‘I think the guards must’ve heard the Jag’s tanks blowing up, and then seen the smoke, because they suddenly shot off like the divil was after them. The knacker started walking down the road, and I could tell by the gatch on him that he was totally langered. I guessed the guards had warned him that he couldn’t drive.’

Sheenagh had given up trying to silence him now, and she was furiously texting her office.

‘Go on,’ said Kyna gently.

‘I passed him by,’ said Feargal. ‘I passed him by and then I parked a bit up ahead of him, and then I walked back. He asked me if I was going to give him a lift. He was bolloxed, I tell you, so that he could hardly stand up, with gawk all down the front of his shirt. I said that I’d give him a lift if he forgot that he’d ever seen me.’

‘And?’

‘And I know he was halfway out of his head, but he cursed me and said that he’d never been a liar in the whole of his life and he wasn’t going to start lying now. He lifted up his fists as if he was a boxer, you know, and he came at me, screaming like a fecking banshee. So what could I do?’

‘You could have driven off and left him. And he was a boxer, once. Coffey the Conker.’

‘I couldn’t leave him, could I? He’d seen me next to the Jag. He was a witness.’

Katie was silent for a few moments. Then she said, ‘Are you willing to testify in court that you were paid by Mrs Orla Quinn to murder her husband, Mr Justice Quinn?’

‘No. It was herself that doped him. Me – I was only supposed to dispoge of him. Like I say, it was her suggestion that I drove his car into the docks.’

‘But if you had done that, he would have drowned, and that would have meant that you did murder him. As it was, you set fire to his car instead, with him in it.’

‘Yes. But it wasn’t me who doped him.’

‘What I’m getting at, Feargal, is whether he was alive when you set his car alight, or not.’

‘He was doped. But, yes. I suppose he was.’

It was then that Katie said, ‘Excuse me,’ stood up, and quickly left the room. The garda outside said, ‘Ma’am?’ but she didn’t answer him. She walked along the corridor until she reached the door that led to the car park, and went outside.