‘That whole stretch of pavement outside The Weavers is fenced off with Bord Gáis barricades, and as soon as the Riordans go inside, we’ll be stopping all traffic at both ends of Gerald Griffin Street, both cars and pedestrians. There’ll be no landlord or staff in the pub, they’ve already been evacuated.’

‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me this before you set it all in motion?’

‘Because I know exactly what you would have said. You know it’s the right thing to do, but you would have found a reason to call it off. You wouldn’t have wanted me to take the credit for it.’

Katie stood up now, and snatched up the Irish Sun from Brendan’s desk, shaking it angrily in his face so that the pages all fell out across the carpet.

‘You don’t want to see me on the front page of tomorrow’s paper, do you? TOP COP SMASHES CORK’S WORST DRUGS GANG. Who do you think the media will want to talk to tomorrow? It won’t be you, will it, for all of your top-level politically correct pow-wow up at Phoenix Park?’

Brendan took three stiff steps towards her and raised his fist. She had never seen a man so angry. He still had faded fingernail marks on his face from when she had scratched him and he looked as fierce as one of the grotesque gargoyles on Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral.

‘Go on, then, sir,’ she said quietly, lifting her chin. ‘You want to hit me – hit me. I knew you never really loved me, no matter how many times you said it.’

Brendan’s nostrils flared, and he made a peculiar snarling sound. Then he picked up the leather chair that Katie had been sitting in, held it high above his head and threw it across his office. It crashed against his glass-fronted bookcase and broke a triangular piece out of one of the windows.

Almost immediately, the side door opened and Bridie appeared, holding her spectacles.

‘What in the name of God was that noise?’

She looked at Brendan, and then she looked at Katie, and then she saw the chair lying on its side on the floor.

‘’Twas nothing at all,’ Brendan told her.

But now Bridie had seen the cracked pane of glass. She looked again at Katie and silently mouthed something that could have been ‘What in the world is going on?’

‘I said – ’twas nothing at all,’ Brendan repeated. He was breathing heavily and it was obvious to Katie that even Bridie could hear the menace in his voice. ‘I was carrying the chair, as it happens, and I tripped over the carpet. Nothing for you to be bothered about. Haven’t you those letters to be getting on with?’

Bridie retreated, and quietly closed her door behind her.