“That’s old enough for the hormones to be going bananas. And old enough to wangle his way into clubs where he shouldn’t have been going. One night Imelda was in Bruxelles, and Kevin came up to her and offered to buy her a drink. They got talking, and he asked her—begged her—to put in a good word for him with Rose. That cracked Imelda up, but Kevin looked genuinely hurt, so once she stopped laughing, she told him it wasn’t personal: Rose was taken. That was as far as she was planning to go, but Kevin kept pestering her about who the guy was, and he kept buying her more drink . . .”

Scorch was managing to keep his face grave, but he was having a great old time. Right under the surface, he was still that deodorant-drenched teenager pumping his fist and hissing Score! “In the end, she spilled the whole thing. She didn’t see any harm in it: she thought he was a lovely sweet kid, plus she figured he’d back off once he knew they were talking about his own brother, right? Wrong. He lost the plot: shouting, kicking walls, throwing glasses . . . The bouncers had to boot him out of the place.”

Which would have been several miles out of character—when Kev lost his temper, the worst he ever did was flounce off in a huff—but apart from that, it all hung together just gorgeously. I was getting more impressed with Imelda by the minute. She was well up on the barter system: she had known before she ever called Scorcher that if she wanted him to get the nasty man off her street, she would have to give him something he wanted in exchange. Probably she had rung around a few old friends, to find out exactly what that might be. The Murder boys had obviously made it clear, while they were doing their door-to-door, that they were interested in any link between Kevin and Rosie; the Place would have had no trouble filling in the blanks. I supposed I should consider myself lucky that Imelda had been sharp enough to do her research, rather than just flying off the handle and dumping me in the firing line.

“Jesus,” I said. I leaned my arms on the steering wheel and slumped forward, staring out through the windscreen at the traffic inching past the mouth of the laneway. “Sweet Jesus. And I never had a clue. When was this?”

Scorcher said, “A couple of weeks before Rose died. Imelda feels pretty guilty about the whole thing, now that she knows where it led. That’s what made her come forward. She’s going to give me an official statement as soon as we’re finished here.”

I just bet she was. “Well,” I said. “I guess that’s evidence, all right.”

“I’m sorry, Frank.”

“I know. Thanks.”

“I know this isn’t what you were hoping to hear—”