Many of the documents were in his father’s spiky handwriting. As expected, he discovered several references to Noel O’Grady. Two people had witnessed the row with the priest on the morning of the party. Three others highlighted O’Grady as somebody who’d disappeared for a while on the night. One statement claimed he’d looked ‘as guilty as a cat with a mouthful of feathers’. Of course, he did, thought Conor. He’d been upstairs with Lourda Ryan.

Dan Duggan was mentioned by several people. The Duggans, Tess and Ginny’s neighbours on Pearse Terrace, were well known for being excessively sound on the national question. The year before the party, during the H-Block hunger strike, Dan had hung a black flag from an upstairs window. The youngest Duggan, Brian, had been in Conor’s class at school. On the morning of Bobby Sands’ death, he’d arrived with a black armband over his jumper. Their teacher, Mrs Clune, had made him remove it. Brian had returned after lunch in head-to-toe black. He’d given Mrs Clune a letter saying he’d wear whatever his parents wanted him to wear. Dan Duggan had been at the party. When interviewed by one of the investigating officers, he’d pointed out that if the dead man had been a British soldier the questions might have had some legitimacy. ‘What would I be killing a Catholic priest for?’ he’d asked. After several hours, the guards concluded that Dan’s only crime was being a complete bore.

The files also contained a handful of poison-pen letters. One blamed Travellers for the crime. Another, in the green ink beloved of cranks everywhere, maintained it was the work of a group of Limerick teenagers who were known to ‘sniff glue and worship the devil’. A third was typed. It alleged that during his time at the seminary in Maynooth, Father Galvin had ‘kept company’ with a single mother and that this should be examined. A fourth spoke about the card games that had been a regular feature of life in the parochial house. They owed him money, it read, more than they could ever repay.

Conor took a photo. He did the same with a few of the witness statements and some of the other documents.

One statement was missing, that of Lourda Ryan. Conor suspected his father had removed it. He tried not to dwell on his dad and Ginny, but still they tugged at his conscience. So, too, did Gregory and Hannah Galvin. The Galvins had made more than one complaint about the investigation. In Conor’s experience, this wasn’t unusual. Indeed, compared to some families, their what-aboutery had been restrained.