“What do you make of that bit-‘in a humour of great despair and fear’? Melodrama. It’s like an expression out of a book.”

Minogue, irritated with Kilmartin’s remark, said nothing.

“Or sounds like words someone else would use — barrister defending her, don’t you think? ‘My client was in a humour of great-’ ”

“Come on, Jimmy. Let’s not be picking holes in things.” Minogue cut him short.

“ ‘And I lay awake for many hours that night as had been my affliction these many months, waiting for the first light of day’-aw Jases, Matt, this is nearly too much. It’s like a romance book or some class of a thing. ‘The first light of day.’ ”

“What are you getting at?”

“I’m saying that it’s a mighty peculiar way of saying things, mighty peculiar entirely for a first statement… It’s like she practised it in her mind before saying it, preparing a defence. You know what that is, Matt, don’t you?”

“It’s florid prose.”

“It means she had her mind made up a long time ago. That’s how her account comes out so put-together.”

“Like she had her speech from the dock prepared well in advance.”

“Yep. She had everything planned. That’s premeditated murder, if the State has the nerve to so prosecute Mrs. Ryan.”

Minogue did not want to argue the toss with Jimmy Kilmartin. Mrs. Ryan was being held for the murder of one Francis Xavier Ryan, her husband of ten years and the father of their five children. Mr. Ryan had farmed seventy-odd acres of good land (in fact his wife had done most of the work) near the village of Newtown in the Glen of Aherlow. Ryan, named after a favourite saint of Irish Catholics, had been twelve years her senior. He farmed poorly, drank most of the money which came into the house, and was jealous of their oldest child, frequently berating him and knocking him about for neglecting chores on the farm. Fran, as he was known locally, had been beating his wife regularly and methodically within months of their marrying.