He shook his head: clearing it or saying no, I couldn’t tell which. I get no say in the sentencing and not a lot in the charges, and any judge who would give out concurrent sentences on dead children needs a straitjacket and a punch in the gob, but none of that mattered. “That means three life sentences in a row, Conor, plus a few years on top for the attempted murder and the burglaries and the destruction of property and whatever else we can whip out. We’re talking about sixty years, minimum. How old are you, Conor? What are your odds of seeing a release date that’s sixty years away?”

“Ah, he might see it,” Richie objected, leaning in to examine him critically. “They look after you, in prison: don’t want you getting out early, even if it’s in a coffin. I’ve gotta warn you, man, the company’s gonna be shite—you won’t be let into the general population ’cause you’d last about two days, you’ll be in the secure unit with all the pedos, so the conversation’s gonna be pretty fucked-up—but at least you’ll have loads of time to make friends.”

That twitch of his eyebrows again: that had got through. “Or,” I said, “you could save yourself a lot of hell, right here. With concurrent sentences, do you know how many years we’re talking about? Around fifteen. That’s bugger-all. How old will you be in fifteen years?”

“My maths isn’t great,” Richie said, giving him another interested once-over, “but I’d say maybe forty-four, forty-five? And I don’t have to be Einstein to figure out there’s a massive difference between getting out at forty-five and getting out at ninety.”

“My partner the human calculator is spot on, Conor. Forty-whatever is still young enough to have a career, get married, have half a dozen kids. Have a life. I don’t know if you realize this, old son, but that’s what I’m putting on the table here: your life. But this is a one-time-only offer, and it expires in five minutes. If your life’s worth anything to you, son, anything at all, better start talking.”

Conor’s head fell back, exposing the long line of his throat, the soft spot at its base where the blood beats just below the skin. “My life,” he said, and his lip curled in something that could have been a snarl or a terrible smile. “Do whatever you want to me. I don’t give a damn.”

He planted his fists on the table, set his jaw and stared straight ahead, into the one-way glass.

I had fucked up. Ten years earlier I would have grabbed for him wildly, thinking I’d lost him, and ended up pushing him further away. Now I know, because I’ve fought hard to learn, how to let other things work with me; how to stay still, stay back, and let the job do its job. I eased back in my chair, examined an imaginary spot on my sleeve and left the silence to stretch while that last conversation dissipated out of the air, absorbed into the graffitied particleboard and the scored linoleum, gone. Our interview rooms have seen men and women pushed over the rims of their own minds, heard the thin dull crack of them breaking, watched while they spilled out things that should never be in the world. These rooms can soak up anything, close around it without leaving a trace behind.