Not as green as he had looked on paper. No matter how badly the kid wanted to be in my good books, he was nobody’s bitch. Normally I would have approved of this, but right that minute I wasn’t in the mood for doing dainty footwork around his stubborn side. I lit up and blew smoke rings up into the smudgy yellow light of the lamp. “Stephen,” I said. “You need to think this through. I presume you’re worried about three aspects of this: the level of commitment involved, the ethics, and the potential consequences, not necessarily in that order. Am I right?”

“More or less, yeah.”

“Let’s start with the commitment. I won’t be asking you for in-depth daily reports on everything that goes on in that squad room. I’ll be asking you very specific questions that you’ll be able to answer with a minimum expenditure of time and effort. We’re talking two or three meetings a week, none of which need to last more than fifteen minutes if you’ve got something better to do, plus maybe another half hour’s worth of research before each meeting. Does that sound like something you could manage, just hypothetically speaking?”

After a moment Stephen nodded. “It’s not about having better things to do—”

“Good man. Next, possible consequences. Yes, Detective Kennedy would quite probably have the mother of all hissy fits if he found out you and I were talking, but there’s no reason why he should. It ought to be obvious to you that I’m very, very good at keeping my mouth shut. How about you?”

“I’m not a squealer.”

“I didn’t think so. In other words, the risk of Detective Kennedy catching you and sending you to the naughty corner is minimal. And, Stephen? Keep in mind that’s not the only possible consequence here. Plenty of other things could come out of this.”

I waited till he asked, “Like what?”

“When I said you had potential, I wasn’t just blowing smoke up your arse. Remember, this case won’t last forever, and as soon as it ends, you go back to the floater pool. Looking forward to that?”

He shrugged. “It’s the only way onto a squad. It needs doing.”

“Following up on stolen cars and broken windows, and waiting for someone like Scorcher Kennedy to whistle for you so you can fetch his sandwiches for a few weeks. Sure, it needs doing, but some people do it for a year and some people do it for twenty. Given the choice, when would you, personally, want to get out of there for good?”

“The sooner the better. Obviously.”