‘It seems the grandfather was quick with his fists, despite the well-to-do background and nice house. And he lost it completely when his daughter left. He was paranoid. Thought people were talking about him and blamed the boy for the damage to the family’s reputation – what little was left of it. He stopped sending his grandson to school but eventually social services called to the house. The grandfather knocked out two of them and was arrested. A female social worker found his grandson, near beaten to death and half-starved. He’d been kept in the cellar for weeks at that stage. Horrific.’

Tom thanked her and ended the call. They were fast-tracking the warrant, but the inspector had no intention of waiting for it. If he was wrong, and he knew he wasn’t, he’d deal with the consequences later. He looked at his phone. Still no word from Sean McGuinness.

He turned to Linda in the back of the car. She’d insisted on coming.

‘It’s him, then?’ she asked.

‘Looks like it.’

‘How did Laura figure it out?’

Tom shrugged.

‘It must have caught her eye like mine. He’s a gardener, so he knows everything about plants – which we’d surmised early on. His job is described as landscaper and deliveries, so he was used to driving about the country. People expected him to be gone for periods of time and he took advantage of that. When he left Meath, he must have taken his taxi plate. That’s how he got his victims in the car. He was living in Cork for that short period, but it must have scared him when he fell under suspicion after the Mary Ellen affair. He told the Cork ones he was moving to England. That wasn’t a total lie. He did go to Britain for a while, before coming home. That’s what Laura saw. His address when he applied for the job was a British one. Actually …’

‘What?’ Willie asked.

‘Something else just fell into place for me. I need to check it out.’

Tom dialled through to the detention centre where Vincent Carney was being held on remand. He got hold of the desk sergeant and told him what he needed. Within minutes, Carney was on the line.

‘Vincent, I have something very important to ask you. If you help me, I’ll make sure you’re taken care of as much as possible by my colleagues, do you understand?’

There was a mumble of assent down the phone.

‘When we drove up to your house that day and you shot at us, somebody told you we were coming,’ Tom said. ‘He told you we suspected you of murdering those girls that were found, didn’t he? He’s a bad man, Vincent. He shouldn’t have said that to you. That’s why you lost your temper. Who told you we were on the way?’