‘Mm,’ he says. ‘Mary Anne already showing you the ropes, huh?’ he asks with a grin. It takes me a second to realize he’s looking at the bandage on my chin.

‘Oh, no, I’m just a klutz.’

I lead him to an empty booth and deal him a menu and a white mug, top it up with coffee so hot there’s steam licking the air before it hits the cup. I watch him scoop a cream and sugar from the container at the middle of the table. Is he looking at me differently? Have his eyes always been so pointed, so narrow?

‘Thank you miss,’ he says. There’s a silence and I’m about to leave, having told him to enjoy, but he asks, ‘How’re you finding it, then? Sandown?’

‘Yeah, I mean, good. My room-mate’s nice,’ I say honestly.

‘And Mary? How’s she?’

‘Runs a tight ship.’

‘That’s her.’

I think about the blank space on the police report next to Reporting Officer, the empty folder in the filing cabinet, and can’t help but wonder. ‘Weird question, just wondering: how long have you been a cop?’

He leans back in his booth, a task, it appears, that requires quite a bit of exertion. ‘Oh, Christ,’ he says, his entire life up until this moment ostensibly flashing before his eyes. ‘Thirty-two? No, thirty-four years, if you can believe it.’

Thirty-four years. 1986. ‘And you’ve been in Sandown the whole time?’

‘Had a couple of stints on the mainland,’ he says, taking a bravely sizable swig given how hot the coffee is, ‘but yeah, this is home otherwise.’

‘Did you want something to eat?’

‘Just the coffee’s grand for now. Thanks, kid. Oh, and, uh, can you ask Archie to come out when he’s got a free second?’

I do, and Mary Anne overhears and must register the confusion I’d attempted to hide. She tells me they’re good friends.

He and Archie chat for about twenty minutes, Archie as animated as I’ve ever seen him, quietly enough for me to be unable to hear the words over ‘Rock Around the Clock’ (far too lively for eight in the morning on a Tuesday), then Booker asks for the bill for his coffee without issue and leaves. (His bill comes to a grand total of one dollar and seventeen cents, with tax; he gives me a fiver and tells me to keep the change.) I don’t know if he suspects me of something, but I’m spooked enough to decide to lie low for the rest of the day, repeating our few exchanged words over and over, wondering if there’s something I missed.