His brain hadn’t switched off yet. The events of the day had jarred with him – he knew there was something he wasn’t seeing properly. He’d never sleep at this rate, so he had no option but to stay up until he figured out what it was that was bugging him.

Bart Healy hadn’t always worked in the Meath area, yet he and Vincent Carney had struck up a rapport – so much so that the man was happy to give himself up as soon as Healy asked him to. But there was something else Carney had said, something about Fiona. What was it?

Tom closed his eyes, inhaling the rich cigar smoke and heady smell of the night-blooming jasmine growing in pots beside the French doors behind him.

As was always the way, as soon as he started to relax, it came to him.

A rushing noise filled his ears, the sound of his own blood flooding to his head.

Only my family call me Fi.

That’s what Carney claimed Fiona had said to him.

But somebody outside her family had called her Fi, and it wasn’t Stephen McCabe, her on/off boyfriend.

It had been Bart Healy.

The following morning, Tom summoned his team to his office.

‘Why are we meeting here?’ Michael asked, the last to arrive.

‘I don’t want the uniforms downstairs to hear this,’ Tom said. ‘Not until I’ve discussed it with you five.’ His real fear was that somebody in the wider team would report the latest development back to Chief Kennedy before the inspector had all his ducks in a row. After the lecture about undermining colleagues, Tom didn’t think his boss would respond too well to what the inspector planned next.

‘I have something big to report from Cork,’ Laura blurted out. She wrung her hands together, anxiety writ large on her face.

‘We’ll get to it in a moment,’ Tom said, then proceeded to fill them in on his theory. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Laura getting more antsy as he spoke.

‘Okay, I’m just playing Devil’s advocate here, but isn’t it a bit of a jump to think that Healy could be the other man Fiona was having a relationship with, and perhaps our killer, just because he calls her Fi and not Fiona?’ Ray asked.