The relief was palpable once the two men had left. Lottie thought the four walls also breathed a welcome sigh. The air seemed to lift. If only momentarily.

‘I don’t want this going on a day longer than necessary. I want Arthur Russell and Mick O’Dowd found. What are you doing about it?’

Lynch sat up straight. ‘Every officer in the district is mobilised and there’s a manhunt throughout the state for them. Checkpoints are operational since Emma’s body was found. Airports and ports have been notified. Everyone is watching for them.’

‘So what have we got in the line of answers to our overall investigation?’

‘I’ve just received a transcript of the information that was salvaged from Marian Russell’s laptop hard drive,’ Lynch said. ‘I’ll give you a summary as soon as I get a chance to examine it.’

‘Good. Kirby, you look like the dog that got the bone. What’s your news?’

Kirby grinned, and Lottie had to smile back, even though she wanted to tell him to get a haircut.

‘The bones found at the cottage yesterday…’

‘Brady’s missing fingers?’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘The gun we found in Tessa’s apartment,’ Lottie said, moving on swiftly. ‘Any information from ballistics?’

Kirby shifted in his chair, from one buttock to the other.

‘Out with it,’ Lottie said.

‘You might not like this.’

‘Let me be the judge of that.’ Her phone vibrated in her jeans pocket. Ignoring it, she braced herself for whatever it was Kirby thought she wasn’t going to like.

‘The revolver is a Webley and Scott. Used by the Garda Special Branch back in the seventies.’

‘The Special Branch?’ Lottie said. ‘How did it end up in Tessa Ball’s possession?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Kirby said. ‘But the weird thing is…’

‘Go on.’

Kirby took a deep breath and blurted out, ‘Ballistics show it’s a match with the bullet from an old suicide.’

Lottie’s next question died on her lips. She knew where this was leading. She formed a new question.

‘You mean to tell me that the gun we found in a murder victim’s home the other day is the same gun that my father used to kill himself forty years ago?’

Kirby was biting his lip, nodding his bushy head of hair.

Boyd said, ‘That’s… that’s the most far-fetched thing I’ve heard in… in ages.’

Lottie walked around the room, mulling over the significance of this. Had Tessa known her father? How did she come to have the gun? In all the reports she’d read so far in her own private investigations, it was stated that Peter Fitzpatrick had stolen the gun from a secure cabinet in the garda station. She banged her fists against her forehead. Nowhere had she read what had happened to the gun afterwards. Nowhere had she seen any connection to Tessa Ball. But had she? Think, Lottie, she told herself. Think. Then it came to her. Her father’s notebook. The one with the name of the solicitors scrawled across the centre of a page.

‘Oh my God,’ she said.

‘What?’ Boyd said.

‘Remember the notebook I showed you? It had “Belfield and Ball” written in my father’s handwriting. Someone please tell me what is going on.’

‘Just a minute,’ Boyd said. ‘No point in jumping to conclusions. They were probably the only firm of solicitors in Ragmullin in the seventies. Your father was a garda sergeant. He would’ve been dealing with the courts on a weekly basis, so it’s not unusual that he had the name written down.’

‘But I don’t understand why Tessa had the gun.’

‘It’s probably nothing to do with our current investigation,’ Lynch said. ‘Just an odd coincidence.’

‘I don’t like coincidences,’ Lottie snapped. ‘Odd or otherwise.’

‘Then there are the files that were stolen from Belfield and Ball. Files that Tessa had been dealing with,’ Kirby said, scratching his head with the end of his e-cigarette.

‘I agree this may have nothing to do with the murders,’ Lottie said, ‘but I’ll talk with Kitty Belfield myself and maybe have a chat with that old journalist, Buzz Flynn. He might remember something from his newspaper days. You know him, Kirby; will you tell him I’ll be calling?’

Kirby nodded.

‘Do you think I should inform Bernie and Natasha Kelly about Emma’s murder?’ Lynch asked.

‘I forgot about them. Boyd and I will call later. I’m sure they know already, but no harm in a formal visit to wrap things up with them.’ Lottie paused then added, ‘I wonder what Lorcan Brady has to say for himself about it all.’

‘I’m sure our Dublin friend will tell us when he returns,’ Boyd said.

‘One other thing,’ Kirby said, flicking through McGlynn’s report. ‘Brady’s house.’

Lottie turned to look at him. ‘The blood in the kitchen is that of Marian Russell?’

‘Confirmed. But this has to do with the bags of rubbish out the back. They proved to hold vital evidence.’

‘Bloody clothes?’

‘Yes. They’ve been sent for DNA analysis.’

‘Let me know as soon as you know.’

‘That’s not all…’ Kirby hesitated. ‘In amongst the rubbish they also found Marian’s tongue.’