Conor floundered for a response. No plausible lie came and, tongue loosened by whiskey, he told the truth. ‘To be honest, yes. With the way everything panned out and all the hassle you had to put up with, I wouldn’t blame you for thinking, What does he want to do that for? Why doesn’t he find something easier?’

‘You’re assuming I’ve given up.’

Something flashed across his father’s face. Irritation? No, Conor decided, it was closer to disappointment. Him and his big mouth. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like that.’

‘Well, I haven’t. You’re right, though. It’s not an easy job. It’s not like the films where everything comes together in the end, and where it all makes sense. Sometimes nothing makes sense.’

‘I don’t—’

‘Do you remember how people used to ask, “Why would anyone kill a priest?” Over and over again, I heard that question. But why wouldn’t someone kill a priest? Why should that be harder to understand than any other violent crime? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not certain that whoever attacked Leo Galvin went out that night with the intention of killing him, but they obviously felt they had a reason to assault him. That reason might sound deluded to you or me, yet they must have thought it had some sort of logic.’

He paused to take a drink.

Realising his dad wanted to talk, Conor did his best not to make a sound. He didn’t want to break the flow. He was conscious of something else too: maybe this was a one-off, but there’d been a subtle shift in his father’s attitude, as if he recognised Conor as a fellow adult.

‘That’s one lesson I’ve learned,’ he continued. ‘People don’t always behave in ways the rest of us would consider logical. And still they manage to justify their actions to themselves. How often have I heard, “Sure I didn’t mean any harm, Sergeant”? As though that excuses everything.’

‘People can be fairly thick, right enough.’

‘It’s more than that. Why do otherwise smart people make bad decisions and keep on making them? Take your friend Tess. Her mother lets idiots – and worse – take advantage of her again and again. She gets rid of one gobshite, if you’ll pardon the expression, then replaces him with another. And Ginny’s not a stupid woman, so why does she behave like that?’

Outside, the shadows were lengthening, the sun slowly dipping. Conor’s dad took a slug of his whiskey. ‘What I’m trying to say is that sometimes people are hard to fathom.’

Conor wanted to nudge the conversation back towards Father Galvin. ‘Did you ever settle on a motive?’ he asked.

‘A motive? Like I told you, the problem wasn’t that we couldn’t find one. It was that we found too many.’

‘How so?’