‘We’ve seen each other around the city, now and again. But we met by accident at the Mercy this week and that was the first time we’ve been able to talk. We’re both in the same boat, Kathleen – except that I’m staying with Tommy for a reason and she’s stuck with Barry because he’ll kill her if she tries to leave him.’

‘All right, Muireann. What time is this party?’

‘Two thirty it’s supposed to start. I’m going mental trying to think up some excuse not to go. After what Megan told me, I have such a desperate feeling about what’s going to happen there, I tell you. You know how much the Riordans hate the O’Flynns. They’re sure that it was Tommy who paid Donal Hagerty to shoot Michael Riordan and his family. It’s not Tommy I care about. I don’t care a flying flea if they beat Tommy to a jelly. But there’s so many other members of the family going to be there, like Maddie herself, whose party it is, and Maddie’s a darling, so she is, and there’ll be wains, too, and I don’t want to see any of them hurt.’

‘Listen, I’ll think of a way to deal with this, I promise you.’

‘But you’ll let nothing happen to Megan? I’m fierce worried about her, Kathleen. If the guards show up, the first thing that Barry’s going to think is that it was Megan who ratted on him – because how else could you have found out what he was planning? God alone knows what he might do to her. He smashed her nose the other day just because she wouldn’t go out and buy him some beers. That’s what she was doing in the Mercy, when I met her.

‘If Barry gets even the slightest notion into his head that the tip-off came from her – she’ll be lucky if she doesn’t end up strangled and buried two metres deep in Glanmire bog.’

‘I have you, Muireann. Find yourself some reason not to show up, that’s all, and leave the rest to me.’

There was a click from Muireann’s phone and the background music abruptly stopped. Katie said, ‘Muireann? Muireann?’ but she was gone.

*

By the time she came downstairs, Robert and Detective Sergeant Begley and Detective Scanlan were all waiting for her, as well as two uniformed gardaí, one male and one female. They hurried across the car park in the scattering rain and climbed into an unmarked Toyota and a squad car.

‘It never rains but it lashes,’ said Katie, as they crossed the Michael Collins Bridge and headed east towards Tivoli. ‘And I’m not talking about the weather. I’ve just had Muireann Nic Riada on the phone.’