He and Karen were sitting in her car in a layby around the corner from where the policeman lived. Duggan had suggested to them that they take a quick drive to where the cop lived, both to orientate themselves and to pick out the best spots from which they could keep an eye on his house. Tony had asked twice what the man was called, but to no avail. ‘Best you don’t know,’ Duggan had said.

‘Karen knows.’

‘If you know nothing, no matter what they do to you or ask you, you’ll not be able to give them anything. It’s for your protection. And ours.’

Tony nodded, a little frustrated at the sense of exclusion he felt. On the other hand, the less he knew, the easier it was to reconcile himself with what he was doing. And what was he doing, he asked himself? This guy had shot a child and got away with it. Just like the driver who’d killed Danny.

‘I don’t like caramel,’ Karen said, refusing the Mars. ‘I’m not hungry anyway.’

Tony nodded, then put them both back in the bag. ‘How have you been since?’ he asked.

‘All right,’ Karen shrugged. ‘You?’

‘Good,’ Tony said, keen to keep talking to fill the awkwardness of the silence between them. ‘School’s busy. I’d dealings with that wee girl, Alice, again today.’

Karen nodded absentmindedly, taking out the small pocket map and opening it up. ‘He’s on Hollows Avenue. The house should be up there,’ she added, nodding lightly towards an estate to their left.

She put away the map and started the ignition, then pulled out onto the main road.

‘What happened? With the wee girl? Alice?’ she asked, glancing at him.

Tony had been covering for one of his colleagues in the English department who’d phoned in sick with a migraine. The class he was covering, it transpired, was Alice’s.

The child had been sitting on her own at the rear of the room, the rest of the class paired up, two sharing each desk. They’d been left work to complete, an acrostic on their favourite person. He’d wandered around the room, glancing over some of the kids’ shoulders. Most were writing poems about their parents or their favourite footballer.

Alice had caught his eye as he’d been moving through the gaps between the desks, smiling timidly at him. He’d made his way down to where she sat, half expecting that she’d been composing the poem about her mother. For an absurd moment, he’d wondering if she might have written it about him, then dismissed the idea; he’d only had one or two dealings with her, after all. It didn’t stop him feeling just a little disappointed when he saw it was written for her father, even as he scolded himself for the unworthiness of his feeling.

‘How are you getting on?’ he asked.

She sat back, allowing him an unfettered view of the page.

‘Daddy is my favourite man.

Anything you want, he can