I almost say yes. If he’s not our guy, he’s such a godawful damp weenie, the kind who needs regular slaps across the back of the head just to keep him from vanishing up his own hole, plus he just wasted half our day by being in the wrong place looking guilty as hell. All I have to do is say yes, and he’ll spend the rest of his life whipping himself with a more and more elaborate fantasy where he storms into that cottage in the nick of time and saves Aislinn from a herd of rampaging bikers and they live happily ever after and have 2.4 damp weenie kids. It’s practically irresistible.

But if he is our guy, he’s no idiot, and he’ll find a way to use any info I hand him. ‘No way to know,’ I say. ‘Here,’ and I dump the statement under his nose.

He reads it, or at least he spends a while staring at each page. At the end, he signs like he barely remembers how.

It’s headed for four o’clock. We get hold of the floaters who’ve been pulling CCTV footage – Kellegher and Reilly – and tell them what we want done with Rory and his gaff. Steve finds an old hoodie in his locker so Rory won’t freeze his delicate self on the way home. Then we tell him how great he is and hand him over.

‘You owe me a tenner,’ Steve says, as we watch Kellegher and Reilly walk him down the corridor. From the back, sandwiched between their farmer shoulders and their cop walks, Rory looks like a nerd being marched behind the school to get a few slaps.

I check that I’ve got all the statement pages. ‘Like fuck I do. Did you not see him bawling his eyes out there? Pay up.’

‘Doesn’t count. It has to be because he’s petrified of us, not because he just found out his girlfriend died.’

‘Since when?’ Steve is right, but I feel like yanking his chain. ‘Nah nah nah. You can’t make up the rules to suit—’

‘Since always. When did I ever try to get away with—’

‘When did I ever try to stiff you just because I didn’t like the timing of—’

Rory and the floaters are gone, in a jumble of footsteps echoing down the marble stairwell. I slam the interview-room door and we head for the squad room to get our stuff together. The corridor still feels like it’s twitching with covered pits and pointed sticks, but that doesn’t feel like such a bad thing, not any more.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5