Slowly, as I got close, their eyes focused on me, but without a flicker of recognition. They looked like they’d never seen me before. I said, “Jackie. What happened?”

Da said, “You came back. That’s what happened.”

Jackie grabbed the front of my jacket in a vice grip and pressed her face, hard, against my arm. I fought down the urge to shove her off me. “Jackie, pet,” I said gently, “I need you to keep it together for me just a little longer. Talk to me.”

She had started to shake. “Oh, Francis,” she said, in a tiny amazed voice. “Oh, Francis. How . . . ?”

“I know, pet. Where is he?”

Ma said grimly, “He’s out the back of Number Sixteen. In the garden. Out in that rain, all morning.” She was leaning heavily on the railing and her voice sounded thick and pinched, like she had been sobbing for hours, but her eyes were sharp and dry.

“Do we have any idea what happened?”

Nobody said anything. Ma’s mouth worked.

“OK,” I said. “But we’re a hundred percent positive it’s Kevin?”

“Yeah, we are, you fecking simpleton,” Ma snapped. She looked like she was seconds from hitting me across the face. “D’you think I can’t recognize my own child that I carried? Are you gooky in the head, are you?”

I thought about pushing her down the steps. “Right,” I said. “Well done. Is Carmel on her way?”

“Carmel’s coming,” Jackie said. “And Shay’s coming. He just has to, he has to, he has to . . .”

Her words dried up. Da said, “He’s waiting for the boss to come mind the shop.” He dropped his cigarette butt over the railing and watched it fizzle out by the basement window.

“Good,” I said. There was no way I was leaving Jackie on her own with these two, but she and Carmel could look after each other. “There’s no reason for you to wait out here in the cold. Get inside, get something hot into you, and I’ll go see what I can find out.”

No one moved. I pried Jackie’s fingers off my jacket, as gently as I could, and left the three of them there. Dozens of unblinking pairs of eyes followed me back up the road to Number 16.

The big guy at the tape took one look at my ID and said, “Detective Kennedy’s out the back. Straight down the stairs and out the door.” He had been warned to expect me.