‘Last night,’ I say, ‘I had a chat with a guy I know. He knows the gang scene inside out, and he says we can rule out that angle. Aislinn had fuck-all to do with gangs. End of story. On the tiny off-chance he finds anything to contradict that, he’ll let us know, but we shouldn’t hold our breath. And we should be very bloody grateful that we found this out before we made twats of ourselves in front of the entire squad.’

Steve looks like a lorry splattered his hamster. He says, ‘How well do you know this guy?’

‘Well enough. We go back.’

‘Are you sure you can trust him?’

The face on him; like this can’t be happening, not to his very own special pet idea. ‘If I didn’t fucking trust him, would I have fucking asked him for his opinion?’

‘No. I’m only—’

‘No. And do I look fucking brain-damaged?’

‘No—’

‘No. So when I say we can trust him, it probably means we can trust him.’

‘Fair enough,’ Steve says. His face has turned neutral; he’s drawn back inside himself, which is what he does when he’s pissed off. ‘Let’s do that.’

I leave him to sulk it off and go back to work, or try to. It’s not clicking; I have to read every sentence three times before it sinks in. Normally I can concentrate through anything – squad rooms teach you that, specially the kind of squad room I’ve been working in – but what Steve said is pinching at me.

Fleas knows an awful lot about me and my career, for someone who’s been deep under for years. I thought that was nice, him bothering to keep up. Which it might well have been; or it might not.

All of a sudden I’m second-guessing every step of our lovely cosy conversation, looking for cracks where the hidden agenda might have shown through: Fleas getting me to back off in case I jeopardise a drugs op, or just because he doesn’t need my cooties all over whatever he’s doing; Fleas brushing me off because he’s gone rogue and he’s protecting his new boss. I’m second-guessing myself, too, wondering if I actually needed to talk to Fleas for investigative purposes or if deep down I was just looking for an excuse to have a sandwich and a chat with someone who doesn’t know I’m untouchable. I don’t believe in second-guessing and I don’t believe in introspective crap, and I’m not happy about catching myself doing both. I wish I’d given Steve more hassle while I was at it. I hope he’s feeling like shite.