After she left, I sent a text to Maeve to tell her about the gathering in the Oak. She responded by saying that Phyllis had already been in touch and she’d see me there, that she’d been trying to tell me that when she’d been cut off. She sent me a second text to say that she’d called to my house, that Guinness had darted out and back in again very quickly and so he was back in the warm and dry. After a brief hesitation, I sent Molloy a similar text and he responded to say he knew about the drinks too and he’d see me there. It seemed Phyllis had covered all bases.

At half past five we closed the office and Leah went home. She looked tired and pale and a crowded pub on a damp evening held considerably less appeal for her now that she was pregnant. Marina, on the other hand, was happy to come for a drink. It was her last night in Glendara – she planned to drive home in the morning.

It was dry when we left the office, but the aftermath of the earlier rain was impossible to miss and, worryingly, it was beginning to look as if the gutters and drains were struggling to cope. More puddles had formed in the street and water was flowing downhill rather than draining away, pooling at the lower end of town. Glendara was built on a slope; my office was on one side of that slope, which might explain why I had a leak in the bathroom. I made a mental note to call someone to have a look at it in the morning. I hadn’t had a chance all afternoon.

Corpses of umbrellas lay on the footpath and in bins and the walk through the square was an obstacle course to be navigated carefully to avoid wet feet. I was glad to have dispatched Leah safely in her car, and when we pushed open the door of the Oak, I knew she’d made the right decision.

It was only a quarter to six, but the place was hopping, having clearly become a refuge for the cyclists stranded in town overnight. McFadden had said there were twenty-odd people staying in town and I reckoned most of them were here, on top of the usual Friday evening crowd. The two booths at the rear of the pub were full.

A smell of wet wool and smoke pervaded the room and it didn’t take long to see why. A row of chairs had been placed in front of the fire with coats hanging on them, steam rising like the sulphur from a great volcano. The smell reminded me of Glendara’s courthouse in winter and it would have turned Leah’s already delicate stomach if she’d been here. Tony wouldn’t put up with it for long either, I thought – the chairs were blocking the heat.