They were still talking when Justice O’Rafferty herself came walking along the corridor, wearing a long black belted trench coat and carrying a briefcase. She was about the same height as Katie, and in looks they could almost have been sisters, but she was chestnut-haired, not red like Katie, and she wore no make-up. As she came up to them, Katie could see by the puffiness of her eyes that she had probably been crying.

‘Detective Superintendent Maguire, how are you?’ she said.

‘Shaken, Your Honour, like I’m sure you are – and like everybody else who knew Garrett.’

‘His wife’s been told? Orla?’

‘She should have been, yes. As soon as he was identified I asked Superintendent Pearse to send officers around to his home address to tell her.’

‘I tried twice to ring her myself, but she didn’t pick up,’ said Stephen Herlihy. ‘I imagine she knew by then.’

‘I suppose that’s one blessing. At least she didn’t have to hear about it on the news.’

Katie said, ‘Do you have a couple of minutes to spare, Your Honour? There’s one or two quick questions I’d like to ask you.’

Justice O’Rafferty glanced at Stephen Herlihy and then shrugged. ‘Okay. But I’m meeting a friend at four at The Bookshelf, so I can’t be too long.’

‘Use my office,’ said Stephen Herlihy.

Katie and Kyna and Justice O’Rafferty went into the court manager’s office and sat down. Looking down on them was a benignly smiling portrait of The Honourable Mr Justice William O’Brien FitzGerald, a Corkman who had been Chief Justice of Ireland for only a year before his premature and unexpected death. Katie couldn’t help thinking that Garrett hadn’t even lived as long as him.

‘So – what do you want to know?’ asked Justice O’Rafferty. She kept looking around the office as if she were expecting to catch sight of something she had accidentally left there, like an umbrella, or a book, or a Brown Thomas shopping bag.

‘You’ve been close to Justice Quinn for over four months now, during the course of the Hagerty trial. Did he ever give you any indication that he was concerned about his safety?’

‘His safety? In what sense?’

‘In the sense that the O’Flynn gang might have warned him that there would be a price to pay if he found Donal Hagerty guilty?’

‘If they did warn him, he never said a word to me about it. I mean – as you know yourself – the O’Flynns would regularly come to court and sit in the public gallery and give us the evil eye. But no evidence was ever presented that Hagerty was a member of their gang, or that they had commissioned him to kill Michael Riordan.’

‘If they hadn’t, why were they taking such an interest?’

‘I wouldn’t know. And I certainly wasn’t about to ask them.’