Tess slowed as she entered Willowthorpe-on-the-Hill. Please Drive Carefully Through Our Village read the sign. With its clusters of Clipsham stone cottages, Tudor-era pub, and rose-fronted vicarage, Willowthorpe was heart-stoppingly beautiful. Within weeks, the wisteria would come into bloom and the verges would fill with cow parsley, making it even more attractive. Tess liked to claim that her adopted home was the precise opposite of where she’d grown up. ‘Here,’ she’d say, ‘the countryside is bland, but the villages are gorgeous. In Ireland, the countryside is spectacular, but the villages look like Hurricane Charlie has passed through.’ Strictly speaking, this was no longer true. In recent years, even Kilmitten had been spruced up. Gone were the days when the paint had been allowed to peel off the houses on Main Street and a pile of scrap metal had rusted away outside the abandoned creamery. These days, the grass was short and the houses were neat. That Tom had played a major role in this transformation tickled Tess. She could never have imagined him returning to Kilmitten, much less devoting his life to improving it.

One sharp pip and the Radio 4 news programme began. The man with the lovely voice said, ‘It’s five o’clock.’ The main story was about the Brexit referendum. Then he said, ‘Reports are coming in of a gun attack on a hotel in Dublin. Two men have been killed and a number of others, including a police officer, have been injured.’

Tess pulled the Range Rover into the car park of the Royal Oak.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Daisy. ‘I thought we were—’

‘Ssh, pet. I need to hear this.’

According to the reporter, details were sketchy. Two gunmen had opened fire on a poker tournament, he said. The attack was thought to be connected to a feud between Dublin criminal gangs. Why a policeman, a detective inspector, was in the room was unclear, but he was among those hurt. His injuries were believed to be serious.

Tess took out her phone and called Conor. No answer. He was probably busy. Of course he was busy. How many gardaí were there? Ten thousand? More? There was no reason to suspect that he’d been at a card game in some dive of a hotel. But the journalist had said the injured guard was a detective inspector. Like Conor. She’d better call home.

‘I want to check that Uncle Conor’s all right,’ she explained to Daisy, who chewed her blonde hair and gave a solemn nod.

Before Tess got any further, her phone rang.

‘Mam?’

Her voice must have given her away, for her mother immediately said, ‘Oh, Tessy pet, I’d hoped to get to you before you heard the news. You’ve heard the news, haven’t you?’

‘I have. It was Conor, wasn’t it?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Is he okay?’