‘Well, I’m on my way to CUH. It’s that poor girl who was drowned by the Lee Pusher. Her ma and her da are coming in to identify her so.’

‘This won’t take long.’

She followed him into his office and he closed the door behind her. Then he came and stood very close in front of her and looked down at her for a while without saying anything. He lifted his left hand as if he were going to stroke her hair, but then he lowered it again.

‘I was really hoping that what happened… we could put it behind us.’

‘You mean you don’t want me to complain to the Ombudsman.’

‘Well, naturally I don’t want you to. Especially since I was only trying to show you that I still have feelings for you. Fierce strong feelings. I’ve tried to be professional about it, but you’re a stunningly attractive woman, Katie. I have to confess that ever since I’ve been appointed here to Anglesea Street I’ve dreamed about you again and again, and every time I’ve woken with a big búdán up on me.’

Katie turned away. ‘I don’t want to hear any smutty talk like that from you, Brendan. All I can say is that I’ve not yet decided what action I’ll be taking about what happened. As you know full well, I’ve had other more important and more distressing matters on my mind. Now, I have to go, or I’ll be late.’

She started to walk towards the door, but Brendan snatched her coat’s wide sleeve and turned her around. She had seen that look on other men’s faces, too, when she had defied them. Who do you think you are? You’re a woman! How dare you speak to me like that?

‘Katie, come here, will you? I’m trying to tell you that I want us to get back together again, at least as friends. Hopefully much more than friends.’

‘We’re both senior officers in the same Garda station, Brendan. Any kind of relationship is out of the question. Apart from that, I don’t want to get back together with you, not even as friends, not in a million years. You weren’t trying to show you still had feelings for me that night. I was unconscious and you raped me. And the reason you’re saying that you want us to get back together is so that I don’t report you for raping me. You’re not only a slimeball, you’re an obvious slimeball.’

Brendan slapped her across the left cheek, hard. Katie staggered back, unable to believe what he had just done.

‘That was always the trouble with you!’ he shouted at her. ‘Always so high and mighty! Flirting around like a scrubber and then turning up your nose if any feller showed an interest in you!’