Two unmarked Garda cars were parked outside his mother’s house in Farranferris Avenue, and four plain-clothes officers were listening to music and yawning from time to time and patiently waiting for him to return home.

*

At ten to midnight, Katie’s phone rang again. She had been expecting a call from Kieran, but it was Robert again.

‘Sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but I thought you’d want to hear this.’

‘Good news or bad news?’

‘Both. One of Barry Riordan’s gang had his throat cut at The Cotton Ball about two hours ago. A fellow called Davey Horgan. A minor thug with two convictions for assault and another for stealing a motorbike.’

‘Dead?’

‘Oh, stone. He nearly had the head taken off him.’

‘Any witnesses?’

‘Ah, this is the good news. Nobody at the Ball saw Horgan being killed, but we’ve arrested Breaslain Hoobin. We lifted him at his ma’s house in Farranree. He must be the thickest man in Cork, and that’s saying something. He couldn’t believe that we had any evidence against him, but of course we have his prints on the knife that he used to kill Tadhg Kimmons and the wrapping paper from the bomb at UCC. On top of that… Sean Begley recognized him as soon as we fetched him into the station, because of his chin, and the gatch on him. We matched him with the CCTV from the bombing at UCC, and there’s no question that it’s him all right. Like you advised us, though, we still haven’t mentioned the bombing to him or charged him for it.’

‘That’s fantastic news… but what does that have to do with the fellow who was killed at The Cotton Ball?’

‘Everything. When Hoobin was searched, we found a carving knife in his coat pocket, still with smears of dried blood on it. When I questioned him about it, he admitted that he’d cut Davey Horgan’s throat. He said it was in self-defence. Davey Horgan had tried to attack him in the toilets at The Cotton Ball, that’s what he said, simply because he was one of Tommy O’Flynn’s men, and he’d had no choice.’

‘Were any weapons found next to Horgan’s body?’

‘He had a Swiss army knife in his jacket pocket, unopened.’

‘You’re right. Hoobin must be the thickest man in the county. But you’ve made my day, Robert. We’re really starting to cut the ground from under them, those two gangs. Give us a few more days and weeks and we’ll have them all arrested… Barry Riordan and Thomas O’Flynn, too. The fiercer they fight each other, the more they lay themselves open to us catching them.’

‘I wonder what the Sun will be saying when we haul those two in?’ said Robert. ‘No more of that “top cop flopping”, I’ll guarantee it.’