“Is there a rest of that sentence, old son?”

“Shit. I knew I’d seen him. No bleeding wonder he cared about them—”

“Richie.”

Richie rubbed his hands over his cheeks, caught a deep breath and blew it out again. “Remember last night, yeah, you asked Conor which one of the Spains did he hope had made it? And he said Emma? No bleeding wonder, man. He’s her godfather.”

The framed photo on Emma’s bookshelf: a featureless baby in white lace, Fiona all dressed up, a floppy-haired guy at her shoulder. I remembered him boyish, smiling; I couldn’t see his face. I said, “Are you sure?”

“I am, yeah. I’m sure. That picture in her room, remember? He was younger, he’s lost a load of weight since, got his hair cut short, but I swear to God, it’s him.”

The photo had gone to HQ, along with everything else identifying anyone who had known the Spains. “Let’s double-check,” I said. Richie was already pulling out his phone. We almost ran up the steps.

Inside five minutes, the floater on tip-line duty had dug out the picture, taken a photo of it on his phone and e-mailed it to Richie’s. It was small and starting to pixelate, and Conor looked happier and better rested than I could ever have pictured him, but it was him, all right: solid in his grown-up suit, holding Emma like she was made of crystal, with Fiona reaching across him to put a finger into one tiny hand.

“Fucking hell,” Richie said softly, staring down at the phone.

“Yeah,” I said. “That about sums it up.”

“No wonder he knew all about Pat and Jenny’s relationship.”

“Right. The little prick: he was sitting back laughing at us, the whole time.”

A corner of Richie’s mouth twitched. “Didn’t look like he was laughing to me.”

“He won’t be when he sees that picture, anyway. But he’s not going to see it till we’re good and ready. I want all our ducks in a row before we go anywhere near Conor again. You wanted a motive? I’d bet a lot of money that trail starts right here.”

“It could go back a long way.” Richie tapped the screen. “That there, that’s six years ago. If Conor and the Spains were best buds back then, they’d already known each other for a while. We’re talking college at least, probably school. The motive could be anywhere along the way. Something happens, everyone forgets all about it, then Conor’s life goes to shite and all of a sudden something from fifteen years ago feels like a huge big deal again …”

He was talking like he believed, at last, that Conor was our boy. I bent closer over the phone, to hide a smile. “Or it could be a lot more recent. Sometime in the last six years, the relationship went so far south that the only way Conor could see his goddaughter was through binoculars. I’d love to know what happened there.”