gabriel still hadn’t spoken.

‘The forensic evidence suggests he was murdered.’

She gasped. ‘Our Paddy?’ She began fiddling with her wedding ring.

‘I’m very sorry.’ Maya kept quiet for a few moments. ‘Have you had much contact with him in recent years?’

Dan had wanted to move Sinead on too.

‘We phone him – don’t we, Gabriel? – but he never phones us back.’ She shot her husband an intense look of some kind, a meaningful frown, as if urging him to say something . . . or warning him not to. ‘I think he’s ashamed of his ma and da.’ She gave a sniff and fanned her face with her hand.

Dan picked up on the anger in her words and tone. ‘Why would he be?’ Suddenly, the room felt heavy, and it made him wonder whether Patrick had known she thought this.

Sinead gave a tiny laugh, as though she didn’t know how to respond to Dan’s comments. ‘I think it was when he got that job, working with all them high flyers. It was as if he’d forgotten his roots. Thought he’d climbed up the social ladder with all that money, you know?’

All the time Gabriel Ryan had been silent apart from continual wheezing as he breathed, and intermittent coughs. He was flicking through the TV channels, seemingly oblivious of the conversation which was going on around him. Dan wondered whether this was deliberate or caused by medication.

‘Can you think of anyone who might have had a grudge against your son?’ he asked.

She was silent for several seconds. ‘We didn’t know much about Paddy’s life.’