‘I’ve saved you the trip, ma’am.’ He handed her a green plastic folder. ‘That’s our initial report on Justice Quinn’s car. We’re still going over it with a nit comb, of course, and I shouldn’t think we’ll have a full report until the middle of next week at the earliest. But at least we’ve found out what caused it to combust.’

Katie went over to her desk and sat down. She was trying to keep calm but inside she was still trembling with anger inside over the way that Assistant Commissioner Frank Magorian had spoken to her. She had always assumed that he was a strong supporter of her promotion, but now that he was under pressure from the media and presumably from Garda headquarters at Phoenix Park, she was sure that he would think nothing of hanging her out to dry. Her late father always used to tell her that when it came to the crunch, An Garda Síochána was all tight-knit boys together; and not only boys but stonecutters. He had been forced to retire himself as an inspector after a freemason had pulled the rug out from under him.

Bill said, ‘The Jaguar’s keys were taken out of the ignition and used to open the two locking petrol caps. Then it’s likely that fuses of some type were inserted into both fuel tanks and lit. They could have been blasting safety fuses or they might have been nothing more than lengths of cloth soaked in petrol.’

‘If the keys were taken out of the ignition, then Justice Quinn was probably dead or unconscious before the car blew up,’ said Katie. ‘When I saw him, he was still holding on to the steering wheel with one hand, almost casual-like. If somebody had tried to take out the keys while he was still alive, they would have had to open the door or break the window and then there’s no question he would have struggled with them.’

‘Sure, like. There’s no doubt at all that this was homicide, whether he was deceased before the car blew up or not. I’ve sent Aoife Shaugnessy and Stephen O’Leary over to CUH to help Dr Kelley with the post-mortem. Aoife’s our new ballistics expert, and she’s brilliant. She has only to take a quick sconce at the bullet hole in somebody’s head and she can tell you the calibre of the bullet and what kind of a gun it was shot from and whether the shooter likes milk in his tea.’

‘All right, Bill, thanks,’ said Katie. ‘We’ll just have to wait and see now. But there’s something you can do for me.’

She opened her desk drawer and took out the phone that had been dropped by last night’s intruder, wrapped in a clear plastic freezer bag.