‘Mother of God,’ said Katie. She sat back in her chair, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘Maybe I should have guessed it when I met him at the morgue to view Roisin’s body. He was bad-tempered enough all right, and he deeply resented Roisin getting herself pregnant. I mean he was unbelievably bitter about it. But she was his daughter, and his only child at that. It’s hard to believe that he’d dress himself up like that and push her into the river… her and his baby granddaughter, too.’

‘What’s the plan, then?’ asked Detective Walsh.

‘You have a copy of that FitNess receipt? Good. What with that, and his raging about Roisin when he came to the morgue to view her body, I think we have more than sufficient cause to arrest him on suspicion of murder. Dr Kelley was there with me at the viewing, and she’ll testify to what she heard him say.’

She looked at her watch. ‘Inspector O’Rourke’s in today, isn’t he? I’ll have him arrange for a couple of uniforms to back us up. I’m supposed to be meeting somebody for lunch today, but this is one arrest I want to witness in person.’

*

Detective Cullen drove them down to the suburb of Ballyphehane in a dark blue unmarked Toyota, followed by a squad car with two uniformed gardaí. For the first time since Owen Dineen’s first derogatory story about her in the Sun, Katie was beginning to feel upbeat and confident, and that she and her team were at last getting on top of a tragic and chaotic week.

One or two things still rankled. She still had to find a way to deal with Brendan’s knowledge of her closeness to Kyna. She didn’t believe for a moment that he had deleted the compromising pictures of them together. Knowing him, he would have kept them so that he always felt he had a hold over her, as well as for his own lubricious enjoyment. But her discovery that he had been bribing Owen Dineen might be enough to keep him quiet, even though Conall had hacked his phone illegally.

Then there was Orla’s threat to expose her affair with Garrett, and how the conviction of Phinean Joyce had favoured her promotion. But that had been a long time ago now, and if she managed to tie up the most serious investigations that she was having to handle now – the bombing at the School of Pharmacy and the murder of Garrett Quinn above all – she hoped that it wouldn’t affect her career as much as she had first feared.

‘You’re quiet, ma’am, if you don’t mind my saying so,’ said Detective Walsh.

‘Yes,’ said Katie. ‘I’m just thinking how sad life can be sometimes. The world’s full of weeping.’