From the start, the investigation had been hampered by the number of people in the house and by the fact that most of them were drunk. It had been dark. The music had been loud. People had wandered from room to room. So many possible killers, so many conflicting stories. One person would say, ‘What about X? He disappeared for ages.’ Somebody else would say, ‘No, I saw him on the stairs with Y.’ The guards suspected that some witnesses were trying to settle old scores. More were plain confused, addled by alcohol and shock. Then there were those who questioned whether a crime had been committed at all. Suppose the priest was the worse for drink, they’d say. Suppose he fell. The guards, including Conor’s father, said this didn’t tally with the evidence. According to the post-mortem, Father Galvin had had less to drink than most. The angle at which he’d fallen, the way he’d hit his head, suggested he’d been pushed with considerable force. Someone else had been in the room, and if they hadn’t meant to hurt him, why hadn’t they raised the alarm? They’d left the discovery to poor Cora Crossan, who hadn’t been right for months afterwards.

And there was the glass. The priest’s whiskey glass had been smashed against the far wall, shattering into so many pieces that lifting reliable fingerprints had proved almost impossible. The fragments had contained Cora’s prints, but she had poured the drink, so that told them nothing. Had Father Galvin thrown the glass himself? If so, why? Or was it more likely that his killer had been responsible? Although some would disagree, Conor’s father always referred to what had happened as murder. ‘I don’t give a toss whether they set out to kill him,’ he’d say, ‘whoever hurt the unfortunate fellow walked away. That’s as bad as murder in my book.’

Conor had garnered information over the years, from snatches of overheard conversation, from chats with his dad and, occasionally, from reports in the papers. There was one fact on which everyone agreed: whoever had attacked Leo Galvin was no career criminal. There had been no repeat offence, and the village had returned to being as quiet a spot as you could find. Two stolen bicycles amounted to a crime wave.