Then Paddy grabbed her and a female DC came in and held her other side. Blood flew as she tried to punch them away and get free.

Farmer came around his desk at a run and flung open the door. Fiona was shrieking and twisting in the restraining arms of Paddy and the DC, but when she saw Farmer standing there she grew suddenly still.

‘You know,’ she spat at him. ‘You know.’

Farmer stared at her. He could feel his heart thwacking away in his chest like a jackhammer. She’d startled him. ‘Know what?’ he asked.

‘You know that David would never have let this go,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t.’

She was talking about Hunter, his old DI from years back. But it was Hunter who had told him to let it go in the first place. He wasn’t going to say that, and risk her making a formal complaint. Instead, Farmer looked at the female DC. ‘Get Mrs Maguire to hospital,’ he said. ‘Get those injuries seen to.’

Paddy and the DC led Fiona away, and she went, quiet as a lamb now.

Farmer went back into his office and slumped down in his chair, exhaling. Christ, she’d behaved like a madwoman. When Paddy came back into the main office Farmer called him in and the big man came into Farmer’s office, crunching heavily over broken glass.

‘Jesus, what a headcase,’ said Paddy, dusting shards off a chair and sitting down. He indicated with a nod of the head the broken half-glassed door. ‘I’ll get maintenance in, boss, get that sorted.’

‘She’s never done anything like that before,’ said Farmer.

‘She’s fucking demented.’

Farmer said nothing.

‘We get them all in here, don’t we. Mentals. You sort of get used to it,’ said Paddy.

‘What about her kids? There were two, I remember. A girl and a boy.’

Paddy huffed. ‘Taken into care years ago, poor bastards. Best thing that could have happened to them I reckon. But then she got them back and seemed for a while to be holding it together when she had them to look after. Then they flew the nest and she went cuckoo again.’

Farmer didn’t think that being cast into the care system was the best thing that could happen to any child, but he didn’t say so. So Fiona had lost her husband, her children and now her mind. The poor cow had nearly nothing left.

‘The house they had. She still living in it?’

‘Mortgage was all paid off, I believe. Far as I know, she still lives there.’

‘He did that quick. Paid the mortgage off.’

‘Lots of bungs, I suppose. That was Donny Maguire, wasn’t it, sir? He never won any popularity contests among the straight coppers. Quite a few of the bad lads thought the sun shone out of his arsehole, though.’

There were bent coppers aplenty. They all knew it. And Donny had been one of them, there was no doubt about that. It was a shame that poor bloody Fiona had got herself tucked up with a rogue like him.