‘On that alone, yes, it’s a flying leap,’ Tom said. ‘But it got me thinking. Healy seems to know a lot about Fiona and said he’d got the information from friends – but what have people close to Fiona being telling us for the last few days? That the girl didn’t have any real friends. That Fiona kept stuff to herself. None of her family knew about Stephen McCabe, but Healy did. We haven’t found one proper “friend” to interview yet who could tell us she was seeing somebody. In addition, she went to Healy when Carney attacked her. From everything we’ve heard about Fiona, she doesn’t strike me as somebody who’d go running to the guards too often.’

‘Sir, I really need to tell you about the Cork thing,’ Laura said, fidgeting. ‘It’s more relevant than ever now.’

‘Sorry, Laura. Go for it.’

‘Well, when we made the discovery in the taxi driver’s house, the Lehanes arrived. They were in a state and Sergeant Doyle was being a shit to them. I told them that what they’d experienced with him in the past, that dismissive attitude, wouldn’t be repeated, at least not by us. Elizabeth said something like, “It wasn’t just Doyle”, but I got called away before I could establish what she meant.

‘I spoke to them yesterday and she explained. You see, four years ago, the other guard in the village was this old-timer who should have been retired. When Doyle needed back-up, he’d call in guards from surrounding villages or Cork City. When he was conducting the search for Mary Ellen, he called in some help and Elizabeth said they were just as useless. She said one of them kept asking about Mary Ellen’s sex life – and was just generally inappropriate. She couldn’t remember his name, so I had to get a pal down in Cork to check it out for me.’

‘Are you seriously going to tell us it was Bart Healy?’ Michael said, agog.

Laura nodded.

‘It’s our smoking gun. He took up the sergeant’s job in Luttrell village where Fiona lived three and a half years ago. Before that, he was based in Cork City. And do you know where he’s from originally?’

The group collectively shook their heads.

‘Waterford.’

‘Shit.’ Ray let out a low whistle.

‘That’s excellent detective work, Laura,’ the inspector said. ‘Really excellent. So we have him residing and then working in three of the counties where the victims lived. And possibly engaged in a relationship with Fiona Holland. There’s one other thing that might be relevant – one of your theories, Bridget.’

Bridget stopping playing with her dark ponytail as the focus fell on her, her facial features scrunched up in confusion.

‘My theories?’

‘Yes. The one about the type of car a woman on her own would get into without being scared. Taxis, yes. But a garda car – absolutely.’