I had no intention of moving anytime soon. I already knew I was taking the rest of the weekend off. One reason was Scorcher. He and his Murder mates were going to spend the next couple of days bouncing around Faithful Place like a pack of Jack Russells on speed, snuffling in corners and poking their noses into people’s delicate zones and generally pissing everyone off. I needed to make it clear to the Place that I was nothing to do with them.

The second reason was Scorch again, just from a different angle. He appeared to be a teensy bit wary where I was concerned, and keeping out of his hair for twenty-four hours would go a long way towards keeping him out of mine. When you look at someone you knew when you were young, you always see the person you first met, and Scorch was still seeing a hair-trigger kid who did things fast or not at all. It wouldn’t occur to him that, while he was getting better at wrangling his ego, I might have been getting better at patience. If you want to hunt like a good little panting puppy dog, shooting off on the trail the second you’re let off the leash, you work Murder. If you want Undercover, and I always did, you learn to hunt the way big cats do: set up your ambush, stay low to the ground and move closer by hidden inches, for as long as it takes.

The third reason was presumably fuming in Dalkey, in a full-on strop with me. Sometime very soon I needed to deal with both her and, God help us all, Olivia, but a man has his limits. I don’t get drunk, but after the day I’d had, I felt I had every right to spend the evening discovering just how paralytic I could get before I fell over. I caught the barman’s eye and said, “I’ll have another.”

The pub had emptied out, probably in response to Scorcher. The barman wiped glasses and examined me across the counter, taking his time. After a while he nodded towards the door. “Friend of yours?”

I said, “That’s not the word I’d use.”

“Haven’t seen you in before.”

“Probably not.”

“You anything to the Mackeys up on Faithful Place?”

The eyes. “Long story,” I said.

“Ah,” the barman said, like he understood everything there was to know about me, “we’ve all got one of those,” and he slid a glass under the tap with a neat flourish.