‘It was a neighbour call. She was worried about some kind of domestic going on next door. Raised voices. Breaking glass. A woman in tears.’ He gestures up at the poster on the wall. ‘Naturally, we sent a car round.’

‘This was McFaul? And Christianne?’ My heart is sinking.

‘Yes. By the time we got there, it had quietened down.’

‘Was Christianne hurt?’

‘No.’ A sudden smile, the old Brett. ‘But he was. They’d had a set-to and she’d thrown a couple of glasses at him. The car was single-crewed. I talked to the bloke who attended only yesterday. He remembers the incident very well, perfect recall. He says McFaul had a nasty cut over one eye, quite a lot of blood. By the time he got there, they’d both calmed down and she was doing her best to stop the bleeding. He says the place was a tip, shit everywhere, terrible smell. He thought they might have been pikeys to begin with, but that wasn’t the case. Neither party wanted to make a statement and when he checked with your friend next door, she said she was mortified. She’d heard all the rumpus and assumed the worst but now she had nothing but regret. Big time. She wanted the incident buried. She asked us to wipe the record clean. Lovely neighbours, she told us. The best.’

I nod. Evelyn has never breathed a word about any of this, and listening to Brett I can understand why.

‘So, you get it now?’ I ask him. ‘The state of the place? How keen you’d be to clean up afterwards?’

‘Afterwards?’

‘After she’d gone.’

Brett tries to hide another smile, but I don’t let him.

‘What’s so funny?’ I enquire.

‘You really believe it, don’t you? This story of his?’

‘I do, yes. Have you got a better one?’

‘No, not yet, but my boss is someone you’d be wrong to underestimate.’

‘I’m not sure I’d dare.’

Brett laughs. He’s genuinely amused and for the first time I start to wonder about the ethics of attaching him to this enquiry. We are, in a way, good friends. After the night he nearly bled out in the pub, I visited him a couple of times in hospital, and met his partner, Shaz. I also told every senior policeman what a star he’d been, endorsements that had probably got back to him. The fact is that we owe each other. Doesn’t his presence behind this desk represent a conflict of interest? Or has he deliberately been assigned in the hope that I might mark his card, betray a confidence or two, stitch McFaul up?

‘This boss of yours,’ I say. ‘Tell me more.’