As Conor saw it, this version of events was overly convenient. He wanted to believe that O’Grady had been to blame. That was what bothered him. His father had wanted to believe it too. Questions were being asked about a failed investigation. His dad had needed a plausible suspect. And who was more fitting than the man who’d raped the woman he loved? A man who wasn’t around to answer the charge. In Julian Heaney, his father identified a useful idiot, a guy who could be relied upon to help spread lies. A guy who thought he was getting a career-boosting scoop.

People in Kilmitten, and elsewhere, were willing to accept those lies. Most folks didn’t have time to think a crime through. They were content to be nudged in a certain direction. It was like the phrase ‘known to the gardaí’. How Conor hated that line. It told the public that the arrested man was guilty. Or, worse, it urged them not to waste their sympathy on the victim. It was shorthand for ‘He had it coming.’

Until now, Conor had kept his doubts to himself. He decided to confide in Sharon. As she listened, she twirled a lock of dark hair around one finger.

‘If it wasn’t this Noel O’Grady character, and he does sound like a nasty piece of work, who did kill Father Galvin?’ she asked.

‘I haven’t a clue.’

‘So you can’t be sure that your dad pinned it on O’Grady because of what he’d done to Ginny. For all you know, there might have been other evidence.’

‘It’s possible.’

She stroked his good arm. ‘It seems quite likely to me. I mean, when the TV programme was shown, your sister was married to Noel O’Grady’s son. Wouldn’t Flan have worried about Paula? It can’t be much fun, everybody thinking your father-in-law killed the parish priest.’

‘True, only Dad was under a huge amount of pressure. There’d been a really rough newspaper article about the Father Galvin investigation, Ginny was pregnant, Tess was giving her a hard time and … I can see him alighting upon O’Grady as the solution to his difficulties. If he thought the man was responsible, why didn’t he question him when he was alive?’

‘Perhaps he did. You were a child. Plenty could have happened without you knowing. Or perhaps O’Grady was already dead by the time evidence emerged?’

‘Hmm, I suppose. I do remember him telling me that several people owed money to Leo Galvin, but he didn’t think that any of them was the killer.’

‘If it’s bugging you so much, why don’t you talk to your father? What harm can it do?’

That was Sharon. She came from one of those unusual families where they all spoke openly to each other. Oh, and she was a Dubliner. They were different.