‘No problem,’ said Fintan, gathering up some empties which I’d never seen him do before, ‘you two must have so much to talk about.’

The next round seemed to calm us all down as Eve and Fintan regaled me with every stage of their three-year joint operation to beat her murder rap.

As I learned more about their hilarious law-bending japes, I felt alternating twinges of resentment and confusion. Why had he kept this secret from me? How close had my brother got to the love of my life? Surely they hadn’t …?

As soon as she set off to the loo, finally, I launched into him.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were still in touch?’

‘She asked me not to. She wanted you to get on with your life.’

‘So you’ve been helping her, all along?’

‘She gave me so many stories. I owed her.’

‘Even after you came over here? There were no scoops in it for you then, Fintan. Why did you stay in touch? What was in it for you?’

‘Like I said, I felt like I owed her. And you know what she’s like. She wouldn’t stop calling. Look, she didn’t have a friend in the world, Donal. Her own family fucked off back to New York. Someone had to try and help her.’

‘Why do you always have to hold secrets over people? Is it the only way you can function?’

‘Look, she’s here now isn’t she? If you want to rekindle your relationship, then now’s your chance. She’s nothing to do with me. Go for it.’

I took that as a clear signal: Fintan had no hold over her.

She got back to our silent scowls: ‘Talking about me, were ye?’

I felt a jolt of rage. ‘You know something, Eve, we weren’t fucking talking about you actually, because we’ve all moved on. You’re not the centre of our universe anymore,’ I stopped myself from yelling.

The horrible truth was: we had been talking about her. I hadn’t moved on at all. My ego was even hoping she’d come to London to rekindle our relationship.

At some point later, I realised I was badly out of training for drinking, Irish-style. Everything became a blur, save for fragmentary moments of lucidity that seemed to last forever. Like when I got back from the loo at one point, to find Eve clearly agitated.

‘I was just telling Eve here about your gift,’ Fintan sniggered, ‘you get visited by the dead, isn’t that right, Donal?’

She looked at me, almost accusingly: ‘What’s all this about?’

She refused to let me laugh it off, so I found myself running her through my entire history with Marion Ryan: how she attacked me at home and in my car, before appearing to me twice near Sangora Road in broad daylight. She hung on every word, a rapt audience of one, while Fintan took the piss.

‘He tells me Meehan came to him too,’ he sneered.

The night stopped dead at the mere mention of his name. A sickening angst took root in my core.

‘Oh my God,’ Eve mouthed, her face blanching, ‘I feel sick.’ She got to her feet and dashed to the ladies. The next fragment: Eve murdering an Irish folk song: Fintan and I sneering at how so many Irish women think they’re Aretha Franklin after a skinful. Amid the aural bloodletting, I was struck by a verse:

So soon may I follow,

When friendships decay,

And from Love’s shining circle,

The gems drop away.

When true hearts lie withered,

And fond ones are flown.

Oh! Who would inhabit

This bleak world alone?

Fintan, self-styled music guru, told me it was an ancient ballad called ‘The Last Rose of Summer’.

Then Eve launched into ‘Summertime’, Fintan explaining how that song had been ripped off from an old Negro classic, ‘Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child’. As Eve demanded and got the attention of the entire bar, I wondered if her subconscious mind somehow knew this.

At some stage, one of those generic Irish country bands that specialises in sedating pissed immigrants spurted into life. They duly churned out the bog-standard repertoire of corny ditties and misery-milking ballads we’d all heard a thousand times before.

When lost love and the joys of hole-digging failed to rouse the rabble, they belted out a good old IRA song. I watched the crowd whooping and howling in delight, their pockets bulging with Sterling.

I bid the place ‘an Irish farewell’, slipping unnoticed out of a side door, leaving my homicidal ex in the sole care of my morally bankrupt brother. I couldn’t help thinking what a perfect couple they’d make.

Chapter 22

Clapham Police Station, South London

Monday, August 12, 1991: 10:00

Next morning, the incident room crackled. Teams yapped like excited hounds, the scent of prey tickling their impatient noses. Shep’s bold decision to get everyone pissed and onside Friday had been his first masterstroke. Judging by the atmosphere, the weekend’s four-pronged assault on Peter Ryan and Karen Foster had been his second.

At the centre of it, Shep darted about, desk-to-desk, like some deranged orchestra conductor. He’d bark a brief question, place his hands to his lips, prayer-like, then listen hard, head bowed, to the long and winding replies. Occasionally his hands would fall, he’d lean forward professorially and squint at whatever he was being shown on a computer screen or a map.

After an hour, he looked set to burst with excitement and called an impromptu briefing.

‘Now, I’d like each team to enlighten us about what they found out over the past two days. But please, give me the baby, not the birth.’

He pointed first to DC Young, the female officer who’d been so clearly unoffended by Peter Ryan’s flirting.

‘A couple of colleagues at the Pines revealed that Peter and Karen had been an item some years back, perhaps three or four years ago.’

‘Why did no one mention this before?’ asked Shep. ‘And why haven’t Peter or Karen mentioned it at all? If only to prove it’s over between them? Or that it was just a fleeting thing?’

‘Their colleagues said the same thing; it had been so brief and it was finished by the time he met Marion. In fact, they were under the impression that Karen had grown close to Marion. They talked about them going to the pub together, quite often.’

‘But one colleague has a different story to tell. Isn’t that right, DC Young?’

She failed to completely suppress a smile.

‘I spoke to Bethan Trott. She’s the nurse who watched TV with Karen and her sister Laura between five thirty and six p.m. on the day of Marion’s murder. When I asked her about the nature of Peter’s relationship with Karen, she became a little uncomfortable.

‘I pressed her and she finally started to open up. She told me that after Peter and Marion got married last June, they moved into a room in the staff accommodation quarters at the home which happened to be next door to hers. Around the same time, Karen asked Bethan for a spare key to her room so she could go there to watch TV when it was quiet. Bethan agreed. Bethan now claims that she returned to her room on several occasions to find her eavesdropping on Peter and Marion.

‘On one occasion, Karen had written a list of the presents Peter had bought Marion for her birthday and had added the words “sick, sick, sick” at the bottom of the page. When Bethan asked her why, she said something along the lines of “if only she knew what he was up to behind her back”. Bethan said she’d forgotten about this incident until a few days ago, when she found the piece of paper under her bed. Karen must have dropped it as she listened to them next door.’

Shep interjected: ‘I’ve got that piece of paper here, if anyone wants to see it. She’s scrawled the words “sick, sick, sick” in manic writing across the bottom.’ He nodded for WPC Young to continue.

‘On another occasion, Bethan found Karen in her room in tears. When she asked what was wrong, Karen said that Peter was taking Marion away for a weekend, adding words to the effect of “he won’t even spend the night with me”. When Bethan asked her what she meant by this, Karen clammed up. So Bethan decided to do some investigating of her own.’