‘Yeah, right. He’d love that. Big man like him—’

Steve’s grinning. ‘This isn’t about his ego, remember? He told us so. It’s all about the squad. He won’t mind tracking down every passenger on the 39A, not when it’s for the squad.’

I’m grinning too. ‘Search every bin between Stoneybatter and Ranelagh: Breslin, for the sake of the squad. Go to the post-mortem: Breslin, for the sake of the squad. Type up statements—’

‘Pizza run: Breslin, for the sake of the squad—’

We’re both on the edge of a full-on fit of the giggles. If I relax that much, I’m gonna fall asleep right here on my feet.

‘We’ll keep him on checking out Fallon,’ I say. ‘If he gets through the KAs, he can talk to Fallon’s old girlfriends, see if he’s got any history of giving out the slaps—’

‘He won’t have.’ Steve runs his hand under the water-cooler tap and over his face, trying to wake himself up.

‘Probably not. But if Breslin wants Fallon charged this bad, he won’t have a problem digging for dirt on him, right? That should keep him too busy to make trouble for us, at least for the evening. And we’ll send a floater with him. Might make him think twice before he disappears any statement he doesn’t like.’

There must be something in my voice. Steve glances up sharply. ‘Has more stuff been going missing on you? Since that witness on the Petrescu case, like?’

‘Nah,’ I say – I’m not about to sob on his shoulder about the mean boys who stole my lovely statement sheet. ‘That doesn’t mean it won’t. We need to be careful here.’

Steve is still watching me, palming drops of water off his jaw, and I feel like it’s half a blink too long before he answers. But he says, easily enough, ‘A floater won’t stop Breslin from feeding Crowley info, if he’s the one doing it.’

‘I know that. What’s your plan? You gonna follow him into the jacks, make sure he doesn’t text Crowley with one hand while he’s got his dick in the other?’

‘Nah, the floater’s a good idea. We can tell Breslin he needs mentoring.’

That gets a snort out of me. ‘He’ll eat that up. It might not work – Breslin’ll probably wrap the guy round his finger – but it’s better than nothing.’

Steve says, ‘We need to keep Breslin away from Aislinn’s electronics.’