‘Yeah,’ I say. I lift my own sheaf, the same size. ‘And these.’

Steve takes them out of my hand, tucks them back into the file and locks it away in his desk drawer, nice and easy. I’m not sure whether to slag him for paranoia or tell him to hurry up.

‘Here’s the big question,’ he says. ‘Have McCann and Breslin copped that Aislinn’s missing da was McCann’s missing person?’

I clasp my hands at the back of my neck to keep them still. None of the floaters are looking our way. ‘I don’t know. I was watching Breslin, when I told him that box was the missing-persons file. I’d swear he was relieved. If there’s something he doesn’t want us finding, it’s not that.’

‘You told him we’d looked through the file and found nothing good. Maybe he was relieved that we’d missed McCann’s name.’

‘Why? How would they even make the connection?’

‘Breslin’s telling McCann about our case, mentions the vic’s name . . .’

‘Like we said before: there’s got to be dozens of Aislinn Murrays out there. You honestly think McCann would remember a name as common as that? After seventeen years? She wasn’t even the missing person, or the family contact; she was just some little kid in the background.’

‘He worked the Desmond Murray disappearance hard,’ Steve says. ‘It could have stuck in his mind.’

‘So what if it did? There’s nothing dodgy about the disappearance; there’s not even room for anything dodgy. Why would they care if we link it up with our case?’

Steve is shaking his head. ‘Nothing dodgy, except the Ds not dropping the family a hint. Say Breslin and McCann know McCann screwed up there, yeah? Maybe they think it played into Aislinn getting killed, somehow. Or maybe it’s not even that: they just don’t want the screw-up coming out. So they’re trying to shove Rory Fallon down our throats and hope we swallow fast.’

Maybe it’s the fatigue, the heat and not enough coffee, wrapping layers of fuzz around my brain; I can’t tell whether the story rings true, or whether it just sounds good because Steve is putting a nice shape on it. He says, ‘It probably would’ve worked, too – if you hadn’t been working the Missing Persons desk that day, or if you didn’t have that memory on you. We might never even have found out about Desmond going missing, never mind Aislinn trying to track him down.’

I would love to believe it. If Breslin is messing with this case, not with us – meaning me – personally; if there are no gangs involved, no bent cops, just some dumb screw-up McCann made seventeen years ago and doesn’t want coming out now; then we’ve got the pair of them in a headlock, with a great chance at working out a deal that will make everyone very happy. For a second I can feel it, right through my body: the weight of the room lifting off me, the rush of strength hitting every cell like oxygen, Let’s see you try and push me around now motherfuckers. Me finally holding the high cards, ramming them so far up Roche’s hole that he’ll be spitting aces for months, and the Murder squad unfolding at long fucking last into the place I’ve dreamed of coming in to every morning.