On their way back across the road to the station, Katie said to Kyna, ‘You’re quiet.’

‘Oh. Am I? I was thinking about Justice Connolly, that’s all.’

‘Thinking what about Justice Connolly? I have to say that I like him.’

‘I know you do. And he likes you. In fact, he more than likes you.’

‘Really? What did he say?’

‘He said he thinks you’re beautiful and clever, and it’s beyond sad that you should have lost Conor.’

They went up the steps into the station and crossed the reception area towards the lifts.

Katie said, ‘Kieran’s been pure understanding, I’ll say that. He hasn’t come on to me, not at all.’

‘Biding his time, probably.’

There were four Kynas in the lift, Kyna herself and her three reflections. ‘Don’t start getting jealous on me, sweetheart,’ Katie told them. ‘Kieran’s a new friend for me, nothing more, and he’s been nothing but a comfort.’

There was CCTV in the lift, so Katie could do nothing more than smile and hope that Kyna believed her.

46

Katie was at last beginning to feel as if all the critical risks that she had been taking might be starting to pay off. With Brendan and with Orla Quinn it had been like playing two simultaneous games of poker in which she knew that both of her opponents held strong cards against her, but she was hopeful that she could win if she bided her time.

She had always believed that no matter how plausible a hunch might be, it was evidence that counted, and nothing else. She had seen so many prosecutions collapse because witnesses had proved to be liars or fantasists or out for revenge, and so many cases fall apart because the investigating officers had clumsily signalled their suspicions, allowing the offenders time to disappear or to devise some plausible alibi.

That was why she relied so much on the expertise of Bill Phinner and the Technical Bureau, and it was Bill Phinner who came to her that afternoon and gave her the evidence she needed if she was going to be able to prove who had arranged for the devastating bombing at the School of Pharmacy.

The nurse practitioner at the Mercy had just rung her to tell her that Feargal Grífin was fit to be interviewed, and she made an appointment for 6:30. Five minutes later Bill came in, looking as if he had been told that his grandmother had been struck by lightning and all his pet chickens had died of infectious coryza. He was carrying a large green briefcase.

‘I’m off to question Feargal Grífin at half-past six,’ she told him. ‘I can’t wait to hear him explain how his gun was used to shoot both Billy Hagerty and that traveller fellow, what was his name, as well as being used to shoot at me and Justice Connolly.’