Katie turned to Kyna and said, ‘Jesus. As if this day couldn’t have turned out any worse.’

‘Caffrey and O’Sullivan are both free. Well, free-ish. I can send them out. And I can send Cullen to the Mercy to see if the auld wan’s in any kind of condition to tell us what he saw.’

‘Okay, Tony, grand. It’s a fierce pity Markey’s still convalescing from that knock on the head. He has a bit of an obsession about catching the Pusher.’

‘I think we all have. But it’s like trying to hunt down a ghost. From all the descriptions we’ve been given, he even looks like a fecking ghost.’

Katie could hear that the conversation from inside the conference room was growing louder, and that the reporters were growing impatient. ‘Listen…’ she said. ‘I have to go in now and throw some scraps to the wolves, but I shouldn’t be more than ten minutes – if that. Come up and see me afterwards because I definitely think we need to revise our strategy for nailing this header. It seems like he picks on his victims totally at random, so maybe we need to talk to some psychiatrists about what his motive might be, and what kind of a mental condition he might be suffering from, do you know? Or maybe he’s simply doing it for the fun of it.’

‘Okay, ma’am. I’ll see you after so.’

Katie and Kyna walked into the conference room and sat down at a long table facing the assembled media. Mathew McElvey was there already and he passed Katie a notepad and a pen. Even before she had time to look around and see who was there, the dazzling TV lights were switched on, and behind the glare she could just make out Fionnuala Sweeney from RTÉ Six One News. Dan Keane from the Examiner was sitting next to her, and she could also see Rionach Barr from the Echo, Johnny Bryan from Cork FM, Douglas Kelly, who was a stringer for the Irish Times, and a big-bellied fellow with thick-rimmed glasses from the Irish Sun, whose name she had forgotten because he turned up only for the more lurid and spectacular stories. All she knew was that he was always blunt to the point of rudeness and she didn’t like him at all.

‘Good afternoon to all of you,’ she said. ‘I’m pure sorry to have to confirm what you already know – that His Honour Mr Justice Garrett Quinn was fatally injured in his car earlier today on the Ballincollie Road at White’s Cross. We are still investigating the cause of the incident, but Justice Quinn’s car was set alight and it was completely burned out before the fire brigade were able to get the blaze under control.’