‘I told you to keep out of it, Di,’ he snarled.

‘It’s better for everyone if I just go,’ said Niall.

‘Yes, it is,’ added Maureen.

‘I don’t want to cause any problems for you all. I’m on the run. If I’m caught on your property, you could face a spell in prison yourself.’

Quinn was perplexed. Common sense told him to let his nephew go but family loyalty had a bigger pull. He was ready to take the risk of keeping Niall there.

‘It’s why you came to us, isn’t it?’ he asked, clapping his nephew on the shoulder. ‘You knew that you could rely on us.’

‘Niall only came to get something,’ said Maureen. ‘He hid a gun here.’

Diane gasped. ‘A gun!’

‘They’re after me,’ said Niall. ‘I need to defend myself. It was hidden under the floor in the garden shed. I nailed the wood back down again.’

‘This changes everything, Eamonn,’ said his wife. ‘He can’t stay here with a gun. Think of the consequences.’

‘Calm down,’ ordered Quinn. ‘Flying into a panic will get us nowhere.’

‘Get him out of here, that’s all I ask.’

‘P’raps it would be all for the best,’ said Niall.

He stiffened as he heard a car draw to a halt outside the house. His hand went instinctively to the gun. Maureen drew back the curtain to peep out.

‘It’s Inspector Marmion and the sergeant,’ she said.

Quinn took charge. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Get upstairs, Niall. You can go into Maureen’s room. The detectives are not here about you. They’re only interested in the explosion in that pub.’ Niall scampered off upstairs. Quinn turned to his wife and daughter. ‘You stay in here. I’ll get rid of them.’

Shutting them into the living room, he went to the front door. As soon as he heard a knock, he flung it open and blocked the doorway with arms folded.

‘Can’t you give us a moment of peace?’ he demanded.

‘We’d like to speak to Maureen, please,’ said Marmion. ‘And before you tell me that she’s gone to bed, I should warn you that we saw her clearly when she pulled back the curtain just now.’

‘You can’t talk to her.’

‘You can’t stop us, Mr Quinn.’

‘What are you going to do?’ challenged the Irishman.

‘Well, if you continue to refuse us entry, I’ll ask Sergeant Keedy to arrest you on a charge of obstructing police officers in the execution of their duty. That will mean a night in custody for you and an appearance in court.’ Marmion gave him a meaningful stare. ‘Do you really want that to happen?’

Quinn took a full minute to size up the situation. He then gave in.

‘You can talk to her for five minutes but one of us must be present.’

‘I won’t have a time limit set on it,’ said Marmion, ‘but I’m happy for a parent to be present. Given the subject, I suggest that it’s Mrs Quinn.’

After further protest, Quinn moved away to let them into the house. The detectives went into the living room and exchanged greetings with Maureen and Diane. Both of them looked distinctly uncomfortable. Quinn lurked outside the closed door to eavesdrop on what was being said. When the four of them had sat down, Marmion explained that they’d come to ask questions on a delicate subject that might have a bearing on the case. Maureen seemed to relax when told that she’d be asked about Florrie Duncan. Her mother, however, glanced uneasily towards the door.

‘You travelled to and from work with Agnes Collier,’ began Marmion.

‘That’s right, Inspector.’

‘Did she talk a lot?’

‘Agnes never stopped talking.’

‘Did she ever say anything about Florrie Duncan?’

‘Of course,’ replied Maureen. ‘She was our friend.’

‘I’m wondering if she mentioned her suspicion to you,’ said Marmion. ‘You see, the sergeant had a conversation with Mrs Radcliffe.’

‘I did,’ said Keedy, taking his cue, ‘and she told me what her daughter had told her. Agnes had the feeling that Florrie might be pregnant.’

‘Never!’ protested Diane, horrified at the idea.

‘Did Agnes say anything about it to you, Maureen?’

‘It can’t be true. Florrie was such a sensible woman.’

‘Let your daughter answer, Mrs Quinn.’

All three of them turned their gaze on Maureen. She wilted slightly.

‘It’s not a difficult question,’ said Keedy.

‘If she’d told her mother,’ reasoned Marmion, ‘we felt certain that Agnes would have told you as well. Did she?’

‘Yes,’ admitted Maureen, shyly.

‘What did she say?’

‘Agnes saw her being sick one morning and … there were other things.’

‘This is quite unseemly, Inspector,’ said Diane, hotly. ‘My daughter shouldn’t have to talk about it.’

‘There are only two things we wished to know, Mrs Quinn. Maureen has already told us the first of them. The second follows from the first.’ He looked back at Maureen. ‘Did Agnes know the name of the man involved?’

‘No, she didn’t,’ said Maureen.

‘Did he work at the factory?’

‘I can’t say. Agnes only saw them together once.’

‘How did she describe him?’

Before Maureen could answer, her sister interrupted her. Running to the top of the stairs, Lily yelled out to her father.

‘Come quickly, Daddy. Niall is climbing out of the window!’

Niall Quinn was tired of waiting. As long as detectives were in the house, he was in danger. Moreover, he was putting his relations in a difficult situation and it was unfair on them. His paramount concern was to get away and he’d hoped to do that as quietly as possible. All that he’d come back for was the gun. It was a vital asset to someone being hunted. As well as giving him reassurance and a means of defending himself, it enabled him to get the money he needed. Theft was a much easier crime when you could poke a gun at somebody. They handed over their cash instantly. That’s why he made the effort to come all the way back to Middlesex. The gun was his passport out of the country and back to Ireland.

He barely heard Lily’s shout inside the house. He was too busy dropping from the window ledge. Landing awkwardly, he twisted his ankle and had to rub it before hobbling off towards the fence at the bottom of the garden.

Marmion and Keedy had reacted like lightning. Flinging open the door, they’d pushed Quinn aside and hared up the stairs. They went into the back room and saw the window wide open and the curtains flapping. Though they only caught a fleeting glimpse of the fugitive, they learnt an important fact. He was limping. That would slow him down. Keedy didn’t stand on ceremony. Climbing through the window, he clung onto the ledge then dropped down. He then followed the same route as Niall Quinn, hauling himself over the wooden fence and finding himself in a narrow lane. Unsure which way to run, he turned to the right and sprinted off.

The inspector, meanwhile, descended the stairs to face Eamonn Quinn.

‘You’ve got a lot to answer for, sir.’ he warned.

‘He wasn’t here to stay,’ insisted Quinn.

‘You obviously didn’t learn your lesson.’

‘We didn’t ask him to come back, Inspector. I swear it.’

‘But you went to visit him in Frongoch.’

‘That was my sister’s idea. She wrote from Dublin and begged me to see how he was getting on. Niall has always been a bit wild.’

Diane and Maureen joined the two men from the living room. Conscious that she may have done the wrong thing, Lily threw herself into her mother’s arms.

‘My husband is telling the truth,’ said Diane. ‘Eamonn didn’t even know that he was here until I went to the pub to tell him. Niall turned up out of nowhere. It was Maureen who saw him first.’

‘I heard a noise in the garden,’ explained Maureen. ‘When I went to see what had caused it, Niall jumped out on me. He said that he hadn’t meant us to know that he’d come and gone. He was only here to collect something.’

‘What was it?’ asked Marmion.

‘He hid it in the shed the last time he was here.’

‘Was it more equipment to make bombs?’