Pharaoh squeezes his hand. ‘You blew a serial killer’s head off with a distress rocket, Hector. How are you?’

‘I feel like my insides are eating themselves,’ he says, scratching at his chest. ‘I feel like there will be some kind of comeback for all this. There has to be! But everybody seems happy. Christ, even Papa Teague is back on the halting site, buddying back up with the Heldens. He’s the toast of the site. Sent us presents, if you can believe that. A locket for Roisin, toys for the kids. He even sent me a sovereign ring. He kept a man underground, Trish. Turned him into something repulsive …’

‘He was repulsive to begin with,’ says Pharaoh, and means it.

‘But I did so much wrong,’ he whispers. ‘Fin, Lilah, the people I love …’

‘Are all OK,’ says Pharaoh, softly. She sighs, clearly keen to open the window and treat herself to a cigarette. ‘Look, sometimes we get to put the cuffs on the right people and make sure they see the inside of a prison for a few years. Sometimes we don’t. There’s no real justice because nobody ever really knows what that means. For some it’s more about revenge upon the monster who brought them pain.’

‘Six already,’ says McAvoy, rubbing his face. He looks tired. Isn’t sleeping. Keeps waking at three a.m. expecting to find his wife at the window, staring off into space. Instead he finds her asleep beside him, her head on his chest, hands clasped as if in prayer and a look of true serenity on her face. It unnerves him.

‘Six?’

‘Psychics. Clairvoyants. Palmists. Spread them out. Didn’t always display them the same way. Didn’t always leave the crystal. Doctor says he’d been on and off his medication – starting from when his wife got sick.’

‘It was grief that drove him to start, you think?’ asks Pharaoh.

‘No,’ says McAvoy. ‘No, I think he liked killing and found a way to make it seem grandiose. Gave meaning to his impulses. First wife says he was violent when he’d been drinking. Former business partner remembers him smashing up the office when a deal didn’t go his way. Ex neighbour believes right down to his bones that it was Brimley who killed his dog …’

‘It was all there, then,’ says Pharaoh. ‘From the start. Right back to Eva-Jayne. If it had been done right …’

‘If I hadn’t gone tearing in, you mean,’ says McAvoy, looking down at the floor. ‘I feel like all this is my fault.’

‘You always bloody do,’ says Pharaoh, smiling.

They sit in silence for a moment. Pharaoh lets go of his hand. Grabs a grape and rolls it between her fingers. ‘I’ve lost six pounds, apparently.’

‘Sorry?’

‘While in hospital. I’ve lost six pounds.’

‘Oh,’ says McAvoy, giving her a quick glance. ‘Was that in hair?’

‘You will pay for that,’ says Pharaoh with a grin, then stops, realizing she is displaying the gap where her tooth should be.