‘I never did it, Tommy!’ he panted. ‘I never touched a single hair on Judge Quinn’s head! I promise you that in front of God and Mary and Joseph and all the angels!’

‘If you didn’t do it, then who the feck did? There’s nobody else had any reason to kill him, except you. Thought I’d pay you more, did you, if you topped him? Thought I’d clap you on the back and say “dowchaboy!”, is that it? But you know what’s going to happen now? The razzers are going to be sniffing around twice as nosy and if they find even a twinchy scrap of evidence that it was me who sent Donal Hagerty to sort out Michael Riordan, then I’ll be in even deeper shite than he is. I’ll be up to my fecking neck in it, you gack.’

‘I never did it! I’ll kiss the Bible for you!’

‘You can kiss my arse and call me Katty Barry. I still won’t believe you.’

With that, he slammed the Land Cruiser’s door on Eamonn’s head, hard. Eamonn let out a high-pitched squeal, like a pig being stunned by a captive bolt gun, and his whole body jolted. Even Darragh sucked in his breath.

Thomas opened the door again. Eamonn’s right ear was bloody and swollen, and from the angle of his chin it looked as though his jaw been knocked out of alignment.

‘Come on, Eamonn. What’s the real story? You followed him up to White’s Cross and then you stopped him, one way or another, and then what? How did you top him, Eamonn?’

‘I never,’ Eamonn whispered.

‘Just like it wasn’t you who torched Judge Donnelly’s house, I suppose?’

‘That wasn’t only me. That was me and Patsy Brady and the Finnegans’ dad. I only carried – I only carried the petrol. Christ, Tommy, what have you done to my head? It feels like it’s split down the middle.’

‘All I want is the truth, Eamonn. If you come clean and say that you topped Judge Quinn off of your own bat, and that it wasn’t me who put you up to it, then that’ll be an end to it.’

A runnel of blood slid out of the side of Eamonn’s mouth and dripped on to his shirt collar. ‘It wasn’t me, Tommy,’ he bubbled, almost inaudibly.

Thomas slammed the Land Cruiser’s door on his head a second time, and this time much harder. Eamonn let out an ooofff! of breath but that was all.

Thomas opened the door again and shouted at him, ‘The truth, Eamonn, that’s all I’m asking you for! Tell me the fecking truth!’ But even though Eamonn’s bulging blue eyes were still open, he looked concussed, and he didn’t answer.