I don’t feel like talking about Aislinn. Too much shite swirling around it, too much stuff I don’t have a handle on; I don’t tell my ma about anything I haven’t got well sussed. ‘Nah. Lisa texted me to go for a pint with the lads, but I’m shattered. Gonna crash.’

My ma lets that lie for a beat, just long enough to let me know I’m not getting away with it, before she says, ‘Marie Lane said you’re in the newspaper.’

Of course she bleeding did. ‘Did she, yeah?’

‘Not about any street fight. About some young one that got killed in her own house. The paper made you out to be a right gobshite.’

I swap out the coffee pod and hit the espresso button again: I’m gonna need a double. ‘It’s just a bog-standard murder. It made the paper because your woman was a blonde who wore a shit-ton of makeup. The journalist doesn’t like me. End of story.’

A lot of people’s mas would get a taste of the weakness, burrow in and suck out every last drop. Not mine. My ma just wanted to make it clear who’s the boss of this conversation, and who needs to up her game if she wants to bullshit a pro. Now that she’s made her point, she drops it. ‘Lenny asked me again can he move in.’

Lenny and my ma have been together nine years, off and on. He’s all right. ‘And?’

She lets out a hoarse laugh and a blow of smoke together. ‘And I told him he must be joking. If I wanted his smelly jocks in my room, they’d be there by now. He’s talking bollix anyway; he no more wants to eat my cooking, rather get his dinners down the chipper . . .’

She makes me laugh about Lenny till she’s finished her smoke and we hang up. The microwave beeps. I take the pasta thing and my coffee to the sofa and open my laptop.

I hit the dating sites. Over my own dead body would I do this at work – one glance over my shoulder, or one trawl through my computer when I’m out of the squad room, and I can already hear the whoops: Jaysus, lads, Conway’s doing the internet dating! – Yeah, frigidbitches.com – There’s a market for everything these days – For her? You serious? – Hey, we all know she gives a good gobble or she wouldn’t be here, she can put that on her profile . . . But if Mr Loverman exists, Aislinn met him somehow. Checking out her work colleagues and her evening classes won’t cover the crim angle, and going by her phone and by Lucy, she didn’t have much of a social life. Unless she found herself a gangster who was learning to crochet, the internet is my best bet.