Wednesday found Tom and Michael sitting with Garda Paul Hackett in the large open-plan office in Trim garda station. He and Sergeant Bart Healy had manned a smaller station in the Hollands’ village up to a few months before, until it became another casualty of cutbacks.

‘Do you know the name of the man she was seeing?’

Garda Hackett shrugged apologetically.

‘Bart said she had somebody on the go. She’s a looker, Fiona. Not in a flashy, modern sort of way. There’s something … ethereal about her. Fairy-like. You notice her. I’d say she had the blokes queuing up around the block.’

‘Not you, though?’ the inspector asked.

The uniformed guard shook his head fiercely, appalled at the suggestion. He pointed at his ring finger.

‘I’m newly married, Inspector. Not to mention the girl is only nineteen. She’s barely an adult. Despite everything.’

‘Despite what?’

‘The way she acted, by all accounts. Like she was a grown woman of the world already.’

They were waiting for Bart Healy, the man in charge of Fiona’s missing person case. It was now four days since the discovery at Glendalough and eleven days since the Holland girl had gone missing.

They were making some headway. Most of those they wanted to talk to in Glendalough had been interviewed. They were compiling lists of sex offenders in key counties. And they were making their way through Steve Moore’s old contacts to find out where Pauline O’Hara’s former boyfriend had ended up after he left Waterford.

But the team was no closer to knowing what had happened to the five victims, or to discovering Fiona Holland’s whereabouts.

The inspector woke up every morning with a knot in his stomach that felt like he’d done hundreds of sit-ups the night before. It didn’t help that he was sleeping in an empty house with no distractions, now that Louise was down in Wicklow with the girls.

Today should see more progress, though. Laura was returning to West Cork to check out the former house of the taxi driver in the Mary Ellen case. In a surprise twist, when Tom had delegated the task to her, she’d requested that Ray, not Michael, accompany her on the trip.

‘I’ve no problem with that,’ he said. ‘Do you mind me asking why, though?’

Laura went quiet for a moment.

‘I don’t want you to worry about this …’ she started, and Tom began to worry. Was this the start of the Ray/Laura romance and was he being primed for future pair-up requests?