The cynical glance I got off Shay told me he wasn’t falling for it, but the girls were all big eyes and bitten lips and sympathy. Carmel fished out a hanky and put away the rest of her cry for later, now that a man needed attention. “Ah, Francis,” Jackie said, reaching up to pat my knee. “How were you to know?”

“That’s not the point. The point is, first I missed twenty-two years of him, and then I missed the last few hours anyone’s ever going to get. I just wish . . .”

I shook my head, fumbled for another smoke and took a few tries to light it. “Never mind,” I said, once I had taken a couple of hard drags to get my voice under control. “Come on: talk to me. Tell me about that evening. What’d I miss?”

Shay let out a snort, which got him matching glares from the girls. “Hang on till I think a minute,” Jackie said. “It was just an evening, you know what I mean? Nothing special. Am I right, Carmel?”

The two of them gazed at each other, thinking hard. Carmel blew her nose. She said, “I thought Kevin was a bit out of sorts. Did yous not?”

Shay shook his head in disgust and turned his shoulder to them, distancing himself from the whole thing. Jackie said, “He looked grand to me. Himself and Gav were out here playing football with the kids.”

“But he was smoking. After the dinner. Kevin doesn’t smoke unless he’s up to ninety, so he doesn’t.”

And there we were. Privacy for tête-à-têtes was in short supply around Ma’s (Kevin Mackey, what are the two of yous whispering about there, if it’s that interesting then we all want to hear it . . .). If Kevin had needed a word with Shay—and the poor thick bastard would have gone chasing after exactly that, once I blew him off; nothing more cunning would ever have entered his head—he would have followed him out to the steps for a smoke.

Kev would have made a bollix of it, messing about with his cigarette, fumbling and stammering over bringing out the jagged bits and pieces that were slicing into his mind. All that awkwardness would have given Shay plenty of time to recover and laugh out loud: Holy Jaysus, man, are you seriously after convincing yourself I killed Rosie Daly? You’ve it all arseways. If you want to know what really happened . . . Quick glance up at the window, stubbing out a smoke on the steps. Not now, but; no time. Will we meet up later, yeah? Come back, after you leave. You can’t call round to my gaff or Ma’ll want to know what we’re at, and the pubs’ll be closed by then, but I’ll meet you in Number Sixteen. It won’t take long, sure.