Steve shoots me a look I can’t read. ‘You figure? What did they say?’

I lift one shoulder. ‘I didn’t give enough of a shit to memorise it. McCann wasn’t happy, Breslin was reassuring him that he’d have some woman sorted in no time and everything would go back to normal, McCann wanted him to hurry it up. That was the gist of it.’

‘And you’re positive it couldn’t actually have been about McCann’s wife?’

‘It could’ve been. But it wasn’t.’

Some wanker with a logo jacket and a clipboard bounds up to us, opens his mouth, takes a second look and backs off. I’m getting my mojo back. Two days ago he would probably have followed me down the street, badgering me for money to end Third World psoriasis and telling me to smile.

‘OK,’ Steve says. ‘We’ve been wondering if Breslin could be bent—’ Even this far from the job, both of us automatically glance over our shoulders. ‘What if it’s McCann?’

I didn’t even think of that. For a second I feel like a fool – letting paranoia distract me from the real stuff – but that blows away on the rising rush of excitement: that bad dare, growing bigger.

‘That could work.’ I’m skimming through what I know about McCann. From Drogheda. A wife and four teenage kids. Not from money, not like Breslin – I remember him saying something sour, once, about cutting the crime rate to zero by making all the spoilt brats with their smartphones go into apprenticeships at fourteen, the way his da did. No Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on if the car dies, the house needs re-roofing, the kids need college fees and a D’s salary isn’t cutting it. A gang boss looking for a pet would like McCann a lot. ‘Or both of them.’

‘No wonder Breslin took everything you could dish out,’ Steve says. ‘He can’t afford to have us telling the gaffer we want rid of him.’

‘If,’ I say. ‘If any of this is real.’

‘If,’ Steve says. ‘How did you leave things with Breslin?’

‘I apologised. Told him I was too intimidated by his awesomeness to think straight. He liked that.’

‘You think he believed you?’

I shrug. ‘I don’t really care. If he didn’t, he just thinks I’m a narky bitch, and he thought that anyway. He was looking for an excuse to be buddies with me again; I gave him one. We’re good.’

We’re at the car pool. Just in that short walk, I’ve spotted eleven tall guys in dark overcoats. Every one made me feel more like a paranoid idiot, but the whole bunch of them can’t scrub away the prickle of warning when I think of the guy at the top of my road.

Steve says, in the gateway, ‘What do we do?’