The receptionist just shook her head. “I’m sorry, but Mr. Keyes isn’t available right now. He’s tied up with a case.” She looked down at her keyboard.

Right. If that was the way it was going to be.

“I’m going to sit right over there.” Aifric pointed to the waiting area near the window. “I’m going to sit there for half an hour. And if within that half hour I don’t have Mr. Keyes standing right beside me, or at the very least, on the phone, I’m going straight back to Hartigan, and I’m going to tell him the truth. Which is that my client is in custody, and as far as I can see, no one knows where the disclosure is, and no one’s bothered to make a bail application.”

That got a reaction, even if it wasn’t quite what she’d been expecting. The receptionist dropped her professional politeness.

“Do what you want. It’s no skin off my nose. But you won’t be the first to take a run at him, and he’s still doing fine. So.” She shrugged and gestured to the chairs near the window, then answered the next call as it came in.

Aifric went to the seats. She kept her back ramrod straight, took out her notebook, and started writing. It was just something to do, something that helped with the embarrassment of waiting in that room, with eyes on her, knowing she might have to walk out with nothing, after all her bravado.

But twenty minutes later, she looked up to see the receptionist standing beside her, a thick envelope in her hands.

“Here,” she said. “It’s the evidence. It was on his desk.” She handed it to Aifric. “But I couldn’t track him down. If you want to go ahead and make the complaint, then I can’t stop you. God knows he deserves it.”

And she turned on her heel and walked away.

Aifric made her way back to the Four Courts. She tried Johnathon Keyes’s mobile phone as many times as she could bear, but it only went to voice mail. She waited until the last possible moment, sitting on a wooden bench outside courtroom five, mobile phone in hand, hoping for a last-minute reprieve. The corridor was quiet at this time of the day, with only a few passing lawyers and trial attorneys, and a handful of civil clients in their business suits drifting about.

“You haven’t found Keyes, have you?” It was Aidan Murphy, looking down at her, a mix of amusement and sympathy in his eyes. He’d come from court five, where the last of the day’s applications were still being heard.

“Not yet,” she said.

Aidan sat beside her on the bench. “Did you know that he’s a gambler?”

“Keyes?” Aifric shook her head.

“He has a horse running at Fairyhouse today. He turns his phone off and disappears whenever he has a horse in a race. If it’s local, he’ll go along in person. If it’s too far for a day trip, he’ll find himself a nice warm pub and set up for the day. He’s notorious for it.”