He sat back and folded his arms.

‘How do you know “for a fact” he’s not a psychopath?’ Carmella asked.

Hammond looked at her. ‘Because the management company had them all tested.’

‘Tested?’

‘Yes. The whole band underwent extensive psychometric testing and assessment by a psychologist before being allowed through to the final stages of Face the Music.’ That was the talent show on which the band had been put together. ‘They are all normal, healthy, young heterosexual men with conventional tastes in the bedroom. They are ambitious but lack aggression. In other words, they failed the psychopath test with flying colours.’

Patrick sat up straight. This interview was threatening to skid out of control. ‘Mr Hammond, regardless of that, we need to take this information seriously. I want to talk to this young woman.’

‘And what makes you think I can help you?’

‘Because our source told us that you helped cover it up.’

Hammond stood, snatching up his half-empty packet of nuts. ‘I’m exercising my right to leave of my own free will.’

‘Please sit down, Mr Hammond.’

‘Why should I?’

‘Because I’m sure you don’t want anyone to know that you allegedly covered this up. It won’t help Shawn Barrett’s reputation, and it certainly won’t help yours.’

Hammond dropped into his seat, his lip curling. ‘No-one in the press will print anything negative about me.’

‘Who said anything about the press? There’s this thing now called the Internet. You might have heard of it.’

Hammond’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. ‘So . . . you’re threatening me?’

‘We are merely asking for your cooperation.’

Hammond took several deep breaths, then tipped a handful of nuts into his palm, inserting them into his mouth one by one and chewing thoughtfully. ‘You think Shawn Barrett’s a murderer.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Come on, Detective. If you want me to be straight with you, I need to ask for some quid pro quo here. Two days ago you were at Gideon Records’ office, asking about OnTarget in relation to those two dead girls. And now you’re asking me about this. It isn’t a coincidence. You think that because Shawn allegedly engaged in some light bondage on tour it makes him a killer.’ He shook his head. ‘So unimaginative, you plods.’

Patrick clenched his fists.

‘OK, so maybe Shawn did get a little carried away. But he didn’t know that girl was underage, and he didn’t do anything she didn’t want to do. It was all consensual.’

‘He hurt her, Mr Hammond.’

‘That’s what S&M is all about, isn’t it? Pleasure and pain. Except this girl says yes, gives her consent, and then when it actually hurts she’s all boo hoo hoo, I want my mummy, you hurt me, you brute.’

Patrick sighed. ‘I don’t want to get into a big debate about this. But I need the contact details of this young woman.’

‘You’re wasting your time. Detective Lennon, you’re going down the wrong avenue, I assure you. If you want to catch whoever murdered those OnTarget fans, you should stop messing about pursuing Shawn Barrett. The person who murdered those girls has to be a psychopath – and, like I said, Shawn Barrett can’t be one of those.’

‘Just give us the details.’

‘Or you’ll leak?’

Patrick didn’t respond. He reached across the desk, took one of Hammond’s nuts from the bag and put it in his mouth, maintaining eye contact throughout.

Hammond stood up. ‘I will need to look up the details at my office and get back to you. I guarantee you won’t find anything worthwhile.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘I’ll send the details over later.’ He gave Patrick a final sneer. ‘If this does leak, if I find my name on a website related to this story, you might just regret it. Your wife is back home now, isn’t she? That would make an interesting story. Baby-Battering Wife on the Loose . . .’ He wiggled his fingers into speech marks.

Patrick leapt to his feet and grabbed hold of the front of Hammond’s jacket. ‘If one word is published about my wife . . .’

Hammond pulled away, dusting himself off.

‘Then we have an understanding,’ he said. ‘Nothing appears about me, nothing appears about your wife.’ He stood before the door. ‘I’ll send that information over later.’

Chapter 24

Day 8 – Carmella

As the plane climbed above the bank of thick cloud, the seatbelt sign light went out with a ping, and an answering echo of unclicking buckles rattled around the cabin. Carmella switched on her iPad and swiped to the Notes section to double-check where she’d be going once she landed. The witness was called Roisin McGreevy and she lived in the roughest part of Tallaght, an already-rough area in South Dublin that used to be known as Knackeragua among Carmella and her school friends. Land of ‘knacker-wash’ denim – their name for stone-washed – blond mullets and petty crime. Carmella hadn’t been there for years, but by all accounts it was still fairly grim.

The flight was bumpy, as it so often was across the Irish Sea, but they landed without too much drama, and Carmella made good time through customs. She was striding out of arrivals towards the bus stop twenty minutes ahead of her planned ETA, taking a bus into the centre of town, and then another one out to Tallaght, arriving at her destination by half past eleven.

Roisin McGreevy was just sixteen now. She’d been fourteen when the ‘incident’ with Shawn Barrett occurred, according to Mervyn Hammond’s reluctant intel. Since it was before noon, the girl would likely still be in bed – if she was anything like Carmella herself had been as a teenager – assuming she didn’t have a Saturday job. Carmella hadn’t seen a photo of her but realised she was imagining her as a hard-faced skanger with piercings and dyed hair; the sort of girl who would jump into bed with a pop star without a second’s hesitation for the glory of it, and who probably thought all her Christmases had come at once when said pop star was as good-looking and famous as Shawn Barrett . . .

When Carmella walked into the small cul-de-sac, situated in the roaring shadow of a flyover, she thought her fears about Roisin would probably be realised. Cars on bricks decorated several of the driveways; others exposed decaying crazy paving and rusty pushchair skeletons. Carmella adjusted the skirt waistband of her navy suit, feeling self-conscious and over-dressed, as several grubby kids playing on scooters and skateboards in the circle of road at the end of the cul-de-sac gawped at her. One pointed and laughed.

‘Lookit the mad hair on yer one!’ This set them all off, roaring and jeering. Carmella felt affronted. Her hair was tied up! If they thought her ponytail was ‘mad’, they should see it when it was loose and brushed out.

None of the houses seemed to have numbers on them.

‘You,’ she said, pointing at one of the kids. ‘Where’s number twenty-one?’

He gaped at her as though she’d asked him for a snog. One of his mates replied by jerking his thumb towards the neatest house in the street. It had the only square of lawn in sight, a lawn that looked as though someone had mowed it recently.

When she rang the bell, a short, stocky woman answered immediately. The woman wasn’t much older than herself, but she had the sort of perm Carmella hadn’t seen for years, at least not on anybody under the age of eighty – regimented rolls of tight, short curls all facing the same direction.

‘Good morning,’ Carmella said, just about managing not to greet her with the habitual ‘howya’. ‘Mrs McGreevy?’

The woman nodded, frowning. She was wearing some kind of nylon housecoat that, with the perm, made Carmella wonder if she’d fallen into some kind of seventies time slip black hole.