‘Hello, I’m Ciaran O’Neill and I am the landlord of The Two Birds pub in Manchester,’ he says and I suppress a giggle, imagining him as a contestant behind the sliding divide on Blind Date.

‘Thank you. Have you been the landlord for long?’

He shakes his head. ‘Not long, no. I bought this place… nearly two years ago,’ he answers, after some thought. ‘My wife and I have worked hard trying to change the image. It was a very much a pub for the ‘rough’ locals,’ he raises his hands to make invisible inverted commas, ‘but we didn’t want that. We worked hard to weed out the troublemakers and ban them. Now, it’s a safe place to come to.’

‘And you were the one who found the body?’ Liam asks.

He nods. ‘I was out for an early morning cigarette,’ he taps his lighter on the table. ‘I’ve been trying to give up but, you know… Anyway, I was strolling around the car park having a cigarette when I noticed the blood at the entrance to the alley. I was annoyed ‘cos we haven’t had a fight in months, so I went inside to get a brush and some bleach to wash it away, and when I actually went down there, I saw… the body.’

As he finishes speaking, the door springs open and a man waltzes in, his hood pulled tight around his face. He scans behind the bar for any sign of life before turning and surveying the room. When he spots Ciaran, he gives him a thumbs up, though when Ciaran informs him that he is otherwise engaged and who we are, his face falls. He makes his excuses and vacates the premises.

‘One of our regulars,’ explains the owner, ‘bit of a rascal.’

‘Talk us through last night.’ I say, trying to get back on track.

‘It was quite eventful actually. Like I say, we’ve been working hard to change the perception of the place as well as the clientele. Last night started quite quiet for a Friday night. At about nine, a gigantic man with an American accent walked in, and propped himself up on a stool at the bar. He seemed pissed off at something so I left him to it. Drank like a fish, though it didn’t seem to have much of an effect on him.’

I picture a stewing Jay walking into the pub after the event at the book shop. It was supposed to be a triumphant night, releasing details of his next big project, the conclusion of The Threat trilogy, but instead it had been ruined by two guests who came with the intent of causing upset.

‘After a while, as people tend to do with the lubrication of alcohol, he opened up a bit. He told me about a couple of assholes, his words,’ he adds with a cheeky smile, ‘who had annoyed him at some book thing he was at. I lent a sympathetic ear for a while but we started to get busy so I left him on his own. After a while, I noticed he was talking to someone and it was starting to get a bit heated. As I’ve said, we’ve worked hard to stop the fights and whatnot in here, so I wasn’t having any of it. I went over to the guy, told him to leave and he did. Didn’t put up much of a fight to be fair to him.’