I wanted to roar, send Richie flying and get my hands around Conor’s throat. Instead I stood there, with my hands hanging at my sides and my mouth open, gawking uselessly at the pair of them. After a moment I saw the evidence bag, crumpled in a corner, and bent to get it. The movement sent heartburn shooting up my throat, hot and corrosive.

Richie asked Conor, “You all right?”

Conor had his elbows braced on his knees and his hands clasped tight. “I’m fine.”

“Would you have a cup of tea? Coffee? Water?”

“I’m fine.”

“Good,” Richie said peacefully, taking the other chair and shifting himself comfortable. “I just want to make sure I’m clear on a few things. OK?”

“Whatever.”

“Deadly. Just to start with: how bad did Pat get, exactly?”

“He was depressed. He wasn’t going up the walls, but yeah, he was down. I said that.”

Richie scraped at something on the knee of his trousers, tilted his head to squint at it. He said, “Tell you something I’ve noticed. Every time we start talking about Pat, you’re straight in to tell us he wasn’t crazy. Did you notice that?”

“Because he wasn’t.”

Richie nodded, still inspecting his trousers. He said, “When you went in, Monday night. Was the computer on?”

Conor examined that from every angle before he answered. “No. Off.”

“It had a password. How’d you get past that?”

“Guessed. Once, back before Jack was born, I gave Pat shit about using ‘Emma’ for some password. He just laughed, said it’d be grand. I figured there was a decent chance any password since Jack came along would be ‘EmmaJack.’”

“Fair play to you. So you turned on the computer, wiped all the internet stuff. Why?”

“It was none of your business.”

“Is that where you’d found out about the animal, yeah? On the computer?”

Conor’s eyes, empty of everything except wariness, came up to meet Richie’s. Richie didn’t blink. He said steadily, “We’ve read the lot. We already know.”

Conor said, “I went in one day, a couple of months back. The computer was on. Some board full of hunters, all trying to figure out what was in Pat and Jenny’s gaff. I went through the browser history: more of the same.”

“Why didn’t you tell us to start with?”

“Didn’t want you getting the wrong idea.”

Richie said, “You mean you didn’t want us thinking Pat went mental and killed his family. Am I right?”

“Because he didn’t. I did.”

“Fair enough. But the stuff on the computer, that had to tell you Pat wasn’t in great shape. Didn’t it?”

Conor’s head moved. “It’s the internet. You can’t go by what people say on there.”

“Still, but. If that was one of my mates, I’d’ve been worried.”

“I was.”

“I figured that, all right. Ever see him crying?”

“Yeah. Twice.”

“Arguing with Jenny?”

“Yeah.”

“Giving her a slap?” Conor’s chin shot up angrily, but Richie had a hand raised, silencing him. “Hang on. I’m not just pulling this out of my arse. We’ve got evidence that says he was hitting her.”