Katie turned to Feargal and said, ‘If you’d murdered any law officer before nineteen-sixty-four, Feargal – a prison warden, or a garda in the course of his duty, or a justice of the High Court – you’d have been hanged. Now we’re more merciful, and you’ll only be given a mandatory life sentence. No parole, though. You’ll never be coming out.’

‘What evidence do you have?’ Sheenagh demanded.

‘CCTV and forensic. We have footage of Feargal driving away from Justice Quinn’s house in Justice Quinn’s car on the morning that His Honour was murdered, with Justice Quinn in the passenger seat. And apart from that, Feargal not only has the careless habit of leaving his spent cartridge casings scattered about, he forgets that boots leave footprints in mud, and even in grassy verges.’

‘I’ll need to have sight of this evidence, too, of course,’ said Sheenagh, although she was much less confrontational now, and the tut at the end of her sentence was barely audible. ‘You should have given me prior notice.’

But Feargal waved his bandaged hand again and shouted out, ‘Forget it! Fecking forget it! I did it, yes, I admit it! But you’re right! It wasn’t me!’

‘Feargal, no!’ said Sheenagh. ‘Don’t say another word!’

‘I’m not going to be banged up for the rest of me life because of her!’ Feargal roared at her. ‘I didn’t even know he was a fecking judge until I saw it on the telly! It was her! His wife! She rang me and she met me at Henchys up at St Luke’s Cross and she said she’d pay me two thousand yoyos if I got rid of him for her.’

Sheenagh said, ‘Feargal – I’m begging you. Please don’t say any more.’

‘She said she’d have him all doped up and all I had to do was help her to carry him out to his car. Then she said, do whatever you want with him. Drive the car into Tivoli docks so it’ll look like he had an accident and got drownded.’

‘To be absolutely clear about this, you’re talking about Justice Quinn’s wife, Orla Quinn?’ said Katie.

‘Like I said, I had no idea at all that he was a judge. She gave me the two thousand in cash and off I went. But I’d already decided not to drive his car into the Lee. I’d left me own car up on the Ballincollie Road so that I could get away after. Then I went to the petrol station and rung for a taxi to take me down to Tivoli.’

‘When was this? We couldn’t see you arriving at the Quinns house on CCTV.’