Richie’s hand slid out of mine too fast. He still had the grin, but there was something unsure in it. I said, “What?”

He nodded at the one-way glass. “Look at him.”

“He’ll write it up just fine. Don’t you worry about that. He’ll have second thoughts, of course he will, but they won’t kick in till tomorrow: emotional hangover. By then, we’ll have our file half ready to send to the DPP.”

“It’s not that. The state of that kitchen … You heard Larry: the struggle was full-on. Why isn’t he more beat up?”

“Because he isn’t. Because this is real life, and sometimes it doesn’t go exactly the way you’d expect it to.”

“I just …” The grin was gone. Richie was digging his hands into his pockets, staring at the glass. “I have to ask, man. You’re positive he’s our guy?”

The fizz started to fade out of my veins. I said, “That’s not the first time you’ve asked me that.”

“I know, yeah.”

“So let’s hear it. What’s got up your arse?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. You’ve been awful sure all along, is all.”

The anger shot through me like a muscle spasm. “Richie,” I said, very carefully keeping my voice under control. “Let’s review for a second, shall we? We’ve got the sniper’s nest that Conor Brennan set up to stalk the Spains. We’ve got his own admission that he broke into their house multiple times. And now, Richie, now we’ve got a fucking confession. Go ahead and tell me, old son: what the fuck else do you want? What the fuck would it take to make you sure?”

Richie was shaking his head. “We’ve got plenty. I’m not arguing there. But even back when we had nothing, only that hide, you were positive.”

“So what? I was right. Did you miss that part? You’re getting your knickers in a knot because I got there ahead of you?”

“Makes me nervous, being too sure too early. It’s dangerous.”

The jolt hit me again, hard enough to clench my jaw. “You’d rather keep an open mind. Is that it?”

“Yeah. I would.”

“Right. Good idea. For how long? Months? Years? Till God sends choirs of angels to sing you the guy’s name in four-part harmony? Do you want us to be standing here in ten years’ time, telling each other, ‘Well, it could be Conor Brennan, but then again, it could be the Russian Mafia, we might want to explore that possibility a little more thoroughly before we make any rash decisions’?”

“No. I’m only saying—”

“You have to get sure, Richie. You have to. There is no other option. Sooner or later, you shit or you get off the pot.”

“I know that. I’m not talking about any ten years.”

The heat was the kind you get in a cell in a bad August: thick, motionless, clogging your lungs like wet cement. “Then what the hell are you talking about? What’ll it take? In a few hours’ time, when we get our hands on Conor Brennan’s car, Larry and his boys are going to find the Spains’ blood all over it. Around the same time, they’re going to match his fingerprints to the prints they found all over that hide. And a few hours after that, assuming that please God we get hold of the runners and the gloves, they’re going to prove that that bloody shoeprint and those bloody handprints were made by Conor Brennan. I’d bet a month’s salary on it. Will that make you sure?”