‘I’m grand altogether, thank you, sir. If you’re asking if I’m at all thrown by what’s in the Sun this morning, then I’m not.’

‘Mathew McElvey’s warned me that there’s worse to come,’ said Brendan. ‘He’s had RTÉ on to him requesting a television interview with you, as well as the Times and the Independent and every radio station between here and the border.’

‘It’s a fierce serious matter this, Kathleen,’ said Frank Magorian. ‘And it’s not as if we haven’t had enough bad press to cope with lately – what with all the whistle-blowers accusing us of cronyism and sexism and fiddling the crime figures.’

‘I’m aware of that, sir. I can totally understand how those three incidents yesterday might have given the appearance that crime in Cork is out of control, coming as they did in the space of less than twelve hours. You can’t blame the press for working it up into a sensational story. They’re out to sell papers, after all. But the reality is that incidents like this are vanishingly rare, and I can assure you that we’re well on top of them.’

Frank Magorian took the newspaper off Brendan’s desk and held it up, as if he were holding up an incriminating document in a court of law. ‘It’s suggested in this story that the death of Justice Quinn and the killing of Billy Hagerty are somehow connected. After all, Justice Quinn was about to pass sentence yesterday on Billy Hagerty’s brother Donal, was he not? Do you think there’s any truth in this? It seems likely.’

‘It’s far too early to say, sir. We have yet to conduct a post-mortem on Justice Quinn so we can’t say with any certainty if his death was an accident or homicide. And we still have no idea what he was doing up at White’s Cross when he was supposed to be at the courthouse across the way here in Anglesea Street.’

‘But what about Billy Hagerty?’

‘Again, we still have no leads on who might have shot him, or why. He was associated with the O’Flynn gang, although he wasn’t an active member as far as we know, but there could have been any number of reasons for somebody wanting him dead.’

‘And your Lee Pusher?’

‘Again, no leads yet. But Dr Ailbe Power has agreed to come down tomorrow afternoon from Trinity College Department of Neuroscience in Dublin, and she’s a specialist in aberrant behaviour. I’m sure that if we understand his motivation more clearly, we’ll have a much better chance of identifying who he is. As I say, sir, we’re on top of all of these incidents, but they can’t be solved in ninety minutes, like they are on TV. This is real life, not an episode of Columbo.’