‘Except that we can’t, Robert. You know the situation with Muireann. If Thomas O’Flynn has the slightest suspicion that the tip-off came from her, she’ll get the same as happened to her sister, only worse, most likely.’

‘What’s the plan, then?’

‘We keep Hoobin under surveillance for the time being, to make sure that he doesn’t pull a disappearing act. If he goes so far as trying to leave the country, we can haul him in on some pretext or other unrelated to the stabbing, but with any luck he’ll stay in the area and it won’t come to that.’

‘But then what?’

‘Then we tell Bill Phinner to make the most intensive examination of a crime scene that he’s ever done. He checks for fingerprints on the toilet door and any bloody footprints on the floor. At the same time we find out where Thomas O’Flynn was sitting during the evening, so that he can scan for fingerprints and any DNA from Breaslain Hoobin on the table and chairs. And of course you and Walsh and Cullen will be interviewing every single person who was there, and showing them pictures of O’Flynn and Hoobin. I want us to build up a complete scenario of every minute of that night at the Zombie Lounge, up until the time that poor fellow came upstairs and fell on to the floor.’

Katie paused, and sipped her hot black unsweetened coffee. ‘All we need is the tiniest shred of forensic evidence that it was Hoobin who stabbed our victim, and then we can lift him without any risk to Muireann.’

Robert was silent for a long moment. He was looking at her in the way that a former lover looks at a woman whose reason for leaving him he hasn’t yet been able to comprehend.

She caught him looking at her like that, and said, ‘What?’

‘Well, nothing, really. Except that what do we do if Bill can’t find even that tiniest shred of evidence?’

He doesn’t know, does he, what happened between me and Garrett? thought Katie. He couldn’t know. You’re being paranoid, that’s all.

‘Bill will find something. He always does. Well, at least seventy-five per cent of the time he does.’

‘But if he can’t? Or if he does, but it doesn’t stand up in court? How can we let Hoobin go free when we have a witness who can testify that he did it?’

‘I don’t know, Robert. Let’s cross that shaky bridge when we come to it, shall we?’

*

At about twenty to nine she saw Brendan’s maroon Mercedes turn into the car park, its windscreen wipers flapping. She allowed him enough time to come upstairs to his office and settle himself down, and then she took three deep yoga breaths, ujjayi pranayama or ‘victorious breaths’, and went along the corridor to knock on his half-open door.