‘Anyone who can’t?’ No one moves. ‘Good. We need someone to pull Aislinn’s financials – Gaffney, start on that; you’ll need to go through them anyway, for her evening-class payments.’

Breslin sighs, just loud enough to make it clear that I’m wasting valuable time and resources. Steve says, to everyone, ‘We don’t have a motive yet. The romance gone bad is the obvious one, but we can’t rule out a financial angle. Rory mentioned that his bookshop’s been having a hard time; and Aislinn’s mate Lucy Riordan said she had a bit of cash stashed away. Rory could have asked her to put a few grand into the bookshop and got nasty when she turned him down, something like that.’

Breslin shrugs. He’s started doodling on the corner of his notebook.

‘We’ll need Rory’s financials, too,’ I say. ‘Gaffney, pull those while you’re at it. Someone needs to get onto the phone company and start them tracking where Fallon’s phone went last night: Deasy, got a decent contact at Vodafone? Someone to confirm Lucy Riordan’s alibi with the rest of the staff at the Torch Theatre: Stanton, you handle that. Someone to talk to the staff at the Market Bar and Pestle, see if they can tell us anything about Aislinn and Rory’s dates: Meehan, yeah? Someone to assign one of the uniforms from the scene to go to the autopsy: Deasy, you do that. It’ll be early tomorrow morning; make sure he’s not late, or Cooper will throw a shit fit.’ Snorts from everyone who’s met Cooper. ‘Me and Moran will follow up with the techs, make sure we’re kept updated. There’ll be more, but those should get us started. Any questions?’

Head-shakes. They’re fidgeting at the starting line.

‘OK,’ I say. ‘Let’s go.’Meehan claps the book of jobs shut. They swing to their desks, their phones, to Rory’s statement, diving to see who can hit the ground running fastest. Incident Room C leaps with the energy ricocheting off the shining rows of desks, splintering on the windows.

And underneath all that, hidden and working away, the small ferocious buzzing of the thing at the back of my mind and Steve’s, nudging for us to let it loose. Breslin’s slick fair head is bent over his notebook, but when he feels me looking he glances up and gives me a great big smile.