But when Kennedy released the ball, he just sighed. He picked up his glasses and chewed on one of the arms.

‘You don’t actually have anything to charge him with. He hasn’t admitted to being the father of Fiona’s child and even then, it’s just an embarrassment. The rest is speculation.’

‘You’re correct. We’ve nothing concrete as of yet.’

‘Who else knows you brought him in?’

‘Just my immediate team. There’s been no briefing in the incident room. People know he’s in the building but they assume it’s to help with interviewing Vincent Carney.’

‘And where’s Carney?’

‘He was in the custody suite, but he’s being charged in the district court now for possession of a weapon with intent to cause grievous bodily harm,’ Ray answered.

‘Okay. Then, we can keep Healy on site a bit longer without anybody suspecting anything. You have a very limited time span to establish some concrete evidence, Inspector, or it’ll be a grovelling apology for Healy. Is that clear?’

‘Of course,’ Tom said. ‘That was my plan anyway.’

‘I’m sure it was. One more thing – the next time you plan to bring another member of the force in for questioning, run it by me first. You left me ridiculously exposed today. Imagine if the press had got wind of this and I hadn’t been aware that Healy was here? Do you want the head of the NCBI to look that stupid? Would you have put Sean McGuinness in that position?’

The inspector clenched his jaw. He wouldn’t have dreamt of bringing Healy in without consulting with Sean, but then it hadn’t been Sean who’d been lecturing him the other day about the force being whiter than white.

‘I apologise, Chief,’ he said. ‘To be honest, I think Sean’s gut reaction in this situation would be to string Bart Healy up by the bollocks. Because even if he has nothing to do with the Glendalough women, Healy is a senior officer who’s been caught screwing a teenager.’

Kennedy tilted his head back and observed Tom steadily.

‘I’m well aware of that, Inspector. We can deal with that in due course. But having sex with Fiona Holland is a little less serious than kidnapping and murdering five women, so let’s keep focused on ensuring a member of An Garda Síochána is not wrongfully accused of that, shall we?’

‘I can’t put my finger on why, but I find it really hard to like our new chief,’ Ray said, as they walked back downstairs.