“Fine. But I’m not waiting. Where you go, I go. Lead the way, Don Quixote.” He laughed at her expression. “Don’t look so surprised. You’re not the only one who reads a book every now and again.”

Chapter Eleven

Aifric

“Aifric. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” Colin Leonard stood up and came to the door to greet her. He shook her hand warmly, then held on to it as he led her into his office where he finally let her go.

“Thank you,” Aifric said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, too.”

“Take a seat, please.”

Colin Leonard’s office wasn’t so different from that of the senior trial attorneys in Aifric’s own chambers. The desk and most of the floor along one wall were covered in neat stacks of case files. The walls were decorated with a few bland-looking watercolors that she very much doubted he had chosen for himself. And the bookshelves were filled with beautifully bound legal texts, at least one of which, she recognized, had been written by Colin himself.

“I understand we’re going to be teammates,” Colin said with a smile. He opened his hands in a dramatic gesture. “The Robert Collins case.”

“Yes,” Aifric said. “At least, it was Mr. Gilmartin’s case, but as he hasn’t been well, I’ve stepped in for a couple of days to help out.”

“Mm, poor Brian.” Colin Leonard leaned forward. Here in his own office, with gown and wig off, he was a little less intimidating, a little more human, than when spotted from a distance across the Four Courts. “I’m sure within the privacy of these four walls, we can acknowledge that we both know the truth of Brian’s situation. He’s fallen off the wagon, and I can’t say I’m surprised. His wife is a scourge, you know. Unforgiving. And, well, I’m sure he wasn’t the perfect husband, but which of us can claim that honor, hmm?” He clapped his hands together loudly, making Aifric jump. “The question is, what can we two do to keep this case between the ditches until poor Brian returns?”

“I . . . well, I’ve met with the defendant. He claims to be innocent.”

Colin leaned back in his chair, nodding as if that was to be expected.

“And the evidence against him seems to be limited to witness statements,” Aifric continued. “There’s no forensic evidence, or at least if there is, it hasn’t made it into the defense disclosure as of yet.”

Another nod. He had steepled his fingers and let his head loll back a little, his eyes half-closed. This must be his brief me pose.

“Uh . . . our client, Robert, his only statement to the gardaí was that he went to the pub with his girlfriend on the night she disappeared. They had an argument; he went home. She stayed on and left a couple of hours later, then was never seen again. The problem is that Robert’s flatmate, Dermot Mulvaney, was in all night watching television. He claims Robert never came home. Robert says he did, but that Dermot was asleep on the couch at the time, and that’s why he didn’t see him.”