‘Jaysus! No. I wasn’t noticing their . . . Ah, fuck’s sake, now.’

But Conway was grinning again: winding me up, and she’d snared me. ‘You fuck,’ I said, ‘that’s disgusting, that is,’ and she laughed. She had a good laugh, rich, open.

She was starting to like me, whether she liked it or not. People do, mostly. Not bragging here; just saying. You have to know your strengths, in this job.

The mad part was, a bit of me was starting to like her too.

‘Here’s the thing,’ Conway said, laugh gone. ‘If I was guessing now, I’d guess the same again about Holly’s gang.’

‘So?’

‘The four of them. Pretty girls, right?’

‘Jesus, Conway. What do you take me for?’

‘I’m not calling you a perv. I’m saying when you were sixteen. Would you have been into them? Asked them out, Facebooked them, whatever kids do these days?’

When I was sixteen, I would’ve seen those girls like polished things in museum cases: stare all you want, get drunk on the dazzle of them, but no touching, unless you’ve got the tools and the balls to smash through reinforced glass and dodge armed guards.

They looked different, now I’d seen that board. I couldn’t see pretty, any more, without seeing dangerous underneath. Splinters.

I said, ‘They’re grand. Holly and Selena are good-looking, yeah. I’d say they get plenty of attention – not from the same guys, probably. Rebecca’s going to be good-looking soon enough, but when I was sixteen I might not have copped that, and she doesn’t seem like great crack, so I’d have kept moving. Julia: she’s no supermodel, but she’s not bad, and she’s got plenty of attitude; I’d’ve looked twice. I’d say she does OK.’

Conway nodded. ‘That’s about what I’d’ve said. So why no boyfriends? If I’m guessing right, why’ve none of them got any action in the last year?’

‘Rebecca’s a late bloomer. Still at boys are icky and the whole thing’s embarrassing.’

‘Right. And the other three?’

‘Boarding school. No guys. Not a lot of free time.’

‘Hasn’t stopped Heffernan’s gang. Two yeses, one no, one sort-of: that’s what I’d expect, give or take. Holly’s gang: no, no, no, no, straight down the line. No one takes a second to decide what to say, no one says it’s complicated, no one’s giggling and blushing, nothing. Just flat-out no.’

‘You figure what? They’re gay?’

Shrug. ‘All four of them? Could be, but the odds say no. They’re a close bunch, though. Scare one of them off the fellas, you’d scare off the lot.’

I said, ‘You think someone did something to one of them.’