‘How should I know? Maybe you were planning on coming back to me and boasting that you’d sorted Donal Hagerty’s sentencing, because there’d be no judge now who would have the balls to send Donal to the slammer for more than a couple of years in case they ended up cremated like Judge Quinn.’

‘I have no fecking idea what you’re talking about, Tommy, I swear it. Judge Quinn? Cremated?’

‘Don’t act the innocent with me, boy. You remember what you did when I asked you to sort out Felim Macabe. Give him a couple of clatters, I told you, didn’t I, so that he’d quit hobbling my spiggy. That’s all it would have needed, a couple of clatters. But what did you do? Shot him in the belly and then torched his mobile home to hide the evidence. You were stone lucky the razzers never cottoned on that it was you.’

‘Come on, Tommy – what happened to Felim, that was an accident. I was only waving the shotgun at him to put the fear of God in him. Waving it, that’s all, like! I didn’t even know it was loaded.’

‘So when you topped Judge Quinn, that was an accident, too, was it? How did it happen, Eamonn? Did you accidentally wave your shotgun at him, too? Or did you accidentally stab him? Or did you straighten his tie for him and accidentally strangle him because you tied up the knot too tight?’

‘Tommy – I swear on my nuts that wasn’t me. I didn’t even know he was dead.’

Thomas pointed to the gaping curtains in Eamonn O’Malley’s living room. ‘Oh, no? You have the telly on and you didn’t even know he was dead? You are the worst liar I ever met. Now are you going to tell me the truth or do we have to beat it out of you?’

‘Tommy, please.’

But Thomas beckoned to Milo and Darragh and two of the other men and they immediately came striding up towards the open front door. Eamonn O’Malley tried to scramble back into his hallway, but he tripped on the welcome mat and fell backwards, knocking his head against the skirting board. The four men bent down, seized his arms and legs, and hoisted him up, so that they could carry him bodily out on to the pavement. The other men stood further along the road, smoking and keeping watch for the Garda or for any inquisitive neighbours who might venture out to see what all the noise was about.

Thomas went over to the rain-beaded Land Cruiser and opened the passenger door. Milo and Darragh and the two other men dragged Eamonn across to it and positioned his head in between the open door and the door pillar. Eamonn struggled and kicked and twisted, trying to wrench his wrists and his ankles free, but the men’s grip was relentless.