She scrolled back to previous seasons and saw that they had started to wear light grey tracksuits only eight years ago, so she started to check through their team photographs year by year, starting with the earliest. After only three seasons, she came across a photograph of St Catherine’s senior girls winning a trophy at the South Munster Schools Track and Field Championships. Standing at the back of the team was a thin, sad-looking girl who was even taller than the smiling official who was presenting the team with their shield.

Katie enlarged the picture and studied the girl carefully. Her hair was cut short and she had a long, masculine face, with unplucked eyebrows.

She picked up her phone and rang Kyna. ‘Kyna – come up and take a sconce at this, would you?’

Kyna appeared wearing her yellow raincoat and swinging her yellow rain hat on her finger, ready to go home. She came around and stood behind Katie and peered closely at the photo of the athletics team.

‘That was five years ago, so she’d be twenty-one or twenty-two now,’ said Katie.

‘You really think the Pusher could be female? What are the odds she’d still have that same tracksuit, all those years after leaving school?’

‘I have no idea. Maybe she kept it, and maybe she wears it when she goes out to push people into the river because it symbolizes the time when she was bullied. But then again, it’s far more likely that she wasn’t bullied and she isn’t the Pusher. She could be happily married and living in Crosshaven with a husband and two kids and a cat. But you have to admit that she looks fierce miserable in this picture, and she’s not the most feminine girl you’ve ever seen. Apart from which, she’s the only tall thin person in a grey tracksuit that we’ve been able to find.’

‘I’ll contact the school then, and find out who she is,’ said Kyna. ‘It’s probably best if I go up there in person. I’ll call in there on my way home.’

‘It’ll probably come to nothing at all, do you know? I don’t believe in hunches. But there’s no harm in checking.’

She told Kyna about Margaret Finlay committing suicide, and Kyna said, ‘That’s so sad. And it’s worse these days, the bullying, on Twitter. You’re never allowed to be different. Look at us – being threatened by Brendan O’Kane, and for what? For finding each other attractive? When has that ever been a sin?’

*

Katie went down to see Assistant Commissioner Magorian. He, too, was just about to leave the station, and was buttoning up his trench coat.

‘Ah, Kathleen… thanks for dropping by. How’s it going on?’

‘Slow but sure, sir. I could do with about twenty more detectives to be honest with you, but we’re making progress.’