‘I know, everything’s upside down. The way I see it, Michael obviously wants to talk to you. This who’s-his-lawyer crap won’t go any further than the next few hours, but if it helps us get Officer Crawford on our side, so he sees that we’re cooperating, we may as well play along.’ He could see I was wary. ‘Oh, don’t think I’m lying down. I’ll destroy him later, promise. There’ll be nothing left of him. But I know when to put ’em up and when to let ’em sit. And I think I’m benched for now. You should talk to Michael first, because that’s what Michael wants. We’re playing his game, not Crawford’s.’

I found myself wondering if mixing sports metaphors was a universal trait of stepfathers, or if it was just Marcelo.

‘But you’re the real lawyer. A good one, too. You got him a meagre three years on a murder charge – that’s a pretty good result. Why doesn’t he trust you anymore?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘Seems like he doesn’t trust anyone much. Maybe he’ll tell you why.’

‘When you meet a client for the first time, how do you know the difference between the heroes and the villains?’ I asked. ‘Like, I know you have to be unbiased, but you must think some people are lost causes, and others have some hope?’

‘That’s why I got into corporate law – I don’t have to worry about that. They’re all dirtbags.’

‘I’m being serious.’

‘I know, mate.’ He reached out and squeezed my shoulder. Marcelo always found an alternative word that danced around ‘son’ for me, as if he wasn’t entirely comfortable with it, even now. ‘Mate’ was one of the more serious, an upgrade from ‘buddy’. ‘You’re asking about your dad.’

‘Audrey said he was a bad person who thought he was a good one.’

Marcelo considered that for a second. ‘I couldn’t say.’

I got the feeling he could, but didn’t push it.

‘You were friends. What was he like? Were you close?’ I surprised myself by asking.

Marcelo scratched the back of his neck. He found the words slowly. ‘Yes. I knew him well.’ He made a show of checking his watch. It was not a topic he was comfortable with – I assume because he’d married his dead client’s wife. ‘I’d better catch up to your mother.’

I stopped him. ‘Can you do me a favour?’ He nodded. ‘You have researchers, paralegals, contacts in the police – all that stuff, right? Can you check out the victims of the Black Tongue? Lucy says they were a woman named Alison Humphreys and a couple named Mark and Janine Williams. Anything that might be useful.’

He paused. Probably hesitating at encouraging me along this path. ‘Who was the first one again – Williams and . . .?’

‘Alison Humphreys.’