‘I don’t doubt it. Do you know, about two months before you were posted here we had a case in Glanmire when a farmer was beaten to death by one of his casual labourers, a Polish fellow. It was six weeks before we found the shovel that he’d been beaten with, and all that time it had been lying on the bottom of the Glashaboy River, where your man had thrown it. Bill’s people still managed to find fingerprints and DNA on it.’

‘Well, if we can prove that this knife was the knife that stabbed Tadhg Kimmons, and if we can prove that it was one of Thomas O’Flynn’s gowls who did the stabbing—’

‘Don’t let’s get ahead of ourselves, Kyna. The road to miscarriages of justice is paved with hunches – that’s what my da always used to tell me. It could have been that a handyman was using the knife to try and dig out the bits of paper towels, and accidentally dropped it.’

‘You’re such a pessimist.’

‘No, I’m not, sweetheart. I’m a realist. I’ve learned how to face up to loss and disappointment and things going wrong. Even if you make a bags of today, there’s always tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow – or this afternoon,’ said Kyna. ‘What time will we be setting out?’

‘One thirty. But we’ll be taking up our positions in stages – one and two at a time – in case any of Riordan’s gang are keeping sketch in the area. We don’t want to be after driving up there like the Mayor of Cork’s motorcade.

‘Here – let me go over the plan of action with you. Then you can go down to the armoury and draw out your pistol. And whatever you do, don’t forget your ballistic vest.’

*

Katie took out her own pistol, a Smith & Wesson Airweight .38 Special, finished in stainless steel. It wasn’t standard Garda issue, but it was small and light with a short barrel and easy to conceal. She flipped open the chamber to make sure that it was clean and then she reloaded it with five 38 +P bullets, which were overloaded for extra punch.

She had only just tucked it into her hip holster when Conall appeared at her open door and gave her a jerky little wave. ‘Would you have a moment, ma’am?’

‘Conall,’ she said. ‘Come on in.’

He approached her desk so awkwardly and so shyly that she wondered if he could still visualize the pictures of Kyna and her together, in her bedroom. ‘What’s the story, Conall? Do you have something for me?’

He came up to her desk and held up his iPhone.