Richie’s mouth was starting to set into a tough line, which was what I wanted to see. “I have control. Sir. Cooper got me off guard, is all.”

“Then don’t be off guard.”

He bit down on the inside of his cheek. “Yeah. Fair enough. It won’t happen again.”

“I didn’t think it would.” I gave him a quick clap on the shoulder. “Focus on the positive here, Richie. There’s a decent chance that this is the worst way you’ll ever spend a morning, and you’re still standing. And if it only takes you till your third week on the job to find out that you’re not Superboy, you’re a lucky man.”

“Maybe.”

“Believe me. You’ve got the rest of your career to bring yourself into line with your goals. That’s a gift, my friend. Don’t throw it away.”

The day’s worth of damage was starting to roll into the hospital: a guy in overalls pressing a blood-soaked cloth over his hand, a girl with a thin, strained face carrying a dazed-looking toddler. Cooper’s clock was ticking, but this needed to come from Richie, not from me.

He said, “Am I never going to live this down in the squad, no?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’m on it.”

He looked at me full face, for the first time since I’d got out there. “I don’t want you watching out for me. I’m not a kid. I can fight my own battles.”

I said, “You’re my partner. It’s my job to fight them with you.”

That took him by surprise. I watched something change in his face as it sank in. After a moment he nodded. He said, “Can I still … ? I mean, will Dr. Cooper let me back in?”

I checked my watch. “If we move fast, he will.”

“Right,” Richie said. He blew out a long breath, ran his hands over his hair and stood up. “Let’s go.”

“Good on you. And Richie?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t let this get to you. This is a blip. You’ve got everything it takes to be a Murder D.”

He nodded. “I’m going to give it my best shot, anyway. Thanks, Detective Kennedy. Thank you.” Then he tugged his tie straight and the two of us headed back into the hospital, side by side.

*

Richie made it through Jack’s post-mortem. It was a bad one: Cooper took his time, he made sure we got an eyeful of every detail, and if Richie had glanced away once he would have been toast. He didn’t. He watched steadily, not twitching, barely even blinking. Jack had been healthy, well-nourished, big for his age; active, judging by all the scabs on his knees and elbows. He had eaten cottage pie and fruit salad around the same time as Emma. Residue behind his ears said he had had a bath, wiggled too hard for the shampoo to be rinsed away properly. Then he had gone to bed, and deep in the night someone had killed him—presumably by suffocating him with a pillow, but this time there was no way to be sure. He had no defensive injuries, but Cooper made sure to point out that that meant nothing: he could have slipped over the line in his sleep, or he could have screamed his last seconds away into the pillow that stopped him fighting. Richie’s face had sunk in around the mouth and nose, like he had lost ten pounds since we walked into that morgue.