‘And why Dymphna?’

‘Christ knows. Maybe just to get you away from the house?’

McAvoy shakes his head. ‘I saw her body. Everything that was done to her – it was done with intent.’

Kincaid crouches down beside the body: a crumpled swastika of twisted limbs. Pats at the pocket of his military-issue trousers. ‘You said yourself you found a charm bracelet near the scene.’

‘A charm bracelet,’ he says, tiredly. ‘Yes. Roisin’s, I’m sure of it.’

‘So who else?’ asks Kincaid. He waves the torch around. ‘What’s with all the snowflakes?’

‘I think it’s asbestos,’ says McAvoy. ‘Don’t worry, a little bit of exposure won’t do you any harm.’

‘Won’t do much fucking good either,’ grumbles Kincaid. His torchlight picks out the curve of a single canoe, pushed up behind a lopsided cabinet. ‘At least you know what happened to the anarchist. And if he’s got this shit in his lungs it will be another one to pin on this prick.’

‘So you think we’ll be allowed to name him?’

Kincaid laughs. ‘Christ only knows what story they’ll cook up, but yeah, they’ll let you put a name to the crimes. Any suggestion that he’s got links to powerful people – that will be shot down at once.’

‘You mean shut down?’

‘No,’ says Kincaid, flatly. He retrieves a slim black mobile phone from the dead man’s pocket. Grimaces as he rolls the glove from the lifeless hand and presses the thumb to the screen. He scrolls through the data.

McAvoy moves away from the wall. Looks down into the patch of darkness where his son was hogtied and tortured. Makes fists, his blood surging in his ears as if he were underwater. His brain feels as though it has been punched again and again. Despite it, he can feel something squirming inside his skull, as if a single green shoot were trying to push its way clear of the muck of his thoughts. He knows he’s missing something. None of this feels right. He needs to stop thinking about Roisin. About what she may have told Trish. Needs to clear his head of everything else and just focus on what his mind is trying to tell him.

‘Oh, my boss is going to be happy,’ mutters Kincaid, as he pulls out his own mobile and starts snapping pictures of the data on the screen of the dead man’s phone. ‘If you were wondering, he’s taken pictures of the dead Heldens and the dead Teagues. He’s proud of his work. If you’re going to give yourself sleepless nights, just remember what this cunt was willing to do. If you hadn’t come along he’d have gone through with it. Made you choose.’

‘I couldn’t have,’ says McAvoy.

‘Then they’d both be dead,’ says Kincaid, simply. He lets out a little hiss. ‘That makes sense,’ he mutters.

‘What does?’

‘Internet search. Chondrosarcoma. Treatments, a guide to pain management, possible life expectancy if untreated …’

‘That’s a bone cancer, isn’t it? He’ll have been in agony.’