Davey stood in front of one of the urinals and closed his eyes in relief. He heard the toilet door swing shut behind him as the other drinker left, but he didn’t realize that somebody else had entered at the same time. It was Breaslain Hoobin, who had been sitting for the past hour and a half on the opposite side of The Cotton Ball, watching the Riordans becoming steadily drunker, and waiting for his moment.

Davey heard his footsteps on the tiled floor, and became aware that he was there, but he still didn’t open his eyes.

‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realize one man could have so much piss in him. Eat your heart out, River Lee!’

Breaslain said nothing, but drew a large carbon-steel carving knife out of the inside pocket of his coat. He stepped up close behind Davey, so close that he was almost touching him. For a split second, Davey sensed how close he was, and that something was badly wrong, but before he could turn around, Breaslain reached over his left shoulder and gripped his ginger-bearded chin like a vice.

‘Gaaah!’ Davey choked out. That was all he could manage to say before Breaslain sliced his throat from side to side, cutting open his carotid artery and halving his Adam’s apple.

Davey collapsed in a spray of blood and urine, hitting his head on the urinal as he fell. He lay sideways on the toilet floor, his legs trembling like a slaughtered pony, while Breaslain wiped his knife on the back of his coat and then quickly walked out. Unlike the time that he had stabbed Tadhg Kimmons, he had been prepared for this killing, and he was wearing blue rubber gloves.

He left The Cotton Ball and crossed the Old Youghal Road to where his Datsun was parked in Glenamoy Lawn. He climbed in, snapped off his gloves finger by finger, and started the engine. Before he drove off, though, he took out his phone and rang Doran.

‘It’s done, boy. One of them any road. I don’t know his name but I seen him around a fair few times with Barry before.’

‘Okay, good man yourself. I’ll tell Tommy. That’s one for Darragh, God rest his soul. What we need now is one for Milo.’

As Breaslain prepared to pull out of Glenamoy Lawn and head back towards Blackpool, a Garda squad car came driving slowly along the Old Youghal Road. He sat with his head bent down, his heart beating hard, until it had passed The Cotton Ball and disappeared from sight. Praise God nobody could have yet paid a visit to the men’s toilet.

His heart would have beaten even harder if he had known that he had already been identified as Tadhg Kimmons’ murderer and that he had carried in the bomb that had killed so many young students at the UCC School of Pharmacy.