“And you think she’d want that splashed across the headlines? MURDERED CHILDREN’S MOTHER HAD AFFAIR WITH ACCUSED, COURT TOLD. You think she’s going to volunteer to be the media’s Whore of the Week?”

“Yeah, I do. You’re saying he killed her kids, man. No way would she cover for that.”

I said, “She might if she felt guilty enough. An affair would make it her fault Conor was in their lives, which would make it her fault he did what he did. A lot of people would have a pretty tough time getting their own heads around that, never mind telling it to the police. Never underestimate the power of guilt.”

Richie shook his head. “Even if you’re right about an affair, man, it doesn’t say Conor. It says Pat. He was already losing the plot—you said that yourself. Then he finds out his wife’s having it off with his old best mate, and he snaps. He takes Jenny out as punishment, takes the kids along so they won’t have to live without their parents, finishes off with himself because he’s got nothing left to live for. You saw what he said on that board: Her and those kids are everything I’ve got.”

A couple of med students who should have known better had brought their eye bags and stubble outside for a cigarette. I felt a sudden rush of impatience, so violent that it smashed the fatigue away, with everything around me: the pointless reek of their smoke, the tactful little dance steps of our interview with Jenny, the image of Dina tugging insistently at the corner of my mind, Richie and his stubborn, tangled mess of objections and hypotheticals. “Well,” I said. I stood up and dusted off my coat. “Let’s start by finding out whether I’m right about the affair, shall we?”

“Conor?”

“No,” I said. I wanted Conor so badly I could almost smell him, the sharp resiny tang of him, but this is where control comes in useful. “We’re saving him for later. I’m not going near Conor Brennan till I can go in with a full clip of ammo. We’re going to talk to the Gogans again. And this time I’ll do the talking.”

*

Ocean View looked worse every time. On Tuesday it had looked like a battered castaway waiting for its savior, like all it needed was some property developer with plenty of cash and plenty of get-up-and-go to stride in and kick it into all the bright shapes it was meant to be. Now it looked like the end of the world. I half-expected feral dogs to slink up around the car when I stopped, last survivors to come staggering and moaning out of skeleton houses. I thought of Pat jogging circles around waste ground, trying to run those scrabbling noises out of his mind; of Jenny listening to the wind whistle around her windows, reading pink-covered books to keep up her PMA and wondering where her happy ending had gone.