Carmel told me, “Trevor doesn’t mind giving the children their tea, not when it’s an emergency. He’s great that way.”

“Me and Kevin both had a look inside once we got here,” Jackie said. “We touched bits, I don’t remember what ones—”

“Got your fingerprint powder?” Shay inquired. He was slouching against the window frame and watching me, eyes half closed.

“Some other day, if you’re a good boy.” I found my surgical gloves in my jacket pocket and put them on. Da started to laugh, a deep, nasty rasp; it collapsed into a helpless coughing fit that shook his whole chair.

Shay’s screwdriver was on the floor beside the suitcase. I knelt down and used it to lift the lid. Two of the boys in the Tech Bureau owed me favors, and a couple of the lovely ladies fancied me; any of them would run a few tests for me on the QT, but they would appreciate me not fucking up the evidence any more than I had to.

The case was stuffed with a heavy tangle of fabric, stained black and half-shredded with mold and age. A dark, strong smell, like wet earth, came up off it. That undercurrent I’d caught in the air, when I first came in.

I lifted things out slowly, one by one, and stacked them in the lid where they wouldn’t get contaminated. One pair of baggy blue jeans, with plaid patches sewn under the rips in the knees. One green woolen pullover. One pair of blue jeans so tight they had zips at the ankles, and Jesus Almighty I knew them, the swing of Rosie’s hips in them punched me right in the gut. I kept moving and didn’t blink. One man’s collarless flannel shirt, fine blue stripes on what used to be cream. Six pairs of white cotton knickers. One long-tailed purple and blue paisley shirt, falling to pieces, and when I picked it up the birth cert fell out.

“There,” Jackie said. She was leaning over the arm of the sofa, peering anxiously at me. “See? Up until then, we thought it might’ve been nothing, I don’t know, kids messing or someone who’d robbed some gear and needed to hide it, or maybe some poor woman whose fella was hurting her and she was keeping her things ready for when she got the courage to leave him, you know how they tell you to do in the magazines?” She was starting to rev up again.

Rose Bernadette Daly, born 30 July 1966. The paper was on the verge of disintegrating. “Yep,” I said. “If that’s kids messing, they’re pretty thorough about it.”