She shook her head. ‘No. I just don’t want to know what’s there. I’d rather you hadn’t.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if I know what’s there, I might start wondering whether what we’ve just done was wrong.’

Chapter Eighteen

‘Wrong?’ Tony repeated.

Duggan nodded. ‘What if Kelly wasn’t the tout?’

Tony felt his head start to spin. He put his hands to the side of his seat, as if to steady himself against the ship’s movement.

‘You said he was,’ he said.

‘I was told he was,’ Duggan said. ‘But what if it was a lie?’

Tony studied the man opposite him, trying to tease out the subtext in what he was saying. ‘Do you think it was one of us?’

‘I know it wasn’t me,’ Duggan said. ‘But I knew Kelly. He was my friend. I trusted him. He knew things, worse things, that no one knew about and never a word said. The more I’ve thought on it, the less certain I am.’

‘I’ve not thought about it at all,’ Tony lied.

‘That’s not true,’ Duggan said. ‘I’d believe it if the ice maiden out there said that. But not you. Nor me. And I’ve thought about it a lot more since this idea was pushed, digging him back up again. You can’t dig up a grave without disturbing some skeletons.’

‘Who… who do you think was if not him?’ Tony asked. He wondered if Duggan had noticed him stumbling on his words, whether he would read something into it.

‘It doesn’t matter now,’ Barr said, blithely. ‘What’s done is done. All we’re looking at is closure for the family.’

‘Closure,’ Duggan said, staring at him. ‘What the fuck is that?’

‘An ending,’ Barr explained, hesitantly, unsure if Duggan’s question had been rhetorical.

‘An ending? There is no ending. Things don’t end; they’re abandoned, unfinished. Do you think Martin Kelly had an ending? Like his story was done?’

‘He’s right,’ Tony said, nodding at Barr, but speaking to Duggan. ‘What’s done is done. We can’t change it, and we don’t have to investigate it. We just need to remember where he is and let the family come and find him.’

‘And what then?’ Duggan asked. ‘Do you think that’ll be enough? You don’t think they’ll want to know why? Don’t you want to know why?’

‘No,’ Tony said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It matters to me,’ Duggan hissed. ‘It matters to me. I never did nothing that I wasn’t sure about. Every single thing, every person, I knew why and I knew I was right. When I face my maker, I’ll have their names in my mouth and not an ounce of guilt in me for I know why I did them and why they deserved it. But not with Martin. And I want to know why.’

Tony held his gaze. He thought of the tablets he’d been taking in the toilet, about his thinness, the jowls of skin hanging at his throat. ‘Are you sick?’ he asked.

Duggan’s anger flared for a second, then died away as quickly. ‘None of your business,’ he said.