Pharaoh manoeuvres herself to meet his gaze. Watches as he realizes what he’s saying. Twelve years ago, a killer came for Roisin. He killed a clairvoyant, butchered her, then set his sights on the target he missed. Wherever the hell he’s been, he’s just announced himself in grand and bloody fashion. And Roisin, his darling, his everything, has been so damn distant, has been so preoccupied and secretive. What has she known and not told him? Could it be that Daddy and the boys were lying? Could it be that they made a deal with an deabhil …

McAvoy stands up quickly. He feels light-headed, suddenly. Can smell the burning embers; can feel the blade biting into his skin: Cromwell squatting above him and watching, dispassionately, as the slash hook finds bone.

He stops, one hand on the door. ‘If it is him … if this is because I did wrong …’

Pharaoh stands up. Puts her arms around him. Presses her face to the broad expanse of his back. Something passes between them. Something that takes her strength. She feels him shake, to tremble as though new-born. And she lets him go.

Holds the smell of him, the nearness of him, in her lungs; sparks dancing in her eyes. Watches, through the glass, as he walks to the end of the driveway, and leans his head against a tree. Anybody else would scream into the big grey sky.

McAvoy merely whispers: his lips touching the bark, gentle as a kiss.

‘What the hell do I do?’

THIRTEEN

Twelve years ago

McAvoy.

Up the stairs and down the corridor, chewing his cheek as if trying to eat through to his blush. He’s changed into uniform. Wants to feel like a police officer, even as he acts like a criminal.

A quick glance at the clock above the doorway. It’s 9.58 p.m. In the last couple of hours, his world has shifted on its axis. One image was all it took. The image of the girl he knows as Roisin Teague, and whom the murder squad are failing to identify or locate.

The big rectangular space at the end of the corridor is called the Murder Room by the other men and women who work at Queen’s Gardens Police Station. The desk sergeant calls it Roper’s Room, in honour of the detective superintendent who occupies it, and who runs his small unit like a medieval baron, demanding loyalty, fealty and absolute respect from those under his command. It seems to work, too. Roper has an almost unbelievable clearance record: brings unexpected confessions and last-minute guilty pleas from suspects against whom the evidence is far from concrete. He’s the toast of the police authority and the senior officers leave him to do things his way.