Richie hovered, looking fifteen. “You sure? Coffee?”

Another head-shake.

“Grand. You’ll let me know if you need more of this, yeah?”

The guy nodded and reached for the water. The chair rocked under his weight. “Ah, hang on,” Richie said. “He’s after giving you the dud chair.” Quick surreptitious glance at the door, like I might be behind it. “Go on: swap over. Have this one.”

Our man shuffled awkwardly across. Probably it made no difference—all the chairs in the interview rooms are chosen to be uncomfortable—but he said, so low I barely heard him, “Thanks.”

“No problem. Detective Richie Curran.” He held out a hand.

Our man didn’t take it. He said, “Do I have to tell you my name?” His voice was low and even, good to listen to, with a slight rough edge like it hadn’t got much use lately. The accent gave me nothing; he could have been from anywhere.

Richie looked surprised. “Do you not want to? Why not?”

After a moment he said, to himself, “… make any difference …” To Richie, with a mechanical handshake: “Conor.”

“Conor what?”

A fraction of a second. “Doyle.” It wasn’t, but that didn’t matter. Come morning we would find either his house or his car, or both, and strip them to the bones looking for, among other things, his ID. All we needed for now was something to call him.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Doyle. Detective Kennedy’ll be here in a while, then yous can get started.” Richie balanced the edge of his arse on a corner of the table. “I’ll tell you now, I’m only delighted you showed up. I was dying to get out of there, I was. I know people pay good money to go camping up by the sea and all, but the countryside isn’t my style, know what I mean?”

Conor shrugged, a small, jerky movement. “It’s peaceful.”

“I’m not mad about peaceful. City boy, me; give me the noise and the traffic any day. And I was freezing my bollix off, as well. Are you from up there, are you?”

Conor glanced up sharply, but Richie was slugging at his water and watching the door, just making small talk while he waited for me. Conor said, “No one’s from Brianstown. They just move there.”

“That’s what I meant: are you living there, yeah? Jaysus, you couldn’t pay me enough.”

He waited, all mild innocuous curiosity, till Conor said, “No. Dublin.”

Not local. Richie had knocked out one angle and saved us a lot of hassle right there. He raised his cup in a cheerful toast. “Up the Dubs. No better place. And wild horses couldn’t drag us away, amn’t I right?”

Another shrug. “I’d live down the country. Depending.”

Richie hooked an ankle around a spare chair and pulled it over for his feet, getting comfortable for an interesting chat. “Would you, seriously? Depending on what?”

Conor wiped a palm up his jaw, hard, trying to pull it together: Richie was nudging him off balance, poking little holes in his concentration. “Dunno. If you had a family. Space for the kids to play.”