‘I’ll go and see Orla Quinn tomorrow morning to give her my condolences. The poor woman must be devastated. Twenty-one years they were married, I think it was, and they have three children, two of them twins.’

As they walked along the corridor together, towards the lift, Kyna said, ‘Does Orla know about you and Garrett?’

Katie pulled a face to show that she had no idea. The lift door opened and Kyna followed her in.

‘Would you care for some company, just for tonight?’ Kyna asked her. ‘I hate to think of you being alone in that house after everything you’ve been through today. Sure like, I know you have Barney and Foltchain, but they don’t have much in the way of conversation, do they?’

Katie took a deep breath, and then nodded. If the lift hadn’t been fitted with CCTV, she would have put her arms around Kyna and held her tight.

*

They drove to Cobh through the dark and the rain. Both of them were too tired to talk much, so Katie played songs by The Japanese House, very quietly. Oh, you seemed so happy…

She felt a tocht in her throat and wondered if the day would ever come when every song she heard would no longer remind her of Conor.

They parked outside Katie’s house in Carrig View, overlooking the Lee estuary. Barney and Foltchain were waiting for them in the hallway when they went inside, circling excitedly around and around so that they almost tripped them up. But Barney, like most Irish red setters, could be thoughtful, too, and once he had calmed down he stood still and looked up at Katie as if he were asking why Conor didn’t come home any more. All Katie could do was tug affectionately at his ears, and then ruffle Foltchain’s fluffy ears, too.

‘How about a nightcap?’ she asked Kyna, as they went into the living room.

‘I’ll have a glass of that Redbreast if you have any left. One of them at bedtime and I can sleep like I’m dead and buried. Oh God, Katie, I didn’t mean that. I just meant—’

‘You’re allowed to say “dead and buried”, sweetheart,’ said Katie. ‘We can’t avoid it, can we, in our job? And nothing can hurt me more than I’m hurting already. A couple of words can’t make things any worse.’

She held out her arms and Kyna came up to her and they embraced each other and stroked each other’s hair and kissed. They both had tears rolling down their cheeks, for their different reasons – Katie because she had lost Conor and Kyna because she couldn’t bear to see Katie in such pain.

Both Barney and Foltchain came up to them, too, and stood next to them, and Barney whined thinly in the back of his throat.