‘I haven’t a baldy. I asked them at the court but they wouldn’t tell me. They said it may be a couple of days now before they tell him how long he’s going down for, do you know.’

‘That’s a fecking pain in the arse. I was told that it was all going to be over by this afternoon, for definite.’

The Weavers was a small run-down pub on a steep corner of Gerald Griffin Street in Blackpool, on the north side of Cork city, with dark oak-panelled dados and faded photographs of 1960s’ hurling heroes clustered on the walls. A peat fire was sullenly smoking in the corner, with a damp mustard-coloured water spaniel lying in front of it.

Thomas O’Flynn was the smartest man in there. He was wearing a shiny grey three-piece suit from Gentleman’s Quarters, with a high-collared white shirt and a black-and-white St Nick’s GAA tie. His face, though, was the kind of face that might suddenly appear out of nowhere in a nightmare. Underneath a thinning blond comb-over he was white as chalk, with sharp triangular cheekbones, a long, pointed nose and a narrow jaw that almost seemed to go on for ever until it was suddenly squared off at the end. His eyes were so small and squinched that it looked almost as if he didn’t have eyes at all, although he had tangled blond eyebrows, which rose and fell as he talked, especially when he was angry, or threatening, so that he didn’t need his eyes to convey how he felt.

Billy Hagerty pulled out a chair and sat down on the opposite side of the table. He was a short, bulky man with a shaved head and he looked even bulkier in his bronze puffer jacket.

‘I tell you – they should’ve given Donal a fecking medal for offing that Micky Riordan, not fecking charged him.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘I mean, Christ on a bicycle, he was only doing what the cops should’ve done, donkey’s years ago. When Jimmy the Nixer and Aodghan got shot and dumped in the river, did the cops lift Micky Riordan then? They must’ve known for sure who’d done it, but they didn’t even haul him in and ask him what he’d had for breakfast.’

‘Fair play to you, Billy,’ said Thomas, lowering his eyebrows. ‘But your Donal overstepped the mark by way too far when he did for Micky’s missus and his two little wains as well. If he’d taken out Micky alone – well, maybe the razzers might have looked on him a sight more lenient, like, or even turned a blind eye.’

‘It was self-defence, like. He didn’t do it for choicer.’

‘Oh, yeah. Self-defence against a nine-year-old girl and a lad of six, and their mammy, and Donal with nothing at all to protect himself but a couple of fully loaded Glocks.’