‘Maybe.’ I start tapping my half of the file back into a stack. ‘I’ll ring Gary, ask him what the story was.’

‘You don’t think they should’ve?’

‘I don’t know. Do I look like the Pope to you? Fancy moral decisions aren’t my job.’

‘What would you have done if it was your case? Would you have kept your mouth shut? Seriously?’

‘I would’ve transferred to Murder. Where this kind of shite doesn’t come up.’

‘I’d’ve told them,’ Steve says. I go to dump my paper back in the box; he takes it off me, adds it to his and keeps flipping. ‘No question. Aislinn’s own da? Your woman’s husband? They had a right to know. If they’d known what they were dealing with, it might not have messed up their lives, or anyway not as much.’

I’m pulling out my phone, but that brings my head round. ‘Yeah? Because what? Unless they know where Daddykins is, they’ve got no choice except to lock themselves in the gaff and sit around obsessing about him? There’s no way they could get on with their lives, no?’

It comes out with more edge than I meant it to. Steve stops messing with paper. ‘Come on. I didn’t say that. Just . . . if they’re spending half their time waiting for the da to walk back in the door, and the other half picturing him dumped someplace up the mountains, then yeah, their heads are gonna be wrecked.’

I dial Gary’s number and keep an eye on the door for Breslin. ‘Then they shouldn’t have spent their time like that. The Ds didn’t force them to. Get a hobby. Knit something.’

Steve starts to say, carefully, ‘I don’t think it’s—’ but I hold up a finger: the phone’s ringing.

Voicemail again. I refuse to start worrying about why Gary doesn’t want to talk to me. ‘Hey, Gary, it’s Antoinette. We got the stuff; thanks. We’ve had a look; your guy can pick it up any time.’ I’m not about to hand that box over to any of our floaters. ‘And give me a ring when you get a chance, yeah? I’ve just got a couple of follow-up questions, and I’d rather run them past you than go chasing anyone else. Talk then.’

I hang up. ‘If he doesn’t want me hassling the original Ds, that should get his attention. And if there was anything dodgy going on, he’ll let me know, to make me quit poking around.’

‘This is all the main stuff,’ Steve says, holding up the stack of pages he’s pulled out of the file. ‘I want photocopies. Just in case.’ He sweeps a handful of random paper off his desk, shoves the statements into the middle and heads off at a casual lope, no hurry, nothing worth noticing here.