‘Nothing surprising,’ Stanton says. ‘Mother, father, two older brothers, no sisters; handful of mates from school and college, a few ex-flatmates, long list of work colleagues and friends – mostly history teachers, librarians, that kind of thing. I’ll e-mail it on to you.’

‘Do that. Detective Breslin, you’ve already started talking to the KAs, am I right?’

‘Both Fallon’s brothers sounded appropriately shocked,’ Breslin says. ‘According to them, they knew about Rory’s big date, but that’s as far as they’d got; they were waiting to hear all the dirty details. They claim they didn’t ring Stoneybatter station this morning, or ever, but then they would, wouldn’t they? I’ve got them both coming in for separate chats after this.’

Breslin’s planning on working a long shift, for a bog-standard case. ‘If they don’t pan out, keep working your way down the list,’ I say. ‘Start with anyone who lives near Rory’s route home, where he could’ve got a surprise visit last night. And while you’re at it, get the brothers and the best mates on tape. We need to run their voices and Fallon’s past the guy at Stoneybatter who took the call, see if he recognises any of them. Can you follow that up?’

For a second I think Breslin’s gonna tell me to stick my scut work, but he says, ‘Why not,’ although there’s a twist to his mouth. ‘Great,’ I say. ‘We need someone to go through CCTV – we’ll put Kellegher and Reilly down for that; they’re pulling all the local footage they can get, they might as well watch it.’

Meehan nods, writing.

‘And someone needs to pull footage from the northbound 39A bus route yesterday evening: find the buses that stopped on Morehampton Road around seven, see if you can pick out Rory Fallon getting on, confirm what time he boarded and what time he got off in Stoneybatter.’ The gym rat has a finger up. That whipcrack rhythm, the one I used to love: even though I know better, it still hits me like a triple espresso. ‘Stanton’s on that. And we need someone to head out to Stoneybatter and time the route Rory says he took from the bus stop: down Astrid Road to the top of Viking Gardens, then up to Tesco on Prussia Street, buy a bunch of flowers and head back down to Viking Gardens. Meehan, you’re around the same build and age as Fallon; can you do that? Time it twice: once at your normal pace, once as fast as you can go.’

Meehan nods. Steve says, glancing back and forth between him and Gaffney, ‘Did Rory’s flowers show up in the bins on the quays?’

‘I looked,’ Meehan says. ‘Gaffney kept going with the door-to-door. The bins hadn’t been emptied since last night, by the state of them, but no irises anywhere. Some lad probably robbed them to give to his bird.’