‘Is it so horrible that I wanted to make sure you were okay?’ He shifted in his seat, then tried to laugh it off. ‘Doesn’t mean I don’t have questions.’

‘I think I’ll go first, if you don’t mind.’ We both knew I wasn’t asking. It was rare to see Marcelo Garcia, impervious to the pressures of court and law, on the back foot. He wanted to know what I knew, which meant that, immobile as I was, I held the power. That small pleasure helped mask the pain in my hand, which, as my body woke up, had started to throb again.

Marcelo gave a deep exhale. It whistled through his teeth. ‘What did Michael tell you?’

‘About Alan.’

Marcelo closed his eyes, held still for a beat, and then opened them. I knew that slow blink. It’s what people do when they wish they could rewind something just a few seconds. To not see their partner in bed with someone else. To not hear something they know is a lie. To not hear something they know is the truth. With their eyes closed, they rebuild the world unchanged, the way it was before. It’s the type of blink done over breakfast tables, that wishes letters unread.

‘So you know about the Sabres, then.’

‘A little. Less than you, I suppose, which I’d quite like to even out.’

‘It was more a collective than a gang. Your father didn’t even like the name, but they needed something to call themselves. They did burglaries, mainly, enough to be noticed by the law but not heavily pursued. Your dad was more of a nuisance than a criminal – he just did enough to get by. That was before it got, well, worse.’

I could see him reading me, trying to see how much I’d already been told by Michael, to see where he could cut corners, shave fractions off the truth. I’m terrible at poker, but I figured my firm-set grimace (my mangled hand was demanding attention; all I could do was grind my teeth in an effort to keep focus on Marcelo) could only be dissected as constipation or consternation.

He continued. ‘I met your father and his friends inadvertently. This was before I got into corporate law – I’d take anyone who came through my door. I was cheap and I was dogged, and I got a few robbery charges downgraded to trespassing, that kind of thing. And then I started getting more calls. I guess I was discreet, did right by someone who knew someone, and one recommendation led to another. I wasn’t the Sabres’ lawyer per se, and I never broke the law, but I was certainly someone a certain group of people found easy to call over certain matters. I’m not foolish enough to be completely blind to what was going on, but I needed the money. For Sofia.’

‘For Sofia,’ I repeated absent-mindedly.