‘Not at all. What else does he have to hide? Nothing. Nothing that could jeopardize his safety in prison, any road. Well – not more than it’s jeopardized already, by the Riordans. But he’s already being kept segregated from any pals of the Riordans who might be likely to do him harm. If he never admits that Thomas O’Flynn put him up to the killing, then at least he doesn’t have to worry about any pals of the O’Flynns as well.’

‘I have you, ma’am. But I still don’t see how Billy Hagerty’s sex change could have anything to do with Thomas O’Flynn ordering Donal Hagerty to shoot Michael Riordan.’

‘Neither do I. Not yet. But there couldn’t be any other reason why Donal wouldn’t tell us what made Billy make up his mind to transition. She’d struggled all those years to be a woman… if she’d simply decided it was time for her to change, and become a him, Donal would have had no qualms about telling us, would he? But you saw his reaction for yourself. He clammed up like somebody had put a gun to his head.’

‘Holy Saint Dymphna,’ said Robert, shaking his head. ‘Bring back the days when the boys knew they were boys and the girls knew they were girls and they didn’t keep lopping bits off and sticking them back on again.’

20

When they reached Anglesea Street, Katie asked Robert to drop her off outside the law courts. Stephen Herlihy’s secretary was out at lunch, so she went straight through to his office and knocked at his door.

He called out, ‘Come!’ and when she went inside she found him sitting at his desk, talking to a broad-shouldered man in a dark grey suit.

‘Oh, I didn’t mean to interrupt you, Stephen. I’m sorry. I can come back later, if you like.’

‘No, please stay. In fact I was going to ring you in any case and ask you if you could join us. DS Maguire, this is the Honourable Mr Justice Kieran Connolly. Justice Connolly, this is Detective Superintendent Kathleen Maguire.’

Justice Connolly stood up. He was very tall, at least six foot three or four, with swept-back flax-coloured hair, which was beginning to glisten silver at the sides. He could have been Scandinavian rather than Irish, with a broad forehead and high cheekbones and washed-out blue eyes that looked as if they had faded to that colour because he had been standing for too long on the prow of a longboat, staring out to sea.

He cupped her hand between both of his and said, ‘DS Maguire. I’ve heard a great deal about you.’

‘Some of it complimentary, I hope,’ said Katie.

‘Oh, sure. You have quite a reputation. All that business with the Garda whistle-blowers, and how you handled that – that didn’t go unnoticed up in Dublin.’