At two o’clock we send Gaffney out for pizza, and Stanton pulls up one of the sob radio shows on his phone for lunchtime light relief. Sure enough, they’ve got a big segment about Aislinn, leading into a general outrage-fest about how the country is getting more dangerous for decent law-abiding citizens and the Guards don’t give a damn, complete with phone-ins from old ones who were mugged and left to die in pools of their own blood while uniforms stepped over them looking for a politician’s hole to lick. They even have Crowley on, being profound about how our cavalier attitude towards Aislinn’s murder and our oppressive bullying of geniuses like himself are both symbolic of the sickness of our society ‘on an almost mythic level’, whatever he thinks that means. For a minute there, while we all crease ourselves laughing, we forget what we think of each other.

‘My cousin went out with him for a while,’ Meehan says.

‘Your cousin’s got shite taste,’ Reilly tells him.

‘She does, yeah. She dumped him because he wouldn’t wear johnnies. He said they were a feminist conspiracy to suppress masculine energy.’

Everyone cracks up again. ‘Fucking beautiful,’ Stanton says, reaching to grab another slice. ‘I’m going to see if I can get away with that.’

‘Not a chance,’ I say. ‘If even someone thick enough to shag Crowley didn’t fall for it – no offence to your cousin, Meehan—’

‘Nah, you’re grand. She is thick. She lent the little bollix three grand so he could self-publish his autobiography.’ That sets everyone off again. ‘Never got a penny of it back.’

‘What’d he call it?’ Kellegher asks. ‘Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye?’

‘Free Willy,’ I say. That gets a laugh with a startled edge, like half the floaters didn’t think I was able for it.

‘Here we go,’ Steve says, swiping at his phone. ‘Truth’s Martyr, by Louis Crowley— No, listen; there’s a review. Five stars. “A searing, towering dissection of one man’s odyssey to reveal the hidden shadows of Irish justice. If you care at all about truth . . .” Jaysus, it’s longer than the book.’

‘Anyone want to put money on who wrote that?’ Stanton says.

‘How do you reveal a hidden shadow?’ Kellegher wants to know.

‘You lot are just part of the conspiracy,’ Meehan tells us all. ‘I bet you go around trying to put johnnies on poor unsuspecting fellas on the street.’

Reilly beckons to him. ‘C’mere till I stick one on you.’

‘It’d take three of yours.’