‘How are you, Kathleen? I thought I’d let you know that Roisin Carroll’s parents are coming here at four o’clock to make a formal identification before she’s sent off to Keohane’s, the funeral directors. They’re also going to visit their granddaughter on Ladybird Ward. First time they’ve ever seen her, so I’m told. Maybe you’d care to have a word with them and tell them how your investigation into the Lee Pusher is coming along. You could reassure them that their daughter didn’t die in vain, something like that.’

Katie checked the time on the gold Piaget watch that Conor had given her. ‘Okay, fine, Dr Kelley, thanks. I’ll come over directly. How’s it going with Justice Quinn?’

‘The forensic experts are still analysing the bodily fluids, but it’s likely they’ll have some results later today. I’ve just finished the post-mortem on Billy Hagerty too. That turned out to be interesting.’

‘Interesting in what way?’

‘I’ll show you when you get here, that’s easier than trying to explain it over the phone.’

Katie shrugged on the black Max Mara wraparound overcoat that had cost her almost a week’s salary. It was chilly and damp outside but at least it wasn’t pelting.

She told Moirin to ring Mathew McElvey and arrange a meeting with him when she came back from the hospital. On her drive into the city this morning she had begun to come up with some ideas for retaliating against Owen Dineen and his COP FLOPS front page. She had checked the most up-to-date crime statistics from the Central Statistics Office and she could prove that while drug offences in Cork city were still higher than in rural areas, burglary and assault cases had dropped dramatically.

She had also remembered a feature Owen Dineen had written three or four years ago in which he had criticized the promotion of women in An Garda Síochána as ‘skirting the issue of rising crime’. So she could accuse him of misogyny as well as getting his figures wrong, and in these #MeToo days that was more serious than blasphemy.

To begin with, she had intended to maintain a dignified silence about the CORK COP FLOPS story, but the more she had churned it over in her mind, the angrier she had become. It didn’t help that it had come out at a time when she was grieving, and she felt like screaming at the whole world for tearing away from her so many people that she had loved.

She was walking along the corridor when Chief Superintendent O’Kane smartly opened his office door, as if he had been listening out for her.

‘Katie,’ he said. ‘You’re not in a rush, are you? I’d like a word if I could.’