Derek took off his cycling gloves, folded them and placed them on his knee. “My brother was about to get away with it. Again. Teflon Bob Jameson never had to deal with the consequences of his actions, he just sailed through life, creaming off the top. I wanted to teach him a lesson, get him to change his mind about leaving, give back the money he’d taken. Maybe have a real Road-to-Damascus moment, who knows?” He looked away. “Turned out that was too much to ask, of course.”

He took a deep breath. “I planned to take him to a remote location and scare him with a snake. Sounds juvenile but it was the only thing he was remotely scared of. Apart from our father, of course, who, thankfully, is long dead. I did some work for the county council some time ago, on the roads. So, I knew this spot.” He glanced at me with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, I lied about it being my first time in Inishowen.”

I remembered his expression when I’d mentioned that the county council had the flood damage in hand. He must have suddenly been concerned that he’d encounter someone he knew.

Molloy’s patience was really wearing thin. “Go on.”

“I wasn’t sure when they were leaving but I knew it must be soon. He’d have to be gone before the whole truth came out. I originally intended doing it on Thursday night, which was the only night we’d be here. But the weather made me put it off and then I couldn’t get him on his own. The pair of them spent the whole bloody night fighting, as usual.”

“Amanda and Bob?” I asked.

He nodded. “I even had to separate them. I presume it was about money, or Sue, that’s what they usually rowed about.”

The row Mary had witnessed, I thought.

“But then I had another chance on Friday when we had to stay an extra night because of the flood.” He smiled. “It was almost as if fate was telling me to get on with it. There was a break in the rain for a few hours after we came back from the pub. It was perfect. Bob was outside smoking. I’d seen him with the taxi driver, but he’d gone. Amanda had gone to bed. I persuaded him to go for a drive. We played pranks on one another, Bob and me. Bob knew it must be a prank, but he was cocky; there’s no way he’d have welshed out of it.”

Derek lifted one of his cycling gloves and started to hit his knee with it. “I like to think that Bob had a conscience, that on some level he felt he owed me some sort of goodbye. But I suspect he just didn’t want to risk waking Amanda up and have her make a fuss. So he came quietly.”