He jumped as Barbara emitted a howl so loud, so full of rage and anguish, that both children in the garden froze and dropped the drinks they’d been squirting at each other.

‘He killed her, didn’t he?’ she sobbed. ‘That man killed my sister.’

She covered her mouth with her hands, shocked at what had just come out of it. Then the tears came. Tom stood up and fetched some kitchen roll from the counter, offering it to her as a poor substitute for a handkerchief.

‘What can I do?’ she asked, dabbing at her eyes and cheeks. ‘What can I do to help you catch him?’

‘First, I need you to look at something. Did Steve ever give your sister a bracelet like this one?’ The inspector pulled out his phone and located the image of the charm bracelet.

Barbara studied the photograph.

‘I don’t know. Was she found with this?’

‘Yes,’ Tom said, though he didn’t know if this had been Pauline’s or one of the others.

‘He was always buying her gifts after he hit her,’ Barbara said, her mouth set in a hard line. ‘Little tokens to say sorry. Except they weren’t olive branches, not really. He could have given her that, yeah. He’d have used it to reel her back in for more violence. That was what he did. The evil bastard.’

CHAPTER 13

‘Right, that’s the hotel booked and I’ve let the wife know I won’t be back tonight. Do you reckon Sergeant Doyle is back from lunch yet?’

Michael slid his phone onto the table, just as Laura finished tapping out a text update for Tom. They were sitting in the courtyard of a pub in Glendale village, half-eaten sandwiches and recently replenished glasses of sparkling lemonade on the table in front of them. The ice cubes were already melting.

It was a pretty drinking spot. Each of the wooden tables had fresh, scented posies in its centre and the owner had kitted out the cobbled yard with old-fashioned gas lanterns and barrels bursting with blooms. Customers had a pleasant view of a peaceful brook that trickled by at the back of the premises.

Laura checked the time on her phone. It had been an hour since the guard at the station had told them they’d just missed Sergeant Ultan Doyle. He had to be back by now, surely.

‘Let’s go see,’ she suggested to Michael. ‘I have no appetite. It’s too bloody hot. We can get a decent meal in Cobh when it cools down later. Make the most of our little holiday.’

They walked the couple of hundred metres to the station. The guard they’d met earlier passed them on the way.

‘The boss is back,’ he informed them. ‘I’m just nipping out for an hour.’