It was nearly three o’clock before Sergeant Harvey of the Army Ordnance Corps came out of the building, followed by a bomb disposal expert who was taking off his khaki Kevlar armour piece by piece.

Sergeant Harvey came up to Katie and said, ‘All clear, DS Maguire. There was only the one bomb, but by God that was one hell of a bomb. Almost certainly Semtex, I’d guess nearly fifteen pounds of it. You could have brought down St Patrick’s Bridge with that. None of the victims stood a chance. It was a miracle that anybody survived at all.’

‘Any telltale signs about it?’

‘Too early to say for sure. We have parts of the detonator and the outer casing that the explosive was packed in. It wasn’t a centrifuge and it certainly didn’t come from Medisure. It was a stainless-steel pressure cooker, a big one, fifteen litres. We found no timing device so it was probably set off remotely. The last time we came across one like that was when the Fermoy Boys were planning to blow up that Elton John concert.’

‘Oh, the Fermoy Boys. I remember them all right. They were all loopers, that lot. Most of them couldn’t even spell IRA, let alone know what it stood for. But whoever they got to make their bomb really knew what they were doing, didn’t they? And we never managed to track down who it was.’

‘Well, forensics have come a long way since then, ma’am. Maybe your technical experts will be able to find fingerprints or DNA on the bits of the cooker we have left. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if this bomb-maker doesn’t have any strong political affiliation, but simply makes the bombs to order. I know there’s been two or three pressure-cooker bombs found fairly recently up North, and when I’m back at the barracks I’ll be getting in touch with 321 EOD Squadron in Belfast. You know, to see if there’s any similarities.’

‘Thanks a million, sergeant. Let me know if you come up with anything at all that might help us.’

After Sergeant Harvey had gone to rejoin his men from the bomb squad, Bill Phinner came up to her, looking even more miserable than usual.

‘We’re going in now, ma’am. Do you want to come in with us? I think you’ll need to see this first-hand.’