Gaffney is looking over. I say, ‘Gaffney, spread the word: case meeting at half-five. And go find Breslin. You’re supposed to be shadowing him, remember? What are you even doing here?’

‘But he said—’ Gaffney looks petrified; the poor bastard is seeing his career going splat all over the carpet. ‘I did shadow Detective Breslin, like, all yesterday evening, and this morning – I was taking notes for him, and he was explaining to me how ye work, and all . . . It was only when he was heading out – he said I was grand to work on my own now, and you’d probably be needing me here more than he needed me out there, so, I mean . . .’

Breslin was right, obviously: Gaffney is well able to pull financials and make phone calls without someone holding his hand, or he wouldn’t be in the floater pool to begin with. But he’s also well able to take notes during interviews, and Breslin isn’t the type to turn down the obedient PA that he deserves; not unless he wants the freedom to nudge witnesses his way, with no one else there to notice.

Gaffney has run down and is staring at me pathetically. There’s no point sending him after Breslin; Breslin will find some excuse to slither out of it, or he just won’t answer his phone. ‘You’re grand,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry about it. You’ve got plenty of jobs to keep you going.’

Gaffney starts trying to come up with something grateful, but I’m already headed for the door. Behind me, I hear the click of Steve’s desk drawer locking, for whatever that’s worth.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Me and Steve head for the car pool and our shitty Kadett. The web of laneways behind Dublin Castle is hopping: students dragging their hangovers towards Trinity College, business types talking too loud into too-big phones so we can all be blown away by their Bulgarian property deals, yummy mummies out for shopping sprees and skangers out for pickings. It feels good getting out onto the street, where any danger coming our way won’t be personal, and I hate that.

‘So,’ I say, once we’re a safe distance into the flow of people. ‘Breslin doesn’t want company today. He wants to be all on his ownio for those interviews.’

‘For the interviews,’ Steve says, sidestepping a couple having complicated relationship problems in Russian, ‘or for whatever else he’s doing. Not long before you got in, right? Breslin’s mobile rang. He had a look and got this face on him—’ Steve does a clamped jaw and flared nostrils: Breslin, pissed off and trying to cover it. ‘He took the call outside. But before he got all the way out the door, he said, “Don’t ring this phone.” ’