‘Go on, Miss O’Brien.’

‘He ran across the room. He had a knife in his hand. And he . . . he stabbed Tony Dillon, over and over. I was terrified out of my mind. I ran up the steps. I nearly slipped on the blood at the bottom of them. It was awful.’

The prosecutor swept a victorious glance around the breathless courtroom, then looked back at Dora.

‘Thank you, Miss O’Brien. You’ve been very brave.’ He addressed the judge. ‘No further questions, Your Honour.’

Then Frank’s defence waded in.

‘You’ve had a very colourful life, have you not, Miss O’Brien?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I think you do. You’re what’s politely known as a “party girl”, aren’t you? You’ve had an association with Mr Pargeter, but before that you had another paramour, the now-deceased Mr Richard Cole, who was a disreputable character mistakenly convicted of the murder of Mr Anthony Dillon. Then you latched on to—’

‘Objection, Your Honour,’ snapped the defence.

‘Overruled. Continue,’ said the judge.

‘You latched on to Mr Pargeter, who is an innocent man, a businessman, who stands unjustly accused. So what happened, Miss O’Brien? Did you tire of Mr Cole, who seems mostly to have been a small-time thief? Did you decide the pickings would be better with Mr Pargeter, who is a respected, wealthy local entrepreneur, held in high esteem by everyone who knows him?’

‘No! That’s not true,’ said Dora. Although, in a way, it was. For sure, the pickings had been great with Frank. It was a pity that Frank himself came as part of the deal. ‘Frank used Dickie – Richard Cole – as a fall guy. Dickie was supposed to do the time and come out with a handsome pay cheque. But he couldn’t. He broke down. And so Frank made sure that Dickie was hushed up inside.’

Dora was sweating with stress. She didn’t dare meet Frank’s eyes. He was right there, across the courtroom, watching her. The stenographer was busy tap-tapping away, getting it all down. The court artist was drawing her as she gave evidence. The press were scribbling in their notebooks and the jury were watching all this like it was an entertaining freak show. Donny Maguire was there, making sure she got her story straight. To her surprise she saw her two sisters, Lil and June, sitting nearby, taking it all in, and felt a hot stab of humiliation at her own disgrace, standing here in the witness stand because of her stupid involvement with dodgy men.

The questions went on and on, until finally Dora was able to step down from the stand and the court was in recess. As she did so, her eyes were pulled to Frank, over there in the dock. He was looking at her like he would like to murder her. Right now. Shuddering, she hurried out of the court, and sat down in a gilded marble corridor, taking in great gulping breaths and wishing for it to be at an end.