‘Stepdad,’ I snapped, aware that it made me sound like a teenager. Marcelo, despite trying to get me on his side, must have told him I wasn’t qualified in the hopes of supplanting me. If I was right about Michael wanting to keep people out of a locked room, it didn’t escape me that Marcelo was trying awfully hard to get into it. ‘I’m doing my best. I didn’t pick me.’

‘There are kids staying here. I can’t risk the photo getting out. You understand?’

I nodded, decided on a compromise. ‘I may not be a lawyer, but you know you can’t keep him in there. Just because he’s cooperating doesn’t mean he doesn’t have rights.’ I raised my hands in what I hoped was endearing uselessness. ‘And, look, I don’t really know what those rights are supposed to be, but I know it’s not this.’ I pointed at the heavy wooden door, slightly warped from moisture, which had a white plastic sign with a cartoon pair of boots on it.

‘He said he was okay with it.’

‘That’s not really my point,’ I said. ‘If your suspicion of him is predicated on his being released from jail earlier than he admitted to, well, Erin’s alibi is also tied to his whereabouts, and I don’t see her locked up.’

‘Are you calling me sexist?’

‘I’m calling you blind.’

‘Well, she’s not a Cunningham, is she?’

‘I see. I’m glad we’re clear.’ Names, it seemed, were important to Crawford too. ‘Now I’m calling you incompetent. Let me in so I can keep pretending to be a lawyer and you can keep pretending to be a detective.’

‘You really care about him, don’t you? Even though you testified.’ Crawford cocked his head slightly. I bit my tongue, but I was annoyed he knew so much more about me than he had that morning. Damn Marcelo. The lock on the door was a single slide bolt, no padlock. Crawford flicked it loose with a fingertip – high security – but stepped away from it, inviting me to open it. ‘I didn’t really have brothers growing up, so I can’t say I understand it. That’s family, I guess.’

‘If I can confirm where he was last night, and that it wasn’t here, you have to let him go – or at least move him to an actual room. Okay?’ I meant it, but it also sounded semi-lawyerly and I wanted to have the last word.

Crawford gave a hesitant, nearly imperceptible, dip of the chin.

I thought of one last thing. ‘Oh, and, um, don’t talk to him again without me present. Or whatever lawyers usually say.’

I pushed open the door.