‘We have nothing either,’ said Katie. ‘No recorded phone conversations, no CCTV. We were hoping that we could track down whoever bought the pressure cooker, but Kitchen Magic at Ballycurreen has no record of selling one for more than nine months, and they’re the only outlet in Munster that stocks them. Our best chance is for James MacGreevy or this Hoobin fellow to come out and finger O’Flynn for being the brains behind it – although we know why they’re too scared to. If they did that, they’d have to leave the country and never come back, and maybe even that wouldn’t be far enough or long enough. You remember Mikey Lynch? He hid himself in Slovakia and they still found him and put a bullet through his head, although we could never prove it was them.’

‘Ah, I might have the magic key to that,’ said Bill. ‘Here’s some more evidence for you.’

He opened his briefcase again and took out a large kitchen knife, also contained in a large transparent evidence bag.

‘This is the knife that was retrieved from the drain in the men’s toilets at the Zombie Lounge. Between the handle and the blade we found microscopic traces of blood, which we were able to match with blood samples from Tadhg Kimmons, the young fellow who was stabbed there. So this is the weapon that killed him. The handle itself was unfinished wood with no patent prints on it but we were able to fume it with iodine and detect several reasonable latents. Some matched Kimmons, but superimposed on top of them were a thumb and three fingerprints which – surprise, surprise – match the AFIS sample for Breaslain Hoobin.’

‘Perfect,’ said Katie. ‘Or as near perfect as we can expect, under the circumstances. Now we can haul in Hoobin on the charge of murdering Tadhg Kimmons, without putting Muireann in any danger. But we won’t mention the bombing, not to begin with. First let’s see how much pressure we can put on him to incriminate O’Flynn.’

Bill Phinner sat back, and now he looked as if at least some of his imaginary chickens were beginning to convalesce. ‘I thought you’d see it that way, ma’am.’

‘Oh – one more thing, Bill. How’s it coming on with Eamonn O’Malley? Have you worked out yet how his head was crushed?’