“Bloody hell . . .” He tugged his jacket straight and slapped dust off it, hard. “Not funny, Frank. You scared the shit out of me.”

“Good. Kevin was not the suicidal type, Scorch. You’re going to have to trust me on this one. There’s no way he’d have taken himself out.”

“Fine. Then tell me this: who was out to get him?”

“Nobody that I know of, but that doesn’t mean anything. He could have had the entire Sicilian Mafia on his arse for all I know.”

Scorcher kept his mouth shut and let that speak for itself.

I said, “So we weren’t bosom buddies. I didn’t have to live in his pocket to know he was a healthy young guy, no mental illness, no love-life troubles, no money troubles, happy as Larry. And then one night, out of nowhere, he decides to wander into a derelict house and take a header out the window?”

“It happens.”

“Show me one piece of evidence that says it happened here. One.”

Scorch patted his hair back into place and sighed. “OK,” he said. “But I’m sharing this with you as a fellow cop, Frank. Not as a family member of the vic. You don’t breathe a word about it outside this room. Are you OK with that?”

“I’m just ducky,” I said. I already knew this was going to be bad.

Scorcher leaned over his poofy briefcase, fiddled around inside and came up holding a clear plastic evidence bag. “Don’t open it,” he said.

It was one small sheet of lined paper, yellowish and quartered by deep creases where it had spent a long time folded. It looked blank till I flipped it over and saw the faded ballpoint, and then before my brain worked out what was happening the handwriting came roaring up out of every dark corner and slammed into me like a runaway train.

Dear Mam and Dad and Nora,

By the time you read this I’ll be on my way to England with Francis. We’re going to get married, we’re going to get good jobs not in factories and we’re going to have a brilliant life together. The only thing I wish is that I wouldn’t have had to lie to you, every single day I wanted to look yous all in the eye and say I’m going to marry him but Dad I didn’t know what else to do. I knew you would go mental but Frank is NOT a waster and he is NOT going to hurt me. He makes me happy. This is the happiest day of my life.

“The lads at Documents will need to run some tests,” Scorcher said, “but I’d say we’ve both seen the other half of that before.”