Michael was about to say that yes, that would be his understanding, but instead he just shrugged, trying to be conciliatory. This was one he wasn’t going to win and he didn’t want to make the drive to Cobh any longer than it had to be.

‘Anyway, at least we have a bit of a lead,’ he said.

‘What?’ Laura started the car again, her cheeks flushed from the exchange.

‘That taxi driver that dropped her home. Cormac Ryan. Unless the Lehanes are lying and she did go home that night, he was the last person to see Mary Ellen before she disappeared. Where are you going? I thought we were heading straight to Cobh.’

Laura had turned the car around and was heading back into the village.

‘I can’t let this go, Michael,’ she said. ‘I need to know if Doyle was just inept or purposely not doing his job because he didn’t like Mary Ellen. Let’s ask around. It’s 2012. Not all country people think single women should be nuns and they certainly don’t think all guards are saints.’

Their first port of call back in the village was the pub they’d had lunch in. The afternoon trade had died off and the place was quieter. They found the landlord out in the courtyard, reading a paper and drinking coffee.

‘Would you mind terribly if we disturbed you for five minutes?’ Laura asked, flashing her most appealing smile.

Michael hung back. He was smarting a little from the exchange in the car. If you’d asked him prior to today, he’d have imagined that he was more liberal and open-minded than Laura. It wasn’t a man/woman thing. More an urban/rural divide. Michael was a dyed-in-the-wool Dub and Laura, while having lived in Dublin since her teens, was from somewhere in the arse end of Kerry. In Michael’s mind, the capital’s natives were more progressive. But he was being challenged this afternoon.

The landlord gestured to the other chairs around the table.

‘No bother at all,’ he said, with a smile. ‘You’ll be the detectives from the Big Smoke, so?’

Laura nodded.

‘We’ve been up to see the Lehanes and in with Sergeant Doyle, but we just wanted to chat with some local people about Mary Ellen’s disappearance. Did you know her at all?’

The landlord stroked his jaw, nodding.

‘I did, aye. I’m born and bred here, like the Lehanes. Know the family all my life. It’s an awful lot of tragedy poor Nora has had to deal with.’

‘This wasn’t the pub that Mary Ellen went home from the night she went missing, is it?’