‘Owen – listen to me – I’m paying you an eye-watering amount of grade to make sure that they do feel threatened, even if they aren’t, and that she takes the blame for them feeling that way. And you couldn’t have a better start than this shooting, could you? Think how you can put it: if the gangs aren’t frightened to shoot at the city’s top detective, they can’t be frightened to shoot at anybody, can they?’

There was a pause, and a sigh of resignation, and then Owen Dineen said, ‘All right, leave it with me. I’ll see what I can do so.’

That conversation abruptly came to a close, but then Conall fast-forwarded to another brief exchange. ‘This one I recorded this morning, about eight o’clock.’

It was Brendan again, and again he was talking to Owen Dineen. From the background noise, Katie could tell that he was still on the train coming back from Dublin.

‘Did you receive that payment yet?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t had the time to check my account.’

‘Well, check it now. I don’t want it going astray like that last one.’

There was an interval of nearly half a minute, during which Katie could only hear the train, and what sounded like a newspaper rustling. Then Owen Dineen said, ‘Yes. I’ve just checked. It’s landed.’

‘Great, good. And that story this morning – that was fantastic. Well done yourself. If you can follow that up tomorrow with another one just as good there’s another five hundred in it for you.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Owen Dineen told him. ‘Like I said before, I can always find something to chip away at her reputation – even if it’s some case she made a hames of years ago when she was only a detective garda.’

‘You just keep chipping away, Owen. Chip, chip, chip! Now – will you be coming to Fota on Sunday? We can talk some more about it then.’

Katie sat back. She had suspected that Owen Dineen’s hostility wasn’t entirely genuine, and that Brendan may have been briefing him against her, but she was still shocked that Brendan could actually be paying him to destroy her career. It almost made her feel concussed, as if she had unexpectedly knocked her head very hard against an open cupboard door.

‘I don’t think I need to hear any more, thanks, Conall. Can you please make me a copy of those recordings, and anything else you have between the two of them?’

Conall switched off his iPhone. ‘This is dead serious this, isn’t it, ma’am?’

‘You’ll keep it to yourself, won’t you? At least for now. Don’t say anything to anybody, not even Bill.’