‘The family got nothing for it, the wee lassie needing to be looked after all her days and the cops did fuck all. Northern Ireland Office told them there’s a backlog of claims.’

‘That’s desperate,’ Karen offered.

‘Well, at the same time, this fucker got a package; went out with stress, after shooting a child. He vanished off the radar altogether.’

Duggan glanced at Tony as he spoke and the younger man nodded. The similarity with the man who’d killed Danny and then been put out to pasture was not lost on him.

‘Until now?’

Kelly nodded vigorously. ‘I spotted him in the supermarket. The bloody supermarket,’ he repeated.

‘Wow,’ Tony said, for something to fill the silence Kelly had left, waiting for them to share his incredulity at the chance encounter.

‘Right?’ Kelly agreed, nodding.

‘I’ve spoken with Sean and he’d be happy for us to do whatever we can with this bastard. That’s where I want you two to help me.’

Karen stiffened in her seat, shifting herself, her back erect, her expression brittle.

‘Karen,’ he said. ‘I want you to look for him on the health centre’s files to see if you can get an address for him.’

She angled her head, slowly, as if considering the implications of the actions and whether she could justify them to herself. Evidently she could, for she nodded. ‘What’s the name?’

Duggan handed her a sheet of Rizla paper on which something was written. She glanced at it, nodded and handed it back to him. He took out a cigarette lighter and set the paper alight. It burst into flame, then guttered out just as quickly, the fragments of ash crumbling into the ashtray on the table.

‘Once we have details, I’ll need you to take a drive by the house a few times, check out his routines,’ he said. ‘Basic things. Is he working? Where? Times he leaves the house, all that kind of thing. Does he check under his car every time he goes out in it?’

‘I’m working,’ Tony said. ‘I can’t be at someone’s house in the morning; I have to be in school.’

‘One of us will cover the mornings,’ Duggan said. ‘You’ll be given your own times to do. The pair of you can go together if you like.’

‘Why us?’

‘He might remember me if he sees me,’ Duggan said. ‘And there’s a chance he might remember Martin from back home. You two he’ll not know from Adam. A changing procession of faces will make it less likely he’ll start noticing any one of us.’

‘But he uses our health centre,’ Karen said.

‘I wouldn’t recognise someone works at the back desk in my health centre,’ Duggan said. ‘I think we’ll be all right.’

Tony glanced at Karen, laid his hand on her knee in an attempt to show her solidarity, but she shifted her knee away, quickly, from under his touch. He looked at her, but she would not return his gaze as a blush bloomed on her cheeks.