One thing in particular was slapped straight across the front of my mind: Kevin hadn’t had a torch on him. If he had, Scorcher would have mentioned it, to back up his little suicide theory. And Kevin never did dangerous shit unless he had a damn good reason; he left the because-it’s-there stuff to me and Shay. There wasn’t enough tinned Guinness in all of Dublin to make him think it would be fun to go wandering around Number 16 on his own, in pitch-darkness, just for kicks and giggles. Either he had seen or heard something, on his way past, that made him think he had no choice except to go and investigate—something too urgent to let him go get backup, but discreet enough that no one else on the road had noticed a thing—or someone had called him in there, someone who had magically known that he would be passing the top of Faithful Place right about then; or he had been bullshitting Jackie. He had been heading to that house all along, to meet someone who would come prepared.

It was dark and I had built up a nice little pile of cigarette butts by my feet before, sure enough, at five on the dot Scorcher and his sidekick came out of that door and headed for the car park. Scorcher had his head up and a spring in his step, and he was swinging his briefcase and telling some story that made the ferret-faced kid laugh dutifully. Almost before they were gone, out came my boy Stephen, trying to wrangle a mobile and a knapsack and a bicycle helmet and a long scarf. He was taller than I had expected, and his voice was deeper, with a rough edge that made him sound younger than he was. He was wearing a gray overcoat that was very good quality and very, very new: he had blown his savings to make sure he would fit in with the Murder boys.

The nice thing was that I had a free hand here. Stephen might have his doubts about getting chatty with a victim’s brother, but I was willing to bet that he hadn’t actually been warned off me; Cooper was one thing, but Scorch would never in a million years have told an itty-bitty floater that he was feeling threatened by little old me. Scorcher’s overdeveloped sense of hierarchy was, in fact, about to come in useful all round. In his personal world, uniforms are scut-monkeys, floaters are droids, only squad detectives and up get any respect. That attitude is always a very bad idea, not only because of how much you might be wasting, but because of how many weak spots you’re creating for yourself. Like I said before, I’ve always had a lovely eye for a weak spot.