I throw my satchel on the sofa, turn off the alarm and switch on the coffee machine. I’ve got a text from my mate Lisa: We’re in pub get down here! I text her back Pulled a double shift, gonna crash. This is true enough – I’ve been up for more than twenty-four hours, and my eyes aren’t focusing right – but I could still have done with a pint and a laugh with a bunch of people who don’t think I’m poison. Except that’s the reason I’m staying in. You spend long enough being treated like you’re wearing a shit on me sign, you start to worry that the sign’s developing a reality of its own and now anyone you talk to can see it. In my mates’ heads I’m Antoinette the top cop, smart kickass successful Antoinette, nobody fucks with Antoinette. I want to keep it that way. I’ve turned down a lot of pints, the last few months.

Plus, odds are the gang in the pub includes my mate with the security firm. I don’t want him offering me the job again. I’m not gonna take it – not tonight, anyway, not with that dare still flashing at me – but I’m not ready for him to take it off the table.

I should throw some dinner into me and crash out, but I hate wasting time on sleep even worse than I hate wasting it on food. I stick some pasta ready-meal thing in the microwave; while it heats up, I ring my ma, which I do every night, I’m not sure why. My ma isn’t the type to bitch about her back problems or update me on which of her friends’ kids are up the pole and what she found while she was emptying some middle manager’s bin, which doesn’t leave her a lot to talk about. Me, when I’m in a good mood, I tell her the basic outline of my day. When I’m not, I give her the details: what the wounds looked like, what the parents said while they sobbed. Sometimes I catch myself at the scene filing away the bad stuff, thinking this is gonna be the one that finally gets to her, gets even just a sharp breath or a snap at me to leave it. So far nothing ever has.

‘Howya,’ my ma says. Click of a lighter. She has a smoke while we talk; when she puts it out, we hang up.

I hit the button for an espresso. ‘Howya.’

‘Any news?’

‘Me and Moran pulled a street fight. Couple of drunk fellas jumped another one, danced on his head. His eyeball was out on the footpath.’

‘Huh,’ my ma says, and inhales. ‘Anything else strange?’