‘I could murder a glass of Chardonnay,’ said Kieran. ‘But I don’t think that would be a great idea with a detective superintendent as a witness. Let’s go for the sparkling Ishka spring water, shall we?’

They talked for over two hours. Katie told Kieran about her late father being a Garda inspector, and how she had been the only one of his seven daughters to follow him into An Garda Síochána, so as not to disappoint him.

Kieran told Katie about his upbringing in Portobello, an idyllic suburb close to Dublin city centre with a canal running through it. As a boy he used to paddle a kayak up and down the canal, which is how he had become interested in joining the navy. His father had been a highly successful surgeon while his mother had been an actress in the popular TV soap Fair City. When his mother’s character had been killed off, though, she had found it impossible to find regular acting work in Ireland, and she had taken to drinking. She had died five years ago of liver failure.

‘She was beautiful. I miss her every day. Whenever it rains, or the sun comes out, I think to myself, why aren’t you here to see this, ma?’

He was silent for a while, his eyes focused on nothing at all. ‘So – are you married?’ Katie asked him, to break him out of his reverie.

‘Oh, yes – well, no. I was for three years. Siobhan her name was, and she had this fierce frizzy hair. We met at a friend’s wedding. All I can say about our marriage is that we were both too young, and our personalities didn’t match at all. There was a whole lot of shouting and slamming of doors, that’s what I remember most about it. I was lucky to get out of it without going stone deaf.’

Katie told Kieran briefly about her marriage to Paul, the fast-and-loose building contractor;, with John, the farmer, whom she had hoped to marry; and her deep relationship with Conor, the pet detective. He listened to her carefully, never taking his eyes off her once, and nodding from time to time.

‘I had the feeling you were hurting,’ he said, when she had finished.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe the same way that you knew that I wanted to be a sailor.’